divx 503 & stability

[unreal33]

I'm fairly new to DivX but i'm on my 4th rip and having some problems. this is my setup:

1.33ghz T-bird (plenty of cooling)
Abit KT7a-Raid -(not running RAID at present)
512 meg pc133 @ cas 2
7200 rpm deskstar
win2k pro sp2 (w/ all updates)
Flask Mpeg ver 0.594
DivX 502 & 503
Radium mp3 Codec ver 1.263

Well the first three movies went just fine, no audio or video problems what so ever (with divX 502) -then I tryed 503 & I was amazed at the difference that it made (clean video & smaller file sizes) -for this I used 1-pass with about 3000 bitrate (HD profile, 720x480 res) My only gripe was that in two seperate places in the movie the video bitrate looks like it droped from 3000 to 300 for about 10 minutes each. -Very upset about that. Anyway, since i've been trying to re-do the movie and Flask seems to be constantly making 3-100meg sized files, or a currupt file with no size at all. Not only have I turned down some settings in my Bios, ie- memmory timings/performance settings, but i've also un-installed and reinstalled flask/divx 502 & 503/as well as the radium codec.

I've read many articles talking about restarting Flask between rips, My OS is on week 2 of its install so it is not corrupt. heat is not an issue either. It seems that Flask will Either hang at 100% or just close out {like it should} but then the file out put is trashed. I have attemped useing the latest Flask (both beta & stable) & I can't get any better results (I realy dislike the newer versions) on top of all these things I have tryed re-ripping another film (one that worked previously) no luck either.

Any ideas? Any input is much appreciated, Thanks
-also other than the flask issue, my system is rock solid... give Xp pro a shot maybe?

[Batman]

Some people do not consider FLASK to be a "reliable" tool.

Some popular encoding guides are available at doom9.org

[KillRoy]

I'm testing the whole 503 version (Read the thread 'bitrate calculator for 503?') ....here

I used 502 and I had no troubles, then after 503 installation trouble began.
503 seemed to output a smaller file than 502 does. This was not because of the new encoding techniques use by 503 but beacuase I had the same bitrate drops as you in the movies wich was causing the smaller filesize. The last 30 minutes of a movie would come out looking like it had a bitrate of 100....

Deinstalled 503 and went back to 502. Only thing was that now I have some movies encoded with 503 that can not be played back with 502, so I installed 503 again next to 502.... Playback is horrible
My conclusion is that it is not possible to have the 2 codecs installed together on one rig....

Anyway, I am back to 502 and I'm staying with it till a next codec comes out that IS better than 502.....

Hope this helps you

[Batman]

5.03 is buggy....not many people are using it. The wide consensus is stick with divx 5.02 pro (XVID or divx 3.11 alpha) until the bugs in divx 5.03 are worked out.

[unreal33]

Just formated & loaded Xp pro - don't ask me why, hehe- Ok so maybe from now on i'll just stick to 502.... as far as Flask not being stable, What other programs are there that will convert my .vob file to .avi's, multiplex the audio & video together & still offer me advanced options?

Thanks guys, i'll let you know how xp treats me

[unreal33]

Oh, forgot to mention- Those smaller files, (from my "corrupt" version of flask) were 1 - 100 megs compaired to the 1.5-2 gig full DVD files that I was looking for... they weren't just short clips. Just thought I'd add that, thanks again

[Batman]

Read the guides at doom9.org (mentioned in my earlier post):

I personally prefer the XVID codec over Divx 5.02 pro. I think 2-pass xvid (search the doom9.org forum for iago's 2-pass xvid encoding guide and read the doom9.org xvid encoding guide too) is a good choice.

GKNOT is popular for divx 5.02 pro and xvid encoding, it should prove to be a suitable replacement for FLASK. I would recommend you read the guides at doom9 and Uncasms's thoroughly.