What's better quality: DVD of DivX ?

[FredSnerk]

Hi All,

I have a DV AVI source file destined to only ever be played back on PC.

I was wondering what your thoughts were on which format BEST plays back full screen with the highest quality.

My DV file is only around 5 minutes in length so I'm not concerned about the file size, just the quality.

Also, is there any other format other than MPEG2 or DivX that plays back full screen video in high quality that doesn't require some sort of codec installation. It would be great if you could just double click the file on a standard Windows installation and for it to work.

Cheers,

Fred.

[kinneera]

Also, is there any other format other than MPEG2 or DivX that plays back full screen video in high quality that doesn't require some sort of codec installation. It would be great if you could just double click the file on a standard Windows installation and for it to work.

You can create full screen video in high quality with MPEG1, which will play back without any special codec installs on practically every Windows system. Just set the resolution high enough to meet your needs and then make sure you throw enough bitrate at it to satisfy that resolution. Also remember - garbage in, garbage out, so don't exceed the resolution of your source or expect miracles if the source video already looks poor.

[vitualis]

Agreed.

If you don't want people to need to install any additional software, MPEG-1 is a reasonable choice. It is supported "out-of-the-box" since ?Win95.

Regards.

[FredSnerk]

Ok guys, so VCD sounds good. What's the highest bitrate I should go before it starts giving me playback problems (jerky video/audio sync etc).

Can you achieve DVD quality with MPEG1 if the bitrate is set to 8000?

Also, just out of curiosity, did anyone have an answer to which was better quality between DVD/DivX?

Thanks!

Fred

[vitualis]

Okay, just some clarification.

MPEG-1 doesn't equal VCD. VCD just uses MPEG-1 video of particular specs. It is a format of its own.

Similarly, there is a difference between "DVD" and MPEG-2.

I can't really answer your question at what MPEG-1 bitrate, etc., you will need to get near flawless reproduction of your DV footage. Perhaps someone else can help answer this question.

In terms of the quality difference between MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 (DivX), MPEG-4 can probably deliver better quality than MPEG-2 at the same bitrate. It will also require more CPU decoding power as well.

Regards.

[kinneera]

If you set the MPEG1 resolution to 720x480/576 - DVD resolution and typically DV resolution as well, I would think you should be able to reasonably preserve the quality of the DV if you give it a bitrate of at least 4500 to 5000 Kbps. Keep in mind that this will probably only work for computer playback since most standalone DVD players can't handle such bitrates. And if the DV is not progressive (interlaced), you will have to deal with that somehow since MPEG1 doesn't support interlacing.

[FredSnerk]

Thanks for the feedback and clarification on a few issues.

kinneera, just on your last point, I've shot the footage on a standard Sony PC110e (PAL)... and as far as I'm aware, that's Interlaced?

Does this mean I can flush this solution down the toilet?

Fred.

[kinneera]

I don't know too terribly much about PAL equipment, you should probably check the manual/documentation to determine how it records. If it is interlaced, though, it doesn't mean the solution is lost. You just have to perform deinterlacing if you want to use MPEG1. TMPGEnc has filters to do this, or if you are not satisfied with the quality provided by those, there are a number of excellent deinterlacing filters for VirtualDub and Avisynth. Interlacing is a common issue, search the forums for it and you should find plenty of assistance.

[FredSnerk]

Ok kinneera, thanks for that.

Cheers,

Fred.

[FredSnerk]

Thanks to everyone for their help. The solution to my problems was indeed to go with MPEG1 with a bitrate of 9000. I set interlacing to Even fields to avoid the jaggies.

I used Panasonic MPEG encoder, haven't tried encoding it with TMPGEnc yet but from past tests, the quality is about the same.

Cheers,

Fred.