What programs/codecs/methods are the best?

[bungernut]

So to start out learning the process to divixitfy my DVD collection and reading many articles on how two it seams that no one agrees on the best way to encode a DVD. First of im running WinXP so i had mp3 (i use Radium now) codec problems right from tha bat. Xmpeg wont use the new codecs so its either uncompressed audio or 56kbps which wont work. Flask works ok but im not impressed by the quality. Im trying Divx 4.12 and Divx 5-pro-ad on two machines, 1 and 2 pass (MV file or no MV file), large frame size and small frame size (720-->480 width), a few iDEC's, and ive all but given up on the trial and error scene(:smashead: ). If anyone who knows the secret to great Divx rips please tell me the best way to aproach this. How big should the frame be? Divx 4,5, or Xvid? What is an iDEC and whos is good? Which Program is good? Ive entirley read the DVD to Divx conversion guide on this website and its gotten me this far, but it leaves a lot open. Any help (with a little explination) would be greatley apprecieated.

[Fluffy]

Use Gordian Knot and divx 5 pro. Its a bit daunting to deal with at first but once you figure it out its quite easy to use and makes amazing rips. check out UncasMS's wonderfull howto on how to use Gknot. you can find it here

http://www.atlandide.net/~uncasms/en/index.php

[UncasMS]

@ fluffy

thanx :angelgrn:



@ bungernut

my guide was written for PAL material. if you deal with ntsc, you might want to check out the guides at doom9.org

[Fluffy]

Uncas i've found no issues with using your guide with NTSC materials. The 2 relative settings will change themselves to NTSC, and if they dont, the settings that need to be changed ((in the resolution page)) are quite visible. I've used your guide to make 3 perfect divx rips for my boss (Zoids vol1, Recess:the movie, and Disneys Dinosaur.) My ongoing battle with Key has nothing to do with your guide :biglaugh:

[bungernut]

Tnanks to you both, but i have to ask now, wha? Im trying a NTFS FLM 23.976fps. am i gonna have any problems with this method?

[Fluffy]

You shouldnt. Wherever his guide says to select PAL, just select NTSC instead.

[hacker_on_fire]

if u do have any problems just post a reply, i'll be glad 2 help.

[UncasMS]

thanx fluffy, but take a look at this doom9 dvd2avi part (http://www.doom9.org/mpg/dvd2avi.htm)


i did some ntsc titles so far (e.g. hellraiser 1+2; tin-box) and they worked flawlessly but in case you will have to deal with ivtc you wont be able to manage those titles sticking to my guide.

since i cannot get hold of much ntsc material to properly test this all by myself, i will not add an ntsc part to my guide, as i dont not like guides, that are not based on proper personal experience.

[bungernut]

So im trying this Gknot program out version .26 beta and in the guide im at the compressibility check but it finnishes without giving me the results. I figure that they are getting lost or whatever so i go on and so after everything is said and done the files that it made were all like 3mb and look like its just key frames cuz it's skipping around crazy like. I was attempting a single cd size with Divx5proad. I think my problem is that this is NTFS FILM 23.976fps. So then i tried in DVD2AVI to use the Forced FILM option b4 saving the project with no luck.

The log file says as follows bout the compression check:
+Unknown Error: Compressibility Check Failed.
+Compressibility Check: DivX 4.
as if that will help?

The guide (@doom9) says and i quote:
"If DVD2AVI showed your source as NTSC FILM below 95% you enable Inverse Telecine here. In all other cases set feild Operations to none."
DVD2AVI does show it to be film but whats the crack about 95%?

Thanks again to all you smart people who help us less fortunite types, cuz DAMN this is hard stuff.

[bungernut]

I get the bit about the 95% now other than what it means in legistics. So in my stupidity i kinda fixed the problem with Forced FILM. The Compressibility check is a dozie though, any help would be greatley apprecieated:rolleyes:

[UncasMS]

having finished your comp.-check the bits/(pixel*frame) values can be found at the bottom of GK

http://www.atlandide.net/~uncasms/images/encoding/compressibility.gif

to change the seetings (i.e. going for more ideal values) you simply use the slider in the resolution tab to increase or decrease your resolution.

you could as well skip/ignore the comp.-check
i hardly ever use it, but since it is a feature of GK i felt i had to deal with it in my guide.

for a 1 cd conversion use BILINEAR rather than sharp bicubic as this resizer let the codec compress better.

moreover, dont go above 640 x XXX rather go a little below this resolution: 608 x XXX.

in case you dont mind a little additional time you might even think about using the LITTLE NOISE (+ put noise filter before resizing) as this will make your material more compressible.

