General XviD confusion.

[punistation]

I'm more than a tad confused over XviD. Maybe someone can help me out here.

Y'see, whenever I encode using XViD, the result is all grainy and horrible, even using Two-Pass DVD encoding guides. The First Pass is supposedly high-quality, yet the video still looks all grainy. I can see the little specks. Horrible AMV fodder.

However, when I tell the codec to identify the AVI as DivX, it looks quite lovely.



See that FourCC used field? If I leave it as XviD, the video is grainy and horrible. If I change it to DivX, it looks smooth and lovely. Quite high quality.


...why is that? It's also annoying to download videos that are XviD, and are so grainy and horrible, despite assurances of lengthy and professional editing and encoding. Why can't they just change that one field to make the video so wonderfully non-grainy?

Or is it a playback thing? Is something wrong with mine? My Xvid encodes (FourCC'd as DivX) use the DivX decoder, so is it that, and my XviD decoder settings are just... I dunno', not good?


Kisses XXOOXX
Jen

[AbsoluteDestiny]

Or is it a playback thing?

Yeah, its a playback thing.

The FourCC will just tell media player or whatever what it should use to play the file back.

Whatever is playing back xvid fourcc files isn't looking good for you. I personally prefer the divx playback filter sometimes, which is one of the reasons I recommend havinf DIVX as the fourcc in the guides.


However, I do think that your xvid playback is messed up and that could make any xvid files you get look crap. Either download the newest xvid playback filter from here:

http://roeder.goe.net/~koepi/xvid.shtml

download and install "Nic's latest standalone decoder DirectShow filter _only_ (installer)"


Alternatively you might like to give ffdshow a try:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... p_id=53761


It can decode divx, xvid and a whole bunch of other stuff besides.

[MindBug]

Or is it a playback thing?

Yeah, its a playback thing.

Alternatively you might like to give ffdshow a try:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... p_id=53761

It can decode divx, xvid and a whole bunch of other stuff besides.

That worked good for me when I had this problem. The XviD ripps I had looked like crap, until I installed the FFDShow codec and then they actually looked like DVD quality.

[the Black Monarch]

My XviD encodes have had varying levels of grain lately, and I haven't downloaded anything new. One day I'll export an XviD video and it'll look okay, the next day I'll export the same video with XviD and it looks like someone spilled pepper on the film.

I just discovered that Gaussian Blur produces a different bitrate curve during the first pass, so now I can't use the same first pass for both sharp and blurred second passes. I guess I have to delete and re-export everything.

Although I'm now using two-pass encoding the way it is meant to be used for both DivX and XviD, I have yet to make an XviD encode that looks better than a DivX encode with the same settings.

[punistation]

Eeeeeeew... I think I did something wrong here.

First I downloaded the latest XviD Decoder... no difference.

Then I downloaded the FFDshow thing, and now it's grainier then ever! What's more, the Decoder config has so many options I'm literally lost and scared to do anything. DivX just has Quality & Film Effect. Plus a recommendation to tick a box or two. That I could deal with. This has near a hundred of settings, and I'm swamped.

And the worst part is, Wonka's "Appetite (for Lightin' Dynamite)" AMV was always so smooth and DVD like, despite being XviD. I always wondered how he did it, when all my other XviD AMV's, clips and movies look so wretchedly grainy and inferior to Cinepak. Wonka's AMV looked so nice.

Now... it too looks so horrifically grainy using FFDshow that it hurts to watch. Looking at the green credits screen at the end... so much sand on the monitor, and it's moving!


Could someone nice please tell me what I should do in the FFDshow configer to fix this? Or at least tell me what they did to get nice quality video? If someone doesn't walk me through the changes to the defaults, I'll have to uninstall this horrible FFDshow thingy and just resign myself to the fact that XviD is just a horrible decoder. And cry. I can do that, y'know.


Kisses XXOOXX
Jen


I'm SO sorry, Wonka. I wrecked your AMV.

[the Black Monarch]

I feel your pain.

[Tab.]

erm


open an xvid video with the fourcc XVID in virtualdub and see if it looks bad like you're describing. If it does, get the latest development (unstable) binary from here and then try again. If it still looks bad... I dunno

report back

[Zarxrax]

I have grain on my videos if my desktop is set to 16 bit color. If this is the case for you, try changing to 24 or 32 bit color.

[punistation]

"If this is the case for you, try changing to 24 or 32 bit color."

That did it! Wooo! WOOOoooooo~!


...sadly, it has a price. My Video Card can only do 16 or 32, and my PC can't handle 32 very well, at least at 1024x768. Really high-quality AVI's tend to skip. Plus the IE6 vertical scroll via my mouse trackball is real slow now.

But... but all my XviD's look sooooo lovely now. Oh Wonka, your AMV looks splendid now! All my poor grainy XviD clips and movies look just stunning!

(but... but my poor PC can't handle 32bit color.)


Kisses XXOOXX
Jen

[Tab.]

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