XVID - To Be Or Not To Be??

[cooldude859]

Not sure if this is the correct forum.

I am just wondering why people encode movies using XVID instead of DIVX. What doesnt make sense is that there are DIVX standard standalone players out there. Mine is a pricey one but it doesnt do well with XVID files. It plays DIVX files perfectly though. So, if I find an XVID file, I have to re-encode it to use it. I get results that are just as good and the same file size. Of course, every file's quality is dependent on "who" did the encoding in the first place.

Anyway, why in the world do people follow this trend? Is it because xvid is divx spelled backwards??

[redwudz]

Xvid is free and I have never had any problems playing back Xvids on several Divx players. If a Xvid coded video didn't work I don't think the codec was at fault as much as the person who did the encoding and the settings they used. I use both codecs.

[jagabo]

Yes, if your player has problems with Xvid it has more to do with the settings the person encoding the video used. Divx and Xvid are pretty much interchangeable in terms of playback. The price of your Divx/DVD player has little to do with its Divx/Xvid playback ability.

Xvid is completely free, is more configurable than Divx, and generates slightly higher quality video. It encodes a little slower than Divx at some settings though.

[jman98]

The early releases of the commercial Divx codec were very far behind Xvid in terms of quality. I'm not personally convinced at this time that Xvid is any better, but old habits die hard and many people still remember when Divx was fairly weak from years ago.

Some DVD players have been known to barf at FourCC codes created by Xvid encodes. You can find a free tool here to change this:
https://www.videohelp.com/tools/AVI_FourCC_Code_Changer
Change the FourCC description to something like Divx5 and see if that fixes your problem. Also note that many people who encode with Xvid may use GMC, QPel or packed bitstream and those can be problematic for many DVD players.

[Bjs]

Also note some players require the file to be of specific resolution or no matter what it'll throw it... some samsung units are this fussy (pays to read the manual before purchase)