Debate: DVD to SVCD or DIVX? Which do you prefer?

[EuGeNiLe]

i am fairly new at all of this and ive done a couple of successful conversions.. but what a good thing came to mind is in the long wrong.. should i continue to make svcd conversions or dvix conversions..

its quite a hard decision..

svcd because i can play it on external dvd players.. and has some extra features..

dvix because each movie can take only 1 disc unlike svcd.. where it usually requires 2.. also the process seems to be faster..

unfornately the videocard i have now does not have a video out.. so thats why i am leaning more towards svcd..

which do you guys prefer and why?

[MxxCon]

you perfectly listed almost all reasons why somebody would pick divx or svcd :)
what else is there to say?;)

[UHT]

i prefer divx, main reason is that i dont have a standalone dvd player...for the reaosn that i have built a dedicated machine for movie playback with a good quality tv out card

[Migsan76]

I prefer DivX too because i think that gives me better quality and i don't have a stanalone DVD Player. I think that DivX have more flexibility.

For now i watch my movie in my monitor (i have 19'), but soon i will buy a good TV-Out card to watch them in my 16:9 TV :)

[TactX]

I think that DivX have more flexibility.

SVCD can be watched on a PC and on a Standalone. For DivX you need a PC.

Do you really call that flexibility ?

[western shinma]

I think he meant more flexibility in terms of encoding rather than playback, for example resolution and audio codecs.

[ChristianHJW]

Why make a decision ? I do both in almost any case ;)

[wmansir]

For me it's simple, I did divx until I got a standalone. Now I do SVCD. SVCD also allows you to let a friend borrow a movie even if they don't have a computer, or fast enough computer, or they just don't want to watch it on their computer.

And what's the point of making a backup if not to let your damn irresponsable friends borrow them instead of the originals. At least my friends are irresponsable, you may be a better judge of character.

wes

[Mikele]

I do Divx and SVCD of almost every movie I rip. CDRs are cheap (OK, not here in Argentina, but that's another story), there's no need to choose between one or the other.

[buba king]

SVCD.. standalone and better quality.. nuff said.

[diji1]

better quality

HUH!

[Kandor]

If you have good enough bitrate svcd looks better than the divx but nothing can beat divx on 1 cd in terms of quality but if you make 2 cd rips I choose svcd
some otherthings that nice with divx is the ac3 mux. you can have a ac3 sound with divx but no SVCD player that I know can handle a svcd with muxed ac3 sound
btw I am a sound freak and I dont think any of them sound good enough so I go for svcd anyway because of the sharpness in the picture and the abebility to play them on topsets.

Gramaphone baby, thats the way to go for the sound :)

[diji1]

If you have good enough bitrate svcd looks better than the divx but nothing can beat divx on 1 cd in terms of quality

naaaa - what about resolution ? ... apart from the fact that (s)vcd picture quality turns to an ugly lump of macroblocks in high motion scenes as well and no amount of extra bitrate can remedy that ( at least not within (s)vcd specs )... ok, so divx does that too, but to a far lesser extent.

...if you make 2 cd rips I choose svcd...

because ? divx quality for 2cds beats (s)vcd quality by a whopping margin .....

I am a sound freak and I dont think any of them sound good enough...

er, so you just go for the lower quality then ?

sorry if i seem to be "having a go", id be interested in ur reply :)

[cofferscuffs]

diji1 is right, DivX (3/4/or even XviD) is best for high-resolutions, so long as the bitrate is not too low of course. As for the macroblock problem, this is universal, but still DivX has major problems when it comes to extreme high motion (e.g. water) when SVCD handles it slightly better in some cases (probably due to the lower resolution).

Both 1CD and 2CD rips I chose SBC DivX (manually or Gknot - depends if I'm feeling lazy :p) as I don't mind that there isn't a standalone player yet (even though DivXNetworks has just signed a contact with someone who makes onboard chips), and there probably never will be for DivX 3.11alpha :( due to groups prefering SBC encodes to DivX 4.

Sound however is a different matter. It's all about finding a good video quality/sound quality balance. I choose for my encodes at least 220kbps ABR MP3, but normally I use R3Mix encodes. This is easy, even for one CD as long as you do not use a too high resolution and the bitrate is not too low.

[ChristianHJW]

You need a 4 CD S-VCD or X-VCD encoding to compare quality to a well done 2 CD DivX rip ....

[Migsan76]

With 6 or 7 Cd's you can split the DVD Vob's and have a perfect backup of DVD ... LOL

DivX is the future! Soon or later will came standalone players that support DivX movies....

