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Since there are many guides for ripping
and encoding DVDs to Divxs, I will not try to add another, but I will
focus on a part often neglected: how to watch fine a Divx.
For creating
divx from DVD, click here
Everyone should (more or less) know what
is divx: a great alghoritm of compression, that reduces a lot the space of
a video, something like the mp3 for audio. The space of a video can be
reduced up to 90%... so a whole DVD movie can be put on a common CD of
700MB, with almost no quality loss.
So... you have a good pc, and you have a
divx, maybe downloaded from the web... but you are not able to see it, or
you want to see it in the best way possibile. What should you do?
First, you need audio and video codecs
updated. You should download the last version of
K-Lite
Codec Pack, so you can have all
the newest versions of most common audio and video codecs.
Download
If you need to watch a divx partially
downloaded, you should download avipreview.
This nice app works quite good even with partial divxs taken by
multipeer clients (Kazaa, Edonkey, etc.), provided you have downloaded a
reasonable part at the beginning. Download
There is an interesting
utility, GSpot 2.21, that can give you valuable informations on the
codec used on the divx you select, and even if this codec has been
installed on your system. One of the most useful utilities for
divxs (and 100% free).
Download
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If the codec of your video is Xvid, download the last version of Xvid
codec. (clic here)
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If the codec is .mkv (Matroska),
download the last version of Matroska pack full. (click
here)
1) CPU. You need a good CPU (and nice
graphic board), or the first thing you note will be the audio
de-synchronized (generally in advance compared to the video, and this
gap increases even more while the divx is playing). With a CPU of 1 Ghz or better you should
be OK (you can watch a divx
with a slower CPU, even a 450Mhz, but some divxs will be
de-syncronized). Someone may ask: can I watch ANY divx syncronized with
a slower CPU? Yes, you can, if you have plenty of time, but you have to scale the resolution,
lowering it to 500x240 or less, with Virtual Dub (or a similar
application)... but the quality will be lower, of course.
2) Player. The application that lets you
play the divxs (the player, of course!), has its own importance. In fact,
many players use a lot of resources from CPU, lowering the quality of the
video.
I suggest you to not use Windows Media
Player: this is probably the worst app for divxs.
A very good player is
WinDVD, but it
is commercial (about 50-80$), while all the others are free. Why is WinDVD
so good? Not only because you can watch DiVXs and DVDs, but especially for the
unmatched audio performances: you can watch your Divxs with Dolby SRS
with enhanced clarity, Dolby Surround, etc. (if the Divx audio codec
is AC3, you have up to 6 channels audio, if you own a good sound card). Since WinDVD pays a lot for
copyrights (Dolby systems, etc.), we cannot expect a free player with
these features (the audio is good, but not so good).
Since most of you will be interested to
the free divx players, these are some of the most interesting, or most
known:
| Core Media Player 4.0 RC 5. The
last version adds support for new video codec Matroska (.mkv). Maybe you
have seen some videos with .mkv and you did not know how to play them. The
evolution of PowerDivx. Many options, huge compatibility with most of
codecs, equalizer, great playback qualities, subtitles support, and much
more.
One of the best free divx player -with BSPlayer- in this moment.
Download |
| BSPlayer 1.0. Many consider it the
best divx player. I tried it a lot; At the beginning I never liked it too much,
but now (version 1.0), it is one of the best divx players around . The
main advantage is the little cpu usage (the smallest with Zoom Player and
Ace Divx Player).
A good choice, indeed. Download |
| Zoom Player Standard 3.31. Very, very nice, with
a great user interface easily configurable (probably the best between all
these players). If you avete installed WinDVD, ZoomLight uses its audio
features for giving the best audio. Furthermore, it uses a very little
CPU, so it is very good even for who has a slow processor. Anyway, since
it has become commercial, there is less support for the free version. Download |
| Crystal Player. Both freeware and
shareware. Many people like the free version, since consider it
very easy and reliable. The shareware version offers some unique
features for lightly improving divx video quality, like
deblocking (for reducing artifacts of bad encoded movies),
supersampling (for increasing quality of divxs with a low
resolution), multisampling (tries to increase frame rate
adding frames via interpolation. This smooths the motion), and
more. A very good divx player, though -in my opinion- the free
version does not match the best divx players, like Core or
BSPlayer. Download |
| Ace Divx Player. Extremely simple
(only 384 kb to download) and
with a very few options. There is nothing to understand, nothing to learn;
even people that do not know
anything about pcs are able to use it in a while. There are
free players with more features, like ZoomPlayer and Core Media Player,
but not so fast and easy. Download |
| Divx Player 2.1. In bundle
with Divx 5.1 Codec,
it has improved a lot in the last versions, and now it
is quite interesting. |
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CONCLUSION: Every player has its
advantages: if I had to choose my favourite, I would indicate BSPlayer and
Core MediaPlayer 4. But this is
only my opinion...
You should consider that everyone has a
different graphic board, a different CPU and a different amount of
avalaible RAM, so you should try yourself which of them is best for you.
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