How to convert TV series from DVD to DIVX format.

[Firewire60]

I have a favourite TV series on several DVDs. I know how to extract the episodes from the DVDs.

Could someone kindly tell me if TMPGEnc DVD Author 3 (which I have) will allow the episodes to be queued and convert them progressively to separate DIVX files for later burning to DVD.

I don't want a menu just want to convert the separate episodes to DIVX format and do it in a streamlined queued batch fashion into separate DIVX files. I know how to separate the DVD episodes from the DVDs.

Also does TMPGEnc allow you adjust video quality settings in the process of conversion to DIVX format and what settings give a good balance of video quality and smaller DIVX file size to reduce number of DVD disks needed.

I am in foreign territory when doing such conversions and would appreciate any help.

[guns1inger]

Quality is in the eye of the beholder. I have had heated discussions with people here who swear blind that the 98 minute movie they have at 556 x 320 pixels and 700 MB is size is DVD quality, and it must the be the encoder at fault when they create a DVD and it looks like crap.

That said, you may also be constrained by the playback equipment you have. If you don't have something Divx Ultra certified, you will be constrained to 720 pixels or less wide, no qpel, no gmc, and a bitrate of 3000 kbps or less. You are also constrained to 2GB files or smaller as well.

However, even with Divx certification, it isn't so cut and dried. I have two Divx certified players at home. One from LG - cheap and cheerful - and one from Pioneer - my 540H recorder. Both will play back files with packed bitrates (not all players will), however the Pioneer will not play back anything with qpel or GMC. I will play back files with a bitrate up to 4000 kbps. It also has some very nice built-in filters to reduce blockiness and mosquito noise on play back. The LG, on the other hand, has no filters, is prone to the occasional strange colourations, and struggles at rates over 2000 kbps. However it will play back files with GMC to 2 warp points.

What does all this mean ? That standards ain't all that standard.

Personally, I would work with 640 pixels wide (based on NTSC square pixel display of 4:3 material - and it scales well for widescreen), work to fit 4 episodes to a disc if you are serious about high quality, 8 for good quality, and go with the original AC3 audio if you can.

I don't use TDA, so I can't help you with specifics. AutoGK and/or Dr Divx give me enough control and are both free.

[gll99]

You could try DR DIVX. It's free and has many audio and video encoding options. You can use more detailed custom settings or easily use the quality or the size constraint options. Recently I've just been using the file size limit and it does a good job of converting close to the size I specify. If you have multi episodes on the same disc separated by title set you just create a job for each episode by choosing the vobs for that episode and after you click on the encode button it will add the job to the queue. You can go back and choose another set of vob on the same dvd and repeat until you have created a job for each episode on the disc and they will run in sequence.

I had a variety of problems with earlier versions but the latest one works well for me.