DVD to Divx

[sepultura]

I bought a piece of software from Best Buy that converts DVD to Divx. I am pretty new at the conversion process. While it converted a homemade DVD to Divx, there were artifacts in the finished product. Anyone know of any tips where i could get rid of those artifacts? thanx!

Rick
snafu1@yahoo.com

[redwudz]

What's the software? It's a little hard to make any suggestions without knowing what you are using?

In general, artifacts may from using too low a bitrate. If you are using Divx, you can adjust that in the codec settings. But the size will likely increase.

[yoda313]

Also you may want to deinterlace it if say its a tv show dvd. That can help.

[whitejremiah]

you may wanna give fair use wizard a run, it generally does pretty good with pretty much everything you can throw at it (provided the source is decrypted, which seeing that your using homemade dvd's, i'd have to assume the source probably is....) generally on a 2 hour movie with ac3 audio, i aim for somewhere around 1.4 to 1.7gb (depending on how much action there is in the movie, ect....) on a homemade movie your probably not dealing with ac3 audio and since it's likely fullscreen, you can probably aim for somewhere around 1.4gb (1400ish mb...slightly more actually) and you should have a semi respectable output.....about 700mb per hour of video you got....and a tip since you now have a divx compatable dvd player, if you have a dvd burner, you can use dvd decrypter (google around for it, not sure if there's still a working link here or not for downloading it....) and rip your dvd's to iso, works great for making stuff like if you own say the matrix trilogy or something like that....smashing them to one disc.....

[sepultura]

hi Redwuds. the software i bought at Best Buy is called EZ DVD Ditto. I guess i will have to up the bitrate with a bitrate calculator and hopefully that will fix things.

thanx!

[sepultura]

hi Yoda. Thanx for the suggestion!

[sepultura]

Whitejremiah, thanx for the suggestion! That would be pretty killer to put three movies like that one one disc, but first i gotta get the basics down. Bitrate being the number one thing so far. i'm new to the conversion process, and wanna master it.

[redwudz]

It's all about bitrate. (Well, that's an exaggeration, but it's very important. )

If you have a very high action video, like a kungfu movie, it takes more bitrate to keep down the artifacts. If you have a person sitting at a desk, like a newscast, not near as much bitrate is needed for a good video.

If you want to experiment a little, try VirtualDub Mod and use the Divx codec. Take a 5 minute clip from a representative video, and in the Divx codec settings, try some adjustments. Once you determine how the bitrate and other settings affect the encoding results, you may be able to understand the codec a little better. Simple rule: More bitrate=Larger file. You have to balance bitrate to room available on your media.

The codec is what you are adjusting. VDM or any similar program is just a front end to the codec and is not as important as the codec settings. You should be able to do the same thing with the program you purchased. Try some different clips, some high motion, some low.

There is also variable bitrate and multiple encoder passes, but that's next in the learning curve.

I use Fairuse Wizard myself for easy encodes, but the above still applies.