Fastest converter for this task, WMV, MPEG4 > XviD ?

[Chaffee]

Which is the fastest converter for converting WMV, MPEG4 and occassionally (but not necessarily) MKV files to XviD format (converting it to XviD so it's playable on exact DVD player)?
I give priority to free tools but no problem if it's commercial one...
Just to mention I used Xilisoft Video Converter, and when I convert it to DivX it's not functioning, but when I convert it to XviD it's playable on home DVD player.
Is there some other tool which is faster than abovementioned converter?

[Slipster]

No converter can go faster than the encoder can encode so, as a general rule of thumb, the converter that uses the worst default settings in terms of picture quality will be the fastest. Most converters can be tuned for either speed or quality, or somewhere inbetween. I guess the question is, how much quality are you prepared to sacrifice to get the speed you're after?

[Chaffee]

No converter can go faster than the encoder can encode so, as a general rule of thumb, the converter that uses the worst default settings in terms of picture quality will be the fastest. Most converters can be tuned for either speed or quality, or somewhere inbetween. I guess the question is, how much quality are you prepared to sacrifice to get the speed you're after?

Thank you for your answer! I was assuming it's like that but I wasn't 100% sure so I launched this question. Could you please tell me, if you know of course, if Xilisoft Video Converter is setting XviD conversion settings to default ones as original file, or I have to raise all that on "high"? Since both video and sound quality settings are on "normal".
What's the most versatile converter in terms of customization, and is there some particular one which you'd recommend and you use?

[leghorn]

I'm sensing something strange in this post...WMV left aside, Xvid is an implementation of the Mpeg4 video codec. So why convert Mpeg4 to Xvid, which is Mpeg4 already? Also, MKV is a container. It's not a codec. So what's the purpose of the original post?

[Slipster]

I can't advise you on the Xilisoft converter as I've never used it, but MediaCoder is probably one of the most configurable converters around. The only problem is that you really need to understand what you're doing to be able to use it effectively.

Maybe take a look at AutoGK as that always used to be a nice middle-ground between simplicity and outright geekdom.

[Slipster]

So why convert Mpeg4 to Xvid...

To play on a standalone DVD player?

[Chaffee]

I can't advise you on the Xilisoft converter as I've never used it, but MediaCoder is probably one of the most configurable converters around. The only problem is that you really need to understand what you're doing to be able to use it effectively.

Maybe take a look at AutoGK as that always used to be a nice middle-ground between simplicity and outright geekdom.

Thanks man I'll definitely try those programs.

So why convert Mpeg4 to Xvid...

To play on a standalone DVD player?

Exactly the answer on leghorn's question. Can't play anything but XviD and VOB on that standalone DVD player.

[Slipster]

You're welcome. Have fun!

[hello_hello]

For 90% DVD player compatibility Xvid should use the Home Theater profile and the standard h263 matrix (no custom matrices). As long as you're using a GUI which uses that Xvid profile, sets up Xvid correctly or lets you configure Xvid manually, then you should be fine. For 100% DVD player compatibility you can't use single pass encoding. Some DVD players stutter if the bitrate climbs too high and while Xvid has bitrate/buffer control it only works when running 2 pass encoding.

AutoGK has always been a pretty good option for producing DVD player friendly files. When you install it you're offered a choice of compatibility modes. ESS forces the h263 matrix, MTK lets AutoGK use a custom Matrix, both use the home theater profile. However....

AutoGK was only ever designed to encode mpeg2 video (DVDs, TS files etc) and re-encode AVIs via DirectShow, so while it'll encode pretty much anything, it doesn't officially support newer container formats such as MP4 or MKV. If you want details there's ways around it.... I use AutoGK to re-encode MKV and MP4 files semi-regularly, but there's a bit of a learning curve involved getting it to work. I can post instructions if you're interested, otherwise...

ffcoder is one encoder GUI which comes to mind which will probably do the job well. It'll open lots of file types and it lets you manually configure the encoders. It seems to keep things fairly simple while still letting you get into the more complicated stuff (avs scripts etc) if you want to.

