Xvid codec issue?

[Starman*]

After a PC crash I had to reinstall my software including TMPGEnc4XPress and all video drivers. The xvid codec I downloaded and installed as a separate item. When I'm creating xvids, a single pass works fine but a two pass comes out half the size it is supposed to. When I checked the two pass file with Media Info, it is showing the writing library as Xvid 64. My other PC shows Xvid 1.2.1. Does that mean it has installed the 64 bit driver on my 32 bit PC? If that is the case, aren't the driver install exes supposed to know which version to install?

[Tom Saurus]

I don't have the knowledge to fix your problem. But I am thinking, shouldn't TMPGenc Xpress 4.0 already have the .avi codec built into it, that you wouldn't need to download it? I use Freemake Video Converter a fair bit and it has a lot of codecs for its work built right in. I am fairly certain TX4 has the .avi and .divx codecs built right in, and I wonder if you created some kind of conflict by installing a codec that you didn't really need. I am no expert on these things, but perhaps there is the off chance, I might be on the right track.

[DB83]

What does a single pass encode show as the writing library ?

A 64 bit codec AFAIK would not work - period - in a 32 bit system and, yes, I would have thought that the installer would identify which version to install.

Was this an 'official' install or from some other place ?

[Starman*]

The version of TMPGEnc I have is old which is fine for my old PC. After installation, there was no xvid option at the format stage. I installed the CCCP codec pack which did not add it. I tried K-Lite but that did not add it either so I downloaded the xvid codec separately.

The install download was from cnet or xvid movies (same file). The single pass also shows xvid 64 as the writing library. I have since download the codec from xvid.org so one possibility is unistall the existing and install the new one.

[El Heggunte]

....
When I checked the two pass file with Media Info, it is showing the writing library as Xvid 64. My other PC shows Xvid 1.2.1. Does that mean it has installed the 64 bit driver on my 32 bit PC?

NO, the latest stable revision of Xvid is actually named Xvid 64, only the devil knows why

Anyway, probably there is some kind of incompatibility between TMPGenc Xpress and Xvid 1.3.2,
but this is just a wild guess of course.

[Starman*]

NO, the latest stable revision of Xvid is actually named Xvid 64, only the devil knows why

That sounds like a recipe for confusion!

Perhaps I'll uninstall the codec and install one of the older versions. I know that 1.2.1 works with TMPGEnc on my other (older) PC.

Thanks for the help everybody.

[DB83]

And all those codec packs do not help either.

[Tom Saurus]

DB83: I agree about the codec packs; I often read here at VideoHelp about problems being introduced from installing them. It has scared me into being very hesitant about installing any codec. I hope when you installed that .xvid codec that you took your time; I find more and more that you can end up with toolbars and such you really don't want. You have to really pay attention, as it can easily happen.

[Starman*]

I did not install one codec pack over the other. K-Lite tells you how great it is and offers to uninstall CCCP which I allowed it to do (it used the CCCP uninstall).

Downloading anything these days is very difficult. Most times, even finding the correct download link needs Sherlock Holmes. Then there are all the extras in the install package that are easy to miss.

I've uninstalled the codecs, rebooted and presently installing the CCCP and xvid 1.2.1. If there are still issues I will re-install TMPGEnc after the codecs are done.

[hello_hello]

I've never used Tmpgenc, but AutoGK has issues with newer versions of Xvid. I don't know if Tmpgenc uses the Xvid profiles (Home Theatre profile etc) but if it does that could be a contributing factor. For some reasons the Xvid profiles seem to have been changed/re-arranged in newer versions, so in the case of AutoGK it thinks it's telling Xvid to use a Home Theatre profile but Xvid uses a mobile profile instead.

[Starman*]

I've always had problems with other video apps not making the target size but I found that TMPGEncXP worked if I calculated and set the target bitrate. This time round, I installed xvid 1.2.1 but it did not make any difference.

Even though I was using the same presets as I used before my PC crash, they did not seem to work. Changes I made did not seem to have any effect. Even if I doubled the target bitrate the file was still the same size. It seemed like the info passed on from the first pass bitrate curve did not work with the second pass. Single pass worked fine. After numerous resetting, resaving of the presets and restarting the app, TMPGEnc seems to be on track again. Reason unknown other than the presets are now stable.

[jagabo]

If you specify bitrates too high or too low for the material Xvid will miss the target. Make sure you Min Quantizers are set to 1 or 2 if your bitrates are coming out too low. Disable B frames to get higher bitrates too.

