[PLUG] Q: comparison of video formats

[Kevin Theobald]

AthlonRob writes:

 > Mid-March?  Might be the thread where I was trying to figure out how to
 > nicely encode TV shows to fit two hours on a CD.  :-)

Oh, well, that's easy -- just edit out the commercials!

 > > So what I'm trying to decide is the format I should use.
 > 
 > divx.

I've heard a couple of recommendations for divx.  How does it compare
to MPEG-1?

I figure if I use VCD or SVCD, then it can always be viewed in a
standard DVD player (in most cases) and wouldn't require a computer.
Also, can divx be viewed under Windows (without, say, expecting the
Windows (l)users among the recipients to go download some tool?

 > WMV... in my experience, it is easy to view in Linux, but it sucks in
 > the quality department.  If you're going for very small files (ie;
 > 500KB/minute) it seems to be top-dog in the quality department.  If you
 > want medium sized files, it sucks compared to divx, et al.

What sort of compression rate could I expect with divx, and how would
it compare to MPEG-{1,2,4}?

 > Ok... is there a Linux alternative to grabbing the video?  Or if you can
 > deal with storing 60 minutes at 25Mb/sec (I assume you mean megabyte,
 > not bit)...

No -- standard convention is b=bit, B=byte.

 > > 5. If I stick with MPEG-1, is there a way to make a VCD with "extra
 > > content" (the JPEGs and text files) so that someone can pop it into a
 > > DVD player that understands VCDs, and see the video, but if they pop
 > > it into a computer, they can access the other stuff?
 > 
 > I dunno... never played with VCD itself.  In my experience (a few years
 > old) VCDs are hard to play in computers... finding a reader in Linux was
 > a PITA.

Never a problem for me.  When I did "apt-get install xine" the first
thing I ran it on was my wife's VCDs.  (They're popular in Asia for
recording TV series.  For TV source, you only really notice the low
frame rate when they have, like, a sword fight.)  VCDs always worked
-- DVDs were harder because of having to install the decss stuff
manually.

 > I use 2-pass divx encoding to encode TV shows... after they're encoded
 > and all done (with about 3 hours of CPU time put in for one hour of TV)
 > they're about 300MB an hour with about the same level of quality you'll
 > get out of an antenna and a VCR, I think.

It sounds like divx does a much better job than MPEG-1, though
"antenna" kind of makes me worry (from my experience living in
Cambridge, Mass., which was about the last place in the US to get
cable because of endless negotiations with the cable company
wannabes).

Kevin