VCD to DivX compression problem

[KiLLa]

Hi, I am new to this so pls bear with me. Basically my problem is that when i encode my MPEG1 movie into DivX format the file increases in size (isnt DivX supposed to compress the movie file size not increase it?). Anyway to put this in context, i first ripped a DVD movie to my HD, and then converted it to an MPEG1 movie. Then i converted the MPEG1 movie into VCD format with TMPGenc. AFter that i wanted to convert the movie to DivX to compress the file into a smaller size. For this process i used VirtualDub. However, after conversion the DivX movie was even bigger in filesize than what i started out with, whats going on here? I started out with a 286MB mpeg movie in VCD format, and then ended up with a 415MB DivX movie. Thanks for you help in advance

[flaninacupboard]

right, number one, encode your Divx from the DVD files, not a heavily compressed MPEG-1 file. that help things an awful lot straight away.

second, i need to tell you filesizes are worked out like this.

Bitrate (the number of bits used each second) * seconds = Filesize. that's it. if you want a 1 minute movie to be 10 megs then you do this:
10 megabytess is 80megabits, which is 81920 kilobits, split up across my 60 seconds is 1365kilo bits every second. your bitrate is 1365kbps. simple. so work out what filesize you want, use the bit rate calc on the left, and put the bitrate into your .AVI encoder.