This made me wonder, because my lossless AVI files were ending up considerably larger than my HaP files, and I only need to have one playing at any given time. So I deceided to run some more tests and try some different things. Instead of encoding them at 30fps, I did them as 60fps(what I try to keep my Magics frame rate at anyway), which for some of my videos is too fast, but the playback was much smoother, and on those ones that I felt where too fast, Magic does a great job with slowing them down.Eric wrote:It is possible that even a lossless .AVI could have a smaller file size than the same video encoded with Hap. If you have a slower hard drive, the .AVI might play back more smoothly, because it's less data to read.
For most users, the performance difference between video formats isn't noticeable when just playing one video. But, for example, when playing multiple videos simultaneously, Hap usually emerges as the best (as long as your hard drive can keep up) -- see blackdot's post above for a measurement that demonstrates this.
Problem solved, I think.