Apple dropped support for MPEG-4 ASP encoding years ago. Use IINA or Elmedia Player. Both support Xvid playback natively without conversion.
| Feature | Xvid (2024) | H.264 (x264) | H.265 (x265) | AV1 | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | Standard | MPEG-4 ASP | MPEG-4 AVC | HEVC | AOMedia | | Relative Size (Same Quality) | 100% (Baseline) | ~55% | ~35% | ~30% | | Decode CPU Usage | Very Low (Legacy) | Low | Moderate | High | | Hardware Support (2024 devices) | Dying (Legacy only) | Universal | High (New devices) | Growing | | 10-bit/HDR | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Ideal Resolution | 480p – 720p | 1080p | 4K+ | 4K+ | Xvid Video Codec 2024
The takeaway: Xvid is a bandwidth hog but a CPU miser. Apple dropped support for MPEG-4 ASP encoding years ago
For a content creator or archivist deciding on a standard in 2024, here is the cheat sheet: For a content creator or archivist deciding on
| Feature | Xvid (2024) | H.265 (HEVC) | AV1 | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | Primary Use | Legacy AVI files | 4K Streaming / Blu-ray | Web (YouTube, Netflix) | | File Extension | .avi | .mkv, .mp4 | .mp4, .webm | | 4K Efficiency | Terrible (2GB/min) | Excellent (30MB/min) | Excellent (25MB/min) | | CPU Usage (Decode) | 1% (Very Easy) | 15% (Hardware dependent) | 30% (Very Heavy) | | Royalties | Free | Requires licensing (Cisco binary) | Free (Open) | | Best for in 2024 | Old DVD backups | New 4K Library | Web streaming |
The Verdict: If you are archiving new content in 2024, use H.265 (HEVC) for compatibility or AV1 for future-proofing. Do not encode new HD footage to Xvid.
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libxvid -q:v 4 -c:a mp3 -b:a 192k output.avi