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DVD player - Formats
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sateeshm
Newbie
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22. February 2008 @ 21:56 |
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Hi,
Good day!
I would like to buy a DVD player. I am confused with diff formats and features available in the market. I want to know what is the diff between Divx and Mp4. I find Divx format with some and Mp4 with some other players. Which one is the best to buy for me. If possible please suggest me the features to be considered to buy a DVD player and also the best brand.
Thanks in adv.
satti_m
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Gibber1
Junior Member
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5. March 2008 @ 00:24 |
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High Defition DVDs are the biggest technology these days. There are 2 types of High Defition DVD called: Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. I don't know of a DVD player out that will play both types of dvds. You purchase 1 or the other. I think Blu-Ray will win but you never know. DVD players that play HD-DVD or Blu-Ray will still play normal DVDs that you have purchased over the years. I would go with a Blu-ray DVD player. You need to think down the road. If you think you'll be purchasing a high defitnition tv then get a DVD player that has HDMI. HDMI is a type of cable used to connect the DVD player to the TV that sends both audio and video. If you plan on purchasing surround sound, then make sure the DVD player has Optical out, which sends audio "Dolby Digital & DTS" surround sound to your surround sound receiver.
If you just want to hook your dvd player up to a non-high defition tv (old tv) then just pick up the cheapest well known name brand blu-ray dvd player. You may want to wait for the blu-ray dvd players to become cheaper.
DIVX is a video format typically found on downloaded movies.
MP4 is a type of audio file like MP3
I think you meant MPEG4 - which is also a video format like DIVX. There are tons of different video formats. If you watch mostly DIVX movies that you burned to disc from your computer then make sure that LOGO is on the dvd player you buy. If you watch store bought DVDs then buy the Blu-ray dvd player. I hope this isn't too confusing. I find the more the information the better the decision.
Gibber
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goodswipe
Suspended permanently
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5. March 2008 @ 15:39 |
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Quote:
I think Blu-Ray will win but you never know.
Where have you been? Blu-ray has won.
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If you plan on purchasing surround sound, then make sure the DVD player has Optical out, which sends audio "Dolby Digital & DTS" surround sound to your surround sound receiver.
If you're gonna buy a Blu-ray player and you use an HDMI cable for your video, no need in purchasing an extra toslink (optical) cable cause it will not carry the new HD audio formats such as DolbyTrueHD and DTS-HD. You want to get full use out of your player and the HDMI cable has the bandwidth to carry the formats. Make sure you get a certified HDMI 1.3 cable. Also, don't be fooled by those Monster cables they sell at those brick and mortar stores. You can pick up a cheaper cable that will do the same thing as a 100 dollar cable!
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If you just want to hook your dvd player up to a non-high defition tv (old tv) then just pick up the cheapest well known name brand blu-ray dvd player.
Don't buy a Blu-ray player to hookup to your non HD television. I can see no reason for doing this! If you don't want to take the plunge into Blu-ray hi-def just yet, buy a Toshiba HD DVD player. You can get one of those right now for as cheap as 70 bucks. It will play SD DVD as well as HD DVD. Those Toshiba HD DVD players are some of the best up converters on the market. Remember, HD DVD lost the format war so there will not be too many new releases in that format. You can watch well over 500 HD DVD's that are out there now, as well as import HD DVD's. Also, only do this if you plan on or have a hi-def tv.
Want just a regular DVD player with no up conversion? The Toshiba S-D4000 is a nice progressive scan player. It also is a DivX certified player, so it will have DivX playback functionality.
As for your Questions about DivX and MP4?/MPEG-4?. Read the following below.
MPEG-4
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MPEG-4 is one of the latest (audio and video) compression method standardized by MPEG group, designed specially for low-bandwidth (less than 1.5MBit/sec bitrate) video/audio encoding purposes.
Probably the best-known MPEG-4 video encoders are called DivX and XviD, which both are nowadays fully standard-compliant MPEG-4 encoders.
It should be noted that unlike MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, the MPEG-4's predecessors, MPEG-4 itself isn't just one unified encoding mechanism, but rather a group name for several flavors of video and audio encoding methods that share certain same characteristics. These "flavors" are often referred either as "profiles" or "layers" in MPEG-4 compression scheme and each new profile should be backwards compliant to the older, "lower" versions of MPEG-4 in terms of playback capability.
The most common MPEG-4 layers that XviD and DivX both use extensively are called simple profile and advanced simple profile. After those two standardized video encoding layers, MPEG-4 group has standardized several new layers -- most important ones are h263+ (which is used widely in mobile phone's, dubbed as 3GP) and h.264 (often also called as AVC).
DivX
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DivX ;-) was developed by bunch of hackers, most notably a guy called gej and it is based on Microsoft's version of MPEG-4 encoding technology, called as Windows Media Video V3.
Basically Microsoft's encoders didn't allow users to save MPEG-4 streams into AVI structure format, but forced users to use ASF instead. It also had some other limitations -- and those limitations were overriden in DivX ;-). It also added a support for other than Windows Media Audio audio encoding technology, allowing users to have MP3 audio on their movies.
In 2001, original "developers" of this hacked (and therefor illegal) codec released a new legal version of DivX ;-), called DivX (without smiley). DivX (without smiley) supports old DivX ;-) movies and also adds new features and better compression quality than "original" DivX ;-).
The name, DivX ;-), comes from now defunct CircuitCity pay-per-view DVD format called DIVX.
With DivX ;-), you can store 50-120 minutes of relatively good quality video to one CD (740MB) (==most of the movies can be stored in one CD, unlike in VCD or SVCD). Only negative aspect DivX ;-) has when it's compared to VCD is the fact that VCDs can be played with regular stand-alone DVD players and DivXs can't.
DivX, like many other MPEG-4 formats, can however be played with certain MPEG-4 compatible, stand-alone DVD/DivX players.
MP4
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Similar to how MP3 files work by compressing audio files without affecting the audio's quality, MP4 works the same way, but with video files and with added complexity. The large video files of both motion and audio is compressed into a single and simple file. MP4 is commonly known as MPEG-4 AVC (Advanced Video Coding). This new technology have hopes to decrease the size of the video, which in turns minimizes the risk of running out of space with older computers, making it easier to work with for the users.
Like stated before, the MP4 files are compressed into very small files into an extent that quality is not affected in any way. How the MP4 files manage to retain its quality is by dealing with specific coding situations, reducing certain aspects (such as temporal and spatial redundancies), transforming and changing the motion and intra estimation into the frequency domain, and inputting codec.
The MP4 players work in a simple manner as well. Attach the device into the computer, notebook, or TV and start the desired video. The advantage of the MP4 technology is that the video files are played in DVD quality at less than 1 Mbps (through a broadband connection). With a MP4 player, one can take videos through an Internet connection and watch them immediately in perfect quality. Lower MP versions can be played in the player, such as audio MP3 files.
Disadvantages, though not many, exist through the realms of MP4 technology. Piracy concerns in the MP3s still continue with MP4. Licensing and piracy problems continue and become even greater as long as MP4 gains its popularity. Despite the small size of a MP4 file, it still takes a while to download the file in a broadband connection. In a nut shell, the file is generally still large, even if it is compressed.
The info relating to DivX and MPEG-4 was taken from the aD glossary.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. March 2008 @ 15:51
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