Which encoder version was used?

[biggo]

Hi, newbie questions approaching:

Is it possible somehow to see, which encoder version
was used to encode a movie?

I've downloaded several DVD DivX movies but when I right-click - select properties and choose "Summary" it always states "Video compression: DIVXMPG V3". Is that right?

If it is, then I don't understand why people don't use DivX v4 og v5 to encode, as it should produce a much better result?

Furthermore, why are most movies running at 23.9fps? It stutters during panning shots. Is there any way to make it smooth?

Thanks for your time.

[Doom9]

http://www.doom9.org/codec3-1.htm will show you that a higher version number doesn't necessarily mean better, especially since DivX3 (which is the codec that was used to encode those movies you got) is something completely different and unrelated to DivX4/5. Imho DivX3, when properly done (that means SBC and not Flask!) can yield better results than DivX5 (and DivX4 as well of course).

Why 23.976fps? Because that's close to the native speed the movie was shot (24fps). In order to make the video NTSC compatible studios have to apply a 3:2 or 2:3 pulldown (http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/synch.htm) to get it to 29.97fps. If you read the linked article you should understand why 29.97fps is not more fluent, in fact it's less fluent as you duplicate some fields.

[theReal]

Furthermore, why are most movies running at 23.9fps? It stutters during panning shots. Is there any way to make it smooth?Have you ever noticed stuttering in the movie theater? The movies are running with 24fps there and you can also notice slight jerkyness in movement sometimes. That's just the way it is...

[Doom9]

@thereal: good point. I once believed that what was shown in the movie theater was the ultimate experience but then I started ripping and trained my I/O input to notice the slightest defects and now I find all the film grain you can see in the theater just horrible.
And more and more I also notice deficiencies on DVDs so when there's a HD DVD standard that's there to stay I will certainly upgrade.