Quality is NOT subjective

[cyberVera]

Quality is not subjective.
Your opinion about quality of a movie, or better say about codec, is subjective. It is greatly influenced by various doom9s, manonos etc, and their guides...
It is like Beauty. It is and always will be objective, out of your mind and analysis...
DivX3 was and will remain in the nearest future the best codec for DVD rips. Despite all its drawbacks and microblocks it is capable of retaining the most naturality. Pirates are always using it. You think they are fools? No, they are not. We are all fools, and they are not. DivX 5 - soapy (usually forumers call it blury). XviD - the same thing, just a bit more sharpness (usually called details).
A very big company developed DivX codec (I mean Microsoft, not a bunch of hackers)...
I think the best test would be to devide a movie in 3-4 parts, to encode every part with different codec, to take 3-4 girls which do not know even the word "codec" and to make them watch the whole movie. Promise them something for that to make it more or less serious. Their decision "shall be final, undisputable and obligatory for execution"...

[DigitAl56K]

Yep,

All you need is 3-4 girls and all your problems are solved.

[cyberVera]

I didn't mean to offend. Anyway this post is not for divx programmers but for users. I just want t know are there really people who believe div3 is still the best or I am completely mistaken.

[obieobieobie]

Have fun with your DivX ;-)

[IgorC]

Divx FAQ said : Make your own decision what to use divx3-4-5-6.
some people prefer Divx3 , other Divx 5 etc.

[Koepi]

I like the "milk glas" look of DivX3. You're not mistaken if you prefer DivX3. But as you scientifically correctly stated, other people prefer other codecs.

[pieroxy]

Originally posted by IgorC
Divx FAQ said : Make your own decision what to use divx3-4-5-6.
some people prefer Divx3 , other Divx 5 etc.
What do you mean? That quality would be subjective? ;)

[cyberVera]

Guys, all of you, I DO appologize for any unapropriate words in my original post.
The most important. You are all very positive people, as there is something important for you in your lives besides career, girls and drinking. I have been reading about your experience for 2 years already, and I use it.
I'm just looking for truth, not influenced by opinions.
I just wonder Why when I enter a movie shop I see hundreds of CDs with movies including those of 2004 and 2005 ALL encoded with DivX ;-).

to DigitAl56K:
Deal. In the nearest week I'll encode a movie, let's say "Wonderful World: Child of the Universe", with DivX 3.11, DivX 5.2.1 and XviD 1.0.3. This movie is 1 hour long, very colourfull and nice looking, with plenty of high and low motion. I'll use GK 0.35.0 with 512x288 output, 2-pass, b-frames off, with 1000 bitrate. There will be 3 women (my wife, her sister and my friend's girlfriend. All of them far from knowing what the hell "codec" is and "compression" is a serious threat on their nerves. Testers will watch it separately not to influence each other. I'll not interfier either. Just there will be a task "What variant is better looking to you".
I will post the results trully on the 1st of April :-)
And again, I appologize for words which might insult those about to DivX "from scratch".

to obieobieobie and alike:
I wonder how quickly you betrated DivX ;-). This codec made all of you. Yes, it does have drawbacks compared with its competitors, but you should show just a bit more respect for a piece of code which made everything to start.

to IgorC:
Template.

to Koepi:
Perception. That is the problem. Some people just physically unable to hear 18kHz sound.

to pieroxy:
The forum is full of words that quality of codecs is subjective, somehow individual, that one pair of eyes believes that DivX is better than XviD, while another pair of eyes believes opposite. It is not true. Quality is out of your perception. There are no people believing that VCD quality is better than that of DVD - just because the "distance" is bigger. DivX smoothes picture in order to reduce microblocks, thus sacrificing details in favour of the main enemy of all codecs - microblocks. As soon as ordinary people see them they belive that quality is bad. It is the same thing as with vynil audio discs: most people believe that CD audio is better just because there are no vynil glitches in sound. But the case is that quantisation noise introduced by CD is much worse than vynil glitches. Human perception starts to neglect vynil glitches after just 2-3 seconds of listening. That is a proven fact. Analogue sound recording is more natural than digital due to its natural waveform. I'm afraid the same is taking place here, in dicussion of DivX3 vs. DivX5.

[temporance]

@cyberVera: I'm interested in your opinion of H.264. What do you think of the (subjective or not) quality of the likes of x264 and Nero AVC? My hunch is that you (and your girls) won't like it :)

[cyberVera]

Haven't tried yet. But I will. Compatibility is the only issue.

[obieobieobie]

Betrayed? A piece of software? Heh, anyway, I have never used DivX ;-). I like the new codecs just fine and I'm very exited about x264.

[Wilbert]

The forum is full of words that quality of codecs is subjective, somehow individual, that one pair of eyes believes that DivX is better than XviD, while another pair of eyes believes opposite. It is not true. Quality is out of your perception.
There are no people believing that VCD quality is better than that of DVD - just because the "distance" is bigger.
No, that's not true. As others are trying to explain to you. You can list the advantages and disadvantages of every codec, which we will probably agree on to a large extent. In this sense quality is objective. There are two issues however:

1) This quality depends on the source, on the final bitrate, etc. For noisy sources DivX3 might be better, for clean sources XviD, for anime RV, etc ...

2) What is subjective though is the weight people give to the advantages and disavantages of codecs. Some people prefer blocks over noise, others not, etc ...


DivX3 was and will remain in the nearest future the best codec for DVD rips. Despite all its drawbacks and microblocks it is capable of retaining the most naturality. Pirates are always using it. You think they are fools? No, they are not. We are all fools, and they are not.
1) Pirates are not always using it. Official release groups have certain rules, one of them is that only DivX3 or XviD are allowed for usage (that was the case a few years ago, i don't know whether these are changed recently). For unofficial release groups release, you can find anything.

2) There are specific reasons why DivX3 and XviD were the only allowed codecs at that time. Quality is one reason, but it was certainly not the only one. There should be a thread about this here, but I can't find it.

[fewtch]

Originally posted by cyberVera
DivX3 was and will remain in the nearest future the best codec for DVD rips. Despite all its drawbacks and microblocks it is capable of retaining the most naturality. Pirates are always using it. You think they are fools? No, they are not. We are all fools, and they are not. DivX 5 - soapy (usually forumers call it blury). XviD - the same thing, just a bit more sharpness (usually called details).
I concur with your opinion that DivX3 "low motion" codec looks better than either XviD or DivX with (guess what) -- very low motion scenes. To my eyes, there's nothing better (and I'm probably in the minority, but oh well).

Add a bit of motion though (even moderate camera panning) and things change. Add a lot of motion and you get blocks up the kazoo, the image breaks into pieces like a stained glass window. So if you want to encode a movie where people mainly sit and talk for a 2-hour stretch, I would indeed choose DivX3 (not SBC either, just the low motion codec at a fixed bitrate). For anything else (99.9% of films out there) I'd use XviD or DivX (they look subjectively about the same to me, except DivX v5.2.1 in "slowest" mode looks better to me than any XviD mode). Just my eyes/opinion.

[pieroxy]

The forum is full of words that quality of codecs is subjective, somehow individual, that one pair of eyes believes that DivX is better than XviD, while another pair of eyes believes opposite. It is not true. Quality is out of your perception.
I find it hard to believe that someone is truly believing this. If quality is out of my perception and is perfectly objective, then there are two things to consider:
1. Why are my eyes telling me something different than yours? How can you explain that I will rate XviD better than DivX when you won't?
2. If this so called "quality" is not relative (or subjective), then it must be possible to explain it with a mathematical formula. Since it is something absolute. Of course, this is not possible. Prove me wrong, and give me the formula!

This is because the very definition of quality is not the same for me and for you. When I see a macroblock, I tend to focus on it rather than the rest of the frame, because my ability to focus is low. My attention is diverted from the movie, hence, I hate it.

If the movie is a little blurred out, then I'll forget it in a few seconds. Not bothering me, I'll adapt.

Human perception starts to neglect vynil glitches after just 2-3 seconds of listening. That is a proven fact Proven? How can someone prove something that is obviously false. I CANNOT listen to a vynil anymore. Same as for a movie, I am distracted by the glitches and focuses my attention on it. I'd rather listen to a tape, or to a 128kbps MP3. My sensibility.

It all boils down to the fact that everyone is different. Everyone's ears are different. Everyone's eyes are different. Everyone's tastes are different. And the very definition of quality depends on all these factors.

Think of it as the same as preferring an oil painting over another. This is a matter of tastes and perceptions. Nothing more.

There is no such thing as "absolute quality". Except for the exception that comes from the digital world: There is no quality loss over a bit-to-bit copy of a movie. If you have a divx movie and burn it on a CD, there is no loss. Because there is no difference.

[cyberVera]

> 1. Why are my eyes telling me something different than yours? How can you explain that I will rate XviD better than DivX when you won't?

For me XviD is also better looking than DivX5. As for DivX3 vs. DivX5/XviD, we have the same eyes, just one of us must be affected by other "eyes". It is not a sin, just happens. I lived in a country where people had been sincerely believing in communism for 70 years, and I heard thousands of words "how blind we were".

> 2. If this so called "quality" is not relative (or subjective), then it must be possible to explain it with a mathematical formula. Since it is something absolute. Of course, this is not possible. Prove me wrong, and give me the formula!

There is formula, tuned for coding. It is called "codec". Compare the algorithm of two codecs and you'll see why they behave differently.
Anyway, you just presented a typical logical mistake:
A is B -> A is not C -> C is not B = Japanese are people -> Japanese are not Chinese -> Chinese are not people.
I also do such mistakes, even within this post :-)

> This is because the very definition of quality is not the same for me and for you. When I see a macroblock, I tend to focus on it rather than the rest of the frame, because my ability to focus is low. My attention is diverted from the movie, hence, I hate it.

Try not to search for microblocks while watching. It is the desease we are all infected: not to watch, just to percept.
Definition of quality? Quality is quality.

> If the movie is a little blurred out, then I'll forget it in a few seconds. Not bothering me, I'll adapt.

I agree. Even if it is grayscale you'll adapt. The same with all of us.

In general, Wilbert was right in that: "...quality is objective... What is subjective though is the weight people give to the advantages and disavantages of codecs. Some people prefer blocks over noise, others not, etc ..."

> I CANNOT listen to a vynil anymore. Same as for a movie, I am distracted by the glitches and focuses my attention on it.

Try to listen to music instead of listening to media. One of your favorite songs is a good starting point.
I know people living in the centre of my city breathing car smog everyday, and who have terrible headaches as soon as they appear in a countryside.

[temporance]

Originally posted by cyberVera
Try not to search for microblocks while watching. It is the desease we are all infected: not to watch, just to percept.Great sentiment and exactly my thinking. :) Because of this "disease", some of our number consider AVC to be wonderful.

[cyberVera]

to temporance:

May be you are right. But only to a certain extend. Despite my "love" for DivX 5, I have to agree with DivX people that AVC is a bit problematic right now. May be if you live in a wonderful desert oasis and your only neighbour has a fresh tatoo "AVC forever", you can ignore the rest of the world (I would agree for such a life!). But I have to use AutoGK, and it only supports DivX 5, and I have a DVD/DIVX hardplayer, and I very often give movies to my friends (who still own Celeron/PentiumIII, with completely messed-up OS and a hundred of trojans in a long queue begging on their knees for a webaccess, and a dozen of real-time antivirus scanners running simultaneously, even when the pc is switched off :-). And one thing is to argue with DigitAl56K in this post (at least I am not afraid that he will crawl through wire to my appartment (my modem is only digital33K wide :-), and another thing is to meet my friends face to face and explain them that their PCs are inappropriate.
But I'll test it.

