[MPlayer-users] LAVC-MPEG4 vs DIVX4 vs XVID??

[Corey Hickey]

JJ2Dogs wrote:
> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> So I made another experiment with LAVC and DIVX4. I used a bitrate of 2200 for DIVX4 and 3500 for LAVC. The DIVX4 was about 500mb larger and the quality was a slightly worst than lavc. Now I am trying out xvid. I must say that it is the slowest. Any idea for setting xvid??

What you must understand is that in order to perform any valid
comparison, you must start out with everything the same and then
vary one AND ONLY ONE parameter. If you're comparing different codecs,
then everything should be the same except for the different codec used:
same bitrate, same keyframe intervals, et cetera.

I don't mean to be harsh, but if you don't adhere to this most basic of
testing principles, your results are meaningless. As it is, you're
peeling an orange, feeding a rabbit, and painting a car, and then trying
to tell us which one tastes best as you ride it to the post office.

By the way, always use 2pass for your tests unless you have some
specific reason not to.

-Corey