I use this codec to send 1080p presentations to my clients and the files when compressed tightly are only about 2mb in size and very high quality.

It's really a utilitarian bandwidth saving codec meant for very tight and high quality encoding but it's certainly not proccessor friendly and takes forever to encode.

The quality is only good when you encode the files with little compression. They still don't look as good as photo jpeg 75. I've also found that you can't do certain things with them such as frame grabs, they turn white. It is a revolutionary codec and has enabled Itunes to deliver movies, TV shows, and movie trailers. I myself own the entire lost series all encoded in H.264.

You can also encode your own movies and put them on your ipod using popcorn.

Christian