SVCD VS DivX

[dave268]

I seen all kinds of references claiming that DivX allows you to put an entire DVD movie onto one CD with no loss of quality. That's quite a claim. Do they mean a very short movie. Will a 2 or 3 hour movie fit onto one CD with no loss of quality or what ?

Is DivX quality as good as SVCD quailty or for that matter better quality than SVCD ?

Are encoding times as fas or faster than SVCD creation ?

[Nick]

I seen all kinds of references claiming that DivX allows you to put an entire DVD movie onto one CD with no loss of quality. That's quite a claim.

That is indeed quite a claim. And a completely untrue one.
However it IS possible to get reasonable results from a 1-CD encode in many cases. As for how long in hours and minutes you can get on a disc is, as ever, very difficult to say as it depends on the nature, and therefore compressibility, of the source. For example, things like home movies and rock concerts, which tend to be filmed on hand held equipment and so with lots of camera shake, compress very badly. Movies with lots of action scenes tend to be hard to compress. More serene footage with less movement from frame to frame fares better.

However I would say as a rule of thumb, 100 mins per CD is usually achievable.

As for comparison to SVCD, I think it is accepted that DivX gives better results for similar file sizes. The major advantage SVCD has, however, is much broader compatibility with standalone DVD players.

So it's really a case of horses for courses. If you play back exclusively on your PC, or your DVD player supports DivX, go with that. If not, SVCD is the way to go. Or of course DVD - a top-spec DVD writer drive for your PC is about $40(US) these days - might be time to invest.

I shall not comment on encoding times as I don't use DivX these days and depending on hardware and encoders used both for SVCD and DivX, times vary wildly.

[Doobie]

I seen all kinds of references claiming that DivX allows you to put an entire DVD movie onto one CD with no loss of quality.

Divx usually lowers the resolution to save space. On a regular TV and a regular movie, there might not be noticeable loss of quality for a 90minute 1 CD movie because of the TV's low resolution. On a computer monitor or a HDTV, you will notice a loss of quality.

Is DivX quality as good as SVCD quailty or for that matter better quality than SVCD ?

I've put a lot of children's movies on SVCD with good results (children trash disks pretty quickly). Children's movies tend to be shorter, they compress well, and some blockiness is not a big deal. Divx6 is much better quality. And, now that I have a DVD player that plays Divx, I no longer use SVCD.

[dave268]

That is indeed quite a claim. And a completely untrue one.
However it IS possible to get reasonable results from a 1-CD encode in many cases. As for how long in hours and minutes you can get on a disc is, as ever, very difficult to say as it depends on the nature, and therefore compressibility, of the source. For example, things like home movies and rock concerts, which tend to be filmed on hand held equipment and so with lots of camera shake, compress very badly. Movies with lots of action scenes tend to be hard to compress. More serene footage with less movement from frame to frame fares better.

However I would say as a rule of thumb, 100 mins per CD is usually achievable.

As for comparison to SVCD, I think it is accepted that DivX gives better results for similar file sizes. The major advantage SVCD has, however, is much broader compatibility with standalone DVD players.

So it's really a case of horses for courses. If you play back exclusively on your PC, or your DVD player supports DivX, go with that. If not, SVCD is the way to go. Or of course DVD - a top-spec DVD writer drive for your PC is about $40(US) these days - might be time to invest.

I shall not comment on encoding times as I don't use DivX these days and depending on hardware and encoders used both for SVCD and DivX, times vary wildly.

I think for now I'll stay with SVCD's since 2 CD's do almost all movies (I've actually done one whole movie with very good quality on one pass - QuEnc 0.61 - Movie: My Name is Modesty, 78 min). 2 top brand CD's are about half the cost of a DVDR disc. My DVD Player yields 480 x 480 resolution for DVD's which is the same as SVCD res. so both look the same over the TV set.