[X4U] Most advanced Video Codec WMV?

[Michael Winter]

On Jan 17, 2007, at 9:04 AM, Richard Gilmore wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> My boss tells me WMV is the “best video codec” out there. I don’t  
> really believe him but I was wondering about people’s opinions on  
> this. How good is QT vs WMV?

As others have mentioned, "best" is subjective.

Prior to H.264 experts I trust insisted WMV had a slight quality  
advantage at the same bit rate. That seems to have shifted (QT is a  
"container" that can "contain" video compressed using several  
different codecs).

However, my personal experience is that wmv is lacking in  
"usability". By that I mean doing things like "scrubbing", fast- 
forwarding or reversing through a wmv file, even on a PC, is not a  
smooth, real-time process. There's a lot of skipping, pausing  
(buffering) and visual artifacts. That's also true for QT (H.264) on  
a PC, but at least QT files (using the better codecs) are much, much  
smoother on a Mac (smoother than wmv on a PC). As I said, just my  
(limited) personal experience.

-Mike