Divx5 or Xvid at current state?

[bluesix]

I would like to upgrade from Divx4.12 . I have the following concerns about Xvid:

Playback on many different PCs. Is it enough to just download the codec or do people have to change the property settings in their players to properly view my movies?

What is the current minimum system requirement for smooth Xvid playback?

How would you compare overall filesize and quality of Div5 vs Xvid.

Note: a tie would go to Xvid since it is not spyware.

Which codec requires the least configuration tweaking?

Is Xvid compatible with Premiere?

[Koepi]

Please, please, pretty please USE the search button.

[sffubs]

Installing the directshow codec or ffdshow will guarantee playback on all directshow players in my experience.

Dunno about minimum requirements; using ffdshow people say that 500MHz is enough.

Quality vs. filesize: this is the contentious issue. I believe XviD has the edge due to its sheer configurability; particularly with regard to the bitrate curves. With b-frames pretty much working and q-pel nearly there DivX 5 no longer has a technical advantage over XviD either.

Importantly, XviD also has the ability to hit a target filesize/bitrate, which DivX 4/5 had trouble with last time I saw it.

I suspect that DivX 5 requires less tweaking, but I haven't compared XviD with DivX 5 'out of the box' recently.

I have no experience with premiere :)

Good luck,

--sffubs

[Koepi]

XviD has an DirectShow and an VfW interface and thus should be compatible with premiere.

Out of the box-settings in XviD are quite good for nearly everything. you can gain some quality with tweaking around, but loose even more, so just do that if you know what you're doing.

Koepi

[vinetu]

Is Xvid compatible with Premiere?

unfortunately NO!
if you open xvid.avi it will play OK as clip -
but on the Timeline you'll see only black frames ...
Also it's incompatible with AfterEffect -
the message on open file is:
"After Effects error:retrieving frame from video stream (3)"

even if every frame is keyframe (like in MJPG codecs)!

Anyway xvid is THE BEST CODEC for "backups"!!!

[ic3p1ck]

Apologies for resurrecting this old thread, but I'm having the same issue with premiere pro and playback with xvid avi's. I have tried different encoding settings (e.g. disable b-frames etc) with xvid to see if I can determine why premiere is not showing the playback window but without success.

I have tried divx and it works fine. Is there a known issue with xvid 1.0 and premiere pro.

[ic3p1ck]

Interesting.... I encoded and configured xvid to use 'divx' as the fourcc code and it works now. I take it that the divx codec is being used for decoding? Must be something to do with xvid's decoder and premiere pro :confused:

[PowerMacG4]

Originally posted by ic3p1ck
Interesting.... I encoded and configured xvid to use 'divx' as the fourcc code and it works now. I take it that the divx codec is being used for decoding? Must be something to do with xvid's decoder and premiere pro :confused:

I believe those are known problems with the vfw interface and they should be fixed in the next release (I think I saw the fixes in cvs)