Xvid is better quality - hence why it is the newest codec..lol
 
i watched Signs Xvid release i got a hold of, and the quality was incredible! compared to numerous and i mean NUMEROUS divX releases ihave.,

2pass XViD is damn good. Windows Media Video 9 seems bloody good except I can't really test it cos my PC is too slow.

Is there an official web site for Xvid, where one could see sample videos encoded with that codec?

That would be cool, because honestly, I have never heard of it.

Well, the homepage is http://www.xvid.org/ FYI

2 pass Xvid quality is incredible. Although so is divx 5.02 pro, 2 pass with Qpel and B frames.
 
There major problem with xvid is, iot is under heavy development all the time, (Which is good), but that means experimental development builds are constantly available, which often leads to major, major bugs ion the encoded video. You must search high and low and find builds that are not "Broken" as many are broken. You need to look for "Trusted" builds, not just "The latest" builds.

this is one case where
 
 
"the latest and greatest" does not apply

Tell me if the players and encoders aren't stable yet, and the there just about aren't any files available encoded in it yet, why not wait until it's stable and doesn't suck?
-Christian

Quote:Tell me if the players and encoders aren't stable yet, and the there just about aren't any files available encoded in it yet, why not wait until it's stable and doesn't suck?
-Christian

The same could be said about Windows 2000 and XP, yet tons of people started using those when they were released. I guess nobody ever really learned from Windows 95, that's all.

Hi clutch,
I think you're right for the most part, lagging behind on software is the safest way to go. I didn't start using Win2K until SP1 and really that was probably too early. As I did suffer some data loss related to a bug in their software RAID functionality. However it must be compared with what was out ther at the time both WinNT4 and Win98SE were far less stable than Win2K so I think it was the right choice. Even with the data loss I consider myself to have been better off with win2k. What think I liked about Win2K most was that you could have a session of notepad open and not have to worry about your system crashing before you'd have a chance to save a .txt file. Also Windows 95 Gold was still far more stable than windows 3.1 and featured considerable improvements in usability and performance. If I had to do that over again I would have installed Win95 sooner as well. Nonetheless, I consider both of those exceptions to the rule. In general I was until there's a 5.0 out before I'll install a 4.0 of a given application. That way I figure all the major bugs have been patched, and any issue that went unresolved are known by their support staff and are hopefully in a FAQ on their website.
-Christian

Xp was stable from the outset.

I will agree that XP is stable, comparable to Win2K in that respect, but considering that it doesn't offer any features of note that Windows 2000 doesn't have. OK it has burner support, woop, I have EZ-Creator 5 which can do ten times more. There's no reason why not to wait a a year or two for Microsoft and it's guinea pigs (end users) to work out the bugs in WinXp without me. Don't get me wrong if I bought a PC today I'd specifically ask for WinXP over 2K , but right now there's just no motivating reason. I've used XP a lot and like it, but seeing how I suffered early edition data loss on Win2K I think I'm going to pass on a similar fate with XP. I like that you can format a bootable floppy in Win2K though, however when are they going to get off their asses and realize that CDs are our floppies and allow you to format bootable CDs from the shell.
-Christian

Quote:Xp was stable from the outset.
From release, yes, but many people around here (myself included) started with the release candidates or even the betas... I think I jumped in around Beta 3...

XP stable from the outset? HA!. GUI, GUI, GUI, GUI, GUI.
 
If you don't know what I'm talking about...well then you don't know.

Obviously we don't know.
I'm still yet to see an XP machine crash and that is after using numerous different configurations.
So I think I'll agree, WinXP was extremely stable from the very beginning.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to say that I don't know either . I have found XP to be stable, but I have crashed it under severe loads. However, I have crashed it fewer times than Win2K, which crashed fewer times than NT4. These are typically related to flaky drivers/apps, and rarely the direct fault of the OS. I have also crashed several distros of Linux too. Usually, it's the stupid RPM manager in Red Hat 8, or Mozilla crashing X and restarting X-server (unless you're setup to boot to the CLI, then it just drops to the command line). My average workload consists of 3-5 web browser windows (or tabs, now that I use Phoenix all the time), Outlook, SQL Server, McAfee, a couple Explorer windows, VS.NET, and Trillian. Then, I'll have things like Photoshop, IIS MMC, and AD tools open along the day. This usually works out to around a dozen or so windows open at the same time, and I only reboot the machine once every couple of weeks.