Which one is better?

[src2206]

I have same video clips in two formats, one is my known DivX and the other one is x264, which I never handled. The info are as follows:

Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
Format/Family : RIFF
File size : 70 MiB
PlayTime : 20mn
Bit rate : 681 Kbps


Video #0
Codec : DivX 5
Codec/Family : MPEG-4
Codec settings/Packe : No
PlayTime : 20mn
Bit rate : 540 Kbps
Width : 576 pixels
Height : 272 pixels
Aspect ratio : 16/9


Audio #0
Codec : MPEG-1 Audio layer 3
Codec profile : Joint stereo
PlayTime : 20mn
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Bit rate mode : CBR
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48 KHz


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Format : MPEG-4
Format/Info : ISO 14496-1 Base Media
Format/Family : MPEG-4
File size : 70 MiB
PlayTime : 20mn
Bit rate : 1368 Kbps


Video #0
Codec : H.264
Codec/Info : H.264 (3GPP)
PlayTime : 20mn
Bit rate : 1100 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Aspect ratio : 1.500
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.130

Audio #0
Codec : AAC LC
Codec/Info : AAC Low Complexity
PlayTime : 20mn
Bit rate : 264 Kbps
Bit rate mode : VBR
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Sampling rate : 48 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
StreamSize : 281 MiB

1. Could any one please tell me which codec is better?

2. The second one's aspect ratio seems to be nearer to 4:3 [correct me if I am wrong]. So if I try to convert it to 16:9, I find clear distortion at the two sides of the picture. Is it normal?

3. If I ever need to convert AVI to DVD, which of the above codec will give me better result in terms of quality?

Thank you.

[anonymez]

1. Could any one please tell me which codec is better?

x264 generally gives higher quality output than xvid at the same bitrate.

2. The second one's aspect ratio seems to be nearer to 4:3 [correct me if I am wrong]. So if I try to convert it to 16:9, I find clear distortion at the two sides of the picture. Is it normal?

if it's originally 4:3, why change it to 16:9?

If I ever need to convert AVI to DVD, which of the above codec will give me better result in terms of quality?

whichever encode looks better to you.