Newbie Question Re XviD Encoding in VirtualDub

[LisaB]

Okay, when setting up the 1st pass, at the end, when adding the encoding job to the job list, VDub of course asks for a filename for the output......what is the relevance of this filename? I think that the important output of the 1st pass is the stats file...and you can choose a stats filname when setting up the encode parameters....

Basically, the VDub output of the 1st pass is a different file than the stats file of the 1st pass, right?

I just did a 2-pass xvid encode, using the filenames "fp" and "sp" for the two passes. I kept the "stats filename" at the default, and chose the option "discard first pass".

After encoding, to my surprise, are two files, named fp and sp. I guess the "discard first pass" option applies only to the stats file.

The fp file was quite small, and when played was just a black screen with the accompanying audio....I assume this is completely useless and should be discarded.

So, what does XviD use during the second pass? The fp file, the stats file, or both?

[junkmalle]

VirtualDub doen't really understand 2 pass encoding. It just sees you encoding the video twice.

The Xvid codec creates the stats file during the first pass. If you use Xvid's option to discard the first pass the codec doesn't save any video the AVI file that's created -- but VirtualDub doesn't know that. If you don't use the option video will be encoded in the file.

During the second pass, Xvid uses the video.stats file to determine bitrates for each frame. I usually use the same filename for the second pass, deleting the results of the first pass since it's not needed.

[LisaB]

Junkmalle, that's a nice idea to use the same filename (in virtualdub) for both passes....but doesn't VDub complain that a file already exists?

I wish there was a guide for XVID --> XVID. It seems the only XVID/DIVX guides are focused on ripping DVD's (understandably). I would like to use something like GordianKnot, but it seems it only takes a d2v file as imput from what I can tell.

[junkmalle]

LisaB,

Yes, VirtualDub "complains" that the file already exists but you can elect to replace it with the new file.

What kind of Xvid --> Xvid questions do you have?