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39 Comments
- MrFoof82, on 10/12/2007, -0/+36This isn't intended as a flame, but here's a legitimate question: Why do folks seem to love DivX and XviD as much as they do?
I've started ripping my DVD collection to a digital format recently and after a lot of poking, prodding, and comparing, I ultimately decided on H.264 @ 1500kbps (720x400px). I did give DivX and XviD a fair shake however, and at some points it was a toss-up between XviD and H.264.
What I could see that was in favor of XviD was:
1) Much faster encoding times. XviD was 2.5x faster than the x264 codec's main profile.
2) Better color reproduction and palette-matching at lower bitrates (i.e. 800kbps or so).
However when it comes to the fact that I'm only going to do this once, and I want quality to be paramount, I ended up going with H.264, mostly because:
1) There was no foreground macro-blocking, or if there was, it was aliased or smoothed out when compared to XviD.
2) Much less background macro-blocking on medium-to-fast panning scenes. There were enough samples in my test rips for this to actually be noticeable in a few spots without actually having to look for it.
3) At the same bitrate, file sizes were a bit smaller (6-7%).
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I will admit, the differences aren't huge or groundbreaking like going from something such as... Sorenson 3. And the encoding times for H.264 are absolutely brutal. I can see folks who've already invested their time in the past wanting to stick with what they've already done once in DivX and XviD -- I won't disagree with that because no one wants to spend the time to encode all their content again. But for new content, I really can't see why you wouldn't want to use H.264. - cleverboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19Not only do they not wish to SUPPORT all these other formats they don't care about, they also don't want to have to LICENSE all the technology for all those other formats either, support being the bigger of the two concerns obviously. When everyone is so willing to leap in and add support themselves, its pretty clear they had good reasoning there too. Those that can't, don't need them, those that can, can add it themselves. Sounds pretty straight forward to me.
- Jeffrey903, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15Or you could just get VisualHub - http://www.techspansion.com/visualhub/
It's only $23.32 (cheaper than QuickTime Pro) and it converts significantly faster than Quicktime does. The latest version even has an option that converts your video specifically to an AppleTV format. - pygmalion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14it doesn't "unlock" divx playback... it installs Perian, a third party Quicktime component that doesn't come with OS X. Quicktime has always been able to play AVI files, but not every codec. It also used to have trouble with corrupted keyframe indexes, which seem to be the norm for divx pirated content...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I haven't needed to convert for apple tv yet, but for all of my other conversion needs i have been using VisualHub ( http://www.techspansion.com/ ) which works really well for what I need it to do.. Plus it has Xgrid conversion, so if you conveiniently have access to a couple dozen machines, you can farm out a video to each of them, and have them all dump the files back to your machine. I use it with one of our computer labs when they don't have a class in them, and I can convert 30 videos at once, and only have it take slightly longer than to convert a single video.
edit: Jeffrey903 apparently like VisualHub a lot too... - cinnix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I prefer Xvid myself, if not for the simple fact that it is sooooo much faster to encode a DVD into XVID than it would be for H.264 (I'm not yet a mac user, 1700mhz, 512 ram, you get the picture). Although the quality of H.264 raises the bar so much higher than that of XVID, for me it isn't enough to justify the longer encode times. I'm not much of an AV freak either, I can tolerate a degree of artifacts caused by video compression, and not have it bother me.
Oh and people, don't Digg him down because the post is too long. It's one of the most interesting posts I've seen in a while. - nicku, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14Once again, thanks for supporting standard formats Apple!
- mrmagenta, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10wouldnt it be easy to follow the apple tv hack to unlock divx
- nanboya, on 10/31/2007, -2/+8Uhm, sure because MCE doesn't play ***** straight out of the box without installing additional codecs, records in a proprietary format that have to be converted to get content out of, and comes with a remote that has enough buttons to launch a nuclear missile?
- cleverboy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Mr. Biiggy. RTFA. (keyword "*****"). Did you read this part: "Since I have a lot of files, and no desire to sit around and convert these one at a time, it seemed like a perfect job for automator." You must like sitting around clicking menus... or you have a really small... um... collection.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6It's a combination of the fact that Xvid has been around longer and is more widely available, and encode times. On my MacBook, the difference in encoding time isn't a big deal, but on my old iBook the difference was significant.
Anyway, these days I encode in H.264. - Subtonic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Automator - The unsung hero of Tiger and has saved me tons of time.
http://www.automator.us - rightmindx, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10Because they want to encourage people to purchase mainstream media content from the iTMS instead of ripping DVDs you already own or obtaining content through other less legal means. They did the math and decided that they would make more money through the combined sales of Apple TV unites and profits from iTMS content than whatever the marginal unit sales increase is by offering a more open standard Apple TV.
- rightmindx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I would have to say XviD, in particular, is popular because it is an open standard supported by a wide range of media players and other applications. There are no restrictions on its use unless it is intentionally "locked out" as in the case of Apple TV. It's the same reason MP3 remains a standard (even though it is not open, but it has been widely adopted) even though AAC might prove to be a better format in tests.
- perre, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I'm glad to see a cool OSX Automator workflow promoted. Looks solid.
