can't dvd to divx. autocrop fails

[amaretto]

hallo i'm quite a newbie.
i'm trying to dvd to divx some movie [legal copies] with ffmpegx 0.0.9x on
• ibook g3 800mhz [mac os x 10.3.9]
• imac g3 500mhz [mac os x 10.4.8]

installation fine.

following the how-to-guide: autocrop gives me :

"Autocrop was unable to analyze this movie. Perhaps the movie is too short to be analyzed, or the 'start from' analysis point is set outside the movie."

different start points make no difference.
different dvd, same problem.
preview works fine.

if i try to code, ffmpegx progress window opens, runs for a while (10 seconds?), rings the bell, says it finished. a 16 k .avi file is created in the destination folder.

thanks in advance
s.

here's process information:
Encoding started on Fri Jan 12 16:32:27 CET 2007
MEncoder dev-CVS-051126-18:35-3.3 (C) 2000-2005 MPlayer Team
Mac OSX static build for ffmpegX
AltiVec not found
CPU: PowerPC
libdvdread: Couldn't find device name.
Reading disc structure, please wait...
There are 2 titles on this DVD.
There are 1 chapters in this DVD title.
There are 1 angles in this DVD title.
DVD successfully opened.
success: format: 0 data: 0x0 - 0xcfcb800
MPEG-PS file format detected.
VIDEO: MPEG2 720x576 (aspect 2) 25.000 fps 6600.0 kbps (825.0 kbyte/s)
[V] filefmt:2 fourcc:0x10000002 size:720x576 fps:25.00 ftime:=0.0400
================================================== ========================
Opening audio decoder: [liba52] AC3 decoding with liba52
No accelerated IMDCT transform found
AC3: 2.0 (stereo) 48000 Hz 224.0 kbit/s
No accelerated resampler found
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16be, 224.0 kbit/14.58% (ratio: 28000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [a52] afm: liba52 (AC3-liba52)
================================================== ========================
Opening video filter: [expand osd=1]
Expand: -1 x -1, -1 ; -1, osd: 1, aspect: 0.000000, round: 1
Opening video filter: [scale w=640 h=352]
================================================== ========================
Opening video decoder: [mpegpes] MPEG 1/2 Video passthrough
VDec: vo config request - 720 x 576 (preferred colorspace: Mpeg PES)
The selected video_out device is incompatible with this codec.
Also try adding the scale filter, e.g. -vf spp,scale instead of -vf spp.
VDecoder init failed
Opening video decoder: [libmpeg2] MPEG 1/2 Video decoder libmpeg2-v0.4.0b
Selected video codec: [mpeg12] vfm: libmpeg2 (MPEG-1 or 2 (libmpeg2))
================================================== ========================
Forcing output fourcc to 58564944 [XVID]
Building audio filter chain for 48000Hz/2ch/s16be -> 48000Hz/0ch/s8...
Building audio filter chain for 48000Hz/2ch/s16be -> 48000Hz/2ch/s16be...
VDec: vo config request - 720 x 576 (preferred colorspace: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.33:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
SwScaler: FAST_BILINEAR scaler, from Planar YV12 to Planar YV12 using AltiVec
videocodec: libavcodec (640x352 fourcc=58564944 [XVID])
1 duplicate frame(s)!
Writing AVI header...
ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header.
ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header.

[Case]

Possibly ffmpegX tried to encode a different title from what you intended. Quite often the Main Feature is title 1 (the default in ffmpegX), but it doesn't have to be so. The autocrop error msg "Perhaps the movie is too short" and the "There are 1 chapters in this DVD title." msg seems to indicate that Title 1 could be some short clip or menu, and not the Main Feature. You may also check the filesize on VTS_01_1.VOB; if it is small, then Title 1 could be the wrong title to encode.

Try playing the title in Apple DVD Player or a standalone player and look at the title number when it plays the main feature. Then copy that number to the Title field in the Video tab.

Autocrop tried to find the picture size minus the letterbox bars on a frame with the timecode set in the Preview pane, which defaults at 0 minutes 30 seconds. For clips shorter than 30 seconds, this timecode will fail Autocrop.

[amaretto]

thanks for your answer.
i think the title is the right one, because the preview button works and shows me the right stuff. as cross check i tried to select another title: i can preview it, but can't auto crop or code: same kind of msg from process information windows.

i tried not to code audio, not to code video: just the same.
am i supposed to lose my faith?
s.

[tomlee59]

I strongly recommend trying D-Vision3 for conversion of DVD into DivX/XviD. If no one comes up with suggestions how to overcome your problems, give D-Vision a shot and see what happens.

[amaretto]

thanks for the suggestion.
i'm sorry to drop ffmpegx with no clue about why it didn't work, but ok.
d-vision seems to work fine.
s.