English version TMPGEnc DVD Author 3 released

[RabidDog]

I think a lot of people use mpeg4 and divx interchangeably. I know that when I want to see if a player will play my avi files its safer to look for divx compatibility rather than mpeg4. I would prefer to be able to author, without re-encoding, either xvid or divx, but I suppose you cant blame divx for only supporting their codec. Its a shame that the menus only couldnt be in the ".divx" file.. that way you could create a disc that could have a single .divx file with menus and the rest of the files as std avis (with chapters) this would allow both divx ultra and non-divx ultra machines to play the same disc. It would also allow more than 4gb of files to be burnt to a disc.
Asking someone in "currys" for an mpeg4 dvd player would cause their pimply head to explode! they dont really understand divx but recognize the "brand". Try asking them about the difference between divx and divx ultra! brains splattered everywhere. For testing, BSplayer recognises the menus when played on the PC.

[DereX888]

I havent try it (im alergic to anything "divx") but Im rather sure that if someone could 'author' a divx disc with xvid encoded files, it would work too

Of course asking the typical moronic salesperson for a "player with mpeg-4 support" may cause very unexpected behaviour
But my suggestion to ask for MPEG-4 playback support (instead of some self-appointed "divx certification") is not for the noobs, since someone who has no clue about any of it most likely won't ever use anything else but standard DVDs and maybe one-click solution like "Dr.Divx" (if he is just curious )

[TBoneit]

And you know another way for avi files to have menus and chapters beside a Ultra Divx player?

Divx labs crooked for wanting standards so a certified player will play a properly authored divx video?

[DereX888]

And you know another way for avi files to have menus and chapters beside a Ultra Divx player?

Divx labs crooked for wanting standards so a certified player will play a properly authored divx video?

ROTFL!

How about realmedias with menus?
I bet some people would want it too...



Yeah, maybe 1 out of 1000000000 users does make DVD-Video backup to "divx with menus" format indeed, I don't doubt there are some people who may actually like to waste their time to make low quality backups in such format.
However I object to pay some self-appointed crooks such as "divx labs" for their "divx certification".

Since last year there are plenty of "MPEG-4 Compatible" players on Asian markets (without "divx certification"), and they start to appear in America and Europe too.
Why "MPEG-4 Compatible" instead of "divx certified"?
Simple. Manufacturers are fed up with all the licences and certification they have to pay to all kind of Groups, Consortiums and Labs, which have to be added to the final product's price (and WE will pay it).
I am pretty sure that the $15 dvd-player's price tag includes $10 of "licences and certifications" fees.
So forgive me for saying that I don't want to participate in paying for something that maybe you and 10 other people in the world may find useful And manufacturers know that too

"MPEG-4 COMPATIBLE" is a step in right direction.
No one gives a shit about divx (except few 'enlightened' people lol).
These players all play .divx (with menus presumably as I was told - I didn't have any "divx with menus" crap with me to test it though) and certainly they all play the most common xvid codec and ISO standard compliant other MPEG-4s as well.
Even if they wouldn't play "divx with menus" - WHO CARES? Except for very few people (you?) probably no one else would have even notice it

Divx labs crooked for wanting standards so a certified player will play a properly authored divx video?

ISO MPEG-4 is the standard. Not some "divx".

[TBoneit]

Well I'd notice since I've been doing .divx with menus where there are multiple clips that I want to be able to select from a menu. By doing divx I can get a lot more on one DL disc. I tend to keep size around 2Gigs per file.

As for quality, well that is in the eye of the beholder. The playback looks good on my 32"HDTV. Is it as good as the source DV video @13Gig an hour. Pretty darn close. When going from S-VHS and regular VHS or 8mm tape it will never look like a commercial DVD. Fortunately when I bought my first camcorder it was a S-VHS that recorded at SP model so family videos look decent and better than regular VHS. That was supplimented with a 8mm. I still have a shelf full of tapes I'm chugging my way through and converting into divx to get more on a disc and a standard DVD format too. Sort of a belts and suspenders.

