Defaults: change animation codec to h264

Author: efiring

doc/users/whats_new.rst

@@ -216,6 +216,11 @@ Support for HiDPI (Retina) displays in the NbAgg and WebAgg backends
 The NbAgg and WebAgg backends will now use the full resolution of your
 high-pixel-density display.
 
+Change in the default animation codec
+-------------------------------------
+
+The default animation codec has been changed from ``mpeg4`` to ``h264``,
+which is more efficient. It can be set via the ``animation.codec`` rcParam.
 
 
 Previous Whats New

lib/matplotlib/rcsetup.py

@@ -1324,7 +1324,7 @@ def validate_animation_writer_path(p):
     # Animation settings
     'animation.html':         ['none', validate_movie_html_fmt],
     'animation.writer':       ['ffmpeg', validate_movie_writer],
-    'animation.codec':        ['mpeg4', six.text_type],
+    'animation.codec':        ['h264', six.text_type],
     'animation.bitrate':      [-1, validate_int],
     # Controls image format when frames are written to disk
     'animation.frame_format': ['png', validate_movie_frame_fmt],

matplotlibrc.template

@@ -597,7 +597,7 @@ backend      : $TEMPLATE_BACKEND
                                    # the IPython notebook. 'html5' uses
                                    # HTML5 video tag.
 #animation.writer : ffmpeg         # MovieWriter 'backend' to use
-#animation.codec : mpeg4           # Codec to use for writing movie
+#animation.codec : h264            # Codec to use for writing movie
 #animation.bitrate: -1             # Controls size/quality tradeoff for movie.
                                    # -1 implies let utility auto-determine
 #animation.frame_format: 'png'     # Controls frame format used by temp files