DivX higher quality than Xvid?

[genpcb]

If I use b-frames and the highest quality (over time) mode in Divx 5.1.1, will it render better results than Xvid based on anyone's experience?

[Suntan]

My opinion, based on my personal experience, is no. Xvid gives the goods better than Divx. Even without using multiple bframes (which Divx can not do.)

Compairing Divx 5.1.1 to any of the Xvid 1 release candidates.

FWIW look at the lastest codec shootout on doom9 to see a detailed compairo of many of the codecs (Hint: Xvid won.)

-Suntan

[genpcb]

Hi Suntan, thanks for the response. I did look at the codec comparisons on doom9.org's site, however I assumed that the Divx setting was likely "standard" when comparing against xvid, and not the highest quality setting which takes considerable more time to complete.

[barrybear]

I am sorry but I would disagre. I have done many conversion from dvd to divx, xvid ( watch them on my liteon DVD player) and in general I would give equal marks for both codec`s on picture quolity but for pure sync through out the hole film divx every time

Barrybear

[Suntan]

@barrybear,
What ever floats your boat is fine with me. But I have never had sync issues with either of them (Divx or Xvid) with either Vorbis or AC3 playback on my computer. Of course standalone capability is a whole other ball of wax.

@All
As for playback I would vote that Divx's deocder is better overall (more stable than Xvid's decoder) but neither of their respective decoders can hold a candle to ffdshows post procssing capabilities. Playing them both with ffdshow fully optomized for your setup (a long process of trial and error tweaking) shows that Xvid has the capability to put out a better picture... ...In my opinion.

At the end of the day all I can say is that I switched from Divx 5.1.1 to Xvid 1 RC1 and have sense uninstalled Divx (and it spyware) completely from my computer. Unless there is one hell of a comotion over the next release of Divx, I have no intention of even trying it. What more can I say?

[Shudder]

I've never seen a bad xvid file personally, but I think it has to do more with the fact that people who use xvid are probably the types who know what they're doing, where as people who don't know what the hell they're doing would more likely use divx and give you some really awful results.

[hhhhbk]

xvid produces the same quality picture but uses about 2/3 of the space due to variable bitrate
a 700mb xvid will look as good as a gig divx
i also think the reason that so many divx encodes look bad is that the people doing it dont use virtual dub to do the encoding, instead using some low quality encoder on the wrong settings

i have found that constant bitrate divx can be better for sport
jurys still out and hope to try it when i cap rugby internationals this summer

[RabidDog]

Overall ... taking everything into account.. comparing like with like ... same encoding engine ...with settings set the same..... and psnr ratios notwithstanding...on multiple test encodes... determining quality... filesize not a consideration.... comparable matrices used... time not a factor.. scalability..cpu usage... .using cartoons..live footage...slow motion then I'd say the best one overall is
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divxvid. whatever looks better to YOU. (I, beholder)

[Cobra]

divxvid. whatever looks better to YOU. (I, beholder)

Agreed. It's really what looks better to you, and the only way to find that out is to experiment. The "What's best?" subjects always get answers that conflict drastically.

I use DivX and I haven't really tried XviD so I can't offer my opinion. It is irrelevant anyway - you should try both and decide for yourself.

Cobra

[xtreemkareem]

I used to be a skeptic of XviD back when I saw some of the artifacts and problems of Nic's beta build. But when I tried Koepi's latest build, I was quite impressed. But since I prefer the playback filter of DivX, I encode my XivDs using the DIVX fourCC so I can playbak with my divX filter. faster than the latest DivX an dbetter quality. I think incentive to use DivX kinda crapped out after DivX 5.1 Pro IMHO. Even 5.11 didn't yeild as good quality as 5.04, not to mention it was still slower. My only major qualm with Xvid IS..

A) Synch issues (usually fixed in 2 minutes reinterleavening with VDub)
B) Must demux audio before loading an XviD into TMPGenc. (Even changing the fourCC has no effect, even w/ CBR audio and I still don't get why...)

[teegee420]

xvid produces the same quality picture but uses about 2/3 of the space due to variable bitrate
a 700mb xvid will look as good as a gig divx

I don't agree with this at all. I use both xvid and divx(2-pass for both) all the time and I find that they allocate bitrate in very much the same way.

Back when divx 5.0 was the newest build I would have definitely said that xvid had the advantage in terms of quality. Since divx 5.05 and aboive, the lines have been blurred quite a bit. At this point I think the only advantage xvid has over divx is speed. Ever since divx 5.1 speed has decreased dramaticly. I still use 5.05 because of this, as I see no improvement in quality with the latest divx build, just slower encode times.

In the end, I prefer divx. Mainly because of it's built in filters such as resize, crop, psychovisual enhancement. That way I can use fast recompress mode mode in Virtualdub instead of using Vdub's own filters that require you to use full processing mode(slower). However when working with nearly flawless sources I find that xvid produces a slightly crisper picture. If there's any kind of filtering that needs to be done I always go with divx.

