Answers.Body: <p>H264 allows for much better compression, but image acquisition should be as good as feasible, so cameras will capture at a high bitrate, say, 10+ Mbps, depends on resolution and framerate. Nothing unusual about that.</p>
  
  <p>The full bouquet of H.264 compression methods i.e. lookahead for rate-control, better motion estimation ..etc is usually applied when producing a file for web playback. You can use ffmpeg with libx264 to achieve that.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2018-07-21T08:46:09.100Z
Answers.Text: Ok. But I had before a cam with mp2 compression. The file size was IDENTICAL. So, there must be something wrong about this camera if its mp4 compressor produces same results as the old camera.
Answers.UserDisplayName: IceCold
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2018-07-21T10:16:35.773Z
Answers.Text: Camera compressors aren't trying to squeeze out small files. They have a set of fixed target profiles. Check the camera menu and manual for lower bitrates.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Gyan
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2018-07-21T10:18:17.037Z
Answers.Text: @gyan-this is a cheap dashboard camera advertised as h264. there are no settings related to video!
Answers.UserDisplayName: IceCold
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2018-07-21T10:19:42.433Z
Answers.Text: Then you'll have to recompress after recording.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Gyan
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2018-07-21T10:22:38.937Z
Answers.Text: My problem is that this camera will kill the SD card after a few months only because of the intense writing. I replaced my old mp2 camera with this one hoping to get less I/O activity.
Answers.UserDisplayName: IceCold
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2018-07-31T07:11:49.800Z
Answers.Text: The producer of this camera finally answered: "The compression ratio system setting of the H.264 AVC codec is 102:1 (This setting cannot be set manually)"
Answers.UserDisplayName: IceCold
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2018-07-21T05:46:24.137Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2018-07-21T05:46:24.137Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Gyan
Body: <p>I just purchased a cheap dashboard video-camera that is advertised to have a H.264 codec inside. However, after the first video test I have seen that a 43sec movie takes 123MB! How is this possible. I thought that H.264 has a MUCH better compression!</p>
  
  <p>Question:<br>
  1. Does my video camera really incorporate a true H.264 codec or is it a fake?<br>
  2. If it is a true H264 why is the compression ratio so poor?  </p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>UPDATE:<br>
  I contacted the producer and they said that "The compression ratio system setting of the H.264 AVC codec is 102:1. This setting cannot be set manually"</p>
  
  <hr>
  
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      ................
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  3204D4 ---------------------------
  3204D4 ----------------------------
  3204D4 ---   MPEG-4, finished   ---
  3204D4 ----------------------------
  </code></pre>
  
Tags: <encoding><mp4><compression><h.264>
Title: Video cam with poor compression ratio (H.264 produces videos at 2.9MB/sec)
UserDisplayName: IceCold
ThreadText: # Video cam with poor compression ratio (H.264 produces videos at 2.9MB/sec)
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2018-07-20)
  
  I just purchased a cheap dashboard video-camera that is advertised to have a H.264 codec inside. However, after the first video test I have seen that a 43sec movie takes 123MB! How is this possible. I thought that H.264 has a MUCH better compression!
  
  Question:  
  1. Does my video camera really incorporate a true H.264 codec or is it a fake?  
  2. If it is a true H264 why is the compression ratio so poor?
  
  ---
  
  UPDATE:  
  I contacted the producer and they said that "The compression ratio system setting of the H.264 AVC codec is 102:1. This setting cannot be set manually"
  
  ---
  
  ```
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  000010  CompatibleBrand:                       qt  
  000014 ----------------------------
  000014 ---   MPEG-4, accepted   ---
  000014 ----------------------------
  000014 Data (3774264 bytes)
  000014  Header (8 bytes)
  000014   Size:                                 3774264 (0x00399738)
  000018   Name:                                 mdat
  00001C  Data:                                  (3774256 bytes)
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  39974C  Header (8 bytes)
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  399754   Header (8 bytes)
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  399758    Name:                                mvhd
  39975C   Version:                              0 (0x00)
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  399764   Modification time:                    3118707150 (0xB9E3B1CE)
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  3997B0   Selection time:                       0 (0x00000000)
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  3997C8     Size:                               92 (0x0000005C)
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      ................
  25E131   ------------------------
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  25E131   ------------------------
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  25E131    (ToDo):                              (Data)
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  2636A8   --------------------------------------------
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  3004D4   Block (64000 bytes)
  3004D4    Data:                                (64000 bytes)
  30FED4   -------------------------
  30FED4   ---   PCM, accepted   ---
  30FED4   -------------------------
  30FED4   ------------------------
  30FED4   ---   PCM, filling   ---
  30FED4   ------------------------
  30FED4   --------------------------------------------
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  30FED4   --------------------------------------------
  3204D4 ---------------------------
  3204D4 ---   MPEG-4, filling   ---
  3204D4 ---------------------------
  3204D4 ----------------------------
  3204D4 ---   MPEG-4, finished   ---
  3204D4 ----------------------------
  
  ```
  
  **Tags:** encoding, mp4, compression, h.264
  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2018-07-21. Score: 1
  
  H264 allows for much better compression, but image acquisition should be as good as feasible, so cameras will capture at a high bitrate, say, 10+ Mbps, depends on resolution and framerate. Nothing unusual about that.
  
  The full bouquet of H.264 compression methods i.e. lookahead for rate-control, better motion estimation ..etc is usually applied when producing a file for web playback. You can use ffmpeg with libx264 to achieve that.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: Ok. But I had before a cam with mp2 compression. The file size was IDENTICAL. So, there must be something wrong about this camera if its mp4 compressor produces same results as the old camera.  
  > **username_1**: Camera compressors aren't trying to squeeze out small files. They have a set of fixed target profiles. Check the camera menu and manual for lower bitrates.  
  > **username_0**: @username_1-this is a cheap dashboard camera advertised as h264. there are no settings related to video!  
  > **username_1**: Then you'll have to recompress after recording.  
  > **username_0**: My problem is that this camera will kill the SD card after a few months only because of the intense writing. I replaced my old mp2 camera with this one hoping to get less I/O activity.  
  > **username_0**: The producer of this camera finally answered: "The compression ratio system setting of the H.264 AVC codec is 102:1 (This setting cannot be set manually)"  
  
  ---
  
  