DivX vs. SVCD! And the winner is...

[amagitsune]

I am converthing all my old VHS tapes of cartoons to a digital format, but want to know which one is better? Do you recommend DivX or SVD for this innane endevor?

A little more info:
I have a CD burner, but no DVD burner will be coming my way any time soon. It would be nice to be able to watch them away from the computer, but that is not necessarily a requirement. I might want to convert them to DVD format at some later point, if there is a good reason to do so (like freedom from computer only viewing...). My machine is not too incredible, PIII 650 with 512 megs of RAM, but it seems to meet minimum requirements for most things.

[Greg12]

depends.

DIVX at a high bitrate if you are going to buy a DVD writter and re-encode.


SVCD if you wanna watch now.

[Mirror_Image]

Do you intend to just archive them to your hard drive for future use, PC viewing and possible TV viewing via video-out, or do you want to watch them on a TV with a stand-alone player? If the TV+stand-alone player, then SVCD. If not, then (as Greg12 wrote) DivX at a high bit rate.

I assume one reason you want to digitize the tapes is to stop the degradation (good idea).

[kinneera]

If you ever have intentions of putting the video on DVD, do not, for the love of god encode it to Divx. It is a codec optimized for low bitrates and much better quality sources than VHS (ideally), so if you're going to use high bitrates anyway, use MPEG2. You may or may not be satisfied with SVCD bitrates, depends on how much time and effort you are willing to commit.

If you only intend to view your video on a computer, then you may prefer Divx.

[vhelp]

amagitsune,

Really, to be quite honest w/ ya, SVCD or even VCD. I mean, how boring
is it when you watch cartoons???

IMO, i don't think that archiving cartoons is all that worth it, you
gotta grow up sooner or later, he, he....

But, really, I would go with SVCD or even VCD cause their just cartoons
you loony! VCS is prob you best bet for this, since you wont really
notice much difference in quality anyways - it's just cartoons. Don't
kill yourself trying to make great quality VHS rips on these. Just
do'em in VCD.

I wouldn't encode to divX though, unless you REALLY want to do nothing
but watch on your PC screen, and then, you'll only get bored anyways,
and so, going through all the trouble of archiving all those vhs tapes
to CD, be it SVCD/VCD or divX isn't really that worth it to spend so
many hours (per tape) to encode. trust be, just do it in VCD and save
yourself the head-ake of hours, and hours of frustration and encoding
time waisted on cartoons, espcecially since there aren't in such good
quality to begin with, LOL, he, he....

And, if you do decide to encode to divX, just remember, should you
actually decide to convert all these divX to VCD or SVCD, LOL you'll
end up creating MORE problems then they are worth, and you'll be right
back here asking a dozen or so more questions only to start all over
again. sheee'sh!

-vhelp