How do you use multipass in virtualdub etc..

[StealthKing]

I dont know how to use it.
When I start it,it says file will be like 70mb or less.
When I stop it(to check in media player)there is no video.
Are there guides that explain multipassing with DivX and Xvid thoroughly?

[bunyip]

Multipassing in VDub just needs a bit of setting up for the first and second pass.

The first pass of a multi-pass encode is just gathering data about the video (the analysis pass), the second and subsequent passes do the encoding, so after the first pass you don't actually have an encoded video, but you do have an information file that the other passes use.

By default this information file is "C:\divx.log".

So the steps are. (this is using DIVX 5 Pro)

First Pass:
- Select the 'Video' -> 'Compression' setting, select DIVX and select 'Configure'
- On the 'Encode mode', select 'Multipass, 1st pass'.
- (There should also be an entry on the setup screen which shows you where the log file is going you can leave this as default).
- Accept the settings and run the encode, the projected file-size is meaningless at this point.

Second Pass:
- Once the First pass is finished, again select the 'Compression' setting and this time set the 'Encode Mode' to 'Multipass, Nth pass'.
- Accept the settings and now run the encode again using the same filename you used in the first pass, this time the predicted file size is right. During this pass more information is also being gathered about the video and is being recorded to the log.
- Once the second pass is completed you should have a playable video.

Third and subsequent passes:
- Without changing anything you can run another encode and it will use the extra information gathered during the previous pass to encode again, presumably giving a slightly better result, but this will depend on the video itself.

Hope that helps

[StealthKing]

Thank you.
I now know how to perform it.
I'm at 75% on my second pass right now.