so which is the best windows AVI codec for the purposes of..

[spasmoid]

OK so choosing a codec is probably a case of horses for courses, but there has to be a best horse for any given course.

In particular, I am interested in using a codec suited for archiving my DVD and home movie collection (as well as TV documentaries recorded on my set-top DVD recorder) for compact archival for viewing on PC (or modded xbox).

For instance, I would like to cram 10 hours of footage on one 4.7GB DVD-R. The footage does NOT need to be compatible with a set-top DVD player. Traditionaly, I've been using divx (until recently switching to xvid). But I seem to have acquired other codecs like 3ivx D4. I'm a cheap barstard so I don't want to have to pay money when I have access to xvid and the like.

What is the general consensus out there?

I assume this has come up before, where can I find te juicy debates

[flaninacupboard]

well i would take an archival codec to be one which preserves your file exactly. for that, either leave it as you currently have it or run it through Huffyuv for lossless compression. then buy a raid array.

For a low bitrate long term backup/pc replay then WMV is probably the best way to go. your files will still be playable on any version of windows in the future and next gen dvd players do/will play it too.

[vitualis]

DivX 5 has semi-official status now as a fairly generic MPEG-4 codec. It would be reasonable to assume that using the simple profile and making an AVI with MP3 audio would be reasonable well supported in the future.

Regards.