Why mpg? Why DVD?

[Lantry]

I am sure this is an old question… but why are DVDs mpeg? Why do you have to convent your beautiful, compact, universal .AVIs to big, buggy, lesser quality MPGs? Why didn’t they make DVD players play AVI format? I know the .AVI are DivX… and I am not sure what that’s all about. Are there any .AVIs that are not DivX? Is there any advantage of MPG over AVI (DivX)?

LT

[Mirror_Image]

MPEG formats are used in the television industry, and in the satellite transmission of programming. So much professional video broadcasting equipment uses MPEG formats. That's a pretty good reason...

[)v(ajin Bubbles]

Do u really think that they want to make the life of counterfeit product users easier! Of course not, Implementing avi/divx compatibility in Standalone DVD players is asking for problems.

[Zippy72]

Also a good quality (not divx) avi file for a movie can be as much as 80 Gig. Try fitting that on a disc !!

[Lantry]

Counterfeiting is a non issue. You can get a 2 hour movie down to a 700 meg AVI file that looks and sounds great. If you convert that to a mpg of the same quality it doubles the size. And if the industry is so worried about people copying movies why didn’t they make some lame play only version of the VCR back in the 80s? There should be no sympathy for the movie industry. If they were smart and they want to make money here is how it should go. New movie XYZ opens today. I should be able to go see it in the theater for $7, rent it from Block Buster for $5 and download it from the company’s website for $3!! All on the same day!! What is the point of waiting months and months for a movie to come out on DVD?? If that logic made any since they wouldn’t sell us bottled beer until all the bars had closed for the night!!!! Maybe grocery stores can make it illegal to sell food until all the restaurants have closed for they night, then and only then will it be ok for us to eat in our own homes for less money!

Think about that!

[Zippy72]

I agree on the no sympathy bit, but I don't think your plan would make that much money. After all if I could download it for $3, why would I go to the cinema or rent from Blockbuster?
The best way to make money is to release it at the theater months before the rental release (I pay one time), release on rental a couple of months before retail selling (I pay twice), and finally release it as sell-through (I pay three times).
So the way to make money and be smart, is the way they're doing it now . No, it's not fair, but it is profitable!

[dudulho]

Man, you really know in wich forum you r?

And why it exist?

Take an avi and put it in one cd an try to see it in a VCD/DVD player.
that is enougth?

If.. AND I said 'if', some day divx/avi be suported by a great team of manufactures, then, and only then, divx/avi will be better than MPEG1/MPEG2...

Until there, MPEG still's better then divx/avi.
(at least in portability with vdc/dvd players)

the quality of a MPEG depends of its source.
I realy sorry that most sources on the net are divx/avi.

So. bye! and may the force (of MPEG) be with you...

Dudulho

[Lantry]

A. I still go see most (good) movies that I download in the theater. Plus the fact that i can watch all or prat of a movie before I go pay to see it on the big screen should make them make better movies. I dont think my plan would effect ticket sales at all for good movies! Now that said I think it would kill the ticket sales for a lot of the crap holywood gets away with and that would be a very good thing!

B. Why would anyone want the video sorces on the net to be mpg? You like things taking twice as long to download? The only time save of downloading an mpg is you dont have to spend the time to convert it before burning out to a VCD and taht brings us right back to my original point... DVD players SHOULD play AVIs not MPGs!!!!!

C. I still have not heard a single logical explanation of how there is even one single, minuscule, advantage of the industry using mpg over avi…

[bugster]

Lantry, I think you are confusing the term AVI with divx and other mpeg4 based compression techniques. It has to be remembered that until divx and its clones came along in the last couple of years, mpeg-2 was by far the most efficient, cost-effective video compression technique available that also had the strentth of a standards body behind. The full mpeg-4 spec (which granted is more than just video compression) has only recently been finalised. DVD players have been around several years now and have taken off in a very big way. The use of mpeg-2 for DVD was chosen as it was the best choice available at the time the standards were set.

There is nothing (AFAIK) stopping manufacturers adding mpeg-4 capability to DVD players except for cost and, at the moment, a small target audience of home video enthusiasts. (oh, and the wide variety of unnoficial mpeg-4 codecs around making for comptibility nightmares!) This means its just not worth it for most player manufacturers (that and the proposed licensing fees of the mpeg-4 standard).

So we are stuck with mpeg-1 and 2 compatibility at the mo. If you really want an mpeg-4 desktop player that much, you can build one out of cheap PC components for a few hundred $$'s. It won't be as easy to operate from your armchair as a dedicated player, but at least it would be felixible enough to play almost any downloaded or homeproduced video.

just my humble opinion!

[Lantry]

bugster, thank you for that. That is what i was looking for and it makes sence. I already have my own home version of a mpeg-4 player in the form on my PC with the svideo out ability. That is why i said with my question that I have lost respect for the DVD player, because it is already out dated technology. Now that you have given me a good well written explanation can you also tell me the difference between .avi (DivX) and mpeg-4? It still seems to me that the stuff I download in Divx looks the best and takes up the least space, by far! After all you can put a full 2 hour movie in a DivX file that is 700megs and fits on a single CD-R. You could never do that with mpeg-2.

[bugster]

Lantry,
.avi file extension is a generic file format used by microsoft windows apps. The letters stand for (I believe) Audio Video Interleave. Basically it is a wrapper for any form of audio/video stream. The compression used may be any valid windows codec and can be different for both audio and video.

Divx. The original divx (or at least the 1st poular one, divx 3.11 alpha) was an illegal hack of a MS codec that used mpeg-4 type video compression techniques (which in themselves are a development of mpeg-1 and 2). It was hacked to remove some restrictions and to allow its use within the avi file wrapper format rather that MS's propietary .asf format. Later versions of divx (4 and onwards) have been written from scratch and so are perfectly legal.

Mpeg-4 is a standard published by the Motion Picture Experts Group (hence mpeg) that not only supports highly compressed video but other things such as embedded web links and interactivity. The final standard was only recently completed (within the last few months I think??) but mpeg-4 video compression codecs based on the standard (tho not necessarily being fully compliant to it) have been around for a while.

Hope this helps.

(Oh and BTW, as to your original question, why mpeg and not divx, you can probably work out from my answers that divx IS mpeg, just a different version!!)