I've tried several guides and several different pieces of software, including the guides here on afterdawn. I'm looking for any info for making divx movies with the best quality while not getting too big with the file size. I'd like to keep a movie under a gig with the best qaulity possible. If I'm going to go over a gig I'd rather just do vcd quality mpeg, but divx can be better. I've tried aiming for aroung 700mb with single pass and 2 pass encoding. They don't seem to be much different quality wise, just the 2 pass takes much longer to do with maybe a little better quality, but not worth the extra encoding time for the slight quality gain. Any help you more experienced encoders have will be appreciated. Thanks.
Multipass (VBR)encoding will always give you better results than one pass encoding. Using the one pass encoding method, you only allow the divx codec to go through the movie once without analyzing anything which would result in a movie with not too good quality. Of course if you use 1 pass with a very high bitrate it might not be that noticeable. However, using the multipass method, you really get the benefits of using the divx codec. The first pass of this method goes through the video and analyzes each frame and decides the best possible way to use the bitrate you allowed. This gives the best results and filesizes are more accurate. The more passes you run the better the video will be analyzed and the better the quality. If youre worried about the long encoding time, then you have to ask yourself if having optimal quality is worth it. If not then 1 pass is your best bet. If youre using the divx 5.1 codec and encoding at slowest or slow mode is taking ridiculously long, then encode at the standard mode, which give you quality roughly equivalent to that of 5.05 Have you tried GordianKnot? The program can give you very good quality and using its compression test you can more or less get the exact filesize you want. The test is very good at estimating how good the quality of the video is at the given settings youve chosen. Http://www.doom9.org Also read up on the divx codec here: http://www.divx.com/support/divx/guide.php As we all know, quality is more or less subjective and what may look good to me, might look like crap to you. So giving you settings wouldn't be the best way to help you. Knowing more about the codec and its functions will. The more you know about the codec and its different functions, the better you can choose what to implement and what not to, to give the best looking results for you. Good Luck.
I have a few more questions for you. I’d like some examples if you can, just to compare what others are doing to how I’m doing. I’m not looking to maintain DVD quality, but I’m looking for VHS/VCD at least. Better quality and closer to DVD if possible. First is resolution. I have a movie, 4:3, and it’s 720x480. Should I reduce that to something like 480x320, 540x360, 432x288, or some other proportional size that is smaller? Or is it better to leave it at its original size? VCD is 352x240, which is what I’ve used to keep it at something standard. What do you recommend for resolution? Next is bit-rate and file size. Ideally small enough for a CD would be nice just for convenience, 690MB, but you’re not going to get too good of quality with that. I’m looking for 1.1GB max. That way 4 movies and a little extra can be put on to a DVD-R and have some nice quality to them. What file size and bit-rate would you recommend? Do you use any of the divx profiles for maintaining compatibility with players? Or can you get better quality without those. I’m looking toward playing these on a computer connected to a TV so I’m not really concerned with the standalone players. I’m looking for some tried and true examples that others have used to try them myself and see if I like the results. I’m not really dissatisfied with the results I have so far on my own but I’d like some suggestions from others to try to improve my efforts. Up close they look grainy, but from a normal TV viewing distance I think they look nice. The single pass ones even look good from a normal TV viewing distance. Thanks again.
If your computer can playback an encode with that high a resolution then go for it. If playback is choppy reduce the resolution. Youre going for a filesize over 1 Gbyte so use a high resolution. Also don't forget to use a resolution with a near perfect aspect ratio as the origial whether its 4:3 16:9 etc... Read this guide for more info; it also has a list of resolutions that stay true to the correlating aspect ratios: http://www.divx.com/support/guides/guide.php?gid=11 Well it really depends on your source...But if you want somewhat exact results use Gordian Knot as it will give you an almost exact filesize. You just need to input how large you want the file to be which in your case is 1100 Mbytes. And once again multipass encoding is a must if you really want to have exact filesizes. Since I primarily do 1 cd rips B-frames is a must to help with compressing the movie. If youve got a relatively low action movie b-frames might hurt you in getting the 1.1 Gbyte filesize, but if its high in action, Id recommend that you use it. heck, even if it is a low action movie id still use it. As for QuartelPixel and GMC, I really don't have any experience with these since in the past people have reported as having bad results when using them so its all up to you. Id recomend doing short test clips with and without them, just to make sure if they look all right with you. If youre planning to watch these movies on a divs certified player later on, id recommend you enable a profile. Be sure to read about the profiles and choose which one suits you best. With the last codec 5.05, you had to disable the profiles to use GMC and 1/4 pixel, so unless the same holds true with the new codec you could either disable the profiles or leave it be. If they look a little noisy you could use a smoother filter to take care of that. The ones that come with Gordian Knot come highly recommended. Good Luck.