[hhhhbk]

However when working with nearly flawless sources I find that xvid produces a slightly crisper picture. If there's any kind of filtering that needs to be done I always go with divx.

what i meant was working with a dvd source and xvid you can get files which look the same/better than divx and are smaller
i find you can get 100 minutes of xvid [dvd source] on one 700mb cd so only 600mb video 100mb mp3 audio
wheras with divx it is really pushing it to fit a 100 minute movie in 600mb

havent tried divx for a couple months may give it a go next time i rip a dvd

[DVWannaB]

I sometimes dread getting into to these sort of discussions (although there has been no bloodshed so far), I will just offer my experience so far (all of 2-3 months of extensive use/tests).

My experience showed that:

1) At low video bitrates 1500 and lower (for example), XviD was the clear hands down winner as far as quality is concerned. Thats using relatively the same/similar settings (to my knowledge).

2) At bitrates higher than 2000 (video), I find them very very similar and at times I cant say which is better.

So I would say XviD compresses better than DivX and while not fast in a 2-pass mode is certainly faster than DivX.

[Suntan]

@teegee420

If you have never tried using avisynth to do filtering I would suggest trying it. That way you can still use Fast Recompress in Vdub and keep the video in YUV colorspace. Plus there are much better resize capabilities using avisynth. Just a suggestion though.


@anyone that complains about these types of posts

Get over it, genpcb clearly asked "based on anyones experience". By replying with only something like "what ever you think is best", and not actually giving any opionion you really are not helping him.

-Suntan

[teegee420]

If you have never tried using avisynth to do filtering I would suggest trying it. That way you can still use Fast Recompress in Vdub and keep the video in YUV colorspace. Plus there are much better resize capabilities using avisynth. Just a suggestion though.

I appreciate the suggestion but I have already gone through my trials with Avisynth. It's a very powerful tool but just not for me. Learning all the different script syntax made me remember why I hated DOS so much. GUI all the way, baby.

[DVWannaB]

I agree, its about time the developers created a GUI a la Virtualdub, where any new filter created can be added if desired. I know some will say AviScript or AVSGenie, but those dont cut the mustard for me.

BTW, go with XviD (I'm no thread jacker )

[xtreemkareem]

I heard someone mention divX 5.05. Is 5.05 much different than DivX 5.04????

5.04 was the latest version I had before trying the enwest DivX 5.1 and 5.11... both of which I hated. Besides being rediculously slow and having a much stupider looking GUI, I noticed a lot of color bleeding with psychovisual and many artifacts w/ QPEL. I personally liked DivX 5.04, but if 5.05 is any better, I think I'll do a ner search and give it a try. Although I like XviD quality better for 1 CD encodes, I still can't seem to eliminate artifacts with XviD... the ocassional vertical banding in dark areas, and that funky trailing edge noise. DivX 5 never gave me those problems. At any rate, there needs to be a guide explaining incompatibilities of settings in XviD... w/ so many settings, I'm sure that some combinations end up causing some weird problems. That and TMPGenc and XviD audio are rivals for eternity... just can't work together. In regards to VirtualDub DivX encoding via avisynth, doesn't that produce a loss in quality due to colorspace conversion? Exceptr for the newest AviSynth, doesn't the older one function in YUV2 (16 bits) colorspace whereas DVD colorspace is YV12 (12 bits)? With less bits needed per pixel, wouldn't YV12 look better than YUY2 at the same bitrate (also keeping in mind thae fact that you are dealing in native colourspace of DVD w/ YV12)??? That's why use XMPEG... though it has its bugs as well....

[Suntan]

@xtreemkareem

If memory serves, DivX5.05 was better then 5.04. I agree that both 5.1 and 5.1.1 were less than steller, they were the reason I tried Xvid in the first place (and never looked back). Must add that ffdshow is highly recommended over Xvids decoder btw.

As for Avisynth and Vdub, no you do not need to change colorspace as long as you keep Vdub in "fast recompress". Vfapi and Vdub require a colorspace conversion.

-Suntan

[RabidDog]

what is best ... best in regards to what?? quality is totally in the eye of the beholder.. if someone says which is sharper, gives smaller filesizes, is faster, easier to use .. these are objective criteria that can be measured and discussed. Sometimes asking the right questions is more difficult than understanding the answers
For me .. I am starting to prefer divx ..quicker,smoother and less sync issues IMHO
Xvid gives a sharper picture, a tad slower, less support
But all these things depend nearly as much on where you intend to watch the stuff, also what else you intend to do with it (family,friends) what playback device? I regard 1500k as a high bitrate 1200k as medium...900k as low..above 2000k whooah!