Best VCD > DivX Bitrate?

[zap91284]

I've got a bunch of VCDs that I am going to convert to DivX and store on a DVD-R. Anyone have any suggestions for what bitrate I should use? What have other people used that have resulted in good quality video (same as the VCD) and a decent file size?

[AngusMacGyver]

Why don't you store in DVD MPEG1 352x240 format? The conversion is almost direct and you won't have video quality loss. You only need to convert audio from 44.1 to 48kHz. And you will be able to play on standalone players.

[bottle-necked]

Dr Divx. It's available at divx.com for 30 day free trial.
(If your files are on VCDs I don't think it will work)

If you're going to DVD-R why convert? Those won't play on your settop box.

Good luck

[Gazorgan]

The end prduct is going to be fairly unwatchable. VCD->DivX is about the worst conversion you can do and retain any quality (low bitrate sources will do that). Just leave them intact and change the audio to 48Khz. It's worth the extra DVDR or 2 for better quality video.

[zap91284]

Thanx. I might consider doing what you say. Playing them on a set-top box isn't that great a concern to me. I just want to shrink my collection down so I don't have to carry a case of 200 CDs/DVDs around when I take them someplace.

[bottle-necked]

That'll take about 4-1/2 years. Better go with water cooling on that OC machine of yours! It'll be plenty hot after about 125 files. LOL


Good luck

[zap91284]

Lol. I've got it set up with decent cooling. I'm still not sure if I'll do this due to the massive amount of time it would take.

[bottle-necked]

me either... lol

Good luck

[zap91284]

Anyone have any idea if there is any kind of a way I can easily automate this for DivX conversion? I know you can have a job queue in Virutaldub, but is there a way I can just set up the settings, and say "do this to all these files that have the same specifications"?

[Gazorgan]

1 pass CQ is 'quicker' and more than good enough for VCD source. Just bite the bullet and spend 5 minutes queueing up 20-30 VCD's, then batch away. I used to batch about 20 hours worth, so I could clean up between sessions. I'm pretty well batched out at this point (just TV rips to MPEG2 is all I have left).