CODEWITHSUNDEEP
flashvideocompressionflvh.264
Robin Rodricks
Robin Rodricks

Reputation: 114046

Which Flash video format is more compressed, FLV or H264?

I read an Adobe article which demonstrated H.264 video playback support in Flash Player. Would video encoded in this format be more compressed than typical FLV videos? Should I be using this format for video I place on websites from now on?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 3321

Answers (3)

Riki
Riki

Reputation: 1806

FLV is not a video codec. It is a container format. You can place different sorts of media in it like wav sounds and so on.

Also h264 has the best compression that is currently available. Its downside is that it is relatively expensive to decode a h264 video.

@Stu: Even youtube supports h264 compression. I don't know if they convert it into another format before publishing it, but I don't see why one shouldn't place a h264 video into a FLV container. After all, its just a video codec, what kind of "magic" is not supportet?

Upvotes: 1

Stu Thompson
Stu Thompson

Reputation: 38898

H.264 is one of the most advanced high quality CODECs out there. The streaming media industry is generally moving that way, including Adobe who is the author of FLV.

This move to H.264 is saving folks money in bandwidth, and/or allowing them to increase quality. So...

Yes, you should be using h.264 instead of H.263 or VP6, which are in FLV files.

To contradict Cornel Creanga's answer, partially, placing H.264 in FLV files in not recommended by Adobe. While technically possible, it is uncommon, problematic and the FLV container cannot support all of the advanced features that h.264 uses to work it's magic. Don't try it.

Upvotes: 2

Cornel Creanga
Cornel Creanga

Reputation: 5308

The FLV files contains video encoded with various codecs: VP6, H.263, H.264. I suppose that by typical you are referring to the VP6 encoding? If yes maybe this article can help you http://support.on2.com/h264_faq.php.

Upvotes: 0

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