I don't know about Mpeg 1 or 2 but I have heard that not all H.264 videos are the same. Each manufacturer seems to add their only little tweaks which causes a hell of a lot of problems with editing programs like PD. My youtube channel====> http://www.youtube.com/user/relate2?feature=mhsn

Thats is really bad news for Video programmers.
That means that video people are in a VHS VS BETA dilema as a few years ago. Sorry to heard that.

AVCHD standards are evolving as the technology becomes more robust and is added to existing camera lines. It will settle down, but AVCHD and PD9 are at the forefront of this great new technology as CCDs are getting higher resolution all the time. Hard to stay ahead of a moving target!!

H264 / AVC is a well defined standard (and continually evolving std) but the issue for many is understanding that there are many different Profiles and Levels ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC ). Unfortunatly, people keep refering to their video as "H264" which is simply not a full description. Eg my Pana records 1080/50p that should be fully described along the lines of MediaInfo
* 25Mbps, 1920*1080 (16:9) at 50fps, AVC (High@L4.2) (CABAC / 4 Ref Frames), or at the very least something like
* 1080/50p @ 25mpbs High@L4.2

No part of the H264/AVC standard says that all devices had to support all the various Profiles and Levels. So confusions starts when one "H264/AVC" file will not work when other does with a particular device or software title. Eg my Hunt for a NLE that can support outputting the same as my Pana (H264/AVC 1080/50p @ 25mpbs High@L4.2) files lead me here from trying many others....and even then I had to manually change an ini file.

While AVCHD ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD ) is based on the braoder H264/AVC and specifies a subset of the video/audio spec that it uses it also includes details on file stuctures etc etc. Along a similar line the Blu-ray spec also defines a bunch of things included what H264/AVC video spec it can optionally support.

This can also be an issue with other "file types". Eg an AVI container can contain many different video encoding formats...MKV almost anything.

I'd suggest that when asking questions on formats, then Media Info is a very good prog to provide the level of detail needed.

Thanks
Nathan


Edit - example Media Info dump to a text file

General
ID : 0 (0x0)
Complete name : I:\Video Editing\2010\20101128\20101023_201254.m2ts
Format : BDAV
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
File size : 119 MiB
Duration : 40s 843ms
Overall bit rate : 24.5 Mbps
Maximum Overall bit rate : 28.0 Mbps

Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.2
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 40s 260ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 23.2 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 26.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 50.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.223
Stream size : 111 MiB (93%)

Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 40s 288ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Video delay : -40ms
Stream size : 1.84 MiB (2%)

PD 64 Bit-Win10 64 Bit-32GB RAM-80TB HDD
Sony FX6 - 500Mbps 4k/50p AVC-I HLG
Canon XF400 - 150Mbps 4k/50p AVC
GoPro Hero6 Black
Pana HS700-28Mbps 1080/50p AVC (High@L4.2)
Canon HV20-HDV 25Mbps 16:9 1440x1080/25p MPEG

Thanks Nathan. Well put!

Im starting to really understand the dilema...... Thanks jmone (nathan?)

Quote: Im starting to really understand the dilema...... Thanks jmone (nathan?)

No probs...but to add to the "headache" - I normally draw a parallel that todays modern "containers" (eg MKV, AVI, M2TS, TS, even MPG "files") are a really like a Zip file, in that depending on their individual "specs" they can contain within them multiple video, audio, subtitles, chapter streams (each of which can be a different format, spec, or level). Blu ray or MKV "rips" are a classic example where there can be multiple Video Streams (eg a HD 264 for the main feature, a MPEG-2 for "extras"...multiple Audio in DTS-HD for the main sound and DD for the Directors comments,

To be able to "play" these files (in simple terms), the SW or HW has three main things to deal with, and on Windows most progs use "filters" to build a dynamic DirectShow Graph comprising at least one of the following:
1) Splitters: Read the file, recognise the internal components, lets the user select which one to use and then split them out into individual streams that are then pass them onto a Renderer for each stream
2) Decoders: These decode the selected Video / Audio (etc) streams from their compressed formats (eg Video: MPEG2, AVC, DV-AVI etc, Audio: DD, DTS etc) into an uncompressed form (eg Video: RGB, YUV etc, Audio: PCM etc) and then pass these decoded streams on to the Renderers
3) Renderers: These have the job of taking the decoded Video and Audio streams and passing them to your selected Video / Audio drivers (eg Video: HDMI, VGA, etc Audio: Analogue, HDMI, S/PDIFOut etc)

Various compatibility/issues/bugs appear in these three areas due to the huge number of possible combinations of containers and audio/video formats that have to be dealt with. For example, I've read a few posts recently on PD9 crashing and have seen it myself PD9 become unresponsive when quickly navigating through playback of my AVC 1080/50p @ 25mpbs High@L4.2 clips that makes me think the "splitter" used by PD9 struggles with quick seeks in these file types (but may be fine with other file types, or PD9 may use a different splitter). Trying to track down this stuff is very difficult even when you can see and manually change what filters a program uses (and this is not possible AFAIK in PD9).

Many programs install these filters and sometimes they interfere with each other. Eg I can no longer load AVI-DV in VideoStudio as one of the other filters I use for playback has "broken" something in the VS filter graph that it uses.

Thanks
Nathan

EDIT, The Filters used by PD9 are stored in these directories and as a default install appear to be "private" and not available to other apps (I've not tried forcing the issue anyway...)
C:\Program Files\CyberLink\PowerDirector\runtime\decoderPack
C:\Program Files\CyberLink\PowerDirector\runtime\encoderPack PD 64 Bit-Win10 64 Bit-32GB RAM-80TB HDD
Sony FX6 - 500Mbps 4k/50p AVC-I HLG
Canon XF400 - 150Mbps 4k/50p AVC
GoPro Hero6 Black
Pana HS700-28Mbps 1080/50p AVC (High@L4.2)
Canon HV20-HDV 25Mbps 16:9 1440x1080/25p MPEG