Re: [Avid-L2] AVI Conversion to Avid Friendly Codec on Mac?

On 11 Feb 2023, at 00:00, John Moore <bigfish@pacbell.net> wrote:

My limited understanding is that the .mp4 video essence is in an H.264 codec whereas the MPEG4 is a container and not a description of the actual codec

Mp4 is indeed a container, so the video codec 'could' be H264, but it does not have to be.

Then, according to specs, Mp4 cannot hold uncompressed audio. (It can, just not by specs, hence FFmpeg does not support that.)

But 'h264' alone does not say anything. There are quite a lot of other parameters that define quality. More data does NOT mean more quality perse.

If the encoder has more time / processing power, the quality gets better with less data.

Resolution is also (a bit) important, as is complexity of the file. Noise / grain is VERY hard to compress, so that uses lots of data.

Your huge file was 16 bits video IIRC, that makes no sense at all, but does explain why it is so huge. (It's uncompressed video.)

But since it's HD, it can't be that old…

Bouke