10-26-2007, 02:04 AM
A common misconception of H.264 and MPEG-4 are completely different codecs, but in actuality H.264 is part of MPEG-4 and the MPEG-4 we use today is only one part of MPEG-4 as a whole. H.264 is part 10 of MPEG-4 and MPEG-4 as we know is part 2 of MPEG-4. The key difference between part 10 and 2 is the complexity of the codecs. MPEG-4 part 2 is the lesser complex codec and therefore it requires less processor and memory to decode, however, the video quality isn't as great. MPEG-4 part 10 requires more processor and memory to decode but the video quality is better. However due to the current hardware limitations the quality difference between the two is hardly noticeable.