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best quality video file format for a media player

  • 25-01-2009 1:02pm
    #1
    jackrussell007
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 222 ✭✭


    Hi folks

    I bought a new 40" LCD over the christmas. I often hook up my 2.5" media HDD player to watch movies. I've noticed however that the .avi files that used to be perfect quality on my old 26"CRT are now looking a little pixelated and less that top quality. I realise this is because the picture is being scaled up to a higher resolution.

    My question is what is the best quality file format to rip my dvds into, As far as I can see my media player wont play actual dvd files and probably wouldnt play any type of disc image file either. what are my options after that?

    thanks for any help


Comments

  • #2
    Myxomatosis
    Closed Accounts Posts: 429 ✭✭Myxomatosis


    and avi file is a container. All media files are containers.

    What determines the quality of a video is the bitrate. A higher bit rate = higher quality and the better it will look when scaled up.

    What do you use to rip your DVDs?

    Also a media player HDD probably doesn't do post processing on the video, to deblock it and depixelate it. When you play a video on your PC it will most of the time post process it, but the media player HDD probably isn't powerful enough to do this. If this is the case even high bit rate dixv or xvid encoded files may appear pixelated on the new TV.


  • #3
    _CreeD_
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,162 ✭✭✭_CreeD_


    Actually that's not quite true. The File Format's are generally containers but you've neglected the codec itself. With a XVid AVI 'avi' is the container and XVid is the codec, different codecs do produce differing levels of visual quality at the same rates, bit-rate is only a factor for direct comparison when you are talking about rates using the same codec.
    Divx and similar are going to look weak on a 40" regardless of what you do, chances are your media player (depending on the make) also downgraded the movie resolution even more during the import to your player. If you can get a media PC together that would be a better choice as even native MPEG2 for your DVDs will look blocky due to screen size (and now having the detail levels on your TV to see the many nasty artifacts that MPEG2 introduces to the picture). If you want the best quality try a player with good upscaling (not just image resizing) like WinDVD 9 with All2HD on native DVDs. 2nd Option would be to use a better codec like .264, it'll be better than DivX/XVid but you're never going to get past the original MPEG2 limitations


  • #4
    Myxomatosis
    Closed Accounts Posts: 429 ✭✭Myxomatosis


    _CreeD_ wrote: »
    Actually that's not quite true. The File Format's are generally containers but you've neglected the codec itself. With a XVid AVI 'avi' is the container and XVid is the codec, different codecs do produce differing levels of visual quality at the same rates, bit-rate is only a factor for direct comparison when you are talking about rates using the same codec.
    Divx and similar are going to look weak on a 40" regardless of what you do, chances are your media player (depending on the make) also downgraded the movie resolution even more during the import to your player. If you can get a media PC together that would be a better choice as even native MPEG2 for your DVDs will look blocky due to screen size (and now having the detail levels on your TV to see the many nasty artifacts that MPEG2 introduces to the picture). If you want the best quality try a player with good upscaling (not just image resizing) like WinDVD 9 with All2HD on native DVDs. 2nd Option would be to use a better codec like .264, it'll be better than DivX/XVid but you're never going to get past the original MPEG2 limitations

    I neglected the codec because most of these media playing external hard drives are only capable decoding xvid / divx. The difference between xvid and divx at the same bit rate is minimal, especially sitting 10 feet away.

    It's highly unlikely that it will decode x.264 or h.246, unless it's a very high end media player.


  • #5
    gamer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,227 ✭✭✭gamer


    buy a dvd player with usb in, and hd connectors out,this should upscale most media files ,cost 50 euro in lidyl/aldi ,harvey norman have players with divxx /wma avi playback 90euro approx.you could plug the media player in thru the dvd/usb in.MY dvd player has hd out,though i never tried it.OR just put files on a usb stick plug into to dvd usb in, rev3 has files in 4 formats codecs ,diggnation etc.
    #google upscaling media player hd.my media player plays avi,most files though not mk4v.has your media player got hd out connectors.or just get a media player thats designed for hd playback,with upscaling for hdtv.


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