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Tip #559: What is “Frame Reordering” in Apple Compressor?

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

This defaults to on. Leave it that way.

Ever wonder what Frame Reordering does in Apple Compressor? Me, too. So, I did some research. Here’s what I learned.

Frame reordering is the concept of allowing frames to be decompressed in a different order than their display order. For almost all cases, leave this box checked for H.264 encoding. Some more advanced compressors use “frame reordering” to more efficiently represent movie data.

Important: If you select “Allow frame reordering,” your output file may be more efficiently compressed but may not be compatible with decoders on older hardware. For example, if someone asks you to create your content with “B-frames turned off.”

In looking at YouTube’s latest upload specs, they make no mention of this setting. My suggestion is to leave it on unless you are specifically required to turn it off.