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View Full Version : avi and mpeg4...

keisukey
19th December 2004, 05:47
cant really understand the difference in quality or size...so what's the difference, and which one is better for what?
and how come people sometimes refer divx specifically as avis but not mpeg4?
Cyberman
19th December 2004, 12:14
AVI is a container.

Mpeg4 is a compression technique.


DivX is an Mpeg4 implementation, but itīs mostly used with AVI - and thereīs been a modified AVI format called ".divx" as well, but itīs dead by now.
LordRPI
28th December 2004, 20:07
It's dead?

:cool:
jggimi
28th December 2004, 20:20
My understanding is that ".divx" is just renamed ".avi" and there is no difference between these containers.

I could be wrong, of course. I often am.
LordRPI
28th December 2004, 20:23
For the most part, this was to prevent confusion when DXN had some plans on switching the file format years ago, so in other words the switch would appear more transparent. But that was way before I arrived at DivX. Although, .divx might mean something again in the future.
keisukey
31st December 2004, 08:57
wut if mpeg4 were divx'd?? would that be possible, or would the extension be switched to avi?
Cyberman
31st December 2004, 20:23
Originally posted by keisukey
wut if mpeg4 were divx'd?? would that be possible, or would the extension be switched to avi?
Huh?
jggimi
1st January 2005, 16:08
@keisukey:

I think you may be confused about what MPEG-4 is.

Cyberman mentioned its a compression technique. Its actually a standard, which is used by DivX, XviD, and many other codecs. There is also a container structure known as .mp4 -- and like .avi -- it supports lots of different video codecs.

So you may be confused by the MP4 container, or you may be confused about how MPEG-4 implementations (as codecs in general containers) differs from MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. MPEG-1/2 include their own container formats. MPEG-4 does not.

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Doom9 has spent several years comparing various MPEG-4 codecs; see his Codec Comparisons (http://www.doom9.org/codec-comparisons.htm) web page for information.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=73022 discusses the MPEG-4 standard.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=62723 is an .mp4 container FAQ.