HEY AD! I hope threads like these haven't been beaten to death (i didn't see any), but I was just wondering if anyone has done any testing with Xvid conversion and found a good average size to convert them to without a large drop in the quality. To kind of explain what I mean, i plan on buying a dvd player that can read xvid files, and i was wondering what size is generally a good file size to watch movies on a tv no larger than 35 inches or so (if i were to bring them to a friends house or something) without there being a really noticeable quality loss. Obviously, it will never match the actual dvd, but it would be nice to get them small enough to fit several of the files on a dvd without poor quality. I know "good quality" is a subjective thing, but any opinions are helpful. I generally convert them to around 850 MB w/audio at variable 256. Thanks for your input everyone!
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and so we all have our quality sweet spot(s)..for me it's minumum 2,000 kbit/s for Xvid/DivX, and even lower for MP4/h.264 encodes..However I have seen some good( acceptabe for my eyes)quality Xvid AVIs @ 800-1000 kbit/s..To each their own..
I am in the process of doing some testing - it certainly depends on what you are running xvids on. I have Pioneer 410 and have xvids/avi, mp3, & jpgs stored on WD external hard drive - dont really run DVDs anymore. Unfortunately this 410 seems to have difficulty playing xvid/avi over 2gig and I am now reconverting larger avis back down to smaller file size. I still have to find out if there is a threshold that this player wont read over, its somewhere around 2 gig, suggest try and test your gear. Just looking at your numbers - 850 MB + audio at 256 - this seems to be a very high high audio rate and would probably result in lower video quality - I am reckoning music dvds rather than movie?? Music dvds - newer recordings have been made on good quality, older recordings have been on fairly average gear so the quality has already dropped by the time you get it. I notice a slight video loss, audio is still good. Mp3 is at 208, down from 224 to help make file size of avis smaller but this is still good. Video also depends on the cables you use - run good hdmi & optical to retain quality.
That is not unique to the Pioneer. The same holds true for my Philips. To the OP I'd stick to 3 per DVD and would definitely go with 6 channel DD set @ 384 kb/s if it's available.
