Divx vs Xvid

[matthew_77]

I am looking for some opinions on what is a better type of codec, Xvid or Divx? First, I am sure there have been several threads that have gone over this subject, but you can image what happened when I put Divx and Xvid in the search option. Lets just says there were a few threads that were found. I travel alot, so instead of bringing a case of DVDs I usually just backup my DVDs directly to my computer, a lot easier to travel with. I am looking for great quality with good compression. I am not putting this on an Ipod so, compression is not as important as quality, but at the same time I don't want a 8GB movie.

[Dark Shikari]

Didn't we just have this thread a couple days ago? Use the search feature.

If you want compression and quality, and you're just making backups, you'll probably be better off with x264 anyways.

[Shinigami-Sama]

it pretty much boils down to if you a modern CPU(>1400mhz) if you have that then may as well go with x264, you can actually go less than that if you've got CoreAVC(its like 20$)

one other note about x264, you should check back on it every few weeks/months for updates, unlike Xvid X264 is updated very often and is almost always better

[Ranguvar]

x264 is better for pretty much everything except situations where you need the video to work in a specific standalone, or it needs to be playable on a very slow computer. x264 can encode faster than Xvid/DivX, and with much higher quality.

But if you do have one of the two above cases, I prefer Xvid... it's free, it's open source, and IMO the quality is better. DivX has better multi-threading, and might be better in situations where you need very fast encoding (I have not tested), but IMO it smooths too much. Single-frame comparisons sometimes give DivX an advantage, because it smooths more, but I've found that usually the artifacts Xvid produces are usually hard to see when watching a full-motion video, and DivX just loses detail.

If it means that much to you, get both and test them. Quality is subjective.