needing to settle a arguement xvid or svcd

[doby]

hi all

i'm having a small arguement with 1 of my m8s about svcd and xvid, say im going to create a svcd and 1 cd xvid version of a dvd movie (the movie will be around 1 1/2 hours long) both using the source material.

if all the encoding in both cases is done correctly which will be of higher quality?

i say the xvid and my m8 says the svcd whos right :) which of the 2 formats is closer to dvd quality.

no need to worry about playing back etc just want to know which is the more superior quality?

[communist]

1 SVCD wont hold the complete movie AFAIK. So if its about putting the same movie (90min long) in MPEG2 and MPEG4 on ONE (!) CD - the clear winner is MPEG4 (XviD).

[RexManning]

Full ack.

And with XviD you can use Ogg Vorbis and save some extra space compared to SVCD's MP2.

[doby]

yup i know 1 cd wont take a full svcd movie, i'm talking about comparing 1 cd xvid with 2 cd svcd's.

[hoozdapimp]

id say it's about even then.

[Asmodian]

So to rephrase your question: Is Xvid usually better quality then MPEG2 at twice the bit rate?

I must say I have never done this comparison but I would be inclined to state that if one is fine with having two CDs then the best option is Xvid on two CDs.

If you are capable of producing both I suggest doing a comparison of a complete movie in both formats. Please update us with your results if you do this.

EDIT: My instinct aggress with hoozdapimp but I think the Xvid might actually be better, I compress a 5Gb DVD to a 1Gb Xvid with very little apparent quality loss (and the difference in bit rate of ~5:1 is much larger then your example of 2:1). Yours might be a different case due to the smaller bit rates involved but low bit rate MPEG2 doesn't look very good, IMHO.

[stephanV]

Be careful before comparing anything...

As already said:
And with XviD you can use Ogg Vorbis and save some extra space compared to SVCD's MP2.

So what you are actually doing is testing the rigidness of the SVCD-format against the versatility of a MPEG4-stream in a avi/mp4/matroska-container. Keep this in mind when you do decide to do a test.

That you need 2 CDs for SVCD and you are able to put a XviD encode at 1 CD but also could choose for 2, should tell your friend enough IMO.

One plus for SVCD: it will play on almost any DVD-player out there (as long as it not broken ;) )

[Blue_MiSfit]

hands down (unless you requre standalone or have less than a pentium 200 to play) XviD wins. For the following reasons:

1) Mpeg-4 advances (in motion prediction, bframes, gmc, qpel, quantization, etc...) which yield better compression
2) Container/Format flexibility (ogm, mkv, avi, mp4 etc...) and thus multiple audio formats
3) Due to better compresssion, XviD can encode (in this case certainly) a higher resolution than SVCD can. This (hopefully) clean and artifact free video will thus be sharper than SVCD when played back full screen
4) You only need 1 cd for XviD. 2 can yield better than DVD quality if processed well
5) XviD is all open source :)

The ONLY thing svcd has going for it is the hardware support.
~misfit

[stephanV]

Originally posted by Blue_MiSfit
4) 2 can yield better than DVD quality if processed well


thats of course not true... you won't go higher in quality than the DVD-source provided

[Danzel]

@stephanV
Dont forget that quality is a subjective measure of uh... quality.
And also there are some pretty shocking dvds out there ;)

Danzel.

[stephanV]

yes... but will XviD improve the quality of such a DVD? i don't even know if there is such a thing as "DVD-quality". as you say... some DVDs don't look to good to begin with.

but i think this discussion is dealt with in multiple threads, no need to bring it up again... :)

[chilledoutuk]

perhaps he is talking about using xvid with hdtv quality video in which case xvid would be capapble of producing better quality than dvd at a simular bitrate or less.

[SeeMoreDigital]

At the end of the day this thread is just another Mpeg2 versus Mpeg4 debate... All of which has been brought up many times before!


Cheers

[kilg0r3]

YEp, i am already bored as hell. Can't believe I read it to the bottom.:rolleyes: