Recording Staright to XViD

[MosThaTeD]

Ok Im trying to record straight directly to xvid and when i record it doesnt play right the audio doesn't match and sometimes the video freezes

[guns1inger]

From what little you have put in your specs, I would suggest your PC is nowhere near fast enough or well enough equipped to record successfully direct to Xvid.

However if you gave more detail, such as what software and hardware you are using, as well as the encoding settings, you might get a more detailed answer.

[MosThaTeD]

ok

i use WINTv2000,ffdshow,
Under ffdshow i have the following settings:
Encoder:Xvid
FOURCC:Xvid
Modene pass quality
quality:85


My Specs:
Windows Xp Home Service Pack 2
AMD Athlon (tm) 1.00 GHz
768 MB of Ram

[guns1inger]

Get a new computer. Basically your CPU isn't faster enough, and there is nothing you can do to make it fast enough, other than replace it. Unfortunately that will probably entail replacing everything else as well.

[yoda313]

Your other option that is probably the same price as a new computer is to get an Archos media player WITH a DVR dock. Then you can record straight to the portable unit in divx or xvid. Though a player is around 300.00 USD new and the dock is an extra 100.00 USD.

BUT that would let you record straight to the unit and in a portable file format. You could even leave it on your tv if you wish and take the portable player with you.

That would be an alternative to buying a new computer.

[redwudz]

You might also look into a hardware converter similar to this: http://www.adstech.com/products/USBAV-709-EF/intro/USBAV-709_intro.asp?pid=USBAV-709-EF It also captures directly to Divx format.

[jagabo]

Try setting the ffdshow xvid encoder options under Motion Estimation:

Preset Motion Search Precision: None or Very Low

Preset VHQ Mode: Off or Mode Decision

[MosThaTeD]

alright thanks guys

Edit I tried to do what u told me jagabo and it skips frames idk y

[jagabo]

And at their fastest settings, Divx is much faster than Xvid.

[MosThaTeD]

And at their fastest settings, Divx is much faster than Xvid.

should i download dvix codec and if i do wat setting should i use
..

[jagabo]

Unfortunately, the fastest setting is only availalbe if you register (pay). The second fastest setting isn't too much slower though.

In the unregistered Divx, on the Main tab, move the Encoding Presets slider as far to the left (lowest number) as possible.

In the registered version go to the Codec tab and under Encoding Mode select Fastest (presets must be disabled).

[MosThaTeD]

Unfortunately, the fastest setting is only availalbe if you register (pay). The second fastest setting isn't too much slower though.

In the unregistered Divx, on the Main tab, move the Encoding Presets slider as far to the left (lowest number) as possible.

In the registered version go to the Codec tab and under Encoding Mode select Fastest (presets must be disabled).

at i tried the pro one and it skips frames and the quality isnt good

[jagabo]

i tried the pro one and it skips frames and the quality isnt good

Then your CPU and/or hard drive simply aren't fast enough for realtime conversion to Divx while capturing.

Start up Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and switch to the Performance tab. Then start capturing. If CPU usage goes over ~50 percent you are likely to start dropping frames.

Try setting the Target Quantizer to a higher value. That will make smaller (lower quality) files. Less disk I/O may lead to fewer dropped frames.

Also be sure you've tried everything in this thread:

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic157660.html

[Stonechatz]

Remember, since Xvid encoding is CPU-hungry, turn off all anti-virus (disconnect from internet first), all updaters, all spyware sweepers, all synchronising programs, and all scheduled tasks. Go to msconfig and switch off all extraneous TSR programs that might be in RAM, and also check Task Manager for anything that is hogging CPU and/or memory that you might have forgotten about, and kill the process. The computer and CPU back to barebones is the only way for successful Xvid work.

[DereX888]

i tried the pro one and it skips frames and the quality isnt good

On-the-fly capturing to xvid/divx will never look as good as multipass encodes of off a "finished" HDTV stream or DVD.
If you want quality you need at least 2 passes, which obviously won't work for on-the-fly capturing to xvid no matter how fast is your CPU.
With your 1GHz CPU your best quality is probably CBR MPEG or any "light" (very-low compression) AVI codec, depending what capture card are you using.