I'm suspecting you don't like Microsoft either?

There is no standard in mpeg4, there are so many variants.....

Divx, Xvid and WMV are pretty much the main players as I see it. If I wanted to be sure the majority of computer users could play a clip I sent them then guess what, it would be a wmv file. Sorry Mac users but most computers are running some version of windows and have WMPlayer available. Members here most likely have a selection of players available that they use. However I said majority of the computer users.

[DereX888]

Well I'd notice since I've been doing .divx with menus where there are multiple clips that I want to be able to select from a menu. By doing divx I can get a lot more on one DL disc. I tend to keep size around 2Gigs per file.

As for quality, well that is in the eye of the beholder. The playback looks good on my 32"HDTV. Is it as good as the source DV video @13Gig an hour. Pretty darn close. When going from S-VHS and regular VHS or 8mm tape it will never look like a commercial DVD. Fortunately when I bought my first camcorder it was a S-VHS that recorded at SP model so family videos look decent and better than regular VHS. That was supplimented with a 8mm. I still have a shelf full of tapes I'm chugging my way through and converting into divx to get more on a disc and a standard DVD format too. Sort of a belts and suspenders.

I'm suspecting you don't like Microsoft either?

There is no standard in mpeg4, there are so many variants.....

Divx, Xvid and WMV are pretty much the main players as I see it. If I wanted to be sure the majority of computer users could play a clip I sent them then guess what, it would be a wmv file. Sorry Mac users but most computers are running some version of windows and have WMPlayer available. Members here most likely have a selection of players available that they use. However I said majority of the computer users.

I am sure you know it yourself:
you are an extreme minority (in using/making divx backups *with menus* etc ) among the minority that uses divx codec at all.
I understand your point - for you it doesn't matter does the player plays xvid or other mpeg-4 compressed videos (that may come from i.e. portable devices with cameras), you are 'sold' on divx and thats what you want/need. Its fine, yet most of people still don't need it.

I have nothing against existence of divx and its possibilities, same as i have nothing against microsoft's proprietary formats, apple's proprietary formats, and so on and on.
The more the merrier!

But I really strongly object to business practices like the Divx Labs' with their "certifications" shoved up the ass of manufacturers.
I don't need to pay extra few bucks for each of my players for "divx certification", and neither do 99% of other people.
What we need is much broader mpeg-4 playback compatibilty, not support for "menus on divx format".
I believe manufacturers duly noted this notion, and thats why we see "MPEG-4 Compatible" instead of "Divx Certificate" - and Im sure the latter will be left on a handful of devices soon.


Your argument about quality reminds me old old discussions about VCDs, when people used to *swear* VCD was as good quality as DVDs (until they bought larger screen TVs that is). It was the same with first microsoft's hacked mpeg-4 codec (aka DivX3), then it was the same with SVCDs and DivX4, XviD, DivX5, now DivX6... Yet the fact still remains the same: no higher compression format can be as good as lower compression format (or codec) and I really don't think there is any room for discussion about it
You like divx6 and it suits your quality expectations and all other needs - thats fine. But please don't make such arguments "it looks good on my tv" - because it is not really any argument...

[FulciLives]

@DereX888

In short you are completely and utterly insane right now with your anti-DivX gibberish. At least on this particular topic I think you are WAY off base.

I would also like to point out that my "Ultra DivX" Certified Philips DVP5140/37 cost me all of $49 and change at my local WALMART and the big brother to my model (the DVP5960/37) can often be bought for all of $20 - $25 more which is still way under $100 so ...

You are full of shit as far as "DivX" certified DVD players costing more as a result. Well maybe you do have a point ... perhaps my Philips DVP5140/37 would have cost me $44 and change instead of $49 and change had it not been certified.

Anyways this thread isn't about bashing DivX so can you please CUT THE SHIT OUT ALREADY!!!

