Someone help me explain transcoding to my friend.

LeJosh · 9 Jul 2010 at 02:14

I've tried explaining to my friend that transcoding is a digital-to-digital process where a (dvd file for example) is changed from whatever it was to mkv or h.264 but he doesn't seem to want to get that.

All I understand is that it keeps the same bit rate but it lets change the resolution to 1920x1080 for example from 640x480... plus it makes the file useable on a PC.

whitecrook · 9 Jul 2010 at 02:18

transcoding is just taking an encoded piece of data and 'changing' the encoding.

alternately 'transforming the encoding'

doing what you suggested above is resizing, and may not nessacary involve transcoding.

also, mkv is a container and h264 is a codec.

LeJosh · 9 Jul 2010 at 02:21

whitecrook said:
transcoding is just taking an encoded piece of data and 'changing' the encoding.

alternately 'transforming the encoding'

doing what you suggested above is resizing, and may not nessacary involve transcoding.

also, mkv is a container and h264 is a codec.

My knowledge on it is somewhat limited too.

Edit - Also, this may be a silly question, but can transcoding improve the quality of a DVD at all?

lurkio · 9 Jul 2010 at 08:36

LeJosh said:
My knowledge on it is somewhat limited too.

Edit - Also, this may be a silly question, but can transcoding improve the quality of a DVD at all?

Can it improve quality ? , pretty much no

Rozzy85 · 9 Jul 2010 at 09:00

Transcoding is simply converting to another format, much the same as converting any other file to something else. The main difference is that the data is degraded slightly if lossy codecs are used.

masterluke · 9 Jul 2010 at 12:07

All you are going to end up with is a MUCH larger filesize with (unless you do some clever filtering) the same or lower picture quality. If you need to transcode to a different container or codec then go ahead.. but increasing the resolution is probably a pointless exercise.