How to convert DV-1 16x9 to Xvid (or anything else) ??

[pattyweb]

I have 16x9 material I captured using my Sony HC42. Because the firewire is dead on it, I imported it into my PC using my brother's Panasonic PV-DV953D. I imported it using NeroVision and the DV-1 format.

When I play the resultant AVI files on my PC, they look great. Correct aspect ratio, 16x9, no borders or anything.

I then tried using VirtualDub to convert it to Xvid. I first just added the deinterlace filter and it converted it, but the new avi then looks like it's vertically stretched. Based on some searching here, I then added a resizing filter to convert it to 720x405. I preview the output and it looks good, at the correct ratio.

But if I actually try to "Save to AVI", I then get a virtual dub error, cannot start video compression, error code -100. I tried other various settings in the resize filter, even to have it border the new image, but no matter what I get an error, virtualdub crashes, something goes wrong. It's definitely the resize filter.

DIVx won't work for anything I do.

What's the proper way to convert this 16x9 material to a more compact AVI but preserve 16x9? Based on this headache and from other posts I've read here, I may just go back to 4:3 filming. But I'd like to preserve what I've already shot in 16x9.

thanks for any help you can provide!

[Baldrick]

The height and width must be dividable by 16...maybe lower for latest xvid. Try something like 720x400 or similiar.

[pattyweb]

Thanks!! Never thought of that. I've now got it running using 704x396.

[guns1inger]

The latest version of Xvid requires divisibility by 2, however 16 is the optimised number.