Hi all. Been getting back into DVD -> DivX, and am running into a problem with the second pass output being far larger than it should be. I'm currently testing a 69:02 length music DVD which DVTool reckons, with 160kbps mp3, should be 1224 bitrate to fit on a 700mb CDR... I've used the 16:9 guide with the note at the top of the 4:3 (as it's a 4:3).. the only difference to the guide is the not being able to "select Use Quarter Pixel, Use GMC and Use Bidirectional Encoding. These settings will improve the video quality further." - I can't use all but the latter (they're greyed out), and they are now located in the profiles tab in 5.0.5 unlike the screenshot of 5.0 shown in the guide.. btw i got the ad-supported download package.. can anyone help?? i wasnt that impressed with the quality either compared to what i used to do when i did get a 1390mb output for 2cd.. (i got a 1.25gb output when of course i wanted just under 700mb) - what am i doing wrong?? many thanks! ukg.
When you are using 2pass encoding process, it should not be a larger output, but just take longer to complete. Have you tried it without using Bi-Directional Encoding? Also, download EasyDivX. For a free program i was really impressed with it. Unfortunately i am a bit rusty with it since i have changed to DVD-R's. However, if you use it and get a problem, let me know. Chris
Hi. I found that you can turn on 'Use quarter Pixel, Use GMC, and Bidirectional Encoding' by going to the profiles tab, and simply unticking "Choose your profile". That would also allow you to do the original 1 and 2 pass option. You say your movie is too big?? Hmm I just checked with dvtool and a 70min one should be encoded at 1184 Kb/s.
thanks for the tips guys. i like the guide here as it has worked great for me in the past, before divx5.. typically i found out about unchecking the profile thing minutes after posting my original message.. that allowed me to check all the options as per the guide.. i realise things have changed from 5.0 to 5.0.5 so the guide could really do with an update(!).. it wasnt obvious.. i used "1st pass" then "nth pass" which, along with the use of the "profile" is why i hope the bitrate or whatever was ignored and why the output turned out so large. i am now using the 1st and 2nd pass option, all those 3 options checked, and still 1224 bitrate.. in 7 hours i shall report back to see if this has successfully sorted things out. oh as for bitrate, well i downloaded the latest dvtool and was surprised to find it only had minutes.. when before i was used to entering mins and seconds.. so i went and found the older version i used (always good results) before.. 1184 may well be right for 70:00 but mine is 69:02 so with 1184 i'd be "wasting" 58seconds worth of space on the CD by using a higher than necessary compression level?? Or is that a good idea to ensure it fits on???? I really dont know! many thanks, Jon
ARGH! Well it got 70% through the 2nd pass, i went to the output directory, hit refresh, and the 2nd pass file was already 909mb (target= 700mb) - so was looking at being 1.2gb like it was before... Does anyone have any idea what i may be doing wrong?! I'm following the guide precisely.. the only thing i'm slightly dubious of is the resize/crop part.. surely it would make sense to crop the video (get rid of all the black) THEN resise to 640*360/512.. previously i've been doing the resize, then cropping, ensuring multiples of 16. what i dont get is surely if the resolution changes (ie one film has more black than another) after resize, then you would in theory have more bitrate to play with ?? I used to think this when i did 2cd rips a year ago but it always worked fine so i didnt question it! Please can anyone theorise why my output is so huuge! thanks, Jon.
AHHHH! Hi just thought i'd follow up.. after meticulously (spell?) jotting down every step i was taking, and reading the guide letter by letter, i finally tracked down the problem. Because i have just gone to XP, i'm just getting used to utilising the 'my documents' concept rather than using the desktop or my own directory on c:\ ... anyways, originally i asked for all output, Smartripper, Cdex etc to go to \desktop\dvd-rip.. but then realised cos everything starts looking in my documents, to create \my documents\dvd-rip... all was going there EXCEPT Cdex output riff-wav which i hadn't changed.. Thus, i was picking the original WAV file to go into the Dub process, and thus my audio was x10 what it should have been hence the bloated output file. this was partly because in XP you seem to lose the status bar in explorer a lot so i never realised i was picking the wrong, larger file.. Anyways, pretty dumb, pretty obvious, but at least i worked it out, and for all the regulars here it may be worth asking the question if anyone else posts here about output files being too big, but it will probably be only me.. =) Cheers, Jon
