Burning HD DivX video to a DVD

[HamishM]

I have a bunch of HD (720p), compressed DivX movies.

I want to burn them to DVD (obviously they'll become SD) while maintaining as much of the original image quality as possible (for example: using the extra pixels from the HD picture instead of the compression blocks). What's the best program to use to do this? Cost isn't important.

edit: I want the final video to be PAL.

[Baldrick]

favc.

[guns1inger]

AVStoDVD is another alternative that works very well.

[PuzZLeR]

I would use CCE - an MPEG-2 encoder - for the best quality IMO. Then I'd load these streams into an authoring program (I try to avoid the all-in-one solutions). The basic version is about $60.

You can load the AVIs directly and encode for quality or bitrate. But you will get better results feeding it an AviSynth script instead with a good resizer like Lanczos or Spline to downsize the video.

HC Encoder is comparable to CCE in quality (and functions) and is free.

[MysticE]

I would use CCE - an MPEG-2 encoder - for the best quality IMO. Then I'd load these streams into an authoring program (I try to avoid the all-in-one solutions). The basic version is about $60.

You can load the AVIs directly and encode for quality or bitrate. But you will get better results feeding it an AviSynth script instead with a good resizer like Lanczos or Spline to downsize the video.

HC Encoder is comparable to CCE in quality (and functions) and is free.

AVStoDVD uses AviSynth scripts (and it can be edited) It also has Lancros and Spline available plus HCenc can be used for encoding.

[PuzZLeR]

Nice - didn't realize that. I personally thought the tools mentioned were much like ConvertXtoDvD, which is a great tool meant for quality easy results, not necessarily the best results.

I still say CCE is the best among the stand-alone MPEG-2 encoders, although this is highly subjective.

[HamishM]

Right I tried using FAVC, but got an error from Avisynth after the command line popped up. Tried a whole bunch of Avisynth versions with no luck.
I'm going to try CCE now.

[guns1inger]

What error ?

[PuzZLeR]

Do you have AviSynth installed?

If your DivX files are AVI you can just drag them into the CCE interface just like that without needing AviSynth, but you'll get better results with a script.

Just load an .avs file (a .txt file with extension changed) into CCE (or other) that has the following in it:

AVISource("C:\rest of path\divxfile.avi")
Lanczos4Resize(720,576)

or

AVISource("C:\rest of path\divxfile.avi")
Spline64Resize(720,576)

Both are good resizers and it is up to taste which is better.

You may also need to make adjustments regarding the framerate and may need to convert the audio to a DvD compliant form if it isn't AC3, LPCM or even MP2. Maybe some info on your source would help.

[HamishM]

Yes I do have AviSynth installed, I'll tell you the complete error message in one min.

The .NET exception is:
System.BadImageFormatException: An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007000B)

[HamishM]

Ok, I've got rid of FAVC 32 bit and installed the 64 bit version (I'm on a 64 bit machine).

Now a console window pops up and tells me this:

************************************************** *******
******************* Analysing Video 0 *******************
************************************************** *******


AVS2AVI v1.39 (c) 2002-2004:
Christophe Paris, David Leatherdale, int21h, Moitah
http://www.avs2avi.org/

[NULL @ 03BACE30]Invalid and inefficient vfw-avi packed B frames detected
[mpeg4 @ 03BACE30]Invalid and inefficient vfw-avi packed B frames detected
[mpeg4 @ 03BACE30]Invalid and inefficient vfw-avi packed B frames detected
[ac3 @ 03BACE30]frame sync error : cannot use error concealment
Source:
* Filename: "C:\Users\Hamish\Documents\DVD\Working Folder 1\Title0Info.avs"
* FourCC: None (RGB32)
* Frames: 240
* Resolution: 752x104
* Frame rate: 24.000 FPS
Compressor:
* No Recompression
Destination:
* Format: Null

Then I get a Visual C++ Runtime error for avs2avi.exe.

Then FAVC tells me that it's unable to process the files and says:
"Generally this occurs when the correct version of AviSynth is not installed...".

Ok don't worry about my FAVC problems. I'm using AVStoDVD now with no problems.
I do however have one question, my source material (frame height 544) is very close to the PAL standard (576). Is it possible instead of resizing the frames to just add a black border around them?
Here's what AVStoDVD is doing at the moment:

Video = Video.Lanczos4Resize(720,576,0,2,0,-2)

What should I change that to?