To set up the Xvid encoder (the File Format probably should be set to AVI first) you'd just select Xvid for the Video, hit the "configure" button and in the window which opens, select Constant Quantizer encoding and a Quantizer value of 2.0 (maximum quality). The higher the value, the lower the quality and the smaller the output file. Most people probably use between 2.0 and 3.0 (AutoGK uses 2.67 by default). Select the appropriate Home Theater profile and try to avoid messing with anything else. Next choose and configure the audio encoder and run the encode.

If you need to resize, it's done under the "Filters" button. By default, ffcoder seems to get a little excited about the video dimensions when you're using one of the Xvid Home Theater profiles. For instance if you choose the NTSC Home Theater profile, the resizing defaults to 720x480 and might distort the video. Generally you'd select a width (720 maximum for DVD player compatibility), change the FPS value to "auto" change the Height to "auto" and the Aspect Ratio Preset to "square". That should give you a standard square pixel AVI with the same frame rate as the source video.

Try playing a few ffcoder single pass encodes in your DVD player to make sure it plays them without stuttering. If it does stutter on occasion then you'll probably have to look at 2 pass encoding, but with any luck you won't need to worry about it. ffcoder makes 2 pass encoding fairly easy though, just tick the "target MB" checkbox in the main window, select the desired file size, and ffcoder sets up 2 pass encoding for you. Aside from bitrate/buffer control when running 2 passes (which you may not need to worry about) the main difference between running a single pass encode and 2 passes is the former lets you specify the quality, but the file size will be unknown, 2 passes lets you pick the file size, but the quality becomes the unknown factor.

[Chaffee]

For 90% DVD player compatibility Xvid should use the Home Theater profile and the standard h263 matrix (no custom matrices). As long as you're using a GUI which uses that Xvid profile, sets up Xvid correctly or lets you configure Xvid manually, then you should be fine. For 100% DVD player compatibility you can't use single pass encoding. Some DVD players stutter if the bitrate climbs too high and while Xvid has bitrate/buffer control it only works when running 2 pass encoding.

AutoGK has always been a pretty good option for producing DVD player friendly files. When you install it you're offered a choice of compatibility modes. ESS forces the h263 matrix, MTK lets AutoGK use a custom Matrix, both use the home theater profile. However....

AutoGK was only ever designed to encode mpeg2 video (DVDs, TS files etc) and re-encode AVIs via DirectShow, so while it'll encode pretty much anything, it doesn't officially support newer container formats such as MP4 or MKV. If you want details there's ways around it.... I use AutoGK to re-encode MKV and MP4 files semi-regularly, but there's a bit of a learning curve involved getting it to work. I can post instructions if you're interested, otherwise...

ffcoder is one encoder GUI which comes to mind which will probably do the job well. It'll open lots of file types and it lets you manually configure the encoders. It seems to keep things fairly simple while still letting you get into the more complicated stuff (avs scripts etc) if you want to.

To set up the Xvid encoder (the File Format probably should be set to AVI first) you'd just select Xvid for the Video, hit the "configure" button and in the window which opens, select Constant Quantizer encoding and a Quantizer value of 2.0 (maximum quality). The higher the value, the lower the quality and the smaller the output file. Most people probably use between 2.0 and 3.0 (AutoGK uses 2.67 by default). Select the appropriate Home Theater profile and try to avoid messing with anything else. Next choose and configure the audio encoder and run the encode.

If you need to resize, it's done under the "Filters" button. By default, ffcoder seems to get a little excited about the video dimensions when you're using one of the Xvid Home Theater profiles. For instance if you choose the NTSC Home Theater profile, the resizing defaults to 720x480 and might distort the video. Generally you'd select a width (720 maximum for DVD player compatibility), change the FPS value to "auto" change the Height to "auto" and the Aspect Ratio Preset to "square". That should give you a standard square pixel AVI with the same frame rate as the source video.

Try playing a few ffcoder single pass encodes in your DVD player to make sure it plays them without stuttering. If it does stutter on occasion then you'll probably have to look at 2 pass encoding, but with any luck you won't need to worry about it. ffcoder makes 2 pass encoding fairly easy though, just tick the "target MB" checkbox in the main window, select the desired file size, and ffcoder sets up 2 pass encoding for you. Aside from bitrate/buffer control when running 2 passes (which you may not need to worry about) the main difference between running a single pass encode and 2 passes is the former lets you specify the quality, but the file size will be unknown, 2 passes lets you pick the file size, but the quality becomes the unknown factor.

