Starting out .....VHS to DivX

[bob.fawcett]

Hi

I am a complete newbie when it comes to video production and having attempted to read some of the FAQ's and tutorials I still find myself confused.
I currently have a lot of home video recorded on Video8 as well as a library of films on VHS tape.
Having read a lot about DivX it seemed the ideal solution to convert this material to play off CD. Either on my PC or on a DivX-enabled DVD player.
I currently use PINNACLE Studio 8 to capture and edit clips from the existing tape material. I either produce output in .avi format to copy back to VHS or in MPG2 format to store on my hard disc and play back via Windows Media player.
The problem is that in both cases the files are huge. A 40 minute .mpg at about 1Gb and a 50/60 minute .avi file to export to VHS at about 4Gb.
Obviously neither is going to fit on to a normal CD.
DivX to the rescue.?.

Apparantly not.
While there seems to be an enormous amount of info and software to enable you to convert DVD's to DixX I can't find anything meaningfull to explain how I get from tape to DivX.
I can't even find out what format is best to start from and even how to recognose a DivX encoded file? Is it .mpg, .avi or what?.

Can anyone recommend any software and/or tutorials that are aimed at TAPE (not DVD..please!) to DivX conversion that doesn't require a Masters in Rocket Science !?.

Thanks in advance

Bob

Ps If this is the wrong forum for this kind of issue please point me in the right direction!.

[techno]

Right well, this is normal.

NEVER EVER CAPTURE ANYTHING USING COMPRESSION!!!!! u will lose ALOT of quality.

DIVX is only to be used in the last conversion of the process.

to capture, use these settings and use AVI_IO to capture of several files,

352*288
CD quality uncompressed audio
YUY2/YUV12 format
NO RECOMPRESSION
25/30fps

650MB = 4 mins, but quality is worth it.

Then, once done, we convert this to MPEG2 using TMPGENC (use DVD template, but change the res to 352*288 or 640*480)

Then once this is done, we do a 2 pass encoding using nandub.

https://www.technosoft2000.co.uk/divx/method1.htm

now, since it produces a .mpg file, in dvd2avi, type in *.mpg and then open that MPEG2 file we just encoded, then continue on with the guide.

remember, compression and capturing at the same time is VERY BAD!!!