[cyberVera]

Let's stick to the thread theme - share your opinion about "DivX3 vs. DivX5" quality comparisson.

As for me, my position is clear. Just I have doubts. May be there is something wrong with my eyes. That's why I'll encode a movie (discribed above) and ask women to judge the quality of codecs, because they are not infected with our microblocks and ringing disease, and their opinion most likely will be valuable...

[DigitAl56K]

Don't forget Fusion, and my last post on this thread was supposed to be funny ;)

Maybe I should just stick to the day job..

[pieroxy]

cyberVera, you are incredibly full of yourself. You think you know "the truth", when such a truth does not exist. You make the same mistake that L. Ron. Hubbard, who thinks he has discovered "the secret of life". Such a thing does not exist.

we have the same eyes
Who the hell do you think you are to make assumptions over my eyes? What do you know about me? Please stop thinking like a monolithic person that think he is the center of the world for god's sake!

There is formula, tuned for coding. It is called "codec"
Gotcha over there. You tell me there is a formula, and then you demonstrate there are many. Every codec out here is tuned to what its author think is the best quality. Hence, they are all a different definition of quality, written by different people. Hint: Not everyone think like you do.

Try not to search for microblocks while watching
So basically you are telling me that I should go over my condition to gracefully accept "your quality" as the quality. Once again, do you think you are god? You can impose your will over everyone like that? This is becoming either pathetic or funny, I am still undecided. Or maybe you are just trolling.

Quality is quality
My 4 year old could have told me that. How old are you? Maybe this is just a waste of my time.

I agree. Even if it is grayscale you'll adapt. The same with all of us.
No, we do not agree. Because I adapt easily to bluriness and with pain to macroblocks, I tend to prefer Xvid over Divx3. Does that makes me wrong when you are right? How dare you?

Try to listen to music instead of listening to media
Again, wrong assumptions about myself. I am not listening to music as an exercise to change the way I am focusing. I am listening to music because I want to enjoy myself. But you are telling me I should take a 5 years psychotherapy (if it's what it takes) just so I can appreciate music the way you do? No thanks.

The fact that I don't interpret music of video the same way you (almighty you) do it doesn't make me wrong. Nor does it makes you wrong. It makes us different. This is the key.

And if you lived with people that believed in communism for 70 years, you should have learned something: You can NOT convince people they are wrong by simply telling them. When you tell me "Oh, but you should not pay attention to macroblocks" I could tell you "Oh, but you should not pay attention to bluriness". And where are we again? Back to ground zero. This does not make the discussion go forward.

Let's not go into a flame war here (or is it too late? ;)) Just answer these very simple questions for me: Why can't you accept that people have a different definition of quality that you do? And what makes yours "THE" definition that everyone should bow to?

[stephanV]

just out of curiosity:

has anyone read "Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" here?

[pieroxy]

Sounds like a nice reading I could put to use right about now :p

[cyberVera]

to pieroxy:

Sorry.

No, there is no war and will not be. I just try to defend my point of view.
And yes, there is difference between us - I respect you and count on your opinion. I do not critisize you personally, I just dispute, without shouts and accusations in holiness.
Btw, I think authors of codecs could make far more better codecs in terms of quality, but they have to keep in mind all the time compatibility and usability.

The problem is that I didn't provide any facts to support my position.

I do not know very many things in coding craft, and I hope that if I post a question you'll help me.
Let's stop this discussion. It went in wrong direction. I agree that it was my fault to start it in such a way, and yes, sad but true, there was some overhipe in my words. Guilty. I'll think twice before writing anything like that next time.

to DigitAl56K:

I tried already. I'm not that cool to ignore new releases. Unfortunately, it behaves oddly - No matter what bitrate AutoGK suggests, the codec encodes movie to 780kbps. May be because I have Win98SE? And it took 2 times longer to encode compared to DivX 5.0.5. But anyway time is not critical, quality is more important. I'll try it with WinXP.

