[FFmpeg-user] Difference between mpeg4 and msmpeg4v2 encoders?

Michael Kohne mhkohne at moberg.com
Fri Mar 15 18:09:19 EET 2019


Thank you.
We have a lot of inertia around here, and no one remembered exactly why we
chose that codec.
With this information, I can test mpeg4 on Win 7+ and then call the whole
thing done.

Michael Kohne

Senior Software Engineer
Office: 215.283.0860 x208
mhkohne at moberg.com


On Fri, Mar 15, 2019 at 11:53 AM Moritz Barsnick <barsnick at gmx.net> wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 15, 2019 at 10:37:20 -0400, FFmpeg user discussions wrote:
> > My understanding is that msmpeg4v2 is a Microsoft variant on mpeg4.
>
> That's what I also understand.
>
> > What did they do to it?
>
> I'm too lazy to check the details. It appears the codec is implemented
> against a pre-version of the MPEG4 standard, and not quite compliant to
> the final version. I also recall it supports only a restricted set of
> MPEG4's features.
>
> > Why would one choose msmpeg4v2 vs plain mpeg4?
>
> For some version of Microsoft Windows - I believe XP before SP2 - this
> was the "best" codec which was part of Windows. I.e. if you wanted to
> encode for a user who would not add additional codecs (or VLC ;-)) to
> their Windows, and who should be able to decode out of the box, you
> would have chosen msmpeg4v2 as the most modern option. (For coverage of
> older Windows versions, you would have chosen an "older" codec,
> probably MPEG2. DivX - another MPEG4 variant, IIRC, was hacked into
> some old MS codec DLL, but I don't recall what they had originally
> delivered.)
>
> > My output container is AVI, and I'm targeting playback on Windows, but my
> > limited experiments show that the Windows systems playback mpeg4 just
> fine.
>
> You can probably assume that anything older than XP shouldn't be
> allowed to play videos anymore anyway. ;-) XP may still be supported in
> some corporate environments, but is *way* past end of life. I
> personally would assume at least Windows 7.
>
> Cheers,
> Moritz
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