Older vs. Newer Divx versions

[Atomic Dog]

I've got a bunch of old .avi files (cartoons mostly) that I compressed using DivX 3.11 Low. If I recompress them with a later DivX version (5.x), keeping the same bitrate, will it make a difference in quality?

They're pretty smooth and noiseless because of the filtering, but I like the later DivX versions ability to slow the encoding so that they come out as best as possible (although, I'm not sure - is the Smoothness/Crispness slider in 3.11 the same thing, and if so, what's an ideal setting for that?)

Thanks.

[lumis]

i'd leave them as they are. you arent going to gain any quality converting the divx files to a newer version. unless you encode from the original source.

[celtic_druid]

The quality is only going to get worse if you re-encode. There is however a modified version of ffmpeg for converting (not re-encoding) DivX3 to ISO MPEG4 if you really want to convert.

[jtoolman2000]

It's like taking a Xerox copy of an original done in an older Xerox machine and re copying it in a modern up to date very high quality Xerox machine. It can not get any better. The best you can do is close to the copy quality. Never better. Go back to your originals and re encode them if you really must. I myself don't think it is worth the time since it's so easy to back up a DVD now a day. If they were from a TV capture, well,, then you are stuck with the older Divx Version encodes.

[junkmalle]

Cartoons are one type of video where you might be able to improve the quality a bit with some filtering and a re-encode.

I use the MSU Deblocking filter, followed by a strong Temporal Smoother, and a little Sharpening. Here is a sample frame from an old VCD file (recorded off air?) converted to XVID AVI:

VCD:


XVID:


Obviously, it's the filtering that's improved the picture quality, not the re-encode per se. And in this case the source was very noisy so it was easy to improve.

[Gurm]

You think that second picture is "improved"?

[junkmalle]

You think that second picture is "improved"?

Yes. The macroblocks and broadcast static are gone. There is roughly the same amount of codec ringing, and the images are similar in clarity. Since the output was AVI I also changed the pixel aspect ratio to 1:1.

[Gurm]

If you say so. Stretch it out and I bet they look pretty much the same. LOL.

It's like that discussion we had in a different thread about CCE versus TMPGEnc or something, and someone showed a "smoother" picture and said it was better when in reality it was worse.