WTH? DivX 5 Athlon Optimized?

[Pabster]

MadRat wrote:

"Can you view DivX5 on standard DVD players that support VCD?"

Not yet, and perhaps never if the consortiums have their way. There are some manufacturers' planning DivX-enabled DVD units in the near future, but they've been held up by the legal issues.

IMHO, DivX is worthless. Who the hell wants to sit at a PC, even with a nice 18"+ LCD watching a movie? What's even more ridiculous is those who put DivX rips on to 3 or 4 CDs. I mean, come on. You can achieve equal if not superior quality on 2 CDs with Super VideoCD and watch them most anywhere. Not to mention how much faster MPEG-2 encoding is than MPEG-4, but that's another issue entirely.

 

[kyle1745]

People who have nothing better to do at work.

People whos kids will watch the same movie 100 times.



Kyle

 

[Vernor]

<< MadRat wrote:

"Can you view DivX5 on standard DVD players that support VCD?"

Not yet, and perhaps never if the consortiums have their way. There are some manufacturers' planning DivX-enabled DVD units in the near future, but they've been held up by the legal issues.

IMHO, DivX is worthless. Who the hell wants to sit at a PC, even with a nice 18"+ LCD watching a movie? What's even more ridiculous is those who put DivX rips on to 3 or 4 CDs. I mean, come on. You can achieve equal if not superior quality on 2 CDs with Super VideoCD and watch them most anywhere. Not to mention how much faster MPEG-2 encoding is than MPEG-4, but that's another issue entirely. >>



There is this thing called TV-out.

Divx is mostly usefull for TV shows not on DVD.

 

[MadRat]

<<There is this thing called TV-out.
Divx is mostly usefull for TV shows not on DVD.>>

Vernor, that didn't help at all. Streaming video technology does NOT work through the TV-out.

 

[Diable]

MadRat, Vernor is 100% correct. All you need to watch Divx encoded movies on your TV is a video card with TV-Out and a S-video cable with 2 male ends thats long enough to reach your TV from your computer, its that simple.

 

[boran]

<< Vernor, that didn't help at all. Streaming video technology does NOT work through the TV-out. >>



What the hell are u saying ....

as far as i know the only TVouts that cannot output to TV are the TVouts integrated into Mpeg2 decoder cards, all 3Dcard TVouts should do fine ....

and if u get a scanline convertor (like Tview gold or silver) the quality is EXTREMELY high.

 

[Vernor]

<< <<There is this thing called TV-out.
Divx is mostly usefull for TV shows not on DVD.>>

Vernor, that didn't help at all. Streaming video technology does NOT work through the TV-out. >>




What the heck ?

 

[MadRat]

<<as far as i know the only TVouts that cannot output to TV are the TVouts integrated into Mpeg2 decoder cards, all 3Dcard TVouts should do fine>>

What videocards would these "integrated into Mpeg2 decoder cards" be?

 

[Diable]

Sigma Design's REALmagic Hollywood Plus is a MPEG2 decoder card. Its a add on PCI card(you need a separate video card)that can found for about $50 or less.

 

[Czar]

First... I'v mostly noticed huuuuge file size decrese with the new codec when encoding tv shows, havent encoded dvd movies or anything else yet.

I have a G400 and using my dvdmax feture on the dualhead is perfect for this sortof thing. I have my tv next to my computer so I just play the movie in media player, minimise it and it plays on the tv while I can do stuff on the computer.

 

[madthumbs]

<< When you have a fast as hell Athlon, do you really need some optimization to watch Divx? >>



-simple answer; multitasking


I use the tv-out on my gainward geforce 3 through s-video cable. Use tv-tool for switching/ optimising. Cordless keybord and mouse for remote. Sasami2k as a media player. Volume control with mouse wheel or up/down arrows. Skip ahead/ behind with arrows and other keys. SO much more convenient than DVD.

 

[MadRat]

I've tried two cards for streaming video out to TV.

Radeon VE w/TV-out
Diamond Viper V330 w/TV-out

Neither one can stream to the television set.

 

[MikeO]

umm... DivX's play fine on my TV through Radeon VIVO's TV-out...




<< IMHO, DivX is worthless. Who the hell wants to sit at a PC, even with a nice 18"+ LCD watching a movie? >>



Nobody. Who want's to lay on a bed watching DivX movies on 28" widescreen TV + audio coming from decent stereos? Me! IMHO, DivX is the exact opposite of worthless.

 

[MadRat]

If DivX can output to TV through the TV-out then it inherently is better than VCD for most computer users. I like VCDs for the DVD player, but don't particularly care for the low quality. All of the DivX rips I've seen have been pretty kick butt quality.

And I still have yet to find any proof that streaming video from MPEG2 or MPEG4 can go through the TV Out.

 

[HendrixFan]

http://www.hal-9000.net/wwwboard/messages/3/6/364587.html

Dual monitor support

* Leading-edge HYDRAVISION? technology supports traditional CRT monitors, flat panel displays and TVs

HYDRAVISION

HydraVision Multiple Monitor Management Software gives you flexible multi-display support to enable many combinations of VGA, DVI and TV. It has everything you need to manage increased amounts of information across your desktop and improve your productivity. It allows you to tailor your desktop to the way you work, within minutes.



Then there is this image here where it shows that you can send the output to a TV

http://www.anandtech.com/showimage.html?u=http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/ati/radeon8500/final/1.gif



Even Tomshardware has an image of the Radeon 8500, where the bottom output is DVI, the middle is VGA, and the top is composite, for a TV.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/01q4/011016/images/radeon8500_boardshot.jpg

 

[Pabster]

Again, I reiterate, why DivX? It just doesn't make sense.

Even Super VideoCD's I encode at ridiculously low bitrates have superior quality to DivX, and I can play them most anywhere -- including on a PC, without sucking half the CPU down to decode them.

TV-out is fine and dandy, but you could do that with SVCD as well. Again, without the wasted processor cycles decoding the CPU-intensive MPEG-4.

Ah well. To each their own. I'll sit here and encode SVCD at 2-2.5X realtime with near-DVD quality long before I labor away compressing DivX at 1X (if you are lucky) so I can watch them on my PC.

 

[yellowperil]

Pabster - SVCD has lower resolutions than DivX, and requires more encoding time + space to achieve the same quality as DivX. That being said I still prefer SVCD for being able to read them on some DVD players.

 

[MadRat]

HendrixFan-

If that was for my benefit then it was a waste. I already own an ATI Radeon card and have seen first hand that the TV-out does not work for streaming video from MPEG2 or MPEG4 videos. Nor does it work with the TV Out on a Viper V330. When I looked into the problem it turned out that the streaming video is protected on the hardware level to prevent TV Out being abused by video pirates.

 

[HendrixFan]

If SVCDs are good enough for you, then you should be happy. Each person has their own preferences. Alot of DivXs I see have MP3 audio at 96k or lower. I just cant stand that poor of quality from the audio, thats my personal preference. Others will think Im doing overkill on audio when I do LAME VBR and it averages around 160 or so.

I dont have a standalone DVD player, so SVCDs arent useful to me. I dont even use TV out, because my monitor is 21", and I dont have a TV in my room. The living room has a 26" TV, but I wouldnt want to watch movies on it, because the quality difference between the monitor and the TV doesnt make up for the size.

In the end, it isnt about usability for me, just filesize. DivX compresses better than MPEG2 (which is why with DivX5 you need a processor about 150% faster than for MPEG2). In the end I can sqeeze out more quality on 2CDs with MPEG4, so thats what I pick.