Just finished. Much better than previous builds. I'll make extra encoding to be sure I'm not mistaken.

[DigitAl56K]

AutoGK might not work well with Fusion, it depends how the settings are populated.

[Sagittaire]

DivX3 is very good ... but only with ffdshow and new rate distortion mode (Div3 progress always ...) but with NanDub and DivX 3.11 plugin it's a very old codec :

DivX 3 is better than MPEG4 ASP (DivX and XviD) ... !!!

I think that visually there's not true ... in fact at this time I think that the best MPEG2 encoder can be better than NanDub + divX 3.11 ... lol

[IgorC]

Originally posted by Sagittaire
DivX3 is very good ... but only with ffdshow and new rate distortion mode (Div3 progress always ...)


Can you give some information how and wich settings to use for Divx3 encoding by FFDSHOW. I tested it before but always in Nundub.

Would it better to use 1-st pass at determinated Q for RC tweak? (as Xvid 1 pass Q in zone)

[Sagittaire]

For best quality but very very slow
http://multimediacom.free.fr/Video/FFDSHOW.PNG

For good speed use size 1/2 diamond ...

Sample HP II 900 Kbps: (http://multimediacom.free.fr/Video/DivX3-900.mkv) very good quality for q4 XviD size equivalence. Sample is an average q5/q6 in 2 pass. IMO for good quality DivX3 must be q3/q4 in average. 41.7243 dB vs 42.6654 dB for DivX3 vs MPEG4 ASP ...

[IgorC]

How to encode video in 3 passes by Divx3 FFDSHOW?
is 1 pass like pre-pass? How to use it?
Sagittaire, could you bring more lights on this aspect?

[Sagittaire]

For NPass
http://multimediacom.free.fr/Video/FFDSHOW-Npass.PNG

For me Npass is useless (like for 12 358 pass in CCE ... lol): as always if you want better size quant prediction use lower quant for first pass (for 1CDR ripp use q3 or q4 with DivX3 for first pass) ...

[IgorC]

Thank you for fast answer. Any other RC options (overflow ...)? Or it just depending on source?

[Sagittaire]

Overflow is a RC constrained: high overflow mean better size target but not necessary constant quant and constant quality for second pass. With Npass overflow could be very low like 5/5 I think. If you use the same quant for first than average quant for second pass the quant prediction will be very good and you can use low strength for overflow ...

[IgorC]

How to use Q3 or Q4 for Divx3?
Is credits (Divx3 FFSHOW) like zone of Xvid. Can I put here Q3 or Q4 ?

When I try Best settings for Divx3 FFdshow last version (03122005) it just closes the window.

[cyberVera]

to DigitAl56K:

Fusion: Yes, there is difference compared to previous 5-builds. Possitive difference. Not very much though, but there is.
Still, in my opinion, DivX 3 looks more "natural", or even more "expectable mpeg-4 quality should be".

