Has anyone tried the mpeg 4 format? Can you really get near DVD quality on CD? Is there a mpeg 4 codec in Vegas future? Getting ready to author an advertising campaign on biz card CDs and wondering if this new mpeg 4 is worth investigating
mpeg-4 isn't it's own format yet. I belive WMV9, QT, and Divx all have their own version of mpeg-4. So, you can try them (i don't use it though. no need).
I wouldn't say it is near DVD quality. Probably closer to near VHS or mpeg-1 quality. It usually has some problems with artifacts, even at very high quality. Still, you can usually fit much more information on a disc with mpeg-4 than any other format. If you are distributing discs with Mpeg-4, make sure you find out what kind of sound encoding your format is using. Some require a seperate audio decoder, which your clients would have to search for on the net, or which you would need to liscence to include on your discs. Hope this helped.
I have been using 3ivx for my mpeg-4 needs and WM9 for my HD needs. 3ivx has delivered DVD quality video at half the file size. Backed up a couple DVDs I produced and got pretty good quality for storing on a cdr with the resolution of 640x464. Widescreen looks awesome with 3ivx. Shame there wasnt a free version of 3ivx.