Why DivX?

[Pyscrow]

I was just wondering why everyone seems so gungho about "backing up" DVD's to DivX?

I have not tried it myself, but having a quick read around the place, it appears to be quiet a convoluted process? (Many steps)

There does not appear to be much about going back from DivX to DVD format,(does no one ever need to "retrieve" a backup?) but what there is of that also seems to be a convoluted process.

Surely the whole idea of "backing up" something is meant to be a quick and painless process? IE easy to back up and easy to retrieve?

I mean what I do is make a working copy of the DVD, so my DVD player can play it, and keep the original locked away (I have young children), so the issue has never really affected me, as I have not as yet come across a DVD player that plays DivX, but I am intrigued, why DivX for backups if the process is so convoluted? Is it a hangover from the days when blank DVD's were worth a fortune, and size was paramount?

[ObsidianGT]

Any process that takes MPEG2 and compresses/encodes it to MPEG4 - like DivX or XviD is lossy. It's usually not recommended to go "BACK" to DVD format, since some of the information is lost during the encoding (transcoding) process. You'd be better off getting an MPEG4 playback-capable DVD player that supports codecs like DivX, XviD and container formats like .AVI, (and .OGM and .MKV soon enough). EDIT: KiSS, Samsung, LiteOn and others already have many models that can do this already.

Why are you complaining though? The term "backup" is subjective and perhaps you see it differently than it was originally meant to be taken as.

[killingspree]

Is it a hangover from the days when blank DVD's were worth a fortune, and size was paramount?
no actually it still comes from the days when backing up DVDs to DVDs was simply impossible due to the inexistance of DVD writers for the end user range.
far more, a lot of people do watch their movies on the computer, so why 'waste' 4.7 gigs if you can have almost (!!) the same quality on 700 to 1400 MB. of course the divx/xvid userbase is shrinking since dvd writers and media have become affordable, but this hasn't been the fact for all too long.
hope this makes sense
steVe

[Pyscrow]

Thanks fella's,
Did not occur to me it would be a "hangover" from THAT long ago killingspree! (More I suspected it had a bit to do with download times over BitTorrent..)

And Obsidian GT, not complaining - just intrigued.... If you think thats complaining - I assume your not married? (or not for long anyway)

:D

[killingspree]

Originally posted by Pyscrow

Did not occur to me it would be a "hangover" from THAT long ago killingspree!


You're welcome :)

anyway, calling it a 'hangover' would probably upset quite a few people. as you can see both xvid and divx are still under heavy development and there's still a lot of people doing dvd2divx/xvid backups. honestly i still do some backups this way. or at least partially. did you know that you could easily fit a whole friends season on one DVDR in good quality.
or the DV movie i shot from my last holidays, to five it to my uncle in canada, i simply compressed it with xvid, encoded the audio to mp3 and uploaded the whole thing to his companies FTP server over my fathers T3 connection at work. only an hour after i uploaded it, he sent me a mail telling me how amazing this holiday must have been etc etc :)

(More I suspected it had a bit to do with download times over BitTorrent..) well again, it still is. or why do you think we are so alergic when it comes to rule 6 around here. especially in the newbies of course. for distributability, nothing can beat divx/xvid atm - you have to admit that much, or did you ever consider a 4.7 gig video :D

kr
steVe

[KGarcia]

My first post

Personally I’ve used GK for a long while but now I use autoGK and do max quality backups on to DVD+R format for $1 a disc. I tried out dvd shrink but on longer movies where you had to lower the bit rate I wasn't pleased with the results. So, that’s why I'm still using DivX 5.1.1 pro, to get those longer movies at max quality for about 3.5gigs and even keeping the AC3.

As for playing them back.. I personally have read about the different options, such as, XCard, ATI HDTV adapter, or using a standalone player. Soon I'll make my choice.. But not till I get my HDTV back :/

[starwarsandrisk]

alright..... you can all give all the all the reasons for this.... but truely.... i think the real reason is that way we can all share movies.... its much easier to share a 700 meg movie than a 4.7 gig.... really.... mpeg4 and all of its cronies may have better uses here in the near future... but as of right now.... me and everyone else... we use it to compress and send on video... all public domain of course ;)

[jggimi]

@ starwarsandrisk:

Your post might be considered humorous. It was certainly flippant. However, I strongly believe it was both misleading and terribly reckless.

