Have you tried DivX files on LCD HDTV? How was quality

[Mike_B1122]

Have you tried DivX files on HDTV LCD TV? Any feed back on video quality?

I have a Philips hts3544 home theatre/DVD, 1080 up-convert, progressive scan, with USB connection player that plays DivX files. The DivX files I have were created with the following rule: 1 minute of original video length = 8 MB of avi output size. So a 23 minute sitcom is 23*8=184MB file size. This would typically result in ~ 400X304 AR video. This works great for me on my 20" CRT TV (quite ancient & pathetic, I know). I have no complaints with the video quality on the 20" CRT. And the video playback from my External 500GB Hard drive is awsome.

I am in the market to buy a 42" LCD HDTV and am planning on connecting the upconvert DVD player to the LCD using componant cables (to utilize progressive scan).

Since I will mostly (~95% of the time) be watching DivX video files, and before I drop the ~$1,000 on a new 42" LCD (a 1366x768 or 1920x1080. have not made up my mind yet.), have anyone tried to run DivX files on a big screen LCD? I am curious as to what the picture quality will be like. Will the progressive scan feature of the DVD player help improve the quality of the DivX files?

Appreciate the help guys. I am usually the guy who tries new things and then share the knowledge with my friends, but I would hate to pay the ~$1,000 price sticker on a new LCD, and then get stuck with an awsome HDTV set that I can not use for what accounts to about 95% of my TV viewing time (DivX).

[guns1inger]

I would find those specs pretty average to poor on my standard def CRT. I get good quality at around 445 MB / hour converted from SD digital streams at 640 x 368. I wouldn't go any lower than this for my TV, and would anticipate having to double it to maintain good quality on a HD screen - especially something 42" or larger.

The one thing that might make a difference is if you have a player with deblocking and mosquito noise filters and a really good upscaler built-in.

[jman98]

Here's the secret to watching stuff on HD TVs. If you do what I say, you'll get good results. If you don't do what I say, you won't. Keep in mind that most people that bitch about how "bad" SD stuff looks on HD TV don't do what I advise.

1) Your connection is CRITICAL! You MUST absolutely use high quality connections between ALL devices and your TV. High quality connections include:
DVI
HDMI
component
High quality connections DO NOT include:
composite
S-video
2) Watch SD sources in 4:3 on your HD TV. If you are one of those people who watch EVERYTHING in 16:9, then your results will be crap when you expand SD Divx to 16:9.

I am getting excellent results from everything I watch on my Samsung TV, but I watch SD sources such as VCD, non-letterboxed DVD, non-HD cable TV, in 4:3. I only watch true 16:9 stuff in 16:9. Also my connections are all very high quality.
If you follow my 2 suggestions, you'll get decent results from your Divx files, but I'll warn you that it does appear that you are using low bit rates and when the image is expanded to fill a big HD TV, even in 4:3 I think you may see how the quality of your encodes isn't as good as you think right now.

[redwudz]

I've been using a HD setup for several years with a projector and a 5' X 8' screen. Even the Xvid movies off the net with a 700MB filesize Xvid look fine. Of course they are not as clear as a DVD, but are much better than the average VCD. If you want DVD quality, then you need a DVD source. Higher bitrate Xvid or similar will obviously look better. I generally use about 1100 - 1500Kbps for SD Xvids I convert from DVD sources. Much more and the savings from using the format seem to diminish. JMO.

[edDV]

In theory, divx/xvid should get similar image quality to MPeg2 at one third to one half the bitrate when encoded from the same quality source. If you recode MPeg2 to divx/xvid the quality will be less. This all assumes a perfect display. Your CRT was far from a perfect display for ~640x480 video so lower bit rates will show no difference until they get very low.

As your display quality and size approach a perfect monitor, more quality differences will be observed vs DVD MPeg2 reference. Assuming average MPeg2 bitrate of 5Mb/s @720x480, divx/xvid bitrates below 1.6Mb/s will show quality difference based on research. If cable TV 3-4Mb/s MPeg2 is the reference, similar quality can be achieved for MPeg4 in the 1-1.4 Mb/s range.

Upscaling doesn't add quality, it just interpolates the image into finer pixels thus reducing diagonal stepping and averaging down MPeg block sizes.

Bottom line, the amount off quality difference will depend on the particular viewer and viewing conditions.

[hummer]

OK here`s my set up :

NEC LCD 37
Phillips DVD up converting 1080P via HDMI Thrut DVI
SONY AV Receiver 7.1
HD DVD AD-ON for the 360
And waiting for Christmas to buy one of the new Toshiba`s
Tons of DVD
Tons of DVIX ( some of them not yet in the DVD market , Fracture , Perfect Stranger , Mr Beans Holidays , Taxi 4 and so on ) and i can tell one thing i`m not buying this movies in normal DVD format , maybe some in HD , like i did with Hot Fuzz and 300 .
If it Looks good ?? It looks great for a compressed format .