Quality problem from DivX to XviD

[Fukushuu]

I have a DivX file - good quality - a few shady areas with wierd pixels but not really noticeable.

Specs of DivX:

Size: 205MB
Codec: DivX
Bitrate: 1069
FPS: 119.904

Now, I keep trying to convert it to Xvid - not that much difference, just a little smaller size plus XviD is what everyone wants nowadays.

These are the things I am doing to the video while encoding to XviD - Just in case one of these might be the problem.

Changing FPS to 23.9760
Encoding .WAV audio to 128kbps CBR mp3 lame

Now, when I encode to Xvid - the bitrate gets reduced to about 950 - not that big a deal right? Well the quality seems to severely drop. The backround of a lot of video seems a little pixelated - plus you can like see them move a little as if they're trying to correct themselves very slowly. I'm not too sure what this is called or how to fix it but I would appreciate some enlightenment on this.

This pixelated stuff usually appears on some of my vids if I do a quick encode or something. But, I usually stick on 2 pass and it becomes a lot better quality - I tried this this time and it didn't work.

Any insight into this pixelated stuff would be a real help. Hopefully the answer is fairly simple ^^.

Thanks for your time!

[Fukushuu]

I'm not changing the resolution. It's 640 x 480.

I'll try adding more bitrate to the Xvid, see if that helps.

Thanks.

[jtoolman2000]

You really cannot expect to eliminate compression problems or macroblocking that already existed in your "Good Quality" divx file. If that already suffers form compression artifacts, it can be made identical or worse. That's about it. Of course, you can filter the hell out of it to minimize the visual effect of these artifacts but I don't think you can magicaly eliminate macroblocking or "Pixelation" as many people tend to wrongly describe it.

[Fukushuu]

So, if there is even minor "macroblocking" it ain't gonna get any better?

That explains a lot, I'm not going to filter the hell out of it cos that would take too much time I don't think it deserves lol. I'll look for better original copies in the future.

Thanks for the help.

[jtoolman2000]

Unless you are backing up from an original DVD or material you shot and control, any other "Original Source" may suffer from similar problems.