I am keeping this article very basic as this is intended for film freaks only who just need to know what this new video format does. If you want to know more about H.264 and its technical side skip to wikipedia.
Few years before DivX movies came into popularity because of its near DVD video quality and its amazing low file sizes which can easily be fitted into a CD or two. Actually it seemed like some magic at that time. You could easily backup your DVD movies or hi-resolution home videos in cheap media as you like because of its much reduced file size.
Now guys of VCEG and MPEG together wrote a code called H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10 or even another name AVC (Advanced Video Coding). Also this year saw the birth of a new media BD (Blu-ray Disc) with 25gb for single layer and 50gb for double layer discs and retail movie BDs became available using three formats accordingly: MPEG-2, VC-1 or H.264. Now imagine if you can compress a BD movie with more quality than a DVD + a 6 channel Dolby AC3 soundtrack all into a standard 700mb CD? Yes there comes the new powerful x.264 codec which is an open source variant of H.264. Available for free download its only around 400kb. For now, VLC player supports playback of x.264 encoded movies.. enjoy the pure visual thrill!
Source: wikipedia