Thank you.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[DereX888]

@DereX888

In short you are completely and utterly insane right now with your anti-DivX gibberish. At least on this particular topic I think you are WAY off base.

I would also like to point out that my "Ultra DivX" Certified Philips DVP5140/37 cost me all of $49 and change at my local WALMART and the big brother to my model (the DVP5960/37) can often be bought for all of $20 - $25 more which is still way under $100 so ...

You are full of shit as far as "DivX" certified DVD players costing more as a result. Well maybe you do have a point ... perhaps my Philips DVP5140/37 would have cost me $44 and change instead of $49 and change had it not been certified.

Anyways this thread isn't about bashing DivX so can you please CUT THE SHIT OUT ALREADY!!!

Thank you.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

Being "full of shit" as you say, I simply cannot "cut the shit"... thats illogical


(BTW: our player probably cost $15-20 in Asia. US Retail price has nothing to do with the manufacturer's cost and extortion practices from crooks such as DivX Labs...)

But seeing as it goes completely OT into me 'bashing divx' and you 'bashing me' I will leave it for now here, otherwise it will turn into thread hijacking (which is about TDA3 from very respectable coder and his company).

[TBoneit]

It's not about being sold on Divx, it's about features. I prefer menus and chapters.

I never said Divx will look as good as the source, less compressed DV avi's, or some of the newer formats out there. DVD format Mpeg2 won't look as good either.

[FulciLives]

I've yet to upgrade to TMPGEnc DVD Author 3.0 although I do intend to do this eventually.

Anyways that's my "out" for not being able to participate in the following question:

Has anyone been playing around enough with the DivX side of things to suggest ways to get an optimal encode? Like I said I haven't upgraded but I did try the demo (well it was the demo of DivX Author 1.0 but same thing as what I am talking about now) and I recall there being DivX settings to control the encoding.

So maybe someone that has played around a bit can go through the DivX encoding options and explain what might be good settings to use etc.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[TBoneit]

FulciLives:

Define optimal. For one person it could be squeezing every last bit of size out of the file for a visual quality, for another it could be speed and so on.

I tend to set it as Home Theatre Profile as that should be the most comapatible (?).

[FulciLives]

FulciLives:

Define optimal. For one person it could be squeezing every last bit of size out of the file for a visual quality, for another it could be speed and so on.

I tend to set it as Home Theatre Profile as that should be the most comapatible (?).

Well normally I use autoGK and tend to use XviD more than DivX but I fooled around a bit with the DivX Author 1.0 program (also made by Pegasys) and it had DivX encoding options like max number of keyframes and blah blah blah.

Just wondering if there were any good optimal settings or tweaks etc.

By optimal I am leaning towards image quality ... not small file size.

When I use autoGK I always set a fixed width of 640 and I tend to use very high bitrates while still making sure it will be MPEG-4 DVD player compliant (at least for MediaTek chipsets).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[jagabo]

With Xvid and Divx I usually use target quantizer (constant quality) encoding with the quantizer set to 3 (2 if it's something important). No B frames, no GMC, no QPel. I set the Xvid profile to Advanced Simple @L4 to keep the bitrate from going above 3000 kbps; Divx at Home Theater Profile (roughly the equivalent). With Xvid I set the Motion Search Precision to 6-Ultra High, and VHQ Mode to 1-Mode Decision. In Divx I set to the Encoding Mode to Balanced, or Better. Divx at Balanced is three times faster than Xvid at Ultra/Mode Decision but produces files about 15 percent larger, pretty much the same quality.

[TBoneit]

Good Information, especially about the speed. I'm not too worried about file size as long as the project comes in under 4 Gig.

[Tom Saurus]

I just downloaded the trial version of TDA 3, and since I am used to Divx Author and it just ran and I want to buy TDA 3, so far, nothing is allowing me to set it for Divx Output. It is just showing me the time line with a oversized DVD of 13 Gb. Don't tell me they have disabled the main reason for me to purchase this program; the Ultra Divx Authoring. If that is the case that really sucks. There doesn't seem to any Divx options as far as I can tell. I got 4 movies that I want to put on a single disc, but looks like I will have to do without.

