[theora] codec efficiency? was: is this FUD or not?

[startx]

> On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 03:37, Tom Sparks <tom_a_sparks at yahoo.com.au>
> wrote:

> > here is the message:
> > "Intrinsically H.264 properly encoded should be about 30% more
> > efficient than Theora."

i have a rather stupid question: is there an agreed interpretation of
what people generally mean when they say a codec is more "efficient"
then others?

does this mean:

a) the resulting file (in same quality) of one encoder is smaller then
the others?

b) the encoding process is quicker?

startx