DVD to DivX ;)- Page 4

Encoding Page 2

Files Tab

We select the destiny location for our files.

General Tab

We leave the defaults settings here too.

Go to " Run > Start Conversion". A popup window will come up and we'll have to select codecs for video and Audio. You can either select Low-Motion and High-Motion DivX codec.

High-Motion is Variable BitRate (VBR) codec and usually used on high motion movie. If you choose high motion you must probably choose higher BitRate than you would choose with Low-Motion codec (above 1500). This happens cause this is the BitRate it will be used on HIGH action scenes. On low action scenes codec will automatically use a lower BitRate for better compression video.

Low motion is also based in Variable BitRate (VBR) codec and most times used on low motion movies.

Note: FeZ Microwave BitRateCalc has support for High and Low motion codecs. However as the author says:

- Why does my variable bit rate file came out bigger/smaller than expected?
This is because the codec will encode different file sizes according to the amount of action (fast scenes/scene changes) in the video you are encoding. Due to this the variable bit rate is an APPROXIMATION! - based on my experiments If you have a very hi-action film, you might need to decrease the bit rate. But without inspecting the video, there is no way of calculating this.

For our example we select "DivX Mpeg4 Low-Motion". We press "configure" and we leave Key frame to 10 sec. If you face clip problems when you fast forward/skip to a section during playback decrease it. A good value would be (6). Notice that this setting will increase output file size. We must now select at which Bit Rate our movie will be encoded at.

Now it's time to run the Bit Rate Calculator. We select the size of our movie (in minutes), the rate at which the sound will be encoded (mp3), and finally we insert the desired total size.

You can also user Fez Microwave BitRateCalc. However notice that Fez BitRateCalc gives different Suggested VideoBitRate. From our experience DV2Mpeg4 Bitrate Calc works great with Low Motion Codecs. If you plan to use High Motion Codecs you must use Fez BitRateCalc. Notice that as the author says this is just a suggestion! Your final AVI file could end up bigger than your original desired file size. If this happens you can split the AVI file in 2 parts (check Misc Page).

The calculator will give us the BitRate of the clip. We insert this number in DivX Mpeg4 Low Motion Compressor and continue to Sound Encoder.

We select Mpeg Layer-3 (Mp3) and put the same BitRate quality we used in the calculator. Newest 3.1 alpha release drivers finally support wma encoding but only up to 64kbit/s. WMA sound encoding is very good for low bitrate encoding (comparing to 128kps mp3) and gives much smaller output size file! We press ok and the encoding process starts.

Into our example, it needed 15 hours for the conversion to finish. We run it on Win98SE. However in Win2k it will probably take less time especially if your system is DUAL! Also from various reports DivX encoding works faster in Athlon and PIII CPUs and not so fast in Celeron.

Note 2: When you start conversion LEAVE THE PC ALONE to make the process. If you start using it you will get distortion of the image. With a different combination of CPU and RAM your time could be smaller or bigger.

Final note: These pages were put up on a rush due to GREAT demand, they will be refurbished and enriched during the following days (-: It is in our knowledge that not all aspects of DivX have been covered here, like more available tools, mpeg4 tech stuff, the differences between fast & slow versions of the codec, etc, this will happen soon. We also welcome ANY opinions & ideas on this matter. (Changes, additions, clarifications etc).