The "H" comes from the CCITT (now ITU-T) subcommittee that defined the standard. The "H" committee was for multimedia, as I recall.
They also had the "X" standards (X400, X500), "Q" standards like ISDN, "E" for telephone plans, the "PSTN cloud" is Signalling System number 7, named after the Q.7 committees, JPEG was from the "T" committee and so on. Aside from this XVID is DIVX backwards. This is because all the ITU-T standards are DECODING standards, not encoding ones. This is to allow commercial operators to create their own encoders, with the decoding being in the public domain. 2010/1/26 Ian Forrester <ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk> > OH I see :) hummm, for reason I thought there was also a codec based on > H.264 call x.264 > > > Secret[] Private[x] Public[] > > Ian Forrester > Senior Backstage Producer > > BBC R&D North Lab, > 1st Floor Office, OB Base, > New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, > Manchester, M60 1SJ > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto: > owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Mo McRoberts > Sent: 26 January 2010 12:55 > To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk > Subject: Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people > are such idealists? > > On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 12:48, Ian Forrester <ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk> > wrote: > > > I've always been interested how x.264 and h.264 related to each other and > co-exist. Is its simply a case like how Divx and Xvid work together or is > there more ? > > [the question wasn't directed at me, but...] > > I'm not sure I follow? x264 is an encoder, H.264 is the specification. > Just like Schroedinger/Dirac, or LAME/MP3. > > M. > - > Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please > visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. > Unofficial list archive: > http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ > > - > Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please > visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. > Unofficial list archive: > http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ > -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
