MOV/H.264 vs MPEG4-AVC/H.264
 

Hello,
I am comparing a DSLR (550d) and a camcorder (HF S series).
What concerns me is the Video Recording system, because of ease of editing. What is the difference between these 2 systems (MOV/H.264 and MPEG4-AVC/H.264) and more important, what will be more easy to edit (I use AVID but also have CS3)?
Thanks,
Rob

Nobody knows the difference between these formats?

MOV is simply a container. It is not a codec, and many, many different kinds of codecs can be stored in it.

h.264 defines a compression scheme with broad reach and many variables. It is also known as AVC (Advanced Video Codec). The MPEG group typically names these specs after themselves so MPEG-4 is just an alias for it, much like MPEG-2, and MPEG-1.

AVCHD, which you didn't mention but what the HF-S series shoots, is a subset of the h.264/AVC/Mpeg4 standard that is limited to 24Mbps maximum. Some of the cameras aimed at beginners shoot this at 17Mbps to get more room onto a card. The HF-S series can shoot at this range too to extend recording time. The Panasonic Lumix GH1 shoots at this speed all the time.

The Canon DSLRs shoot h.264 at ~40Mbps for the 5D and ~48Mbps for the 7D/550D.

Avid will convert every one of these to DNxHD in an MXF container so the native format is immaterial to you if you will be taking these into Avid. Premiere will not transcode these but editing the 17MBs variant is doable on most strong machines. The i7 class machines can generally manage editing the 24Mps variant. But in either case, transcoding is smart and recommended. These are terrible editing codecs.

The real trouble starts with trying to edit the 5D/7D/550D footage. It's just too much. So I would call transcoding of these a requirement for any real editing work.

Does that help?

Yes, that helps. I hope.