Why is it you want to beat us about the head with MPEG-4? Do you assume that the fine people who have been restoring and archiving the Original Trilogy in this community haven't heard of it? That by investing time and effort into films of the late 70's early 80's they are somehow stuck in the same timeframe technology-wise?
Is MPEG-4 a better form of compression than MPEG-2. Yes, no-one is disputing that. No-one disputes that MPEG-2 is better than MPEG-1. It is an accepted fact. Technology improves.
So why aren't the people here using MPEG-4.
Well, which version do you suggest they use: Simple Profile, Advanced Simple Profile, Advanced Video Codec (AKA MPEG-4 Part 10, AKA H.264). I would assume AVC as it is considered to offer the highest quality and hence has been accepted by both HD-camps for the next generation consumer player (along with VC1, AKA WM9-DRMless and MPEG-2). But then there was only a discussion today on the DVD List stating that Sony are using MPEG-4 Part 2 for it's HDCAM systems:
Sony IS using MPEG-4 part 2 video for HDCamSR. They are using one of the high quality profiles that allows the encoding of 4:4:4 at 1920 x 1080.
Do not confuse this with MPEG-4 Part 10, A.K.A. H.264 or AVC. This is the original MPEG-4 video codec that was extended to allow for high quality studio applications.
Do not confuse this with MPEG-4 Part 10, A.K.A. H.264 or AVC. This is the original MPEG-4 video codec that was extended to allow for high quality studio applications.
With regards to XVID, the fact is both XVID and DIVX offer compatibility with MPEG-4. Infact I believe both offer a spec similiar to Advanced Simple Profile. DIVX has moved further away from the spec and has also insisted on sticking with the AVI as a container format, which supposedly doesn't offer the 'flexibility' of .MP4 or .MPG specs (Some people have gone as far as to say AVI containers 'cripple' the CODEC.) Although I haven't tried it myself, I understand that it is possible to extract the video stream from an XVID file and place it within a legal MP4 container.
I would also not consider now to be the best time to start putting all of your eggs into the MPEG-4 basket, especially not as an archival format. Software and Hardware encoders are still coming to the market, and as far as I know none of them offer all of the facilities of MPEG-4 to produce the best encodes (number of B frames etc etc - check Doom9 for all of the techy details)
Probably most importantly, MPEG-4 is an inherently lossy format, and so is not the best way to archive video. How easy is it to edit? What colour information is lost? I would assume considering how relatively cheap storage is today, that projects like X0 will be archived into HUFFYUV AVIs, which is considered one of the best capture CODECS on the
'market'.
MPEG-4 will have its place over the next few years, but at present it makes no sense to step away from MPEG-2 / DVD as a distribution format. People want to enjoy these products on their TVs with a few cold ones (Have you never read Rikter's NFO files). MPEG-4 may make a smaller file to download, hence a quicker file, but at present I can't burn that to a disc to watch in the lounge. DIVX, yes, on some players, but the specs mean it is currently far more restrictive.
DVD has been hugely popular, and has become THE way to watch video content.
On a final note, I shall assume that you are a relative newcomer to these forums, so let me just point to the fact that there have been discussions about whether these preservations should upscale the video to 16:9 Anamorphic from their original 4:3 Letterbox, the issue of cutting-edge video codecs doesn't even reach the table.
And I'm done...