[gll99]

Do I understand correctly that you are not using the xvid or divx codec but you are using ffdshow? if so then you are using the built-in mpeg4 encoder and forcing the fourcc to xvid or divx. That's ok because my tests on my P4 1.6 overclocked to 2.1 show that ffdshow is actually a bit faster at similar settings with interlaced video than the divx6 pro codec. At it's fastest setting, the divx pro codec defaults to prograssive mode and it drops half of the interlaced fields so that it why it appears to be so fast.

This is no longer my main capture system but on my p4, the ffdshow settings are one pass average bitrate of 1800 to 2000kbps, interlaced, top field first and a frame size of 640x480. I also capture the audio to mp3 128kbps cbr. I found the quality based settings too hard to predict and more demanding on the cpu with the exact results you are getting. These settings are not considered optimal but they work for me. They are fairly demanding and push my cpu into the 90+ so you would have to adjust them.

Reducing the bitrate and/or capturing as progressive would greatly reduce cpu usage as would reducing the frame size to a suitable 4:3 equivalent somewhere between 640x480 and 320x240 ie....528x396, 432x324. Another trick is to reduce the frame rate from 29.97fps to 23.976fps. The playback may appear more film like but it will help with by generating less dropped/duplicate frames.

Less desirable because it adds a step (but effective) is to capture the audio to pcm and then re-encoding it to mp3 afterwards.

If you hope to capture full res mpeg4, I agree that it's time to update your pc but tweaking these settings might provide enough of an edge to allow you to capture to xvid/mpeg4/divx but it won't be at the best settings.

[jagabo]

On-the-fly capturing to xvid/divx will never look as good as multipass encodes of off a "finished" HDTV stream or DVD.

Just to clarify this a bit -- that's only true if you need small file sizes. Divx/Xvid captures can look as good as you want -- just use target quantizer encoding with a low quantizer, or a high bitrate. Of course, the resulting files won't be small.

At it's fastest setting, the divx pro codec defaults to prograssive mode and it drops half of the interlaced fields

I almost always encode progressive video, and I don't really use Divx very often, so I never noticed that Divx didn't have an interlaced option at its fastest settings! Thanks for pointing that out.

that it why it appears to be so fast.

That's not entirely true. If you encode an interlaced video (or progressive video) in progressive mode it's even faster (it doesn't have to perform the drop field and resize). At its fastest setting Divx is faster than PicVideo MJPEG or HuffYUV (at least on my Q6600 -- of which it appear to only be using 2 threads) and still delivers smaller files. But if the OP needs interlaced encoding, and/or small files, he won't be able to use it.

[DereX888]

On-the-fly capturing to xvid/divx will never look as good as multipass encodes of off a "finished" HDTV stream or DVD.

Just to clarify this a bit -- that's only true if you need small file sizes. Divx/Xvid captures can look as good as you want -- just use target quantizer encoding with a low quantizer, or a high bitrate. Of course, the resulting files won't be small.

Yes of course.
But what would be the point to capture with i.e. xvid codec at say 25Mbps CBR and custom quantizer? (i know there is bitrate limit and no one do it - which is the point - but for the sake of argument lets assume we do that)
High compression codecs excel when you need small file sizes, thats for what they were designed.
Anyone going for high bitrates probably wants best quality, then why not use AVC instead

Lets go back:

Ok Im trying to record straight directly to xvid and when i record it doesnt play right the audio doesn't match and sometimes the video freezes

and he has just 1GHz CPU there.
Well, obviously the audio doesnt match his captured video because his machine cannot cope with keeping up correct video framerates while using such high compression as xvid's mp4. Im afraid that even if he use some CBR combined with custom quant matrices, it still won't work, because 1GHz machine is probably good enough for playback xvid videos - not to capture them.
Only solution IMHO is using less-CPU-hungry, thus less-compressed formats, ie MPEG-2 (or if he really insist on high compression formats like MP4/xvid - then must use some tiny resolutions such as 320x240 and it *may* work)

[jagabo]

Yes, obviously the OP's computer isn't fast enough for realtime conversion to Xvid. I wasn't addressing that issue at all. I was simply clarifying (for the OP) your broad statement that "On-the-fly capturing to xvid/divx will never look as good as multipass encodes".