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Thread ID: 76310 2007-01-28 09:17:00 Format question Ninjabear (2948) Press F1
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519991 2007-01-28 09:17:00 Hello There

I have a question about video formats

Say you go to a shop and purchase a dvd movie or ones at video rental store.

What is the file format called?

Is it call divx or mpeg4?
or something else?

Are Video Codec and Video format the same thing?
Ninjabear (2948)
519992 2007-01-28 09:25:00 The video format used on DVDs is MPEG2. The codec is not the same as the format - the codec is the bit of software that encodes/decodes video in that format. Erayd (23)
519993 2007-01-28 10:32:00 mpeg4 is actually higher than the regular DVD standard. winmacguy (3367)
519994 2007-01-28 11:17:00 Quote:Ninjabear Hello There

I have a question about video formats

Say you go to a shop and purchase a dvd movie or ones at video rental store.

What is the file format called?

Is it call divx or mpeg4?
or something else?

Are Video Codec and Video format the same thing?

PIRATING IS ILLEGAL!:yuck:
memphis (2869)
519995 2007-01-28 19:20:00 Memphis: Indeed it is, but what does his question have to do with pirating DVDs? Erayd (23)
519996 2007-01-28 20:55:00 I totally agree, this question was in no way about pirating DVDs or anything like that! Why assume the worst of people when it only makes you out to be the bad guy?

Format is probably a replacement for the word Codec, but you should get into the habit of calling them codecs
en.wikipedia.org

Specifically if you read from where they talk about h.263, it'll explain that "Mpeg4" is quite a loose term for two incredibly different outputs.
MPEG-4 Part 2 can roughly be encoded to in real-time on a 2Ghz machine
MPEG-4 Part 10 would take around 7x-8x longer on the same machine, but producing sharper results at higher resolution for the same output size
MPEG-2 Part 2 being DVDs are usually of higher resolution than most .AVI MP4 files you would find, but are also 6-9x the file size of them.

Being a DVD, they must also follow a certain structure, or rules for the way the files are laid out, resolution, audio frequencies etc
Some interesting reading on DVD: en.wikipedia.org

If you're really interested in finding out about codecs (Something I find quite interesting) then read up on the up-coming HDDVD standard VC-1 which used Windows Media Video 9 as a basis for developing the codec:
en.wikipedia.org
It should hopefully have some information on how it compares to DVD's MP2 also (Havent read that page in a while)

Benchmarking results from TCPMP using different video codecs:
blogs.shintak.info
And a comparison of different codecs:
en.wikipedia.org

Much of this isnt directly related, but Im sure no doubt if you're asking the question you should find the rest of it a good worthwhile read! :)

Hope this helps


Chill.
Chilling_Silence (9)
519997 2007-01-28 22:23:00 Quote:Bletch
Indeed it is, but what does his question have to do with pirating DVDs?

Quote:Ninjabear
Say you go to a shop and purchase a dvd movie or ones at video rental store.-That tells you the plan.

What is the file format called?
-That tells you he wants to copy the dvds.

Is it call divx or mpeg4?
or something else?
-That tells you he wants to copy the dvds.

If he was just going to play and watch the dvds on tv or computer,then why the questions??

Quote:Chilling_Silence
I totally agree, this question was in no way about pirating DVDs or anything like that! Why assume the worst of people when it only makes you out to be the bad guy?

Turning a blind eye and helping to do pirating is being a bad guy,being pro-active and pointing it out is being a good guy I would have thought?
memphis (2869)
519998 2007-01-28 22:27:00 It's perfectly possible that he wants to understand more about the subject to benefit his own recording. Which AIN'T illegal. Greg (193)
519999 2007-01-28 22:44:00 Like the Tui Ad:Yeah Right!!:D memphis (2869)
520000 2007-01-28 23:02:00 There's just one small problem with your argument - you don't need to know what format lives on the DVD in order to decode it (either to play or copy) as most players / transcoders will figure it out on their own. What you do need to know the format for is if you are burning something onto a DVD that was originally in another format - DV camcorder footage for example. Erayd (23)
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