Explanation of why rm/rmvb is popular for rm haters/lovers

[mgh]

Obviously, since no standalone player supports it, it is mainly for playback on PCs at present.
1. Many people, especially students all over the world have access only to computers which are allowed nothing more than wmv,rm(rmvb) and maybe quicktime.
2. Till very recently-other than US and Western Europe -people had access only to vcds- as everyone knows vcds have to have artefacts and DivX or Xvid only accentuated them with their artificial sharpness (am talking of earlier versions-latest ones have less of the problem-they have moved towards rmvb!!).
3.RMVB is designed to have no artefacts at whatever bitrates-what it seems to do(I am no expert) is that it smoothes the vid more and more as you reduce bitrate. Try it at bitrates you use for xvid/divx and you will be surprised (only with helix community encoders available through doom9 forums-the ones at real.com are the pits)
4. RMVB has anamorphic encoding enabled in the sense that you can encode at one resolution and playback at another-theoretically available with mpeg4 codecs but not implemented by any one so far.Feed a vid to a rmvb encoder at half D1 resolution-"resize" in encoder to full D1(the rmvb encoders do not actually resize when width/height are increased)-playback will be at full D1.
Thought this was needed to clear misinformation
P.S.edit-
lastly real audio has always beat the pants off mp3

[adam]

I don't understand your reasons 1 or 2. I've never heard of student's having computers which limited the filetypes they could play, and DVDs are available all over the world and you can always encode video to whatever codec you like.

As for the bad, RM is propritary and doesn't have hardware support. Also until the last couple years it really did not fare well against other open source codecs. THAT is why there is such a stigma against it, because it truly was shit for a while. Now its a viable codec indeed, but there are better choices IMO.

As for anamorphic playback, pretty much all the pc based players allow you to adjust the playback aspect ratio so its kinda a moot point.

[mgh]

1. Because of pig-headed Administrators-who will not allow installing anything other than what they have installed-this includes codecs-i am not talking of personally owned computers.
2. Obviously you have not been around the world-DVDs started becoming freely available in asia about a year or so back (by freely i mean originals at locally affordable prices)
3. I made it clear at the beginning, that it is only for PC playback..
4. The play back players-make you adjust the aspect ratio assuming you know what it is supposed to be-it is not automatic as in DVD playback-rmvb plays back at setting the person encoding intended to be used.
5. This was not meant to be a defence of rmvb or against divx and xvid.
This was more as a rejoinder for the self-opinionated experts who seem to be proliferating on the board these days to whom anything other than divx or xvid was something only "stupid" people used.

[jimmalenko]

1. Because of pig-headed Administrators-who will not allow installing anything other than what they have installed-this includes codecs-i am not talking of personally owned computers.

So you're talking about public use computers ? I'm not exactly sure what rights you THINK you SHOULD have on computers that aren't personally owned by you. How dare the Administrators expect that you'd actually be doing schoolwork on those computers at your local university or college

2. Obviously you have not been around the world-DVDs started becoming freely available in asia about a year or so back (by freely i mean originals at locally affordable prices)

That's a crock right there, buddy. I'm in Australia and DVDs have been at "locally affordable" prices here for a good 10 years.

3. I made it clear at the beginning, that it is only for PC playback..

Artefacting Vs Excessive smoothing - hmmmmmmm ... line ball decision there IMO. How about using a suitable bitrate to start with ???

This was more as a rejoinder for the self-opinionated experts who seem to be proliferating on the board these days to whom anything other than divx or xvid was something only "stupid" people used.

I prefer WMV for strict computer playback, and MPEG-2 for settop DVD Player playback, so I guess I go against the mould too ...

[celtic_druid]

XviD has supported PAR resizing for ages now. Download mplayer and you should be able to play pretty much anything back. Can also use mkv as a container and set the output res or AR.

Artificial sharpness? It is RV9/10 that removes detail, not the other way around.

As I understand it rmvb uses aac for audio. You could just as easily have XviD with he aac audio in an mp4 container.

[mgh]

I should have said Asia to start with.


Every codec has its range of usefulness-if you can use high bitrate-definitely divx and xvid would be better-vp6 was even better than both about a year back(that is my view). Biggest plus as of today for DivX is the deluge of standalones supporting the format.

When you need to use low bitrates relative to resolution-both wmv and rmvb are good-as of today rmvb can be tweaked much better than wmv(again my view)-wmv gives good results when you move the performance slider in codec setting all the way to the right and use two pass-but on my 2.4GHz the encoding speed is too low.

This thread was "inspired" by the way some members jump into rmvb threads with no contribution other than theirsmart-alecky remarks -no offense intended to anyone else
P.S.celtic_druid's reply came as i was typing this.
I maintain both DivX and Xvid had artificial sharpness earlier-i have mentioned it is no longer so
Again try rmvb with bitrates you use for xvid and divx-as of today-i find almost no difference between the three once you go above 800 kbps for DVD backups-for PC playback. I have also checked on my laptop-the LCD display shows up even minor defects.

[Supreme2k]

Why did you start this thread, knowing very well that .mov is the universally accepted format?

[steve2713]

Realplayer is the DEVIL. And yes I know about real alternative. Realplayer is still the Devil.

[adam]

mhg you obviously have an agenda here. I gave you genuine answers to why I think RM has the reputation that it does, and you seem to have attacked me like I am one of these "stupid" RM bashers you are trying to call out. Arguing over codecs is childish. Starting a thread specifically to start an argument over codecs is even worse.
The only person I see bashing anything in this thread is you.

[mgh]

To Adam, i am sorry if i have offended you.I meant no offence.
As you said it is a codec-my intention wasn't to start a codec war-but just to point out that in certain conditions-it may be a forced choice.

Maybe unintentionally, i have gone too far to the other side.
I do not have any agenda-i am not against any codec- i try out almost all-use the ones which serve my purpose.

If I have hurt anyone's sentiment i apologise.