Do you recommed deinterlace also? What about converting back to 23fps? Or stay at 29.9fps? I'll give gordian knot a try and see how it does. I've used flaskmpeg and dvd2avi and virtualdub, but not knot, not yet. Is it good to use the simple selection on the resize filter? The guide on divx.com says to use that, which seems the opposite of any other guides I've seen. Most of the time guides say bicubic.
Deinterlace only when you have an interlaced source. If you drop the framerate of an interlaced source from 29.97(30 FPS) to 23.976(24 FPS) youre going to get really choppy playback. You only drop the framerate to 23.976 when you have a source that has been telecined. The process is called Inverse Telecine for obvious reasons. Read this guide for more info: http://www.doom9.org/ivtc-tut.htm Billinear resizing: Best if used when youre using a low bitrate. It kind of smooths the picture when you use it. Bicubic resizing: Again best if used with low bitrate, the file size will be a bit larger compared to using billinear, but its more sharper. Lanczos Resizing: Id recommend you use this method since youre going to be using a high bitrate. Larger file sizes than if you use the previous methods but picture is very sharp.
Of course you can always use a 'both' (aka 'even and odd') field deinterlace whenever so dont feel afraid to have it on 'just in case' ... remember of course you will have a hit to framerate.
I still can't get the quality I want. I'm using 5.1 pro and I've seen 3.11a movies that look better. I've tried single pass and 2 pass encoding, aiming for the same file size as the 3.11a low motion movies that I got from someone else, 700MB. The problem I'm having is when the video is enlarged to full screen it gets a little fuzzy. From several feet away it looks good, just as if it were on a tv screen, very good, not DVD but good. The main thing is around objects, people, whatever, there seems to be a fuzz that surrounds them. Some details are sharp while others are fuzzy and like I said, around almost every object there is a fuzz that I just can't get to go away. These 3.11a low motion movies I have are much better quality with the same file size. When these are enlarged full screen, even up close they look like 98% DVD quality. Really close without the fuzz surrounding each object. Sharp clean picture. I just can't get the same results with divx 5, and I didn't do these 3.11 movies so I don't know how they were done either. I've tried several different guides with different software, different versions of the divx codec, single and double passes. I just can't get the same quality. I want as close to DVD as possible with the 700MB file size to fit on a cd. I realize I'm not going to get DVD quality, but I've seen some that come close and I just can't duplicate it. HELP!
Isn't that for low motion? In any case, what is the resolution you are ripping the DVD to? If your source is 352x240 or something, no matter what bitrate you set, its gonna be blocky when you fullscreen it.
I keep the source at the dvd resolution. 720x480 is what the last couple have been. I've been resizing them smaller but any resolution I try just isn't giving me what I want. I've been trying 480x320, 540x360, sizes that don't go too small but keep proportion in hoping that when enlarged full screen they will keep their quality, but as you read I'm not getting the results I'm hoping for.
Make sure that you crop the black borders surrounding the movie. Remember to keep the height and width of the movie as multiples of 16. 540 isnt and that may be one of the causes of these artifacts. Well if youre trying to compare your encode to that of a 3.11 movie, make sure its the same movie as the one youre doing, with the same settings such as resolution and bitrate. Otherwise it wouldnt be accurate. If youre encoding a 120 min movie to fit on a 700 Mbyte disk, and comparing that to a 90 min movie at 700 Mbytes, then of course your results will be inferior to that of the other movie. The fuzz might be the result of inefficient bitrate. Try lowering the resolution, or increasing the bitrate. Also don't get too excited about the low-motion codec. To get results that can compare to that of using divx 5.1, or the newest release of the xvid codec, requires a hell of a lot of work. That codec is really outdated anyways and tends to give what people now refer to as "shit" frames sometimes.
Are you cutting the credits out? Often I use VirtualDub (imported dvd2avi stream) to work out the time/length of the movie without the credits, then I use DVTool to work out the correct bitrate at that reduced time. This doesn't waste quality on credits. Then at the end you just use VirtualDub to cut out the credits and the remaining file should be under 700mb. I have some questions too. Why does the movie get resized?? Why can't you encode it exactly as it was in the original? Ok if you resize it, it still is in the same aspect ratio - but do you lose quality when you resize??
Also note that 700MB is just a guideline of sorts... your media easily accepts 707MB without any overburning (or something like that). With some careful overburning you can easily blast past 720MB into 740MB territory.