Just some thoughts about Fusion:
1. You continue to sacrifice sharpness in favour of minimum microblocks.
It must be the only wayout to cope with the market of certified hardware players. I own one of them, and bluriness does not look that distracting compared to pc monitor, and DivX 3.11 looks much worse than DivX 5 on tv screen.
People who mostly watch movies on pc, or do not pay much attention to bluriness, might prefer DivX 3 (or most likely XviD to make it a bit more sharper, if they belive DivX 3 is the worst of them).
2. I wouldn't dare to call the upcoming release of your codec "DivX 6".
I think there should be more reasons and even interface changes to switch figure "5" to "6": there are minimal functions/quality changes in Fusion compared to 5.2.1. Just compare the steps between 3.11->4 and 4->5. But maybe "5.3" is just too "close". I would call it 5.5. You'll have some extra time for more serious research, and year 2006 might be a good reason to change the number :-). Meanwhile, the whole mess about AVC will calm down. Amateurs like me will accept any release number you offer, but I am not sure for that for hardware market you are aimed at. One of the reasons Intel kept number "4" for their Prescott and Tejas CPU was to asure people with a thought that they possess the same evolutioning technology. Meanwhile question: Fusion readme says "5.9" while divx.dll says "5.3.0.1528"?
3. Speed worries me.
Codec is nearly 2 times slower than 5.0.5. I just bought a pc, 2 times faster than the previous one, and if I use Fusion I'll get the same speed of encoding as on my old machine for a quality increase I do not see (not capable to see).
4. In my opinion, 5 modes of encoding speed is a bit too many. I would stick just to 3: Fast, Standard, Slow. And I would add somewhere a small "Insane" checkbox with obligatory indication "Very slow but with some extra benefits", something like that. It is the problem of modern marketing: when you offer too many choices for customer, he stands still in hesitation as if it was the keychoice of all his life. Btw, your new "Insane" mode can really make people crazy.
5. I think AutoGK is a rather popular software, and it is important for Fusion to work correctly with it. Anyway, AutoGK is just a frontend for other key soft for encoding. The same for pure GK.

[fewtch]

Originally posted by cyberVera
It must be the only wayout to cope with the market of certified hardware players. I own one of them, and bluriness does not look that distracting compared to pc monitor, and DivX 3.11 looks much worse than DivX 5 on tv screen.
I actually disagree... I like appearance of DivX3 low motion (2-CD rip) better on my Philips DVP642 + 25" standard TV than a 2-CD XviD or DivX5 rip. I find that 2-CD XviD/DivX5 looks almost identical to 1-CD, whereas 2-CD DivX3 looks nearly as good as the original DVD.

Could be more related to the Philips player though.

[cyberVera]

The same for me concerning 2CDs (I've got few of them). I was speaking about 1CD rips. I always do only 1CD rip. There are no movies longer than 3 hours, and any of them ripped to 1CD with 128 double channel audio is more than enough for me. It is not the matter of being greedy to spend a second CD for better looking film. In 99% of cases I wouldn't spend even half of a CD for most modern movies. And if a film is really good (that is a matter of taste of course) I would just buy a DVD.

[Sharktooth]

If divx 3 is that good look at this: http://www.aziendeassociate.com/MeetTheFockers.mp4
If you're able to do something like that without resizing in 15 megabytes (including audio) with divx3 i can reach the light speed just running with my own legs and feet as well.
If you want the "movie effect" try adding some noise with postprocessing...

[cyberVera]

No doubts!
Ferrary's new F2005 is the best car at the moment. But still Michael Schumacher drives Fiat in his native city in everyday life.
AVC has great quality, but will be in minority for now for very many reasons (although many people, esspecially those smart in coding are already using it, I think I'll join them soon, but not with Nero, with x264, if it survives). And I'm not sure at all that DivX will not use AVC in the nearest future. Only after that DivX 3/5 will be thrown away.
The original post says: "DivX3 was and will remain in the nearest future the best codec for DVD rips."
In the nearest future, right? Here the "best" is "quality+usability".

[Sharktooth]

Originally posted by cyberVera
No doubts!
Ferrary's new F2005 is the best car at the moment. But still Michael Schumacher drives Fiat in his native city in everyday life.

Not properly FIAT... :)
But, you're right, he doesnt drive a Ferrari for everyday life.


I'm using AVC more and more since i can put more movies with more quality on a single DVD with excellent quality than ASP.
For example i encoded the whole Alien serie (4 movies) + Alien VS Predator in one DVD with 5.1 audio and really nice video quality.
Another example, the whole LOTR-EE serie in 1 DVD (11+ hours!!!)... etc.

[jggimi]

Discussion of "release groups," black market activity, or other forms of Intellectual Property theft are off-topic for this forum. And they are not pertinant to the original discussion.

Please bring it back on track.

Thank you.