Like @burntfire's comment above, I also ended up using ViddyUp. It has a similar drag and drop functionality to the automator folder-actions, with the addition of two things: 1. it's much faster at converting than QT, and 2. being able to set a Poster Frame for each video before batch processing them all. This is helpful later because iTunes represents the video with that single still Poster Frame image. - cleverboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5No one cares to do that, bud. Anyone buying iTunes content knows what they're doing and generally won't care to "re-convert" it to something else... and, uh, we're in an AppleTV thread by the way. --But, you should still Google it anyway. I know there was an Apple script to do just that for music using the iMovie hole Apple left open. Instead of wasting time on weird requests like that however, I'd prefer people created more tutorials on CVS and WebDav.
- rightmindx, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8CHA-CHING!
That's the sound of Apple taking another $29.95 from you for the QuickTime Pro upgrade on top of the $300 you already spent for the Apple TV.
TICK. TICK. TICK.
That's the sound of time passing as you re-encode all your video files to be compatible with the Apple TV. - WraythX, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9Umm - why not use VisualHub which is $7 cheaper than buying Quicktime Pro (and does batch processing)? Or - better yet, install Perian on Apple TV, and use Boniface to create Quicktime links (4k each) without the need for ANY commercial software at all?
Man - ages ago I posted a link to show you how to do all of this with VisualHub and it only got four diggs - this one made it to the front page. How annoying! - burntfire, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Quicktime Pro is damn slow converting for tv.
I instead use ViddyUp! http://www.splasm.com/viddyup/. Takes about 30 seconds per minute of source video. Also does batch encoding, and automatically imports the video into iTunes when it's done. It is shareware, but it's only $10 and I honestly could just barely tell the difference between the source video and the encoded. - SoxFanNH, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Or just get a Divx DVD player, no need to reconvert your entire library and lose time and quality. I just don't get the hype about this thing when its comes as crippled as it is. You shouldn't have to unlock Divx/Xvid compatibility when its on many $50 DVD players to begin with...
- gert2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Apple _is_ the standard in video.
- yabos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3But then you have to burn possibly hundreds of DVDs and hope you can find the one you want later. No thanks.
- jwdav, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Ditto the plug for VisualHub - I grabbed it yesterday and am really impressed with it. Great interface, handles almost anything you could throw at it, has a queue, which also works with xgrid (I now have a 24GHz processor for batch conversions). Comes with an entertaining and useful manual and is well worth the price.
- Linh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The main thing for me was encoding time.. and playback. My C2D iMac is great... my xbox... not so great. Or my old AMD XP 2000+... h/x.264 content is painful on them.
- Crusty, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3What I would really like to see is an Automator workflow that would allow me to convert iTunes content to other formats like MP3, Divx, etc. Too bad it's not that easy.
- emdeesee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The problem with iSquint is that it converts to iPod format; which isn't the best resolution if you're converting to watch on your TV.
- stickittothemon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Just outta curiosity how are you ripping your dvd's, I tried using the handbreak but find that the h.264 files have a second lag when i press skip forward or back in frontrow. Is there a better alternative to handbreak that i dont know about.
- kinghrw, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Or you can just download isquint for free and drag - drop - convert.
- ephall, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Perhaps this doesn't work for everything the workflow method takes care of, but, since I don't have quicktime pro I kept looking and ended up using (FREE) isquint instead (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/ipod_itunes/isquint.html) to convert some things.
I just clicked 'optimize for tv' and 'add to itunes' and was able to convert divx .avi files to .mp4 files itunes would recognize and play...didn't even have to add them to my library...for me this was an infinitely easier and cheaper option than the automator method described here. - brainxs, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Doubtful info... I'm not impressed. Butt dugg it for some reason.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Xbox -> $300
Xbox Wireless -> $100
Old PC -> $300
Windows MCE -> $110
TOTAL = $810 - diggAddict, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Forget AppleTV - get a MediaGate MG-35 - it streams video, plays MPEG2, MPEG4 (DivX, Xvid) DVD vob ISO's and much more. There is a good community around it too.
I am not interested in Apple's LOCK-IN TV - where they dont support all the media types.
OK the Apple GUI is ok - but its not worth the $$ losing compatability with all those codecs!
Even better - get an old XBOX and install XBOX media Centre which is regularly updated with new codecs online.
Or for the Linux guys - get Linux MCE. - bl4ckbird, on 10/12/2007, -6/+3I suppose that every format could be defined a "standard", given the fact that all the formats have "rules".
So I don't see why Apple should support a closed standard (the facto?) like divx, for which should pay for, over open standards (like xvid?) or their own proprietary standards. It makes perfect sense. - ajcates, on 01/20/2009, -8/+4your fing kidding me right? you have to convert the movie to use it on apple TV??? windows mce just became like 200x times better then appleTV
- Rice, on 10/12/2007, -11/+6Don't pirate ViddyUp. I think it was this app that when pirated would display a "DON'T PIRATE" notice, and then crash with some absurd sound file.
It made me so pissed off that I never looked at the app again. - joeycerone, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1duggmirror?
- mrbiiggy, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1My workflow:
Open movie in Quicktime, File->Export - Movie to Apple TV
So difficult.. Must have Quicktime Pro though. - shuffle2, on 10/12/2007, -13/+5why would any company release a device like appleTV, and not enable it to play formats such as divx and wmv? that's ridiculous.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -15/+1So in short Quicktime is ***** like Apple
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