Downsizing rip to 1280 pixels - best codec?

[trodas]

Guys, back in my days (around 2001-3, when I encoded a lot) was the best Xvid with some custom settings (mpeg matrice, for best sharpness and so on)...

What novadays to use, with AT LEAST two passes, to reencode movie rip to 1280 pixels horizontal size? Please suggest... at best not some standalone programs, but codecs I can use on VirtualDub... or something else.

I got a good results with Windows Media Encoder and 4000 Kbps bitrate for this resolution, BUT this good program does not work on Windows 7 machine with i5 CPU, witch I need, because on old P4 box this encode could take ages (or at least I fear that it will, since the source file is 16G in size) ...

Suggestions?

[jagabo]

You can still use Xvid if you want. You can get better compression with x264vfw. You can also use WMV9 if you install WMV9 VCM. You'd be better off using a more modern container like MKV or MP4.

[lordsmurf]

What do you mean "rip to pixels". That doesn't make any sense.

[jagabo]

Obviously he wants resize and encode with a 1280 pixel wide frame.

[_Al_]

Use anything that can encode using x264 encoder and for 1280x720 , use 1pass (you do not need 2pass) CRF 18 (that means quallity choice), rest leave defaults, or you can set preset slow (better compressibility where bitrate goes down tiny bit) but then better set reference frames as 4 (higher numbers might trouble hardware players) , and even with tune film (leaves a little bit more noise after encoding, also tiny bit less postoperative or banding then).

You get about those desired 4000kbps as average - depends on movie, for those settings above