On Divx website they talk about becoming the encoding standard for DVD. How accurate is this? What's your DiVX story? Like or Dislike?


Another Question:

If you export a sequence/s using quicktime conversion in FCP and use the highest bit-rate and two-pass VBR, can you import it back into FCP run it through two-pass VBR again and get a smaller file size or will it just use the same IBBP pattern that it created on the first session.

Becoming the encoding standard for DVD? Eh, no. Maybe they mean that MPEG-4 (the same family as DivX) is one of the competing standards for HD-DVD. I personally think Sony's approach with MPEG-2 is much better.

High quality MPEG-2, while it requires a higher bitrate than MPEG-4, I think beats the pants off of MPEG-4. I've done comparisons with my own stuff and I find 8 mbps MPEG-2 to look much richer than even 10 mbps DivX. Sure at the lower bitrates it outperforms MPEG-2 (HD looks great with MPEG-4 at 10 mbps, but for MPEG-2 requires about 18 mbps), but not at the higher rates.

bryan, you should never re-compress a file, like you outlined... get the bitrate where you want it the first time around.

don't worry about divx, it's not a commercial format, and mpeg-4 is d.o.a... you want to learn mpeg-2 and windows media., they are the formats of the future.

> High quality MPEG-2, while it requires a higher bitrate
> than MPEG-4, I think beats the pants off of MPEG-4.

That was the case until some time ago. But I think H.264, the new video codec for MPEG4, will change that. Remember MPEG4 is not just a codec, it's an architecture, like QuickTime, RealVideo, Windows Media (actually it is based on QuickTime).

Microsoft has been trying to get ISO to endorse the WM9 video codec but H.264 has the edge and you don't need to pay Microsoft to make a player that can play it.

I think H.264 will do for video what MPEG2 layer 3 audio (known as MP3) did for audio, and this will happen in the context of the MPEG4 architecture. MPEG-2 is showing it's age and cannot be modernized because of campatibility problems with existing players.

Actually it's already happening. There are low end MPEG4 camcorders and cell phones and some high-end Sony solutions for HD are also starting to use MPEG4.

Don't mistake MPEG4 for DivX... there was some confusion in the beginning when Microsoft was trying to build a proposal for MPEG4 and part of the result of that is the DivX codec.

Ignacio,

So what is your experience with h.264 codec in comparison with your past experience with mpeg-2; as far as quality goes?

I'm taking into consideration that a lot of the output quality will be dependent on the input quality and the ability of the user to maxamize the potential and features of various codecs under different conditions.

This one was a bit over my head, but Abobe has several educational primers on its web site, including a new one on HD that discusses this issue. If interested, here's the web address to the primer page:

http://www.adobe.com/motion/primers.html

What I took away is that the jury is still out. As eager as I am for HDV, two thing seem clear to me...that I have a lot to learn to be ready for Hi Def shooting and post work, and things are still pretty uncertain in HDV-land.

<<<-- Originally posted by Ignacio Rodriguez : >
Microsoft has been trying to get ISO to endorse the WM9 video codec but H.264 has the edge and you don't need to pay Microsoft to make a player that can play it.

I think H.264 will do for video what MPEG2 layer 3 audio (known as MP3) did for audio, and this will happen in the context of the MPEG4 architecture....

Don't mistake MPEG4 for DivX... there was some confusion in the beginning when Microsoft was trying to build a proposal for MPEG4 and part of the result of that is the DivX codec. -->>>

i have seen some nice h.264-encoded video, but that doesn't change the fact that you still have to pay for licensing mpeg-4... which is why it's a dead format right now... so you pay microsoft, or you pay mpegla.com.

however, just a week or so ago, the mpegla crew tweaked the licensing requirements for mpeg-4, see what it'll now cost to sell mpeg-4 videos: http://www.mpegla.com/news/n_04-04-29_m4v.pdf ...they desperately need to do something to save the mpeg-4 format.

that price tweaking has been part of an on-going battle between microsoft and the mpegla forum, and if it wasn't for microsoft, there would be no competition in this latest standards arena.

microsoft was one of the original designers of the mpeg-4 format, but they created their own proprietary version of it, and used it extensively in windows media... and the divx people tweaked that microsoft mpeg-4 spec for their own gains... neither of which are really mpeg-4 legal formats.

> if it wasn't for microsoft, there would be no competition
> in this latest standards arena.

Good point. I totally agree. And not only in terms of licensing. WM9 video is very good, so technologically it also drives the competition ahead.