[Mac Sidewinder]

I believe the problem with the compressability check is that you don't have a divx codec installed. Divx 5.02 doesn't come with the gnot package. The latest gordianknot program only works with divx 3 and 5. Download divx 5.02, install it and try again and I bet it will work.

Mac

[bungernut]

I did install Divx 5 long b4 i tried learning to encode, ill give it a whirl to uninstall and reinstall. I realize that the compressibility check results are found at the bottom of the screen, the results are just flat out not there.

Quick question, doing 2 pass encoding with gKnot isent happening right? can it?

Doing 2 pas, i can use an old pass and change the bitrate and audio settings for the second pass right?

Thanks again to all you who help us!!!!!!

[bungernut]

Mac was right on, in a way. I had a Divx 4.11 Codec installed as well as 5.02, removing both and reinstalling was the answer.

So im doing this NTFS FILM 23.976fps dvd right, and it needs to be "Force FILM"'d in dvd2avi but does it also need Inverse Telecine in gKnot? The help blirps dont suggest that it does, it recomends to just ForceFILM but the guide says nothing about ForceFILM and to Inverse Telecine? I ask beacuse im getting files about 1/2 the size they ought to be.

[Fluffy]

Personaly, i use field Deinterlace. in the movies ive made so far. ive had no issues with it. Anyways, you can preview video before you encode. make sure to check that. (its in the save and encode menu, just before you select codec stuff.)

[UncasMS]

in case the field deinterlacer fails, try this....

when you get here:

http://uncas.atlandide.net/images/encoding/save_encode_Avs.gif

click on EDIT!

now you will be taken to your avisynth script:

+++++
# Created with Gordian Knot
#
# http://thewef.nav.to
#
# PLUGINS
# get them from http://users.win.be/dividee
LoadPlugin("C:\TOOLS\GORDIA~2\GORDIA~1\mpeg2dec.dll")
#LoadPlugin("C:\TOOLS\GORDIA~2\GORDIA~1\decomb.dll")
#LoadPlugin("C:\TOOLS\GORDIA~2\GORDIA~1\InverseTelecine.dll")
#LoadPlugin("C:\TOOLS\GORDIA~2\GORDIA~1\Avisynth_Spatial.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\TOOLS\GORDIA~2\GORDIA~1\GreedyHMA.dll")
#LoadPlugin("C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\vobsub.dll")
#LoadPlugin("C:\TOOLS\GORDIA~2\GORDIA~1\SimpleResize.dll")
#
# SOURCE
mpeg2source("E:\dvd\ryan\video_ts\ryan.d2v")
#
# TRIM
trim(0,233893)
#
# IVTC
#Telecide()
#Decimate(cycle=5)
# or use
#InverseTelecine(40,10,15)
#GreedyHMA(1,0,4,0,0,0,0,0)
#
# DEINTERLACING
#FieldDeinterlace()
# or use
#VerticalReduceBy2
# or maybe
GreedyHMA(1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0)
#
# CROPPING
crop(5,6,712,560)
#
# DENOISING: choose one combination (or none)
# 1) little noise (fast)
TemporalSmoother(2,1)
#
# 2) medium noise (slow)
#SpatialSoftenMMX(1,4,6,false,false,4,4,6,8)
#TemporalSmoother(2)
#
# 3) heavy noise (very slow, you have been warned)
#SpatialSoftenMMX(2,4,6,false,false,4,4,6,8)
#TemporalSmoother(3)
#SpatialSoftenMMX(1,4,6,false,false,4,4,6,8)
#
# SUBTITLES
#VobSub("FileName")
#
# RESIZING
SimpleResize(640,344)
#
# BORDERS
#AddBorders(left,top,right,bottom)
#
# COMPRESSIBILITY CHECK
# !!!!Snip Size now has to be 14 for use in GKnot!
#SelectRangeEvery(280,14)
#
# FOOL CCEnc
#ResampleAudio(44100)

+++++

load greedyhma by deleting the '#' in the load section and ivtc or de-interlacing section as well!

this way you will use greedyhma for de-interlacing/ivtc and it might make a difference!

[hacker_on_fire]

i forgot but whats the differenc ebetween fast and field deinterlace?

HoF

[Angie]

I switched from the annoyingly common errors and poor quality of Flask and Xmpeg to GKnot a month ago. It's a dream once you get used to it.

Just slowly go through the tutorial once and you're set.

Also the tutorial on doom9 is geared towards making CDs. I never make CDs, just keep the movies on the hard drive. If you want this too, just change the Mode section of the Bitrate tab (top-left) to "Calculate AVI file size." You'll be able to get your final size in the Total File Size just under the DiVX logo.

