[MPlayer-users] Question on DivX versions...

[Rich Felker]

On Tue, May 10, 2005 at 08:33:52AM -0500, David Norris wrote:
> On 5/10/05, Rainer Hantsch <office at hantsch.co.at> wrote:
> > What's about XVID ? Many movies are available in this format. To which
> > version of DivX is XVID compatible or can be compared with? Or is it totally
> > different?
> 
> It's a completely different codec, and they're not interchangeable.

False. They're both implementations of mpeg4.

> XviD was written to be a fully-open-source codec, avoiding any
> patented algorithms and binary-only distributions like what DivX has.

False. It uses exactly the same types of algorithms. The only
difference is that it's free software and compresses much better than
DivX.

> It's at least as good as -- some would say better than -- DivX, but I
> can't prove that -- but DivX has less hardware compatibility (lots of
> set-top DVD players will play DivX, but few will play XviD yet). If

False. If you use basic mpeg4 profile, hardware players will play
mpeg4 generated by any valid encoder.

> this is not a concern for you then XviD is, IMHO, *definitely* the way
> to go. The implementations are very fast, very stable and produce good
> video.

Actually you should use lavc's mpeg4 encoder. It's faster and produced
better output than either xvid or divx. You should NEVER USE DIVX. It
just plain sucks.

Rich