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AVI, MP4 or WMV video: which is better?

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AVI, MP4 or WMV video: which is better?

Today we are going to act as devil’s advocate and conduct research with passion and using special media against the three most popular video formats: AVI, MP4 and WMV.

To begin with, it is useful to clarify concepts about formats. In general, a video file format is a container that contains data and codecs, that is, programs for compressing and retrieving information.

A container is like a toolbox. Depending on the internal volume and available compartments, a tool kit can contain certain instruments, in one quantity or another. That is, in a small and ill-conceived suitcase, except for a wrench and a bottle of kefir, nothing will fit.
Codecs are information processing tools. There are codecs with a high compression ratio, but with lower quality of the output content. Yes codecs with less compression and higher image quality.
As you can imagine, different codecs can be put into a container if so provided by the container’s own format.

An AVI container can contain many audio streams and different types of codecs for video compression.
The MP4 container has been specially designed for streaming videos online. It also supports multiple audio channels.
The WMV container is a product of Microsoft Corporation, which is always trying to create its own alternative to popular products. In many respects, the properties are similar to the other two, but with a higher compression ratio.
We won’t bore you with tables of numbers, but we will immediately inform you of the benchmark results in simple human words.

Comparison of the three video formats by consumer properties
Overall, based on the test results, it was clear that we wasted time on these tests. Everything turned out to be roughly the same, as could be speculatively predicted based on the theoretical descriptions of these three video formats on Wikipedia.

AVI

This format uses the lowest compression rate codecs. So this is what:

Image and sound output of the highest quality.
The fastest file processing speed when converting original uncompressed video material to this format. This is understandable, since compression is not particularly necessary, rendering is faster.
Larger finished file size.

MP4

The most common video format supports everything that only thinks in numbers. This time is useful for users who have many different types of devices in use on alternative platforms.

The compression ratio is higher than that of AVI. Thus:

The conversion takes about 1.5 times longer.
The size of the finished file is about half the size.
Regarding the quality of the visual range, in contrast there are certain sharp drops, not very pleasant to the eyes.

WMV

Note that this format is owned by Microsoft and is mainly supported on Windows platforms. There may be incompatibilities in other operating systems.

Higher compression ratio.
The file size is almost half that of MP
On the contrary, it turned out to be better than MP4, but the overall impression is worse: blur, lower image clarity.
The processing time of a file in WMV is the longest of the prototypes.
Who would doubt it.

Area of application
Let’s proceed to the announcement of the verdict. Based on the evidence presented by the investigation, we can confidently state the following.

AVI

The AVI video format can be recommended for watching movies and music shows on large (relatively large) screens with multi-channel surround sound.

AVI quality is not sufficient for a video projector, even when projecting on a wall in a common apartment room.

But for a large-format computer screen, if you put the couch on the far side of the room and arm yourself with the battery from the Barley Ear, then it’s quite suitable for a pleasant evening.

Note. If a romantic evening is predicted, you can cheat a bit. Record the first part of the video program in AVI format, while the girl is still looking at the screen, and the rest of the video will be in WMV format, since no one is looking at the screen anyway :))

MP4

Optimal format for watching movies on tablets. For a vertical size screen, MP4 resolution is sufficient.

The quality of the MP4 format is believed to be optimal for uploading videos to YouTube channel as well.

Although, in all honesty, the video quality of the series on YouTube leaves much to be desired, if you refrain from stronger expressions. Actually, the video quality on YouTube is lousy.

For example, on the some websites, with the same traffic consumption, the quality is almost HD.

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Which video format is the best?

Surely, like me, you have often wondered which video format is best for recording, editing and exporting for YouTube or social networks. And there is not a single format for everything, but many, too many! Let’s see what you need for each task.

In what format to record on camera

The semi or professional video cameras that we can find in the market have recording options in the most common formats, in addition to some RAW formats that we can find in cameras of higher segments. For example, the BlackMagic 6K is capable of recording in Blackmagic RAW, the new format developed by BlackMagic Design.

It is always advisable to use formats as compressed as possible as long as we are going to work intensively with the color of that video. This is like a photograph: we will always have much greater room for maneuver with a RAW photo than with a compressed JPG photo.

Therefore, the cameras include slightly more compressed formats, such as ProRes, H.264 or H.265. ProRes is a midway format, which offers a good balance of image quality and size and allows color correction without loss of quality, which makes it suitable for professional environments. But certainly the fastest and most suitable for mortals is the H.264. H.264 is the JPG of video, an all-terrain format accepted by the vast majority of online video players and services.

H.264 problem? At the time of editing it is a resource devourer, since the CPU has to decompress the signal. But if you have a moderately powerful PC you shouldn’t have a problem. Oh, by the way, there are video editors capable of decoding H.264 and H.265 using the GPU, not at the software level, but at the GPU level. For example, in DaVinci Resole Studio we can activate this option by going to the preferences and in Decoding we activate Use hardware acceleration and NVIDIA or the graphics card that we are using. I tell you that the speed jump is dramatic.

In addition, there are some cameras capable of recording in H.265 format. For example, we can record in H.265 (also known as HEVC) on the Panasonic GH5, but only in a very specific recording format. It is noteworthy that this mode in the Panasonic allows HDR through HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma or high dynamic range). So if you have a monitor compatible with this system, use the original color space of these Rec2020 HLG clips, since by selecting this color space in DaVinci Resolve you can get images with a large dynamic range, or then change the color space to Rec709 to recover brightness levels of this standard space.

The big question came up here: in what format do we record? It depends. It is not the same if you are recording a short film than a video for YouTube. According to my personal experience, for YouTube I don’t complicate my life and use more or less standard configurations. In fact, right now I’m recording this using the default setting of the GH5 H.264 with 8bits of color at 25fps and 100mb and with the Cinelike D color profile, not V-Log or anything like that, but Cinelike D. Taking Note that then YouTube compresses the video, I don’t see much sense recording with more bitrate or more color depth, so I use this simple and dragging preset.

Then there are other formats such as MP4 or AVCHD, but basically they use a lower bit rate.

But it may be the case that we want to record a movie with our GH5. In that case I do recommend going to more “professional” profiles, so to speak. Keep in mind that each camera is a world, but as a rule, when we are recording something with more cinematic aspiration, I recommend going to the highest quality option that the camera gives. There are cameras that allow recording in RAW, so we need tons of storage. For example, in the GH5 the highest quality preset is 4K at 400 megabits per second with a color depth of 10 bits. Take chestnut. That is, 50 megabytes per second at 10 bit color, an absolute madness.

In fact, it is so crazy that any SD card is not worth it, because if we use one that has a low write speed, we will be buffered and the recording will stop. That is why it is essential to use special cards that allow this recording speed, for example I have the Sony M Series 128GB, which allow a write speed of 150 Megabytes per second. Mind you, here we are mixing megabytes and megabits. In the camera preset we will see 400 megabits, that is, the mbps in lowercase, while the card shows it in Megabytes, with the MB in uppercase.

That is, if my camera sends the signal at 50 megabytes, this card would theoretically withstand three times the writing speed, but this is in theory, and then in practice each card is from his father and mother and the speed of writing decreases.