DIVIX is just an MPEG4 implementation, and yes, I have seen DIVX HD.

However, the player is the main point. Some play HD, some don't. Search this forum for IOData or IO-Data LinkPlayer2.

DIVX was originally used mainly for cramming as many SD movies in as small of a space as possible. Not all DIVX players play HD!

IMO divx is sorely underated, underused and virtually unknown. Compared to mpg2, divx absolutely poos on it in every way shape and bitrate

thre are afew posts about divx already on here, so it might be wise to do a search. With regard to HD, it IS possible, and it is plausible... an option with divx is to run a TVIX box these are realtively cheap and u an throw n any hdd you want

I recently saw a few TV shows that a buddy of mine (who is not as concerned with copyright issues as I am) downloaded from the 'net. I was absolutely amazed at the quality of the DIVX files he showed me vs. what I have been trying to pull out of AVC, WMV, etc at the same bitrates (or bitrates significantly higher). Near full SD resolution/framerate at 300Kbps (with audio taking up half that!), with very little noticable artifacting. There were some issues with audio drift on some of the programs which makes me wonder about the stability of the encoders, though.

Edit: Just read some FAQs on the DIVX site and found that drift issues are usually due to human error (ie: incorrect settings, interleave segments too long, etc).

u can download teh DivX enocre and give it a go urself.. people usually stuff up their audio as most defautl settings are set to 150ms or 1500ms offset which they dont rectify at time of encoding.

IMO, if DivX was a "standardised format" there wouldbe no need for BD and HD dvd, as u CAN fit a 2hour HD movie on 1 DVD..
hell with clever encoding ive been able to fit 6 movies on one DVDr and thrown on a projector, you would not be able to tell the difference between these and the originals (save from the audio)

Has anyone done a quality/size comparison between:
- DivX
- H.264 (Sony, MainConcept and Nero variants)
- QuickTime MP4
- WM9
- 3ivx
- MPEG2

I'd be interested in seeing HD and SD comparisons.

Any others I'm missing here?

> since I can burn the DivX to a regular DVD disc, and I found a small DVD player that will play the DivX (and MPEG4) - will either of these show the video at HDV specs??

I've just been down this path in one of my threads and it's a very dark alley. ;-) As fldave said, you need to buy a "DivX Certified High Definition DVD player" that supports DivXHD not just DivX. Here is a list of players that work from the DivXHD web site As you can see they cost between $250 to $375 and only support DivXHD 720p! DivXHD 1080i is still in beta testing so no hardware players are going to support it. The $375 JVC SRDVD-100U does say that it supports WMV9 HD 1080i so that is the one I have my eye on although you essentially have an HD VCR since there are no menus or chapters so all you can do is watch the whole thing.

So why haven't I bought yet? Well at $375 you are very close to the $499 price tag of a "real" HD-DVD player! The problem is, there are NO HD-DVD BURNERS!!! So while Blu-ray may be overly expensive, at least it exists as an option because HD-DVD is non existent if you can't burn it! I'm thinking that the JVC SRDVD-100U is looking like the only option today (other then spending $1800 for a Blu-ray burner and player) but I haven't jumped off the fence yet.

~jr

some video cards (I know all ATI's 8500 & up do) support Divx acceleration too, so you can play HD content with relatively little CPU usage (other codec's are supported too). I tested this once & was amazed... if you run it in the ATI player it's MUCH better then WMP or MPC because the ATI one access's the card for more then just acceleration. I just don't like the GUI of their player so I don't use it. :)

So why haven't I bought yet? Well at $375 you are very close to the $499 price tag of a "real" HD-DVD player! The problem is, there are NO HD-DVD BURNERS!!! So while Blu-ray may be overly expensive, at least it exists as an option because HD-DVD is non existent if you can't burn it! I'm thinking that the JVC SRDVD-100U is looking like the only option today (other then spending $1800 for a Blu-ray burner and player) but I haven't jumped off the fence yet.

JR - one advantage of the IO Data LinkPlayer 2 is that you can stream your HD video off a network. This means you could have gobs of video on your PC and not have to deal with using ultra-expensive Blu-Ray or HD-DVD media. Their forum admin told me that .m2t gives the best quality, and WMV-HD vs. DIVXHD was a wash (I'm sure he's comparing 720p). Just one opinion, but for my own part I am finding that playing .m2ts gives good quality.

I haven't tested this theory, but since file sizes for HDV are comparable to SD MPG2, I would think you should be able to get a fair amount of high-def .m2t video onto a DVD (especially a dual layer DVD).

You get roughly 1 hr m2t's worth on a dual layer disc.
JJK

"IMO, if DivX was a "standardised format" there wouldbe no need for BD and HD dvd, as u CAN fit a 2hour HD movie on 1 DVD.."

You don't get it, do you? There's no money in DiVX for Hollywood because there isn't the draconian DRM in DiVX that Hollywood requires in Blu Ray and HD-DVD.