Hi, I would like to know everyone's opinion on which software you recommend to convert all my avi files on my PC to divx files so that I may burn them on to disc and play them on my stand-alone dvd player which plays Divx...I use Winavi for my dvd disc converting and find it both fast and easy!!! I would also like something as easy to use formaking my Divx collection....many thanks!!
First off: DivX are AVI's but I understand your problem. I'm kinda in the same boat as you so I wanted to share what I've learned about stand alone DivX players so far. I have owned 3 in the last 24 hours, so I feel like I may be catching on now. Just about any avi will play on my Philips DVP5140 but I cannot get anything tagged HDTV to play on it. So if your like me and you have a few of those in your collection (over 90% of my avi files.. damn it!) Then you may have play back issues. I was hearing audio but wasn't getting a picture on the RCA I had last night and today the Philips so kindly let me know that it could not play that file type. So I dug a little deeper in my archives ("How to Grow Kind Bud.avi" which I knew was not recorded in Hi-Def and blammo.. works like a charm. So then I dug out a few others that were not in Hi-DEf, some of these were XVID, (have not tried a MKV yet but I'm curious) and they all worked too. So, I have determined that I now need a way of downgrading my HDTV AVI's to a lower resolution. I'm only afraid to actually try this because I get really pissed trying to work w/ avi encoding. I can never get the audio sync working for me.. always against me. So I'm begging you.. if anyone knows a way to downgrade my HDTV.avi(s) without re-encoding or at least a way of re-encoding without audio issues.. please.. give a fella a hand.. thank you Edited: I just found this in another thread (guess thats the resolution to look out for) Heres the whole thread if your interested: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/4/346257
Thanks for the info, I will give it a try---but how do I do it, make avi's??, do I just burn the avi as data in Nero????
Another good point of interest.. (just throwing you as much info as I can find) tell me to shut up anytime. I found this post to be very helpful if your downloading avi's
Yes, just burn them onto a disc using nero or whatever program you prefer as just raw data. Drag and drop more or less.. no need to create an iso, no need to for any fancy tricks.. just make a regular data dvd or cd.
Does that also mean you could use Nero Recode to create a Nero Digital(Mpeg-4) file (Which is also Divx, correct) and drop it onto a DVD as a data file and a standalone DVD Divx player would play it?
No. Maybe. Youd have to try. They sell Nero Digital compatible players now too. All I know is I had an old Apex (30 dollars from Wal-Mart) and it played EVERYTHING. I got a Divx certified player that wont touch them.... Just try it and see! I am curious as to whether it works.
The DivX media format is a hack/extension to avi. Nero Digital files on the other hand are mp4 files. Nero added chapters and VOBSub's (they are also adding AC3) but MPEG-4 specs allow for this, so they are still spec compliant. HDTV just refers to the source. Most players (all Home Theatre certified ones) handle 720x576 max, so HR and 720p releases are out. But any HDTVRips that are encoded to a lower resolution should be fine. There is no way to resize without re-encoding. My advice would be to re-encode to 720x576/544. Think all the 720p releases are x264 now anyway. No reason why there should be audio issues. Just re-use the original AC3.
my player would not play the disc at all(With MP4 and Avis on it), although it did recognize that it was a video media disc(menu popped up), but wouldn't go any further. I am wondering if the mixture of MP4s and Avis on the disc caused its confusion. The Mpeg-4 technology perplexes me is that it seems like there are multiple versions of it out these (Dixv, Vidx, AVi(Aren't there variations of AVis too), Mp4). Once again we are back to incompatibility issues with multiple formats. I hope over the next few years, video formats get more standardized as I am sick of having tons of converters etc loaded on my computer.