Your opinions on a couple of things...

[MeekloBraca]

Which route would be better to go not only for right now but the future, double layered DVD's, or go out and buy a dvd player than can playback avi, mpeg, divx files etc...?

[redwudz]

You should be able to do both. Get a Divx certified player that also plays MPEGs and dual-layer discs.

Just my opinion, but MPG video, as in a regular DVD is the most common format. Divx or similar saves space, but with the price of DVD media, not really a big advantage. Dual-layer media should drop in price in the future and make that format more attractive.

There are other formats out there, like blue-ray, etc., but they are a few years off to be competitive in price with the regular DVD media available now.

[whitejremiah]

how bout dual layer compatable divx player? smash like 8 movies at so near to dvd quality that they are indistinguishable from the original...with multiple audio tracks and subs (this can be done using the divx format..........the tools for doing that are around...but they arent the easiest to use until divx releases the official SDK) but at like 1.2-1.5gb per movie, its a fairly good way to go...unfortunately, dual layer media are a bit towards the expensive side right now.........once they drop in price a bit, though, im sure you will see more people doing stuff like putting say ALL the nightmare on elm street movies on to a single disc........that may be a while off though, depending on how media prices go in the next few months.....

[MeekloBraca]

"Just my opinion, but MPG video, as in a regular DVD is the most common format. Divx or similar saves space, but with the price of DVD media, not really a big advantage. Dual-layer media should drop in price in the future and make that format more attractive. "

With that though the advantage would be is you could download a 2-2.5 gig movie or show or whatever and not have to convert it to make it fit on the dvd player, and on top of that you wouldnt lose any of the quality if you downloaded a good quality file right?

Now whats the difference between divx and mpeg/avi/wmv...etc? Is Divx a term people use to mean its compatable with mpeg/avi/wmv wtc..? Or is divx a completly different format?

[pchan]

"
With that though the advantage would be is you could download a 2-2.5 gig movie or show or whatever and not have to convert it to make it fit on the dvd player, and on top of that you wouldnt lose any of the quality if you downloaded a good quality file right?

Now whats the difference between divx and mpeg/avi/wmv...etc? Is Divx a term people use to mean its compatable with mpeg/avi/wmv wtc..? Or is divx a completly different format?

Yes. Just burn it to ISO format DVD and pop right into Divx DVD player. No conversion hussle needed.

All p2p Dvix files are with .avi extension, so they are also refer to as avi files. Some DVD player also support window wmv format. Divx format is not the same as wmv format.

[MeekloBraca]

How can I tell if a file is a divx file?

[redwudz]

Put it through AVIcodec or Gspot and they will tell you the format.

[MeekloBraca]

Some guy at futureshop just told me that I can take any video file off my computer such as avi, mpeg etc...finalize it and it should work in my dvd player because my dvd player plays dvd+r's.

Is this true, and if so what does he mean by finalizing it? Is that putting the file through some sort of authoring program?

[gadgetguy]

"Some guy at futureshop" is an idiot. To finalize a disc is to make it readable as a PC file disc, but that will not necessarily make it playable in DVD players. If the files on the disc are in a format that is readable by the player then it will work, but if the filetypes aren't supported then they have to be converted to a readable format.

[lordsmurf]

"With that though the advantage would be is you could download a 2-2.5 gig movie or show or whatever and not have to convert it to make it fit on the dvd player, and on top of that you wouldnt lose any of the quality if you downloaded a good quality file right?

I don't think the technology is invented to cater to illegal downloads of movies and shows.