DV AVI to Xvid AVI (how different are they)

[njitgrad]

Currently my Boxee Box can only play my Xvid AVI files. Playback of corresponding DV AVIs is choppy and audio is out of sync. Apparently the Boxee Box team is working on updates to fix issues like this.

My question is how different are the two AVI files in terms of quality?
The Xvid AVIs are 1/10th the size of the DV AVIs.

[jagabo]

You will always lose a little bit of quality with lossy codecs but Xvid can be very high quality if compressed correctly. Your DV video is likely interlaced so you may have problems with that. Xvid supports interlaced encoding but I don't know if the Boxee Box will play it back correctly. Many players do not.

Try this in VirtualDub:

1) File -> Open Video File (open your DV AVI)
2) Video -> Compression... Xvid -> Configure... At the main Xvid config dialog press Load Defaults, change Target Quantizer to 2 or 3 (smaller value = higher quality and larger file size). To the right of the Profile @ Level label press the More... button. Enable Adaptive Quantization. Enable Interaced Encoding and disable Top Field First. Go to the Aspect Ratio tab and enable Display Aspect Ratio and set it to 4:3 or 16:9 -- whichever your DV AVI is.
3) Select Audio -> Full Processing Mode, then Audio -> Compression... Select an audio compression codec (say, LAME mp3) and set it up (192 kbps stereo).
4) Select File -> Save as AVI.

See if the Boxee Box plays the resulting file correctly.

[njitgrad]

Currently my Boxee Box can only play my Xvid AVI files. Playback of corresponding DV AVIs is choppy and audio is out of sync. Apparently the Boxee Box team is working on updates to fix issues like this.

My question is how different are the two AVI files in terms of quality?
The Xvid AVIs are 1/10th the size of the DV AVIs.

Boxee Box support told me to use MOV H264 instead of DV AVI. My version of Pinnacle Studio (V11) doesn't support output to MOV, but I understand V14 does. Is it worth upgrading to have the capability to output as MOV H264?

I've never worked with MOV H264 files before. Are they better (i.e. less lossy) than Xvid AVI files?

[jagabo]

h264 (aka AVC, MPEG 4 part 10) does compress better than Xvid/Divx (MPEG 4 part 2). But it takes much longer to convert to h.264. I prefer to use MKV as the container for h.264 compressed video. The Boxee Box may have problems with the latest "header compression" used in MKV.

[njitgrad]

h264 (aka AVC, MPEG 4 part 10) does compress better than Xvid/Divx (MPEG 4 part 2).

All these specification names (and aliases) make me go bonkers! I wish there was some easy to understand tutorial on the web that explained all of these things.

But it takes much longer to convert to h.264.

You mean as compared to Xvid AVI? Significantly? I'm not really in a rush. I just want the best quality video that Boxee Box will support. I have a 1TB passport drive.

I prefer to use MKV as the container for h.264 compressed video.

You mean you prefer it to MOV? Why? Will an MKV file and a corresponding MOV file be similar in size assuming the same H264 codec is used?

The Boxee Box may have problems with the latest "header compression" used in MKV.

Can you elaborate (in simple terms)?

[jagabo]

But it takes much longer to convert to h.264.

You mean as compared to Xvid AVI? Significantly? I'm not really in a rush. I just want the best quality video that Boxee Box will support. I have a 1TB passport drive.

Yes, compared to Xvid. Typically 2 to 10 times longer depending on the settings used and what processor you have. Generally, compared to Xvid, h.264 encoders are better able to use multiple cores. So the more cores you have the less difference there is between h.264 and Xvid encoding on that CPU. A Core i7 with 4 cores and 8 threads runs x264 nearly as fast as Xvid. If you're willing to forgo a little quality or compression you can use x264 at faster settings and come close to Xvid speed with a single or dual core CPU.

There are also h.264 encoders that can use your graphics card (if it has the ability) to perform the video encoding. These can be very fast but the quality isn't as good from what I've seen.

I prefer to use MKV as the container for h.264 compressed video.

You mean you prefer it to MOV? Why?

Yes, MKV compared to MOV. Mostly because the tools used to deal with MOV don't seem to work as well. As source material, I have far less problems dealing with MKV than with MOV or MP4. And my WDTV Live has problems with some MOV and MP4 files. Try some of the HD MP4 files from Revision3's HdNation or GeekBeatTV.

Will an MKV file and a corresponding MOV file be similar in size assuming the same H264 codec is used?

Yes, there will only be very minor variations in the file size. MKV and MOV/MP4 are just the "boxes" that package the video and audio. It's the compression codecs used that determine the size and quality of the files.

The Boxee Box may have problems with the latest "header compression" used in MKV.

Can you elaborate (in simple terms)?

One of the common tools for muxing into MKV, MkvToolNix, started using "header compression" as the default (header data, descriptive data, within the files is compressed as well as the audio and video, making the files a little smaller) a few months ago. Many players couldn't handle this and choked on the files. The most recent builds of MkvToolNix have gone back to no header compression as the default.