XviD vs DivX

brodwidr · Post by **brodwidr** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 6:54 pm

Does anyone know if DivX (the $20 codec they sell at the DivX site) gives noticably better results than what we get for free with the bundled-in XviD solution in VS10?

thanks in advance...

- David

etech6355 · Post by **etech6355** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 7:16 pm

The difference is Xvid is open source software and Divx is commercial software. With Divx you always use their Divx encoder to set the parameters and encode.
With Xvid different programs use graphcial frontends & different methods to create the Xvid video files so quality in one encoder may be better than another. It's hard to comare because depends on the settings, but you can create a great Xvid video file, same as Divx.
For HighDefinition Video Divx would be better.

I bought the latest 6.5 Divx Encoder/Player.
Very satisfied with it. After I create a divx file from VS I usually rename the extension from avi to divx so the divx player is associated with it.

If you want an opinion which is better I prefer Divx.
Also encoding more now in the WMV format so Vista users don't have a problem playing back the videos. Something to consider since Xvid uses mpeg-4 compression which right now is not natively supported in Vista. So I don't think the Vista Media Player will play them back.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 11:00 pm

I also must say I prefer DivX. I have been a long time owner of successive versions of their Pro and now Bundle versions, and have obtained great results. A couple of years ago I published the results of various tests I did with quality settings. You can contact me if you like and I can send them via email.

A significant number of stand-alone DVD players now natively recognise disc with DivX movies on them -- look for the rating tags on the players. But this is another definite plus. Means people are no long restricted to watching their DivX movies on a computer.

And DivX have taken it one step further by recently producing a full-fledged authoring program (DVD Author) which allows the creation of full menus for DivX discs. This was not possible before. However, a limitation to date is that only a handful of stand-alone players are rated to play these menus back. I am sure this will change rapidly with time, though.

brodwidr · Post by **brodwidr** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 12:40 am

Thanks for the feedback, Ken and etech. I'm going to buy that DivX codec and start working with it.