Format questions

born2ride

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Hey all hope you can help as usual!!
I have been using, converting and whatever I DL is all in MKV format.. My Brother has been using Mpeg4.. He is stating that the Mpeg4 is a more commonly used and more friendly with all devices now aday and MKV is not supported as widely and maybe be dead.. He has many apple product that will not play mkv, Says smart TV will not recognize MKV either.. I am looking for thought and opinions.. If MKV is not supported as he states then I should stop acquiring this type .. I do not have apple or smart tv yet but also not wanting issue down the road.B2R
 

nayr

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bullshit

MKV is a container, most likely containing h264 video.. which will play on basically everything.

file extensions dont mean jack for the most part, both a mkv and a mp4 are more than likely both h264 video files in a different container.. any video player worth there salt will play both.
 

bp2008

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If you use a media server like Plex or XBMC then you don't need to worry about format hardly at all.
 

born2ride

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I use plex . He owns many apple devices . Sharing media for him is troublesome he just says apple does not like mkv. We are thinking of merging and sharing content . He was trying to sway me to use MPEG4 instead. Claims that is better more standard.
 

nayr

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Tell your brother to use Plex aswell (you can share libraries online) and to install VLC Player, I use OSX and have no problems.. QuickTime is crap and would limit what he can play if he tries to use that as the default player.. VLC is one of the first apps I install because QuickTime sucks so badly.

MPEG4 is used in BluRay players mostly (and Broadcast TV), and takes a ton of space... x264 codecs are just as standard (I would argue more-so since all modern browsers can play an x264 in HTML5) and you'll find they stream to mobile devices and smart-tvs easier as it has much lower bandwidth requirements and works better over a wireless connection. (8-12Mbps for HD x264 / 25-30Mbps for HD MPEG4)
 
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born2ride

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MPEG4 is used in BluRay players mostly (and Broadcast TV), and takes a ton of space... x264 codecs are just as standard (I would argue more-so since all modern browsers can play an x264 in HTML5) and you'll find they stream to mobile devices and smart-tvs easier as it has much lower bandwidth requirements and works better over a wireless connection. (8-12Mbps for HD x264 / 25-30Mbps for HD MPEG4)
Are you says that MPEG4 is easier to stream then mvk?

If I read Plex correctly i can add app's to all my Mac , window, andriod device's and stream ? regardless of what format i have it stored in on the server with exception is Video-vts. Is this correct?
 

bp2008

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Thats basically how it works, yes, and on mac and windows you can even just use the web interface. It is a lot like netflix but it streams your own content locally, and it will transcode on the fly if you give it a powerful enough server.
 

born2ride

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I think I convinced hime to use plex . He will probably investigate some other media center stuff being that we never can see eye to eye! Lol
 

nayr

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H264 (.mkv) would be easier to stream than MPEG4; as it would require less bandwidth for the same quality.
 
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