Black screen when converting AVI (XVID) to VCD or DVD

[videomonkey]

ffx version 0.0.9s
OS: tiger or 10.3.9
platform: 800Mhz G4 imac
Quicktime 7
toast titanium (without jam)

problem: AVI (XVID) play fine in vlc player, mplayer, and ffmpegX. ffmpeg can convert it to H.262 high def just fine.

But if I convert it to VCD or DVD, the video is solid black without sound. FFmegX runs for a long time with no more than the usual warnings in the log and finishes normally authoring the bin/cue or video_TS folder. I am using the default settings for the conversion though I have tried a few others as well.

As I said it does convert to H262 high def and it plays. I can also convert it to MPEG4 (mplayer) and it plays.

What's strange is the same thing happens if I try to convert the file using toast titanium.

How is it possible that the large (400Mb) cue or video_TS can be produced and be all black yet all the players can play the source files video and audio.

I've done this many times now at the outcome is reproducible.

I do NOT have XVID or 3IVX installed in quicktime. (nor do I want to particularly)

[major]

I do NOT have XVID or 3IVX installed in quicktime. (nor do I want to particularly)

This is the reason, as Quicktime is used to decode the source when you have the "Decode with Quicktime" option enabled.

[videomonkey]

Thanks! I will give this a try. too bad the preview function does not use the same decode as the rest of the program--makes it confusing. What are the relative merits of decoding with quicktime versus mplayer. Should I always default to quicktime when it works and only use mplayer when it does not. Also what happens if I dont select either decoder--is there yet another one?