[Tom Saurus]

I see where I made my mistake. I had to select the output format and set it to Divx Ultra. I am so used to just having to options instead of four that I didn't even think. This kind of thing explains why I win the "Moron Of The Year" on January 1st every year, I seem to beat out the competition right on day one. Sorry for wasting anyone's time.

[Tom Saurus]

I just noticed a couple differences Divx Encoding Wise between Divx Author and TDA 3. I know that in Divx Author in the video settings for encoding to Divx that it allows for 2 Pass VBR and TDA atleast in the trial version I has 1 Pass VBR. I imagine I won't have as sharp a picture once the project is rendered. There is no dolby output in the trial version for the audio output settings; only mp3 is offered.

If I am allowed to purchase this project, I hope there will be even more options available to me. I clued in to the 1 Pass and 2 Pass, when the display was showing my project would be finished in half the time it usually takes.

Has anyone purchased the full version yet, does it offer 2 pass on the Divx Encoding? I am becoming a big fan of this product. I figure I will use 1 third to 1 quarter the amount of blank dvd+rs and that means less physical space being taken up storing them. Also it gives my Divx Ultra Player a purpose and makes my investment in Dual Core technology, seem like it was a wise one.

[gyoshi]

Tom, I'm able to set DivX video to 2 pass VBR only when I select to "Re-encode all videos as below" in the Track settings in the Source Stage.

TDA3 by default is set to "Automatic (smart rendering prioritized)" which does not have a 2 pass option.
However, DivX Author by default is set to "Re-encode all videos as below" with 2 pass VBR already selected since DivX Author does not seem to have "Smart Rendering".

[Tom Saurus]

gyoshi: Thank you for providing this information. It was kind of you to take the time to answer my questions. TDA 3 is a really neat program. One wonders what they came come up with for TDA 4.

[Tom Saurus]

FYI: I don't know if the following with be useful or not. It is to deal with how much footage you can put on a disc if you are aiming for the single layer 4gb blank DVD R.

I place 3 movie on a disc today. Now it is evident to me that TDA 3 is looking primarily at how many minutes of footage you are placing in your project. They can be various size mb or gb wise and it doesn't seem to affect it. Well anyway, movie one was 1 hour 41 minutes, movie two was 2 hours 11 minutes and movie three was 1 hour 45 minutes. This all added up to 337 minutes or 5 hours 37 minutes. The mb displayed were 3953mb.

I have my video settings for the Divx Ultra set at the home theater profile, and the minimum bitrate is the default 1500kbs, for the video footage and also it is 2 pass vbr.

I went back in to experiment abit, and to learn what I can from this data. Movie one I reduced the minumum bitrate to 1450 for movie 1 and this made the project mb show up as 3917mb. Movie two at 1450 min bitrate reduced the 3953mb to 3906mb and movie three with the same settings reduced the mb from 3953 to 3915.

Now for the first movie reducing the bitrate by 50kb/s resulted in a savings of 36mb.
Movie two resulted in a savings of 47mb. Movie three resulted in a savings of 38mb.

Now movie one being 101 minutes, I divided 36mb by 101 and got .3564 mb.
Movie two being 131 minutes, I divided 47mb by 131 and got .3587 mb.
Movie three being 105 minutes, I divided 38mb by 105 and got .3619 mb.

So roughly one gains .36mb/minute for ever reduction of 50kb/s you take off the minumum bitrate.

I thought unless I have got my figures wrong that this information could be useful to someone. If not I am sorry for wasting the space putting this into the thread.


All this thinking and figuring has really warmed up my brain; but for some reason instead of my head feeling warm, I sense by buns are getting all tingly and hot instead. Maybe people were right when they said my brains were in my ***. This last part was meant as a joke, no offence was intended; and only one Tom Saurus was injured by all this cerebral activity.