Doom9, this forum, and its 48,000+ members stridently enforce the intellectual property rights of the entertainment industry. This is done through both the moderation team as well as cultural enforcement by the forum membership at large.

We do this to protect Doom9, his websites, this forum, and its members from litigation by trade associations representing content owners, or direct litigation by content owners. But we also do this because ... such behavior isn't right.

http://forum.doom9.org/forum-rules.htm
http://forum.doom9.org/announcement.php?s=&forumid=6
http://www.doom9.org/disclaimer.htm

Please understand that people reading your posts cannot see your face, and cannot hear you speaking. There is no easy way to tell if you are trying to make a joke. And you certainly have misread the forum if you believe it supports content sharing in any way.

[Pyscrow]

Originally posted by jggimi
[B]@ starwarsandrisk:

Your post might be considered humorous. It was certainly flippant. However, I strongly believe it was both misleading and terribly reckless.


Well,Starwarsandrisk, sorry to lead the thread into the dangerous path of the rare, but unavoidable "Upseticus Modicus", and causing much gnashing of teeth and frothing of the mouth. When I lead you over the precipice causing your intended "tongue in cheek" to be be missread as "foot in mouth" by the aformentioned vile beastie!

[Doom9]

You can a) fit one movie in inferiour quality on a DVD-R using a one click tool, or b) fit 6 movies in DivX/XviD (preferably the latter because I think it looks much better), in quality that is often indistinguishable from the original (of course we're not talking about LOTR => 700 MB), or c) fit one movie in good quality on a DVD-R

Option a) and b) use one click tools (AutoGK really is easy to handle), option c) uses the big 3 which is too much for the average user (and if you throw in multiangles and seamless branching it's more of a "I want to be able to do it" than "I do it regularly because I have nothing better to do with my time" thing. If I actually backed up my DVDs (I just keep them under lock and don't give them out to clueless morons who don't know how to handle a disc and return it all scratched), the up to 6 movies on one disc looks a lot more attractive than the other options. Once dual layer becomes affordable, the one clickers will go nuts over it, but just imagine how many 1 CD movies you can put on a 8.5 GB disc. Even with todays DVD-Rs, you could say put an entire trilogy as 2 CD rips and AC3 sound on a single DVD-R, and play them in more and more standalones (I already have two of them in my house). If you want to watch the entire LOTR trilogy (okay, the 3rd one isn't out on DVD yet), as extended edition, you either have the choice in changing discs 5 times, or having the entire thing in DivX and not change discs a single time.. isn't that quite practical? Or you can give the entire trilogy on one disc to your scratchy friends ;) Or, with standalones coming up that can handle high res MPEG-4 and WMV9 content, you can put a couple of HD movies on a DVD (okay, we'll soon need dual layer discs for that to preserve the high quality), something which you can't do with the standard DVD format.

And the entire VOD industry can really use a smaller than DVD format because todays infrastructure just doesn't permit streaming of up to 10mbit/s content. And how many people do still have a 56k modem? I doubt any of them will upload a 700 MB movie.

Anyway, the whole "why do you use this and that format" is pointless, and has been pointless since the beginning. Each and everyone has their personal preference and makes the format decision according to those preferences. No preference is good or bad, they're just different. So, let everybody have his or her favorite format. Why should it matter if person X uses a different format?

[richarddd]

I have a lightweight notebook without a built-in optical drive that I use as a movie player when travelling, etc. Compared to copying DVD's to the hard drive, xvid lets me store more movies and play them with less processing power. Much lighter weight than getting a notebook with optical drive or a separate optical drive for this notebook or a standalone portable DVD player plus, in each case, carrying a bunch of DVD's.

[ammck55]

Pyscrow--A vile beastie that gnashes its teeth and froths at the mouth? How quaint!

With the addition of Doom9's post, your question has been thoroughly covered. To avoid any further "gnashing and frothing", I believe I'll now close it. :rolleyes:

Thread closed.

ammck55