Play with your Average Bitrate in the area under Total File Size to balance between quality and file size, while keeping an eye on the bits/pixel and quality setting in the compressibility section already posted.

Under the Resolution tab, if you find yourself cropping too much to avoid too much aspect error, switch the W-Modul to 16, 8 or 4 to get just about no aspect error. But something is at the edge of my mind about the DiVX compression routine working best with sizes evenly divisible by 32 (its macro blocks are 32x32??).

I just got a PayPal account, so I'm doing to donate soon to encourage further development of this great tool! (hint, hint for the rest of you)

[Squeaky]

I must admit I'm more please with my initial view of GK than all the one-stop encoders ive tried to date - the only confusion for me is using GK for creating the audio - no matter how many times I re-read the instructions I'm just not sure if im doing this correctly, would anybody be prepared to re-write the audio stage(s) for this method? If it makes any difference I've ripped the AC3 not the pcm.

thanks
Squeaks

[bungernut]

GKnot is awsome, in conclusion i would say 4 quality (not simplicity) GKnot is the way to go, from experience. It lets you set a bunch of jobs up at once and let them all go overnight which is soo cool, Im gonna definetly give the author a little $worth$ to his while (as should everyone who uses the program often).

Thanks to everyone, 4 their help.

[Angie]

Yeah, kudos for the batch ability. I've set several movies to go and let it run for a day or so on an AMD 1000. Just fire and forget. But make sure you have enough hard drive space.

For the audio, DVD2AVI will produce an audio file for each audio stream in the DVD. When you go to encode, pick one of them, or two if you want dual streams.

The first one's usually the normal English track (in the U.S.), with the others being other languages or director's comments. To find out for sure, open the .ifo file in XMpeg. You'll get a list of audio tracks to select from. These are ordered the same as the audio tracks DVD2AVI leaves behind (if German's second on the list, that corresponds to the second file that DVD2AVI put out). If you're still not sure which one you want to use, in XMpeg, select "audio player" from the menu. There you can listen to what the tracks are.

BTW, Windows Media Player can't handle the dual audio tracks for playback. I've found Zoom player (www.inmatrix.com) works great.

[UncasMS]

windows media player 6.4 handles bilingual audio just fine.

you'll have to have morgan stream switcher installed, thats all!

[hacker_on_fire]

i prefer doing audio this way:

1) rip it using Vob2Audio to .wav format (do this seperately cos 2 appz reading from the same files can casue errors.
2) encode with either wavelab or besweet or if u want to try the wma format which i recommend for 128kb/s or less u can use the windows encoder

thats it, then u can multiplex in Gknot

[UncasMS]

then u can multiplex in Gknot

it is not GK that does the muxing - it is NANDUB

[hacker_on_fire]

when i said "in" i meant that u tell gk to multiplex the audio and video when its finished encoding (using nandub)

sorry for the confusion

[Glanz]

is greedy hma for pal material only

[UncasMS]

NO


+++++++++++++++++++

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Readme_GreedyHMA.txt 11-3-2001 www.trbarry.com/GreedyHMA.zip
// Copyright (c) 2001 Tom Barry All rights reserved. Version 0.4.0.0
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//
// This file is subject to the terms of the GNU General Public License as
// published by the Free Software Foundation. A copy of this license is
// included with this software distribution in the file COPYING. If you
// do not have a copy, you may obtain a copy by writing to the Free
// Software Foundation, 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
//
// This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
// but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
// MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
// GNU General Public License for more details
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////



GreedyHMA - Greedy (High Motion for Avisynth)


GreedyHMA.dll is an Avisynth filter that executes DScaler's Greedy/HM algorithm code to
perform pulldown matching, filtering, and video deinterlace.

Just unzip the contents into your Avisynth directory, or somewhere. As the script shows,
I made a subdirectory under Avisynth just to keep it separate.

Following is Bikes.avs, one of the scripts I was testing:

LoadPlugin("d:\AVISynth\GreedyHMA\Debug\GreedyHMA.dll")
clip = AVISource("c:\vcr\bikes.avi")
return clip.GreedyHMA(1,0,4,0,0,0,0,0)

It specifies the file spec (change yours) and asks for TopFirst and AutoPulldown to be
turned on, with decimation (frame dropping) to 24 fps. I've so far tested it only
with Avisynth/VirtualDub.

WARNING:
Previous to V 0.4.0.0 I was telling everyone that TopFirst almost always work better but
that just turned out to be because of a bug in the BottomFirst GreedyHMA code. So you
should verify any previous tests here. Some folks were getting unnecessary weave or
deinterlace artifacts because of this.

