DivX (MPEG4) Player Audio Clarity

[Robbiee]

I'd like to further discuss and possibly have some confirmation on the following:

Does a DVD Player that can playback divx reduce audio output clarity and quality?

and

Does a DVD Player that plays back divx allow you to get the most potential out of your more than average, semi-professional audio equipment setup?

It's nice to be able to go and spend under A$200 for a divx player but is the audio rip of the .avi sufficent to meet the needs, surely there must be some substitue for quality when it's an avi file and on a CD-R ?

Appreciate your opinions -

[redbears]

Good question. Audio quality is a hotly debated topic, although depends if you mean HT or Hifi.

I'd say most cheaper DVD players, say sub $500 would be of poorer quality than say a $1500~$2000 machine, but the difference is not as great as you may think.

As for avi on CD-R's obviously a lot of information is thrown out to allow the content to fit on the disc, much the same as the difference between mp3 and CD audio. Don't forget we used to listen to cassette tapes and the sound was fairly average, but when you are young these things seem less important, it was good enough just listening to the music.

[jokiin]

Originally Posted by Robbiee

I'd like to further discuss and possibly have some confirmation on the following:

Does a DVD Player that can playback divx reduce audio output clarity and quality?

and

Does a DVD Player that plays back divx allow you to get the most potential out of your more than average, semi-professional audio equipment setup?

It's nice to be able to go and spend under A$200 for a divx player but is the audio rip of the .avi sufficent to meet the needs, surely there must be some substitue for quality when it's an avi file and on a CD-R ?

Appreciate your opinions -

The limitation is not from the hardware, but the files you want to play. Think of the difference between a high quality recording on CD and an mp3, whenever there is compression there is a sacrifice somewhere. Higher quality equipment is better at revealing the difference between a high quality signal (audio or video) and a low quality one. View the same picture on a portable tv and then a big screen tv, the bigger higher quality more expensive tv will show more picture but if there are motion artifacts etc they are much easier to see, see where i'm going with this?

[Robbiee]

Originally Posted by jok11n

The limitation is not from the hardware, but the files you want to play. Think of the difference between a high quality recording on CD and an mp3, whenever there is compression there is a sacrifice somewhere. Higher quality equipment is better at revealing the difference between a high quality signal (audio or video) and a low quality one. View the same picture on a portable tv and then a big screen tv, the bigger higher quality more expensive tv will show more picture but if there are motion artifacts etc they are much easier to see, see where i'm going with this?

I understand where you are going. Am I on the right track in discussing, The finer the equipment, the more noticeable faults can be seen or heard?

I'm picky and fussy about audio clarity. It has to be spot on. I just got a pair of Altec Lansing 2.1 Speakers, I didn't buy 5.1 speakers because I want something that's specificially for music.

If i'm going to go out there and spend $1500+ on a top notch surround speaker system I want to be sure that these divx players are going to be up for it.

I also feel alot of trust is going into the "ripping/release scene" to provide the best possible quality release made available at the time.

[jokiin]

Originally Posted by Robbiee

I understand where you are going. Am I on the right track in discussing, The finer the equipment, the more noticeable faults can be seen or heard?

I'm picky and fussy about audio clarity. It has to be spot on. I just got a pair of Altec Lansing 2.1 Speakers, I didn't buy 5.1 speakers because I want something that's specificially for music.

If i'm going to go out there and spend $1500+ on a top notch surround speaker system I want to be sure that these divx players are going to be up for it.

I also feel alot of trust is going into the "ripping/release scene" to provide the best possible quality release made available at the time.

Having good quality speakers is not going to take anything away from the experience you will get with DVD, CD etc but if you listen to mp3 watch inferior quality or poorly encoded avi's etc than of course you will notice it, but that will be the same with any player, the limitation is introduced by the format, not the player in this case.

[lat3ralis]

Originally Posted by Robbiee

I'd like to further discuss and possibly have some confirmation on the following:

Does a DVD Player that can playback divx reduce audio output clarity and quality?

and

Does a DVD Player that plays back divx allow you to get the most potential out of your more than average, semi-professional audio equipment setup?

Good question, I agree with most of jokiin's comments. I'm not entirely sure about your question, but if you are comparing "DivX" and DVD encodes in relation to quality on a reasonable setup here are my thoughts ...

In terms of audio quality, it depends on the bitrate used. Obviously 128kbits MP3 is not as high quality as the original DVD source. It's a tradeoff, but from my experience I think it isn't that much of a problem. However, if you have DivX movies with ac3 (ie the original Dolby Digital 5.1 mix), you are not sacrificing the sound quality at all. That is if you pass the stream directly to your semi-professional 5.1 surround sound decoder. I think one area where sound quality may be sacrificed between cheaper DVD players is when the player's onboard 5.1 decoding is used. I'm sure there are more experienced people in here that would know more about this than I do.

lat3ralis

[redbears]

Originally Posted by lat3ralis

Good question, I agree with most of jokiin's comments. I'm not entirely sure about your question, but if you are comparing "DivX" and DVD encodes in relation to quality on a reasonable setup here are my thoughts ...

In terms of audio quality, it depends on the bitrate used. Obviously 128kbits MP3 is not as high quality as the original DVD source. It's a tradeoff, but from my experience I think it isn't that much of a problem. However, if you have DivX movies with ac3 (ie the original Dolby Digital 5.1 mix), you are not sacrificing the sound quality at all. That is if you pass the stream directly to your semi-professional 5.1 surround sound decoder. I think one area where sound quality may be sacrificed between cheaper DVD players is when the player's onboard 5.1 decoding is used. I'm sure there are more experienced people in here that would know more about this than I do.

lat3ralis

I think you will find AC3 or Dolby Digital has bit depth as well, the higher the bit depth the better the sound, that is why DTS is popular at 1400 odd kb/s it has up to 4 times the capacity for sound information than standard Dolby Digital. You can tell if something has a lower bit depth, but most people wouldn't care or wouldn't have good enough amp/speakers to notice. The later part goes back to the original replies.

[Jack Tan]

Originally Posted by Robbiee

I'd like to further discuss and possibly have some confirmation on the following:

Does a DVD Player that can playback divx reduce audio output clarity and quality?

and

Does a DVD Player that plays back divx allow you to get the most potential out of your more than average, semi-professional audio equipment setup?

It's nice to be able to go and spend under A$200 for a divx player but is the audio rip of the .avi sufficent to meet the needs, surely there must be some substitue for quality when it's an avi file and on a CD-R ?

Appreciate your opinions -

Mate, in my opinion, the answer to your question is a definite NO! If the MPEG-4 player had a coaxial ouput and/or a optical output that is. As for DivX, it is really dependent on the person that encoded the file in the first place on what type of audio encoding he did. If it was ac3 sound, then the performance of a DivX player with optical and coaxial output would be fantastic but typically, many people encode video with a mpeg-1 audio track for its sound. (mp3)