Thanks a lot for this comprehensive help! ffcoder stuff worked, however I'd like you to post me instructions for AutoGK as well if you have time and will for that. This is really helpful.

[hello_hello]

Aside from the guide I wrote a while back (link to follow), I discovered at one stage AutoGK will re-encode MP4 files if you simply change their extension to AVI. For it to work, you need to have the Haali Media Splitter installed, along with the appropriate DirectShow decoder. If you have ffdshow installed, that's all you need. The only downside to this method is you can't use AutoGK to re-encode the audio. If you don't deselect the audio before running the encode, you'll get an unsupported audio error message and the encoding job will abort. AutoGK will happily encode the video though, so you just need to convert the audio using another method (ffcoder will open MKV and MP4 files and convert just the audio), then add the converted audio to the AutoGK encoded AVI manually. The guide I linked to at the end of this post explains how to do it. None of the above works for MKVs.

Another method when working with MKVs though is to remux them as AVIs.... and a likely way to do the same with MP4 files just occurred to me (never thought of it until now).....
ffcoder should be able to convert just the audio while copying the video and save the output as an AVI which you can then re-encode with AutoGK (while telling AutoGK just to copy the audio rather than encode it again).
So I opened ffcoder to check, and while I didn't actually do it, it certainly seems like it'll work. If you open an MKV/MP4 file with ffcoder, select AVI as the output, select "copy" for the video, then MP3 or AC3 for the audio (if it needs to be converted) you should end up with an AVI containing the original video and copied/converted audio which AutoGK will happily open.
Remuxing MKV/MP4 files as AVIs can take a little bit of time, especially if they're large files. I've never used ffcoder to do it but the method I've used previously could be slow. If you're not working with overly large MP4/MKV files or converting lots of them regularly though, this method might be your best bet as I think if AutoGK can open AVI files directly it'll probably re-encode them the fastest that way.

The other method.... well it's all explained in the guide. It's the method I use 99% of the time when converting MKV or MP4 files with AutoGK because while AutoGK will probably take longer to convert the video this way (it tends not to make full use of your CPU) setting up an encode is fairly quick. Probably just a couple of minutes if you don't have to convert the audio, or a couple of minutes plus however long it takes to convert the audio if you do.
If you find encoding isn't taxing your CPU overly hard this way, there's a post below the guide which explains how to run more than one instance of AutoGK at the same time so you can use it to encode two videos simultaneously.

So there you go..... there's the "pretend MP4s are AVIs" method, the "remuxing MP4s and MKVs as AVIs" method, and the "use AVIsynth for frameserving" method explained in the guide here: http://doom10.org/index.php?topic=325.0
As there's a reasonable chance when working with MKV files they'll contain an audio type which AutoGK supports (ie AC3, DTS, MP3) the guide explains how to extract the audio from the MKV file. In the case of MP4 however the chances of them containing audio AutoGK supports is considerably lower, so rather than messing around with extracting it from the MP4, once again it's probably easier to open the MP4 using ffcoder and get it to convert just the audio to an AutoGK/AVI friendly format.

One last thought..... if you're converting HD video to standard definition, the guide explains how to correctly convert the colors while encoding so the encode displays using the correct colors. The difference isn't huge but if you've ever wondered why all those "scene" standard definition MP4s and AVIs encoded using high definition sources look a little "off".... skin tones looking a little too dark or a little too red etc.... well the color conversion bit, or rather the lack of it, is the reason for that. So if you're converting one of those "scene" standard definition encodes to AVI.... convert the colors while you're encoding.
If you're using one of the first two methods to encode using AutoGK.... renaming MP4s as AVIs or remuxing them as AVIs.... then you can't use the same method as in the guide to convert the colors, but I'll leave that story for another time. And while I've no doubt ffcoder will convert the colors when encoding too, I've never done it using ffcoder so I'd have to play around with it a little.

[ozok]

You can use TEncoder for that task, it is a multithreaded video converter. However, your DVD player probably needs Xvid profiles set properly. TEncoder cant set them but according to picture size, bitrate etc ffmpeg or mencoder decides profile itself.