avi confusion

[waybrane]

you would think that there is a pretty standard way to convert avi's to dvd, but it seems it's such a hit or miss, that it can drive people mad, i myself have tried numerous ways and followed what i believed to be the correct info, and i can't seem to end up with the result that the author claims he gets on a regular basis......well at the moment, i have xvid-mpeg4 (audio mpeg3) that i would like to convert to anything that will play on my stand alone player, i been through the guide's.....don't mean to take my frustation out on you folks, but it's unbelieveable the amount of info on this subject but how many aren't getting it????????????

[jimmalenko]

VBR MP3 audio is a well-known curse on a lot of AVI-to-DVD programs/methods, particularly TMPGEnc to name but one. The fix is easy - extract the audio to a WAV file using virtualdub then re-encode the audio to AC3/MP2 or leave as WAV if you so desire.

[waybrane]

thank you very much, i had not heard of this problem before, but i will certainly try this out, again sorry if seem to be frustrated, but i have a number of movies waiting to move off my hd, so hopefull this helps.

[guns1inger]

So far I have yet to have DivxtoDVD choke or lose sync because of VBR MP3. I usually do it all manually with various tools, but for some of the kids stuff it isn't worth the time. DivxToDVD seems to do the job pretty well.

[jimmalenko]

The only, ONLY thing I don't like about that program is not being able to set a final target output size.

[waybrane]

well virtualdubb took a dump in the middle of the session????????don't know why and i tried divxtodvd and it put out a shorten version, don't know why and then i went on to try winavi and it put out finally, this has been like the date from hell, lol.....might have to break down and buy that stand alone dvd player that has the divx capabilities, i would assume that would include most avi's, i'll keep looking for something that i don't lose so much quality, of course i keep saying that should just hood the computer up to he TV......oh, well, thx for all of your help and i'll keep tryin, i just hard one of those nights!

[guns1inger]

If you are having that much trouble then the avi is corrupt and probably wouldn'tplay in a standalone either.

jimmalenko - I also found it very strange that it could calculate a correct target bitrate, then produce an output at half or less than that bitrate. Then recently someone here posted a comment from the DivxToDVD development team that said they somehow used some of the information from the original mpeg4 encode when encoding to mpeg2, and this allow them to keep the quality on par with original, but at a much lower bitrate. Sort of like a hybrid encoder/transcoder. It's an interesting theory.

[jimmalenko]

That IS interesting ... almost like monzie's perfect bitrate theory. My 'complaint' was more from the angle of not having any idea how big the file was going to turn out. Quality is important of course, and I can see that if you could encode to DVD and only take up say, 2/3 of the disc, then that's a good thing. However it's the case where the converted DVD comes out at say, 5GB where I'd happily bump the bitrate down a shade to make it fit to one disc. I guess I just need that overall 'control' to feel comfortable with it