It was an exhausting 9 days but finally we are here at the end of the finals. Due to the difficulty in rating the main round, I tried to be even more anal about the whole process as in the past. I feared I might not be able to find differences, but fortunately I was proven wrong.
Ateme's encoder left a good impression in the Matrix 3 test in the main round, sharing the first place with x264 in both Matrix 3 and Steamboy. However, the results during the night scene in SPR mean that effectively it comes in second in the big picture.
x264, featured as negative usability example at the end of last year's codec comparison, managed to tie with Ateme's encoder on two occasions, and surpassing its most fierce competitor in SPR. It is thus our new winner.
XviD has once again proven its position as the leader of all ASP codecs. Tied in Steamboy (though that block change thing should give some food for thought, we've had that back in the old days - in SPR and the same scene that gave Ateme's encoder a lot of grief this time around), it manages to surpass DivX in the other two movies.
DivX 6.1 came in last in two out of three tests, and last tied with XviD in the third test. There's no doubt that DivX has made significant advancements and is getting closer to XviD, but it's still not there. And this may have been the last chance to beat XviD (see the future outlook).
Here's the list for those who prefer a quick overview:
I've written it in the main round and it still applies: We'll see inroads of AVC and VC-1 to the hardware market in 2006. ASP will still be around and important, but I suspect its importance will fade within two years.
And as previously mentioned, next time round the number of same name/team participants is likely to be limited, and the groups are likely to be filled with random contestants, so this may have been the last DivX Vs XviD battle and last time we've seen ASP codecs in the final.
Now if you have any questions, please have a look at the FAQ.
This document was last updated on December 26, 2005