![]() ![]() To be fair, WebM does have several significant disadvantages compared to H.264, including slower encoding times, higher CPU decode requirements, and limited browser and device support. You can download the presentation with side-by-side frame comparisons at You can view the actual SD files used in my comparison at and the HD files at Obviously, you'll need to use a WebM-compatible browser to view the WebM files. Not surprisingly, my conclusions didn't change, and I said, "H.264 may have a slight quality advantage, but it's not commercially relevant." To make sure that I realized the absolute best possible WebM quality for the comparison, Google was kind enough to ask the lead VP8 codec engineer to encode my test files to my standard encoding parameters using the sample command-line encoder found and detailed at I again compared this to H.264 files produced with both x264 and the MainConcept encoder. In late 2010, I hosted an H.264 versus WebM Technology Bakeoff session at Streaming Media West. In the second article, which compared WebM files produced in Sorenson Squeeze to H.264 files produced using the x264 codec, I said, "When WebM was first announced, I compared a WebM file against an H.264 file as produced by Sorenson Squish, and concluded that ‘I'd say H.264 still offers better quality, but the difference wouldn't be noticeable in most applications.' Now I've spent a bunch of time producing both formats, and reach the same conclusion." In the first article, which compared H.264 and WebM files produced by Sorenson Squish, I concluded, "What's this add up to? I'd say H.264 still offers better quality, but the difference wouldn't be noticeable in most applications." I've written twice about WebM for Streaming Media, both times comparing WebM quality to H.264. ![]() But there was one tool that matched Google's output quality and provided nearly all the controls available via WebM's encoding interface. As you'll see, most of the GUI-based tools that I tested fell short on quality, producing the requested target data rate, or otherwise. I'm not a command-line lover myself, but in most instances, it provides a level of control and output quality that few GUI-based encoding tools can match and is ideal for users who need to build encoding into a larger-scale workflow. I'll start by looking at how WebM compares to H.264 in terms of quality, just to set expectations, and then briefly review the quality and performance of several free and for-fee encoding tools.Īs a benchmark, I'll compare the output quality of these tools to WebM files produced by Google, using its own command-line encoding tools. If and when that day comes, set a bookmark in your memory banks for this article, because it's all about encoding to WebM. Whatever the reason, you'll be sitting at your desk or poolside one day, and you'll be thinking "I've got to encode some video to WebM format." Maybe for internal experimentation, for a pay-per-view or subscription project (where H.264 may incur royalties), because you've decided to jump into HTML5 video with both feet, or because Google announced yesterday that it's going to stop supporting H.264 in Chrome. Even if you don't believe all the hype about HTML5, sooner or later, you'll need to start encoding some video to WebM format. ![]()
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