Codec Central - h263 Codec



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H.263

General Information

Overview
H.263 is a standard video-conferencing codec. As such, it is optimized for low data rates and relatively low motion.

H.263 is an advancement of the H.261 standard, mainly It was used as a starting point for the development of MPEG (which is optimized for higher datarates.)

Architectures Supported

Pros, Cons & Tips

Pros

H.263 is optimized for low data rates.
Generally better quality than H.261

Cons

H.263 is CPU intensive, so data rates higher than 50 KBps may bog down most machines.
It may not play well on lower-end machines.

Tips

H.263 has a strong temporal compression component, and works best on movies in which there is little change between frames.

Ideal source material	Low-motion video
Supported bit depths	16-bit color
Compression time	Symmetrical, realtime
Temporal compression?	Yes
Special features	-
Encoder requirements	Any MacOS or Windows
Decoder requirements	PowerMac or Pentium
Encoder availability	Built into QuickTime 3
Decoder availability	Built into QuickTime 3
Algorithm	Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) with Motion Compensation based on H.261
Manufacturer	Many, including Apple, Microsoft, Vivo