I'm proud to announce the availability of DVDx 2.9 release, available on labDV server, on DVDx web site and on SourceForge servers.

Starbuck has reworked the code which supports AVI multipass interface to provide a better user experience and a consistent estimated output file size.

Xvid 2-pass encoding is the easiest to get an output file of the desired size while DivX 2-pass is easier for a constrained bitrate output file.

You can use the DivX codec embedded calculator (just to adjust the audio bitrate and copy/paste the frame number from DVDx output settings window) to get the bitrate associated to a desired size of the output file.

Improved AVI (DivX/Xvid) multipass GUI behavior:

- now Estimated size is also available for AVI (DivX and Xvid only) and is accurate, if multipass is set: the DivX 2nd pass bitrate or the Xvid desired size is used.

- if audio is Lame, audio bitrate is correctly taken into account to compute the Estimated size.

- now correctly set 1st and 2nd pass with appropriate settings display (formerly settings where stored and used correctly but display was messed up).

- when checking/unchecking Enable 2nd pass button, the codec dialog window is opened once for one-pass and twice for 2-pass encoding (with message helpers displayed).

- ensure DivX or Xvid is selected for multipass (so avoid setting multipass for codecs which don't support multipass encoding).

Compilation:

- update compilation platform with DirectX SDK February 2007 and WMSDK11 which provides Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile codec compliant with the published SMPTE VC-1 standard and Windows Media Audio 10 Professional codec quality improved at lower bit rates.

- hack shobjidl.h in Platform SDK R2 to skip SHCOLSTATE, SHCOLUMNID and LPCSHCOLUMNID on __shtypes_h__ definition (newer definitions in WMSDK11), it's required to compile ProfileObject.cpp successfully.

Download from: http://www.labdv.com/dvdx/download.php

Feedback and requests for next release will be welcome here...

Jim