Head-to-Head Comparison

[Really Ripped]

I have done a Head-to-Head comparison of my original VOB ripped from a DVD to a final Divx5 project.

With running both video streams at the same time in two different windows I'm noticing my Divx5 movie has a slight 'out-of-focus' characteristic to it. Now this is at FULLSCREEN on a PC monitor at 1024x768 resolution and I'm flipping back and forth between the fullscreens using Alt+Tab. Am I really really looking at quality up close.

For example, if I'm watching a scene with a close-up on an actors face... On the original VOB, I can make of the fine pores of the skin on the face of the actor. In the Divx5 movie these pores are more 'smoothed' over and really kinda out-of-focus.

Is this normal? Or am I using a wrong type of filter or option?

I use:
> sharp bicubic resize filter
> the divx5 pro bidirectional option
> the divx5 pro gmc option

[Acaila]

Yes that's normal for DivX5. DivX3 and XviD are slightly better in that respect.

You could try a slight sharpening filter to get rid of the out-of-focus effect, but you won't gain more detail it will just look sharper.

But discarding detail is exactly what makes the compression from DVD->DivX5 possible.