FourCC's: XVID vs. DX50 fight-o!

[FurryCurry]

I've been familiarizing myself with the new version of amv.app and the new guide by refiltering and reencoding my vids from the masters I backed up.

I'm aware that the guide suggests using the DX50 fourcc on the output files in the interest of compatibility, but I'm wondering just how necessary it really is to do that..

I don't particularly like the idea of having that stupid divx logo popping up in the corner of my vids when I didn't acutally use their product for anything, nor do I like encouraging the use of that codec or payer.

Is there something I'm overlooking, like inconveniencing Mac users or something? Are there really a whole bunch of anime/amv fans still out there that don't have XVID or ffdshow or MPC or VLC or "kibbles 'n bits media player v.2.82"?

It's not that I want to be elitist or torture people or anything, but with that nice new playback guide posted, I sort of feel like laying down the law a little bit, and pushing people to get a decent decoder/media player.

Does anyone have experiences to share about trying this?

Please discuss.

[trythil]

I'm aware that the guide suggests using the DX50 fourcc on the output files in the interest of compatibility, but I'm wondering just how necessary it really is to do that..

For people who have only the DivX5 codec installed, this can be a big deal.

Is there something I'm overlooking, like inconveniencing Mac users or something? Are there really a whole bunch of anime/amv fans still out there that don't have XVID or ffdshow or MPC or VLC or "kibbles 'n bits media player v.2.82"?

Yup.

Does anyone have experiences to share about trying this?

On the .org, the de facto standard is XviD-encoded-to-DivX5-parameters-with-MP3-audio-in-AVI-container -- but you can get away with pushing other stuff. For example, I've seen Matroska / Ogg Media gaining popularity as containers and Vorbis audio starting to emerge. As far as I know I'm the only one crazy / stupid enough to start pushing x264 at this early date, but I'm sure someone else has done it before...

Anyway. From what I've seen, the recommendations often echoed on the .org aren't what you usually see. Most of the time, digital video is unfortunately shackled to proprietary formats: Windows Media and RealMedia are big, most likely because they are perceived to be easier to work with. Neither will go very far here, but if you're aiming for beyond the .org, you'd probably have better luck with either one of those formats than anything open.

It's counterintuitive, but that seems to be the case.

[Scintilla]

I don't particularly like the idea of having that stupid divx logo popping up in the corner of my vids when I didn't acutally use their product for anything...

The DivX logo is applied decoder-side (unless someone was using Windows Movie Maker to edit DivX source files). You can turn it off in the decoder options, and then you never have to see it again (unless you watch a video made in Windows Movie Maker with DivX source files).

Alternatively, you can uninstall DivX completely. Either way, you lose the logo.

Are there really a whole bunch of anime/amv fans still out there that don't have XVID or ffdshow or MPC or VLC or "kibbles 'n bits media player v.2.82"?

I'm sure there are plenty.

It's not that I want to be elitist or torture people or anything, but with that nice new playback guide posted, I sort of feel like laying down the law a little bit, and pushing people to get a decent decoder/media player.

*waits for trythil or Tab. to say something about H.264*

[Scintilla]

Dough! I guess I'm not as <i>spry</i> as I used to be...

[FurryCurry]

The DivX logo is applied decoder-side (unless someone was using Windows Movie Maker to edit DivX source files). You can turn it off in the decoder options, and then you never have to see it again (unless you watch a video made in Windows Movie Maker with DivX source files).

Alternatively, you can uninstall DivX completely. Either way, you lose the logo.

Yes, I don't think I've actually had anything from Divx installed for a couple years. I (probably wrongly) figure that most folks bright enough to turn off the logo would likely have also found ffdshow or the like.

I'm reasonably satisfied with the quality of Divx-compatible Xvid encodes, and that's the way I've always done it. I'm quite happy now with what I'm seeing in the 1.01 version. I've been out of the amv scene for over a year, since avisynth (2.2?) and ugly broken b-frames were the norm. (hence the new distro encodes I'm making)

I'd like to think pushing the envelope that tiny bit would be a step in the right direction, but it would probably only net me a few all 1's, a couple problem reports, and an email or two asking why the video won't play.

[AbsoluteDestiny]

Well, the fact is that there are very few settings in xvid that are incompatible with divx and all of those settings offer only a marginal increase in quality (if at all - some of them can actually hurt your video). So if you're making an Advanced Simple Profile avi you might as well make it divx compatible as it wont cost you anything.

Setting the DX50 fourcc isn't a big deal as sensible people will use ffdshow to decode that content anyway.

[Zero1]

As far as I know I'm the only one crazy / stupid enough to start pushing x264 at this early date, but I'm sure someone else has done it before...

Heh, I'd be more than willing to if I had a video to encode, but I've never liked the ogg or mkv containers... Well actually more specifically its the decoding packs you have to install, luckilly matroska has a minimalist pack available and seems less glitchy than ogg.

Though I'd be most tempted to encode basic compliant streams such as AVC video with AAC audio in .mp4 container.

I was amazed at the quality improvement with x264 from trythil's blog type thing on Boogiepop, and I've had dealings with AAC before, and I love it.

As for FFDshow, it might have the most efficient MPEG-4 ASP decoder, and I appreciate it for that, what I don't appreciate is it installing a load of crap to play stuff encoded with codecs nobody uses these days, and even if they do it's simple enough to get a stand alone codec.

I also hate the way you get loads of FFDshow icons in the system tray... and the fact WMP10 dies everytime I load a new video, and don't give me all that media player classic crap, I've heard it all before, I didn't buy an Athlon64 and a shite load of ram just to run Win 3.11 complexity programs... It's about the EQ and eyecandy baby, heh! Though I will concede WMP10 sucks ass, and I wish I had WMP9 back.

Another thing FFDshow has going for it, is that it's almost idiot proof, or an easy solution to most questions;

Q "HAY gUYS i cnat save the video for the divx help me plzkthx"
A "Read the guides"

Q "OH NOES i cnat watch the amv from teh avi whut am i doing wrong is it broke help thanx"
A "Install FFDshow"

Uh, what was the topic again?


Personally I'd leave the fourCC as it is, It's awesomely annoying when you need to know the original attributes and encoder used and it's been altered. It's especially annoying for people with outdated codecs (probably not even that old) who can't play a video, and they inspect the file and think it's a compatible file and that it must be corrupt.

But do the basic XviD encode thing as in the guides, what you do with B-frames is up to you, for compatibilty sake no B frames at all is the way to go, also the fastest for decoding. 1 Bframe should be OK at the expense of CPU decoding time, and 2 Bframes may or may not be dodgy ground with older versions of DivX, I don't know for certain though.

DivX 5.2 and higher will successfully decode any XviD 1.00 and higher encode, regardless of the settings used for encoding, this includes the 3 warp point GMC which DivX didn't previously support.

I suppose most of it boils down to user opinions, I dispise FFDshow, whereas others love it, I just prefer to install standalone codecs and yes, I do know you can enable and disable codec support in FFDshow

[AbsoluteDestiny]

I've never had an ffdshow icon in the system tray, ever.

As for outdated codecs this is a non issue as it's mpeg-4 ASP spec so it doesnt honestly matter what the fourcc is provided you have a decoder that supports all the options. As you stated already, Divx 5.2 does this.

[cmdshft]

I've never had an ffdshow icon in the system tray, ever.

I have...

[AbsoluteDestiny]

I see that it's an option but it's not enabled for me. I wonder if there was a build where it was enabled by default. That would explain things.

Anyway, yeah, disable it with the codec configuration page(s).