DivX4 vs 5

[Cyberian-SH]

Hi,

I just converted a video, and the one converted to DivX4 (fast motion) is 310 MB while the one converted to DivX5 is 365 MB. What advantages does the 5 have over 4?

EDIT: In Virtual Dub Mod it says DivX 4, but when I ID'ed it with GSpot, it says Divx3. *shrug*

[jggimi]

Hello, and welcome to the forum.

Fast Motion/Slow Motion *is* DivX 3 SBC, and not DivX 4.

For differences between 3/4/5, see Doom9's codec comparisons. You'll find them on the main website, under "The Basics"

[manono]

Hi-

DivX 3.11 Fast Motion begins at quant 5 and goes up from there. It's smaller most likely because it's of poorer quality. You shouldn't be using Fast Motion to begin with. Now, if you used Slow Motion, and got a comparative file size, you might be able to build a case that DivX 3.11 is better than DivX 5. But not a very good case, as DivX 3.11 is obsolete, although it does give good detail.

You might try XviD, and then compare the results with the DivX 5 encode.

All this depends on your source. Garbage in/garbage out, as they say. If you're going to do some serious testing and comparing, try and use a good DVD source.

[Cyberian-SH]

I compared DivX3 Fast with DivX5 Slow and DivX5 physically. And it had better colours for DivX3 Fast. Why is that?

I have read the comparison codec article, and I still do not understand it. I guess is because of all those fancy words and the statistics were hard to understand since I do not know what I am suppose to be looking for.

In plain English: Which is the best codec to converting MPGs into DivX?

EDIT:

But not a very good case, as DivX 3.11 is obsolete, although it does give good detail.
What do you mean by 'obsolete'? Cannot be played by stand alone DVD players? I only use my computer.

EDIT 2: Arg... I meant DivX 3 with 5, not 3 with 3. Sorry.

[jggimi]

I compared DivX3 Fast with DivX3 Slow and DivX5 physically. And it had better colours for DivX3 Fast. Why is that?

We don't know, since we don't know how you compared "color." We don't know your source or its colorspace, we don't know your procedures, we don't know your comparison tools, we don't know your comparison methodology. Fast motion is an adjustment to Quantizer range only, and does not alter color information.

I have read the comparison codec article, and I still do not understand it. I guess is because of all those fancy words and the statistics were hard to understand since I do not know what I am suppose to be looking for.

Doom9 has performed six comparisons. Two of them compared DivX 5 with SBC (DivX 3.11alpha). 2002 #3 compared SBC with DivX 5.02, and 2003 compaired SBC with DivX 5.05. In both cases, SBC was set to Low Motion in order to use the full range of Quantizer values.

You need not understand every word. What Doom9 gives us is Sample stills from each codec.
Comments on what he noticed in each encoded scene.
Different content, to stress codecs in different ways.
Summary conclusions.
Complete information to re-create these encodings ourselves, and make our own decisions.In plain English: Which is the best codec to converting MPGs into DivX?

There's no such thing as "Best" in this discussion. Quality is subjective. That you prefer Fast Motion to Low Motion in SBC is proof of this, since you lose the rich detail of which SBC is capable -- so loved by SBC afficianados -- when using Fast Motion. We now know your sources are MPEG, but that's all we know. But that still doesn't adequately describe your source to us. For example, if your source is VCD, then you probably won't be happy with any MPEG-4 conversion, no matter the codec, no matter the conversion method.

What do you mean by 'obsolete'? Cannot be played by stand alone DVD players? I only use my computer.

Nandub ceased development at the end of 2001, and the DivX 3 SBC codec ceased development before that. In the 2003 comparision, Doom9 wrote:I don't expect Nandub to go anywhere anymore. Nandub was crucial in bringing out the best of DivX3, a codec which on its own would be vastly inferior to many other these days. There's now a solution that is on par with SBC on many levels so I expect SBC to start disappearing in the foreseeable future.In his 2004 test, he wrote:As I have announced last time, I will no longer include DivX3 SBC in codec comparisons. I feel by now we have solutions that are superior to SBC, plus then there's the fact that DivX3 is a hack of Microsoft's first MPEG-4 (though not quite specs compliant) codec and thus stands on legally shaky ground.

[Cyberian-SH]

I used tmpgenc to extract the DAT file from my VCD to get a MPG.

Then I used Virtual Dub Mod and the codecs available.

They were all extracted and converted the same method. I did not do anything fancy to it since I am a newbie playing with video files.

I used a DivX4 ;-) Slow Motion, DivX4 ;-) Fast Motion, DivX 5 (not sure if it has the smilie), and another DivX 4 (without the smilie).

The DivX4 ;-) Fast Motion gave me the lowest file size and most colourful.

The others were more or less the same size. And had fading colour effect. A black jacket would look like a dark grey jacket.

Like I said above, VCD, so the quality is cheap in computer. Say I was watching Jet Li jump around punching and kicking, I would see these huge squares on the movie. No matter which codec I used, I can see the same crappy squares.

[jggimi]

VCD is 352x240 PAL, or 352x288 NTSC. This is low resolution, fixed bitrate MPEG-1 content, and a very poor choice for MPEG-4 conversion.

Your "crappy squares" are known as Macroblocks, and its just a guess, but they are probably in your source.

If you used VdubMod with Full Processing mode, you would have converted colorspace twice, which would certainly introduce additional color loss. If you saw color differences, this is likely the reason.

[Cyberian-SH]

So which codec and method do I pick to get the most out of it?

[jggimi]

I'd already written:For example, if your source is VCD, then you probably won't be happy with any MPEG-4 conversion, no matter the codec, no matter the conversion method. And that still stands.

Were you aware that Doom9 has a VCD to DivX Guide (http://www.doom9.org/mpg/vcd2divx.htm)? It hasn't been updated in several years, but it may still be apropos to your needs. He begins by stating:...one of my favorite "don't do" subjects. As you're not starting out with a DVD source you have to accept an incredible drop in quality compared to a regular DivX DVDRip.Personally, I would do my resizing in AviSynth, because that way I can avoid Vdub's Full Processing mode, and, take advantage of Lanczos resizing, which I prefer to any bicubic. But that's me. And when it comes to MPEG-4 encoding settings, I would use XviD or DivX in single pass, quality based mode, with maximum quality. That would be the "best" output, though of course, as has been mentioned above, nothing sourced from VCD will look good.

[Cyberian-SH]

Yes, I was aware that Doom9 had a VCD to DivX guide. That is how I found this place. But a few weeks ago, the VCD Gear link was not working. But working again now.

EDIT: Is VCD Gear better than tmpgenc?