Hi.
I have to encode a video as mp4 or ogg in order to use it on a website. I am finding that the compression is making it look awful and miles away from what I will accept. The website is here and the video in question is the one that autoplays when the page loads (the only one on the page). I’ve tried both formats with equally bad results. Is there any way I can make it look better? I don’t really understand the settings in the encoding panel, but maybe I need to adjust them? Thanks.
You must save it as JPG or PNG and then encode in another program, i use Monkey Jam
http://monkeyjam.org/
Yeah, your problem is exactly where you thought it was, in the Encoding panel. What I always do, and I do often make MPEG, but these days, especially if I have to have sound because it’s the only one I can get sound to work in, is make XVID. But it’s the same gig anyway…
Anyhow, go into Encoding, and just jack every one of those settings up as far as they’ll go. Sound too.
You’ll be shocked how crystal clear your MPEGS and XVID (use XVID) will look.
It seems people will never learn how this digital video format business works 
Xvid is using MPEG.
Xvid is a video codec library.
MPEG is a definition of video/audo compression methods
Xvid uses for instance AVC or x.264 compressions.
Best thing to do is to render to a uncompressed PNG image sequence or a RAW-AVI and then use Handbrake, VirtualDub, VirtualDubMod, FormatFactory, GordianKnot or any other tool to make a proper audio/video container with a decent compression.
Please, DO enlighten us then.
I thought things like DivX and Xvid where just codec’s where the extension could still be avi or mpeg or whatever. But it was ages ago when I actually tried to render out animations with sound in blender.
I thought ogg was a container for both audio and video, I thought matroska was the same but could also hold things like subtitles.
Right now under “output” you can choose a wide variety of formats and codecs, and under “encoding”, you can choose a wide variety of options that look the same or similar.
It’s happily mixing and matching and hoping that somewhere down the line something will work and look good. I haven’t been able to get a movie with audio rendered, no matter what audio codec I’ve got selected.
What then is H264 for example?
What is a good and proper format for say, (HD) youtube videos? or film? My situation is this: I have a GoPro Hero HD2 camera and I’m trying to mix clips in the sequencer, overlay some audio and render out… No luck yet.
I’m sorry, but for someone that says other people should learn, you seem rather clueless.
x264 (NOT x.264, the one that has a dot is H.264) is an AVC MPEG-4 codec.
XviD (which has nothing to do with x264 or AVC) is an ASP MPEG-4 codec.
They are both different things, and even if they’re both called MPEG-4 they have no relationship whatsoever (well, maybe the fact that they’re best-of-kind and open-source).
In regards to what the OP asked, if possible, encode in a different program, this gives you additional freedom. Also, don’t create a RAW AVI if possible, there are lossless codecs that reduce the file size drastically (really really a lot), like Lagarith or HuffYUV.
eh… nevermind
Yeh, you’re right, that’s crap I wrote there and I actually know it better.
I should stop posting when I haven’t slept but sometimes the urge to do wins.
The . came because I wrote h.264 first but decided to edit to the free alternative and it’s wrong anyways, because xvid uses ASP’s H.263 and not AVC at all. I did a good job there mixing x264, H.264 and H.263 
<sarcasm>Anyways if we are nitpicking, it is “MPEG-4 AVC”, not “AVC MPEG-4” and it’s Xvid, not XviD, they renamed it :P</sarcasm>
Anyways it doesn’t change the fact, that container, codec and compression are different things and people seem to can’t grasp the concept - but to be fair it’s quite confusing, like I impressivle proved lol.
But a good thing you jumped in pointing it out, else someone might have recited that crap I wrote and said that I said it 
And it was lurking there for over a month now without anyone correcting it - which is kinda scary.
No arguing there 
And I absolutely sign that they are “best-of-a-kind” - (I just had a weird dejavu) - if your target platform/devices can handle x264 use it, if not, Xvid is the best choise.
Ah, it’s ok, I guess I was also a bit rude and didn’t mean to
Lol, I really didn’t knew that.
Completely agreed, it’s a lot of mumbo-jumbo if you just dive into the subject for the first time, it was for me.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who likes Xvid and x264! By the way, a good tool to encode both formats (to whoever is interested) is MeGUI. It’s has a lot of nice little things to make it easier to encode, and integrates another awesome tool for video processing which is Avisynth. It’s a pity both are Windows-only but they are very good!