Several issues

[patrickthebuff]

I have several questions for those who are older and wiser, so I'll try to keep it orderly:

1.) When I finished my 2 pass encoding with flask and divx 5.x, my file was very small and poor quality. I'm sure this is because I used a bitrate of 422, which is what my bitrate calculator said. I now realize that this is way too low. Why the error? Did I have the wrong bitrate calculator?

2.) I also had no audio. Can anyone tell me the best audio codec to use and where to get it? I am running winxp.

3.) I also have issues with screen size. Can I set the screen size to a large value (same ratio as original vob) without the avi being larger than 1 cd-r?

4.) when I start my second pass in flask, it asks if I want to overwrite the avi and the log files. Is this correct?

5.) Does adding a large number of passes greatly increase the filesize, and is the quality worth it?

Thanks for all the help thus far. I appreciate the knowledge and help of all.

[khp]

1) Impossible to answer without knowing any details, like movie length and desired filesize, and audio bitrate, and which calculator you used. But 422 does sound rather rediculess.

2) Most people use MP3, you can find mp3 codecs here at the divx-digest in the download section.

3) Resolution and filesize are not directly related, so yes, you can fit just about any resolution on a single CD. But when the resolution is too high, the quality will suffer.

4) Yes

5) Doing more that 2-passes, will only give you very minor quality improvements, and ofcourse the filesize should always stay nearly the same, no matter how many passes you do.

[patrickthebuff]

details

Thanks for answering those other for me.

As for my first question. The 422 was what was given to my by Advanced Bitrate calculator. I set the filesize not to excee 650mb and the audio at 128kbps. If this is supposed to work, then I suppose that either advanced bitrate calc. doesn't work with divx or I accidentally pressed the wrong key without noticing. I will try again and see how it comes out. thanks again.

[khp]

Re: details

Originally posted by patrickthebuff

As for my first question. The 422 was what was given to my by Advanced Bitrate calculator. I set the filesize not to excee 650mb and the audio at 128kbps.

Unless your movie is about 2 hours and 42 minutes, something is wrong.

Originally posted by patrickthebuff

advanced bitrate calc. doesn't work with divx

Bitrate is bitrate, it's not really up to the calculator to support different formats. Okay some formats thinks that 1kb=1000b while others think 1kb=1024b, which can account for a 2.4% miscalculation if you get that wrong.

[patrickthebuff]

bitrate calc.

How do I know what to put for the input sound in the bitrate calc. I set it to 128kbps and then the bitrate calc said my divx bitrate should be 750, which sounded a lot better to me, but I wasn't quite sure if or why the input sound should be 128. Where can I find this?

[khp]

Re: bitrate calc.

You don't find the audio bitrate anywhere. You decide how high it should be and set the same value in the bitrate calculator and in the mp3 codec config in flask or whatever program you are using.

128 khps is what most people use for mp3 audio tracks.

[ErL]

if you use MP3 codec (which is, as said, the most common choice), you do not need to set a "heavy" bitrate for audio. 96 kbs is enough for a film. 128 is "CD-like", not really useful unless you want to make a heavy-quality musical film.
Just remember that AC3 takes 384 kbs .

Below 700, or even 750, I think it's better to think to 2 CDs and not One.

Common choice for reducing the size is to go from 720x576 to 640x xxx. (xxx depends of the image : it will be 512 if it is a 4/3, often 272 if it is a 16/9)

I never find a calculator wich is able to give an exact size ... that is normal, assuming that codecs, beginning with the divx 3.11 VKI, are putting the index/key frames (big size) not constantly but when they detect the need to do it.

Ripping is not an exact science ...

good luck