Best xvid parameters for DV movies conversion

[Boro72]

Hi,

I use to encode my DV movies into the xvid format for archiving.
I want to share my method with you to see if it can be optimised :

I now use the MediaCoder application for the encoding (I used to have Virtual Dub for this
before but I got some problems with the latest version of the Xvid).
So I made some tests with Mediacoder that appear to be more easy to use than VirtualDub,
especially when lots of files have to be processed in bulk.
So here are the parameters I use:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<MediaCoderPrefs>
...
<node key="overall.video.mode" value="Two-Pass"/>
<node key="overall.video.bitrate" value="8024"/>
<node key="overall.video.format" value="XviD"/>
<node key="overall.video.autoSource" value="false"/>
<node key="overall.video.autoEncoder" value="false"/>
<node key="overall.video.encoder" value="FFmpeg"/>
<node key="overall.container.format" value="AVI"/>
<node key="videoenc.xvid.profile" value="Advanced Simple Profile Level 5"/>
<node key="videoenc.xvid.qpel" value="true"/>
<node key="videoenc.xvid.gmc" value="true"/>
<node key="videofilter.postproc.deint" value="Cubic interpolating"/>
</MediaCoderPrefs>


So it's a "simple" double pass xvid encoding with AS 5 profile.
Just a word about the Encoder application : at first I was using the default choice for
the Mencoder but the result was not very good. It's much better with the FFmpeg
(is there a reason for this ?)

I also use the Quarter Pixel and Global Motion Compensation that are supported by my TNT Decoder
used to play the video on TV.

The 8024 kbps bitrate chosen is an arbitrary value that will compress the DV avi file by 3.7 ratio
that sounds acceptable to me.

Finally, the last line is the deinterlacing filter automatically set by MediaCoder.

Here is what I use nowaday.

But I want to go further now because I think that the tool can give me even best result :
- The MediaCoder tool offers quiet a lot of video effects (called "Auto Level", "Deblocking",
"Denoiser") and I will try these but maybe there is already some feed back availble from
these filters ?
- I read some hints about setting the quantizer for encoding with a better quality : is this
an important parameter ?
- Are there any other xvid parameters I could use to optimise the quality of the result
knowing that the encoding time is not a problem for me ?

Thanks by advance !

[Boro72]

Ok,

Here I am now after a couple of tries with the video effect in MediaCoder.
I've been playing with these effects on a video shot with low artificial
light that has a lot of noise.
After putting all filters while encoding, I got a little better quality but it is
not as much as I expected.
So I still want to know if I can use the quantizer in the encoder or other
parameters to improve the quality ?