Yasasoft's 'Magic' DVD convertor

[Johnfused]

Hello.
I've recently bought the "'Magic' DVD to VCD AVI DivX converter" from Yasasoft. Saw it advertised on the DOOM forum. It's simple, stable and works well for my requirements.

I have two sources of DVD's: I buy Japanese documentaries on DVD, and I also record Japanese TV onto DVD on my under-the-tele DVR. I then want to make copies of these for students to watch on their computer's DVD player, without risking me losing my originals.

I rip my originals with the 'Magic' thing and copy to DVD. I get some six hours of video on a DVD using the MPEG1 VCD option.

However. I've noticed that an .avi copy of The Ring is half the size and much better quality!

Full details: THE RING. 90mins only 547MB!

592 x 340, 24 Bits, 136544 Frames, 24.000 Frames/Sec, 98 KB/Sec, DIVXMPG4 V3

MPEG Layer-3,127 kBit/s, 44,100 Hz, Stereo]


My 40min documentaries are bigger than that! And you can watch the Ring film on full screen (computer) and it looks brilliant! There is a DIVx option, but it has only the codec DivxMPG4 V2. Here is a comparison of the results:

I ripped a 75min Japanese documentary from DVD . I ripped it twice: I have an MPG1 file 768 MB, and an avi file (using MPGEG4v2) at 1.1GIG. The RING seems to be MPEG4 V3, whereas Yasasoft's software only has V2. The difference between v3 and v3 is clearly phenomenal.

If I understand all this, all I need is the V3 of the DivX MPG4 codec. Is that right? If I had it, would the software package automatically recognise it? It's an excellent thing, but this Ring .avi file has made me wanting more compression.


Right. Thanks for any ideas anyone has.

Oh, yes. I did write to the developers but they haven't replied yet. It's been a week. I know they're Chinese and I tried to keep the message simple, but still I thought I'd try here.

[housepig]

this is another example of individual applications versus 1-click software.

the copy of "The Ring" that you like was more than likely done by someone using different apps to rip, demux, and reencode, using customized settings and a lot of care to get the results you saw.

...not by using a "put in the disc and press the big red button labelled 'divx' " application.

as to whether your software will accept a Divx4 codec, you should download one, install it and see if Magic recognizes it and allows you to use it.

bottom line - the easy software bundles use generic settings to get the job done, so you won't have to break out a calculator or fiddle with the bitrate settings on an encoder - but they aren't going to be as good as custom settings appropriate for the individual movie.

[Johnfused]

Thanks for that: you're saying the virtual double compression on the film evading me is down to me using one-click solution. Hmm. I accept what you're saying.

I got those stats for the Ring simply from 'properties'. No other video files (mpg or other) gives that amount of detail; they just have one tab, but Ring and Beautiful Mind have three: General, Details and Preview. Beautiful mind is 2hrs 15 min and still only 700MB. You say that someone has worked on getting the optimum settings for any given piece of video. Is that info in 'Details' not enough to know what the settings must have been, so that it could be replicated?

MPEG Layer-3,128 kBit/s, 48,000 Hz, Stereo
640 x 352, 24 Bits, 194647 Frames, 23.976 Frames/Sec, 88 KB/Sec, DIVXMPG4 V3

Is this enough information to know what settings to make?

I would be interested in knowing why the optimum settings would be so very different for any film to stop me thinking as follows: I have access to £1500 of documentaries, all exactly the same format. It might be worth my while doing Savile Row approach, learning to do more than just click a button, if it meant I could double my compression. I wouldn't squander my time trying if you mean that every video has to be worked on over and over to find the best settings. I'll just be happy with something that works, and gives me a 42min documentary on 435MB and I can get ten of the buggers on a DVD!

(Still not quite sure why these simple softwares don't then have a Fools Rush In option, and a Geeks option, where you can fiddle 'round to your heart's content. I'm not that interested, and just take what you say.)

Having tried the other way a year ago, buying TMPGEnc, but not having much sustained success, I'll stick to this way for a while... maybe someone will eventually invent a mother of all rippers.

I'll certainly try to locate and use the v3 DivX 4 codec.

Thanks for taking the time to reply! Appreciated.