When copying this content, is there any major difference in converting this form of MPEG-4 to XviD/x264 in comparison to MPEG-2 sources?

Thats no-good, all MPEG-4. i have had bad experiences with MPEG-4 on a standard TV.

At the end of the day, is MPEG-2 just better than MPEG-4 (hence the reason why most companies are STILL using it as a standard even for HD content)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4

Google Is your Friend.

Originally posted by tatsh:

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At the end of the day, is MPEG-2 just better than MPEG-4 (hence the reason why most companies are STILL using it as a standard even for HD content)?

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MPEG-4 is better -- it provides much better video and audio quality on the same bitrate as MPEG-2 does. The main reason behind MPEG-2's widespread use, AFAIK, is the fact that most of world's professional video shooting, editing and transmitting devices, software and embedded solutions are from "MPEG-2 era" and replacing them in one bang would cost billions and billions of dollars. Thus, the slow transition. Furthermore, in satellite, the "bandwidth" available is much cheaper and more easily available, so that the need for a better compression technology (MPEG-4) isn't as critical as in some other transmission types (antenna/"broadcast TV", to some extend cable and, of course, IPTV).

Basically, to produce similar video quality, using 1080p, MPEG-2 needs at least twice the bitrate and bandwidth as the same quality video would require when using MPEG-4.

wow thats not new..

My dish network box for the past 2 years have done mpeg and mpeg 4.

Don't really know what the big deal is this only really helps there digital recorders