Question About All the Codecs

[xLusi0n]

OK...newbie question here. I did do a lot of searching and reading so this question is basically just to confirm I understand everything correctly (about this subject):

Some of the top contenders in terms of HD encoding is: DivX, Xvid, WMV, and H.264...with H.264 leading the way.

DivX 7 is the only one out of those above that use H.264 (prior DivX did not use H.264).

DivX, XviD, uses .AVI ... H.264 uses .AVI along with other formats.

WMV, well, uses .WMV.

Thanks.

[Dark Shikari]

Some of the top contenders in terms of HD encoding is: DivX, Xvid, WMV, and H.264...with H.264 leading the way.DivX, Xvid, and WMV are encoders, H.264 is a video format. Not comparable.

The video formats are MPEG-4 ASP, VC-1, and H.264.
DivX, XviD, uses .AVI ... H.264 uses .AVI along with other formats.MPEG-4 ASP can be put in AVI (albeit with hacks, like packed bitstream), MKV, MP4, etc. H.264 in AVI is generally a really bad idea.
WMV, well, uses .WMV.Or AVI, using WMV9 VCM (but not recommended). Or M2TS, like on Blu-ray.

[Manao]

You're mixing apples and oranges here :
- DivX is a brand. DivX implements two different standards : Mpeg4 part 2 (aka ASP), and Mpeg4 part 10 (aka AVC/H264) with DivX 7 release.
- XviD is also a brand. It implements only ASP
- WMV is a thing. It can mean almost anything video related coming from Microsoft, though lately it tends to becomes just the name of the container for VC1, which is the video standard from Microsoft.
- H264, as previously stated, is a standard. x264 implements it, so does DivX7, Mainconcept, Nero, etc...
- AVI is a container. It can contains ASP and AVC, regardless of who did it, though it's not recommended for AVC. DivX puts ASP into AVI (but it recently renamed AVI into... DivX), but will put AVC into MKV (another container, better suited for AVC - and everything actually).

[xLusi0n]

OK...so, H.264 is MPEG-4 Part 10 and DivX and Xvid have been using MPEG-4 Part 2...but now DivX uses H.264 standard also.

So the reason people didn't recommend using DivX 6 (or previous) and Xvid for HD is because it used MPEG-4 Part 2 standard?

AVI is a container like WMV and MKV.

For the most part, WMV-HD uses the VC-1 standard as opposed to the H.264.

So...is it the encoding program that decides what container to put the video into?

Thanks!

[xLusi0n]

Also,

Then what determines whether a video file will play on a player...is it BOTH the container AND the codec used? So if I put a H.264 video in a MKV container...the player would need to support MKV and I would need to have the codec to decode the video?

[Manao]

So...is it the encoding program that decides what container to put the video into?Not necessarily. You can encode without container (for example, x264 outputs a .264 file) and then put the result in a container afterwards (for example, in a mkv, using mkvmerge)
Then what determines whether a video file will play on a player...is it BOTH the container AND the codec used? So if I put a H.264 video in a MKV container...the player would need to support MKV and I would need to have the codec to decode the video?Yes