Need help with MPEG-2 to Divx Video Quality Using TMPGEnc

[vtecmw]

I'm trying to encode a 45 minute MPEG-2 video to Divx 5.21 using TMPGEnc Xpress 3. So far, I have tried 1-pass at an average bit rate of 700. The video quality is fair at this bit rate. I tried increasing to 900, but the quality isn't any better. The file size for both videos after the encode is 350 MB.

Can anyone offer suggestions for improving the video quality. I tried using the Multipass, 1st pass setting. But, I don't think I have it set up properly.

[junkmalle]

I don't know why the codec didn't respond to your change in bitrate.

With multipass the codec examines the video during the first pass but doesn't produce a useful video. During the second (or n'th) pass it uses the information gathered during the first pass and allocates bitrate for each frame as needed. So you have to run "multipass first pass" first then "multipass n'th pass".

If you don't specifically need Divx, and don't need files of a specific size, consider using Xvid (an open source equivalent to Divx) instead. It has a contant quality mode where you pick the picture quality you want and it allocates whatever bitrate it needs for each frame to maintain that quality. It only requires one pass and gives as good picture quality as multipass. The drawback is you don't know exactly what the final file size will be.

[vtecmw]

I followed your suggestion and everything looks great with Xvid. Encoding time isn't bad either.

Thanks for the response!

[junkmalle]

I followed your suggestion and everything looks great with Xvid. Encoding time isn't bad either.

Thanks for the response!

Glad to hear it worked out for you. What Quantization value are you using? I usually use 3.0. Sometimes I'll go higher if I want to squeeze the file more. Hardly ever over 4.0 though.