DivX VS SVCD

[cyrax83]

Ok, i have read countless forums and posts and websites and need to address the issue of DivX VS SVCD.. Ok here are my details.

I use my guide at http://www.angelfire.com/hiphop/members/dvd.htm to encode to divX. I am a newbie to encoding and ripping, i have encoded 2 movies to DivX, The Matrix and Final Fantasy and they are pretty good (de-interlacing is an issue which needs to be addressed...) I DO NOT have a standalone DVD player so all i really use the rips are for playing on my computer and sometimes i hook up my tv using tv-out.

Ok now, all my rips i put on 2x700 meg cd's.

Now, for 2x700 meg cd's, i have heard SVCD has much better audio and video quality than DivX for this amount of space. If i choose to encode in SVCD from now on i will use DVD2SVCD.

Also i live in Australia so all my DVD's are PAL and practically all of them are interlaced so i will have to run a deinterlace filter, the one i always run is Blend Fields together, is this the best deinterlace filter and keep in mind that i have to deinterlace when saying DivX or SVCD

Now, should i RIP into DivX or SVCD?!??!

[Doom9]

when you encode to svcd you don't really have to worry about interlacing. SVCD is mpeg2 which supports interlacing so just keep it the way it is. Also.. most pal DVDs aren't really interlaced.. they just have a swapped field order and the interlaced field on. Try it out in dvd2avi.. create a project.. use the preview.. if it's interlaced, swap the field order and do another preview. Work with many titles.

as for divx... lower audio quality certainly isn't true.. in fact you can use AC3 which would even give you higher quality. And generally mpeg4 on which divx is based yields better compression and hence you get better quality for equal amount of space.

However, I cannot comment on the quality of tv-out as I only watch my stuff on the pc screen (try convincing mum to have a pc in the living room and you're in for a very rough ride).

[cyrax83]

so SVCD or DivX?
and also doesnt swap field order give you that combing effect on the video?

[diji1]

i dunno why ur asking that question again, but i'll
answer it.

divx gives greater quality than svcd in both sound and
visual departments for the same file size.

personally i'd only consider svcd if i wanted to play it
on a standalone player... which i dont.

divx it is! :)

[ppera2]

Motion is big problem by SVCD. You must set really high bitrate to avoid blockness by fast motion. In this case onto 1 CD fits only some 40 min....

[mrbass]

The bitrate above 1600 seems just fine with 3 or 4 passes of CCE for motion movies. I've seen group releases where they used CCE and it sucked so hard (blocky up the ying yang) it was pathetic and gave CCE a bad name in my book.

Basically SVCD appeals to those who can afford a dvd player to hookup to their TV. Much harder to trade on the net thus less popularity than divx. If I didn't have a standalone DVD player I'd myself would definitely be a divx nut guaranteed and probably rig my computer to my TV.

[cyrax83]

But even though i dont have a standalone DVD Player most people say that SVCD looks better than DivX on computer if you use the size of 2x700 meg CDS = 1400 megs, for that amount of space most say SVCD looks alot better...

[diji1]

You need a new monitor... :) - ( joking )...

Seriously tho... I've only ever made one svcd before - basically never did again becaude the quality of divx just caned it completely, especially during scenes with motion. I found a few specs at http://www.vcdhelp.com/svcd.htm :

Video:
max ~2600 bit/sec MPEG-2
480 x 576 pixels
25 frames/second
with up to 4 Subtitles

Audio:
from 32 - 384 kbit/sec MPEG- 1 layer2 or MPEG-2
with up to 2 Audio Tracks

Can't see how svcd would be better - all bar 1 of my rips are 2cds ( been a mystery too me why american psycho compressed so damn well - it was almost if it couldnt get big enough fit on 2cds ) and ive never gone that low in resolution before, ever. And also my encodes regualrly go above that bitrate during scenes that require it- i kinda think the motion would be represented better this being the case.

In the end tho i guess its up to the individual - why dont you experiment a bit and tell us what you find out ??

[ try gordian knot / divx3.11 ]

...also - is "most ppl" friends of yours, stuff you read on the web (links pls) or both of them.

Bye!

[cyrax83]

most people are people on the web..

[macdaddy]

If you are only going to play these things on a computer, use DivX...

If you will play them on a compatible standalone, use SVCD.

Viewing SVCD on the computer? I find that the 480x480 is what bothers me the most about doing this. The image doesn't scale as nicely. If you know what you are doing with DivX, you can resize, compress more efficiently, and then scale the image back up when viewing on the computer. To me, this seemed to be one of the primary things theWEF was doing when he started working on GordianKnot...

SVCDs look great if played through a standalone player. If you are going to use TVout, DivX is the way to go. DivX will also look better when you move up to an HDTV, because of the aforementioned scaling issue (which is the dilema I face now)...

The only caveat would be if you have a dxr3/h+ card. I swear the TV-Out (dxr3) looks better than either of the standalones I have hooked up, and it looks good on the monitor, too. If someone could get that thing to play SVCDs (I have problems using the h+ drivers with the dxr3, so for stability I am stuck with Creative's software), they probably would look good via TV-out as well as when viewed on the computer screen...

One last thought. If possible, make sure that you set your monitor's refresh rate to a multiple of the framerate of you movie. If you do this correctly, the image quality will increase...

[diji1]

If possible, make sure that you set your monitor's refresh rate to a multiple of the framerate of you movie. If you do this correctly, the image quality will increase...

...thats interesting, i will have to try that. Do you know of any apps that enable u to fine-tune ur monitor refresh rate by 1Hz - im assuming u mean something like for a 24 fps
divx i should tune to 96Hz right ??

[ScooterMyth]

Actually when I rip I make both. Divx for when I'm travelling so I can play the movie on my notebook, SVCD for playing on my standalone at home.