[Ripe73]

Originally posted by Migsan76
With 6 or 7 Cd's you can split the DVD Vob's and have a perfect backup of DVD ... LOL

DivX is the future! Soon or later will came standalone players that support DivX movies....

Do you think we can watch the DivX movies on a standalone with a *.avi file on a cdr?
Maybe we need to reburn all our Divx movies:D and subtitlesupport?

[Migsan76]

i dont mention that i could play the film in a standalone player.... it was just a joke.... but could be a solution to play a real DVD copy in your home PC.... gives all que quality that we always wish :)

[b0b0b0b]

Can SVCD's be anamorphic, or are they always 4:3? if widescreen movies must be letterboxed, then that's pretty annoying.

I looked at doom's svcd guide and didn't see a part where you flip the bit in the mpeg stream saying what the aspect ratio is.

[Kandor]

Yeah I choose the lower quality sound because both sound files sound like shit.
and I choose svcd because of the crispness in the picture.
divx is just a big blurr.
and btw this is what I think not how it is.
divx 4 is to blurry, divx 3.11 alpha is not blurry but has a lot of other things and I choose the lower quality sound to be able to encode a svcd not that I dont think it matter at all with the sound just that I think the quality of the video has to be good to and svcds with dd tracks, I havent heared of.
Try a dark movie with divx and try it then with mpeg2.
and try to look for details in the backround and compare.
doesnt matter that divx has higher res than svcd, svcd look a lot sharper to me than divx does.
so I think I have answered the questions about how I could think like this.

[oddball]

SVCD

Against:

1. 480x480 res
2. 4:3 Non-Anamorphic (Never seen an anamorphic SVCD) thus SVCD's have to be zoomed on widescreen TV's which never looks as good.
3. No AC3 capability.
4. Takes up more space to get similar results as DiVX

For:
1. MPEG2 compression
2. Plays on *SOME* but not all stand alone players (Big boo boo for some owners).

DiVX

Against:
1. Not portable to stand alone DVD players.
2. Not portable to stand alone DVD players.

Cannot think of anything else ;)

For:

1. Higher resolutions
2. Smaller file sizes
3. More options for encoding to taste
4. AC3 playback for true DD5.1 surround sound
5. Anamorphic capability (Not many use it though)
6. Works better for widescreen TV owners (Like me) :)

[Kandor]

about the anamorphic on svcd, just encode the movie with the anamorphic resolution.

[oddball]

That's OK if you are encoding it. But nobody else seems to. DiVX does a nice fake anamorphic squeeze on my TV out whereas SVCD doesn't because the black bars are encoded.

[Kandor]

Ohh ok you mean like that. I thought you where talking about to encode anamorphic
and mpeg2 sertently can handle anamorphic (DVDs).
but that actually is a nice thing with divx. and I guess you mean like the 16:9 settings in bsplayer or powerdivx

[wmansir]

@oddball
you might want to add this to your list

Divx:
-Some content problems
refering to high motion /low contrast content issues divx has. High motion is a problem for both, but low contrast really throws divx for a loop, while svcd handles it much better (water, toons, walls, ect)

SVCD:
+Encodes interlaced sources
(nuff said)
+standardized
Divx is an active and evolving format, which is why I wouldn't count the standardization issue as a negative for Divx, but a positive for SVCD.

[oddball]

True. DiVX has it's limitations in the video itself. Xvid is working towards the blocking issues but I doubt it will get as near as MPEG2 anyhow. SVCD/MPEG2 simply uses a higher bitrate. Thus has bits more to deal with those tricky water type scenes.

Interlace is a whole new kettle of fish. I would love to see Xvid or any other MPEG4 variant deal with this issue head on. Simply having lots of different filters during the encode process is a big pain in the ass.

[Taxidermista]

Originally posted by Migsan76
With 6 or 7 Cd's you can split the DVD Vob's and have a perfect backup of DVD ... LOL

DivX is the future! Soon or later will came standalone players that support DivX movies....


DivX the future?? :confused:

The future, I think, is uncompressed hi-res video. Do you think 300/400 GB in 5 inches of plastic will be a problem in a couple of years?

[NearlyCritical]

Quote:

naaaa - what about resolution ? ... apart from the fact that (s)vcd picture quality turns to an ugly lump of macroblocks in high motion scenes as well and no amount of extra bitrate can remedy that ( at least not within (s)vcd specs )...


I agree that VCD will sometimes deteriorate into macroblocks in high motion scenes, but a well encoded SVCD (CCE, high bitrate), doesn't have this problem. In over 100 movies I have encoded to SVCD the only times I have ever had macroblocks is with anime movies, and even then CCE does a great job of reducing this problem.

SVCDs are only going to be popular until it is cheap and easy to burn in DVD format, and this really isn't too far away.