12 bit video when encoded with Xvid,why???

[zdes]

why are my movies encoded in GK and Xvid in 12 bit colour??? When I encode with Divx 5.0.5 I get movies in 24 bit colour, but Xvid produces only 12 bit!!! (right click-properties-summary-video: 12 bit)

[JoeShrubbery]

Because neither are what they seem to be. Both are implementations of the mpeg-4 specification and so save the compressed video internally in the YUV12 colour space, which is a 12 bit format. I would assume that Divx just reports the native image depth as 24 bit because for PC playback it would have to be converted and upsampled to RGB24. Meanwhile, Xvid just reports the native image depth as only 12bit. YUV colour formats are more compact and efficient than RGB formats and so can store a better image at lower bitrates (either compressed or uncompressed, but remember those video depth bitrates refer to the uncompressed bit depth only), but your PC monitor displays in RGB formats so anything in YUV played back on a PC will have to be converted to RGB at some point, either by the codec itself or by Windows. I would assume both codecs are capable of passing along either format, among a host of others, depending on what the application reading the file asks for.

[cult]

have a look here
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61458