On some sources I get slightly better results with TopFirst on (say HDTV captures) but others
are better with it off. I notice it's possible to run 2 copies of Vdub and do a frame by frame
compare. There doesn't seem to be to much difference but a still compare of two frames (look at
diagonals) will usually show one to be better. You can just look at the VirtualDub inputs
for this. It's not necessary to actually create any output files yet.

For Versio 0.4.0.0 I've added two new filter scripts to the zip to tell for sure whether you
should use TopFirst. Modify the BottomFirst.avs script to point to your file and load it
into VirtualDub. Then single step a few frames. Ignore the single line up and down jitter
but watch to see if every other frame seems to go backwards. If so you probably need TopFirst.
Try the TopFirst.avs script to verify that. Neither of these two scripts depends upon GreedyHMA.


After finding the correct TopFirst setting (T=0 or 1) then the apply the following guidelines,
substituting the TopFirst setting for 'T'.

If you think you have mostly film source, or DVD2AVI says so, then use:

GreedyHMA(T,0,5,0,0,0,0,0) # which is Force Film+Decimation to 24 fps.

If you have all video, use:

GreedyHMA(T,0,0,0,0,0,0,0) # for 30 FPS output (25 FPS PAL), or
GreedyHMA(T,0,3,0,0,0,0,0) # for 24 FPS output

and when you don't know, don't care, or it's all mixed up, just make it auto:

GreedyHMA(T,0,4,0,0,0,0,0) # the all purpose most automatic setting (NTSC), or
GreedyHMA(T,0,1,0,0,0,0,0) # the all purpose most automatic setting (PAL)


Other switches can be added as below:

GreedyHMA Parm list:

return clip.GreedyHMA(TopFirst, SwapFields, AutoPullDown,
MedianFilter, VerticalFilter, EdgeEnhance
GoodPullDownLvl, BadPullDownLvl)

All the values are integer, 0=no, 1=yes:

TopFirst - assume the top field, lines 0,2,4,... should be displayed first.
The default is the supposedly more common BottomFirst but on ATSC captures
from my WinTV-HD card TopFirst still works better for me.

SwapFields - for busted capture drivers that put lines 1,3,5.. over
lines 0,2,4...

AutoPullDown - Sets what types of Pulldown processing is desired.
Valid parm values are:

0 - No pulldown, just do pure deinterlace (Force Video). Doesn't drop
any frames so FPS is left at 30 FPS, or wherever. Doesn't decimate
(pentimate?). Use if you have (and want) 30 fps video source or
maybe 25 FPS PAL video.

1 - Auto Pulldown. Automatically decide which frames should be IVTC'd
or deinterlaced, depending upon the settings of the Good and Bad
Pulldown Lvls (see below). Don't decimate. This is best if you
have mixed film and video and wan't 30 fps output. Also better
for PAL sources.

2 - Pulldown only (Force Film). Assume film source, always do IVTC and
never deinterlace. Don't decimate. Use for PAL film source.

Values 3-5 match those above but with frame dropping (Decimation, pentimation?)
Five frames at a time are looked at and the one most likely to be a duplicate
is dropped, thus lowering the FPS from, say, 30 to 24.

3 - Deinterlace (Force Video) but with frame dropping. Use for NTSC video
if you still want to decimate. With video source there really are no
proper fields to drop, but this will drop the ones looking most like
dupes.

4 - Auto Pulldown with frame dropping. The best (most automatic) setting.
Works in most cases, at least if I get all the bugs out.

5 - Pulldown only (Force Film) with frame dropping. This will give the best
results if you have 100% properly mastered NTSC film source with no
video sections and not too many edits. It can adjust for most scene
changes and changes in pulldown cadence, but not mixed up fields.

I haven't tried to see what's best with all this yet. Pulldown stuff's still
not perfect. But unless you're certain, you can often leave this on 4 (Auto).
It should still handle high motion video sports ok. If it falls into
deinterlace mode too often during film processing you can try raising the
Bad Pulldown Level a bit.

[Glanz]

ok thank u

[Glanz]

uncas u are truly a bad ass when it comes to divx thanks, now my deinterlacing lines are gone thanks to ur fix ive got my movie and it looks great thanks everyone else too that gave me help i appreciate it everyone

[UncasMS]

it aint MY fix ;)

i'm just a plain user of this fine software!

[hacker_on_fire]

your being modest, otherwise they wouldn't call u a 'super moderator'.

hehe

[UncasMS]

otherwise they wouldn't call u a 'super moderator'

we ALL are ;)

[Glanz]

some day maybe i too can be a super moderator


how long have u been ripping movies uncas?