Hey everybody, just wondered which codec gives the best quality of DivX 6 and Xvid. Personally I preffer Xvid from DivX 5, cause It gives a "smoother" picture. But I haven't tried with DivX 6. Oh yeah and if I have a movie encoded with Divx 4... Does it matter wether I use DivX 4,5 or 6 to watch it? Does DivX 6 give a better picture than DivX 4 which it is encoded with? Thanks! Cabs
XviD is probably the way to go, I always use XviD and it has always had a better picture quality than DivX. The new one can't be that different. When you install codecs, the exact codec needed is used to playback files needing the codec. So therefore if you install DivX 6, it will still install the proper codecs for files encoded in DivX 5, 4, 3. So in short, you really can't use a different codec than what the file is encoded in, so it will have the same picture quality every time.
Okay! I would like to re-encode the movie encoded with DivX 4, so It has got permanent subs, that's no problem. But which type of codec should I use to re-encode it in? DivX 4 as it's encoded in, DivX5 or 6 or maybe Xvid? I know if I re-encode the DivX file in Xvid the quality is supposed to get worse, is that right? (I tried once with a normal movie, it was hard to tell the difference, then I tried with a animated movie and I actuallythink the quality got better).
Any re-encoding will cause a loss of picture quality, so if you have a DivX 4 file and you want higher quality, you'll need to re-rip it in DivX 6 or XviD. If its downloaded, then you should download a different one. Thinking about it, the new DivX 6 codec is supposed to let you have menus and stuff so if you're going to be doing any DVD ripping, use DivX 6.
Menus, subs, chapters, etc. are seperate from the codec though. Should be perfectly possible to have XviD video in a .divx container.
Over on Doom9 there was a recent metrics comparison, and it clearly showed Divx 6.0 as being the best MPEG4-ASP codec, with Xvid not far behind. There is far more momentum with Divx - its well funded. The recent beta release with trellis psychovisual for example will take it further.
Metrics are fine, but most people encode stuff to actually watch it, so it is much better to trust your eyes. Although I haven't personally compared so it could actually look better to. Other thing is that sometimes people have an agenda, so they pick settings that are perhaps not the best for the codec that they don't want to win. I agree with the momentum though. There has been very little movement over at XviD lately. Still that's just part of OSS and it could change any time.
Does this mean that a dvp642 is screwed cuz i tihnk philips stoped giving out the firmware uprades for newer divx's and Xvids? sry im a noob at this thanz in advance
DivX 6 is still ASP MPEG-4 and XviD will always be ASP MPEG-4. Only problem is that ASP is not fully supported, however that has always been the case (no qpel or 3wp GMC support) so there is nothing new there. The other issue is the .divx container that came with DivX 6. Doesn't look like any current players are going to be updated for full certification of that. Since .divx is basically a hack/extension of avi it is backwards compatible, so anything that isn't supported by a player should simply be ignored. So whilst you miss out on menu's and chapters, the main content still plays.
thx lol i never even knew i could have menus with divx but w/e ill go back to using winavi . to bad phillips isnt releasing udaes for fimware any more.
