MPEG4

[J3M]

For those of you who capture using MPEG4, what do you use the caps for? In other words, are these caps only for PC viewing? How widely adopted is it?

[jtoolman2000]

Some of the newer dvd players such as the $69 Phillips 642 will play Divx and MPG4 format except for Nero Digital MPG4. It will also play all normal dvd formats vcd and svcd as well MP3, Music CD, and jpg images saved to cd or dvd-+r/rw

[J3M]

Hmm, so are most of the newer DVD players decoding it?

The main reason I asked is that I did some playing around with it this weekend, and was impressed by the capture quality. I have several programs I capture each week that I only store/view from my PC, so I switched to MPEG4 for these programs. However, it would be nice to be able to offload some of these to DVD at some point, without re-encoding. I'm pretty sure my DVD player does not support MPEG4 though.

I may have to look into this cheap DVD player you speak of though.

[jtoolman2000]

Only a handfull of players do. You can just burn the file to either cd or dvd depending on file size and the player will load them directly. They are really nice and output is outstanding on a normal 27-32" tv. Don't own a large high deff tv so can not comment on that. You can make your own Divx/Mpg4 backups of yourt DVDs on your pc will tools you find to the left. I make Divx backups with Dr. Divx ( you need the Divx codec ) and make my files about 1.3 gigs each so I can put about three movies to a DVD-R. They are surprisingly close to the original in quality. Some movies, depending on their length and original quality on the DVD
( Bitrate used when originally encoded ) can be fitted to a single CD. A 90min movie will make a pretty excellent Divx. Of course you can make a perfect DVD backup in less time than it takes to rip and shrink a DVD to a a Divx but CDs are now very very cheap no a-days so for captures and other uncritical material, it is entirely adequate.

[Suntan]

Everything jtoolman2000 just said except substitute Xvid for Divx and Vdubmod for Dr. Divx. 8)

[J3M]

Ok. Thanks for the info!

I haven't really played with Divx much, since most of my encoding is done for DVD. However, for the programs I store on my PC, I'll give Divx a look. If this cheap player will also play all the files that it claims (I read the thread in DVD Players) it sounds like a steal.

[jtoolman2000]

SO far it seems to play all my ols Divx and Xvid movies I have. I just wish it would play Nero Digital which basically is an MPG4 format but maybe something about is proprietary to Nero. It will NOT play those movies. I wish it did because making a single or two dv mvie back up with Nero Digital ( Part of Nero Recode ) is basically a breeze. It will also do a variable bitrate two pass encoding woch produces a pretty darn good final file.