Why is Xvid mentioned so much?

[brassplyer]

I was looking for something to convert DVD or VOB to DV avi. Looking at various convert to avi apps, virtually everything I see talks about Xvid. Why is this?

[guns1inger]

Because it is far more common to want to compress video to save space, and Xvid is pretty efficient. It is also open source and therefore royalty free.

Conversion of DVD/VOB to DV AVI can be done via virtualdubmpeg and the cenocida DV codec or AVI Demux, amongst other tools.

Fewer tools convert to DV AVI simply because it really only has one use, which is editing. And while it excels at this, it's storage requirements are too high to use it for much else. Most pro-sumer level editors don't use DVD for source if they can avoid it because it is already heavily compressed, and doesn't compress well over subsequent generations. And if they do have convert it, they are not afraid to get their hands a little dirty using virtualdubmpeg2/mod for the conversion.

If you do need to edit DVD then there are dedicated editors that can do a good job (VideoRedo/Womble) without the need for conversion or re-encoding in most cases.

[Soopafresh]

What guns1inger said, and in layman's terms - It's good, it's free, and it converts pretty fast.

[guns1inger]

Also, because it shares it's heritage with Divx, Xvid will play on most Divx certified players, and Divx will play on most generic mpeg-4 players built around Xvid. As many standalone DVD players and and every growing range of specialist players support one of the other of these, it is an efficient way of backing up your collection to a smaller number of discs. You can get 2 full movies on a DVD at near source quality, and 4 at acceptable quality, with 5.1 AC3 audio, by encoding with Xvid.

[filmboss80]

When you look under Tools to find conversion applications, use the term DV instead of AVI. When people talk about AVI on this site, they usually mean divx or xvid. If you want DV-AVI, look for the term DV. Back when I first discovered this site, I had the same bit of trouble sorting it out myself. After all, DV files are wrapped in an AVI container, too. So is YUV.