[Starman*]

My calculated bitrates are always within 10% of each other. The only reason I can think of that a target file size would come out too small is if there is very little action and scene changes, or the video is very dark. I've also noticed that these files seem to have low colour saturation and contrast (due to the content, not the settings) which would also tend to reduce file size.

I cannot figure out in TMPGEnc how to eliminate B-frames to increase file size. There is no setting for frame sequence. Would setting the min and max quantizers for the B-frames to 0 do it? Is the idea there that they will be replaced by more I-frames? Is another way of increasing file size to reduce the max distance between I-frames (say 300 to 50)?

[DB83]

A guide for the advanced xvid settings here:

http://www.gromkov.com/faq/conversion/xvid_options.html

AFAIK elimating b-frames will not alter file size per se. Only bit-rate alters file size. But as jagabo puts it, turn off b-frames allows for higher bit-rates = bigger file sizes.

[Starman*]

I eventually figured out that BVOP was the B-frames. I'll plough through the settings on the link. Thanks all for the help.

[Hoser Rob]

And all those codec packs do not help either.

That was my thought too ... what a kettle of worms. When I ran windows after a while I adopted a policy of only installing software that would work with directx/directshow/.net framework. Internally, with no 3rd party codecs necessary.

Unfortunately, it seems the first impulse of many users is to download another codec pack, and if you feel you must install 3rd party codecs/splitters I'd recommend just installing one. And that'd probably be ffdshow.

There are a ton of crappy codec packs out there, and the people who write them seem to compensate for their inability to write compatible codecs by being really good at google SEO techniques.

Linux ports are very good at not messing up your registry ... you can't remap the whole system all that easily in linux like you can in windows.

[hello_hello]

There seems to be another offering of nonsense codec generalisations in this thread.

Pretty much all media players, editors, encoder GUIs etc use third party codecs and encoders. They may use them internally rather than as an installed "system" codec but there's every possibility an "internal" codec and a "system" codec can be the same "3rd party" codec. In fact it's somewhat likely.

Despite it's name the CCCP isn't any more of a codec pack than ffdshow, because aside from a media player and media splitter the CCCP doesn't install anything else.

The creator of the K-Lite codec pack doesn't write any of the codecs it contains.... to the best of my knowledge. Different codecs are installed according to which version of the K-Lite codec pack is installed. The most basic version doesn't install much more than the CCCP and pretty much all K-Lite versions use ffdshow to do a lot of the decoding. Aside from the LAV audio and video decoders, the standard K-Lite codec pack doesn't install any other codecs aside from ffdshow. http://www.codecguide.com/features_standard.htm

The Xvid encoder is an encoder. Codecs installed to decode video have nothing to do with the ability of a program to use an installed encoder. There's one version of the K-Lite codec pack which includes the Xvid encoder, but the Starman stated that's not the version he installed.
Until the Starman manually downloaded and installed the Xvid encoder, TMPGenc Xpress couldn't use the Xvid encoder simply because it wasn't installed. Once Starman downloaded the Xvid encoder, TMPGenc Xpress could use it but he was experiencing problems achieving the desired file size. Most likely due to some sort of inability between TMPGenc Xpress and a newer version of Xvid. I can't think of a reason why other installed codecs would cause a problem with Xvid working correctly.

[hello_hello]

My calculated bitrates are always within 10% of each other. The only reason I can think of that a target file size would come out too small is if there is very little action and scene changes, or the video is very dark. I've also noticed that these files seem to have low colour saturation and contrast (due to the content, not the settings) which would also tend to reduce file size.

I've never used TMPGenc Xpress so I've no idea if it configures the Xvid encoder for you or if you need to manually configure it, however......
If you reset Xvid to it's default settings and run a single pass, target quantiser encode using a target quantiser of 2, that's basically 100% quality and maximum file size for Xvid. Changing Xvid's settings may change the output file size, but a target quantizer of 2 should give you maximum quality for a specific Xvid configuration. If you've been running 2 pass encodes while specifying a larger file size or higher average bitrate then the output will possibly be undersized.

Xvid's minimum quantizers may be set to either 1 or 2. Changing them to 1 might allow Xvid to achiever a greater than 100% quality file size but I don't think it actually improves the quality. An ability to use a value of 1 was simply added to help with "undersized" problems. At least that's the way I understand it.

Anyway, as the file size required for 100% quality will vary quite a bit according to how hard the video is to compress, you might want to try running a target quantiser encode (target quantizer of 2) using Xvid's default settings, then use the resulting file size for a 2 pass encode (also default settings). The 2 pass encode should be able to achieve the same file size, or something very close. If it does, then all is probably okay. If it can't, then something must be going wrong.