Which has better *quality* video: M-JPEG or MPEG4

[bnelson]

Many cameras which record video will store the files in either M-JPEG or MPEG4 file format. If I only care about having the highest-quality video, which format is better?

There is a pretty big size difference in the files produced. M-JPEG will fill 1 gig in 8 minutes whereas MPEG4 can fit 33 minutes in 1 gig. Obviously that's a big difference, but I'm not concerned about the file size at this time.

When looking at the sample videos in the various camera reviews, the M-JPEG videos generally seem sharper, clearer, and with better colors. The MPEG4 videos seem more muddled and softer. Is that representative of the two formats?

Here's a review that has a M-JPEG video: Canon A540 (http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/powershot_a540-review/index.shtml)
Here's a review that has a MPEG4 video: Kodak C875 (http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/kodak/c875-review/index.shtml)

[Duwenbasden]

It depends on the bitrate and the software/hardware. So it is hard to tell.

[JPW2020]

Though mpeg4 movies can produce good results but they are more highly compressed and inevitably will not be quite as good as M-JPEG.Also if you intend to edit and resave them you will see a bigger drop in quality with mpeg4.

As to your example the video codec used by Canon produces big files but excellent quality.