Which is better, DivX or DVD Mpeg2, in your opinion?

[gamerscloset]

I'm trying to decide which of the following is better.

1. Convert my HDTV Mpeg2 capture to a high quality DivX or XviD, Copy to a DVD and play with one of the new DVD players which plays DivX & Mpeg4 files.

2. Convert my HDTV Mpeg2 capture to a DVD Mpeg2, basically downsizing it, burn to a DVD and watch with a normal DVD player.

Basically, I'm wondering which has highest capabilites for quality? The source is only ~42 minutes with AC3 Audio, which I want to keep, and usually is 1280x720.

[Teegedeck]

1).

Simply because 2) would mean sacrifing the HDTV resolution.

For 1), of course, your DivX player needs to be able to play back such a file and your TV needs to be able to display a 1280p resolution.

[gamerscloset]

So no DVD players that I know of will play at 1280p.. That's partly the question, what is the highest that most will actually output?

[Teegedeck]

The highest would be PAL resolution - 720x576 pixels. Which in case of anamorphic 16:9 recordings gets upsized on playback by your standalone to 1024x567 (i.e. pixels are no longer square).

NTSC has a resolution of 720x480.

So if you want to preserve as much as possible of the original picture information of an HDTV recording during transfer to standard DVD format, you would want to do an anamorphic encoding with an embedded aspect-ratio of 16:9.

Now, I don't know how to do that because it's not my cup of tea. :)

[GaveUp]

I could swear there are DVD players that do upscalling to 720p (and maybe 1080i) but I think they were expensive things that didn't play divx/xvid well at all.

Another problem with the current DVD players that support Divx/xvid, at least from what I've been told by friends who have them, is that they are really picky about what they will play. B-Frames are one thing I've been consistantly told will choke the things.

XBMC is the only program I've seen that will handle 720p xvids consistantly well (besides a PC, of course).

[Teegedeck]

Mere upscaling doesn't help the loss of effective resolution.

[GaveUp]

I didn't mean to imply that it did. I was assuming the original source of HD in which case you wouldn't have any upscaling if coming from a 720p xvid.