Mkv to xvid program with compression check needed

[joearmstrong]

Anyone knows a good program which converts mkv to xvid and has a compression check?
I used staxrip 1.1.6 for a long time, but since 1.1.8 you can't configure the compression test anymore. Compressioncheck always uses the same settings, no adjustments are possibleSo the compression check in 1.1.8 is useless!
Is there any other program with this feature?

[Baldrick]

Why not keep use 1.1.6? I doubt the xvid encoding has changed much.

[Hoser Rob]

I have to agree. Just yank the new one and reinstall the one you were using.

Honestly, I'm convinced that a lot of these freeware developers release far too many unnecessary, buggy new versions just to try to get more donations. I don 't blame them but I won't install a new windows version if the one I have works unless there's a new feature I really need or it's security related like a browser. I always update browsers.

I guess I've just seen too many threads started here by people who have installed new versions of software that add almost no functionality and don't work properly.

[Lowlander]

I'm convinced that a lot of these freeware developers release far too many unnecessary, buggy new versions just to try to get more donations.

If there is one software out there that you can't point your finger at for getting too many updates, it's Staxrip. The last version eight months ago mainly gave us updates for external modules a few presets and fixes for "cosmetic problems".

[jagabo]

Anyone knows a good program which converts mkv to xvid and has a compression check?

Why do you need a compression check? If you're using a compression check you obviously don't care what the exact file size is. So why not use Target Quantizer encoding? You'll always get the quality you ask for; the encoder will use whatever bitrate is necessary to deliver that quality.

[joearmstrong]

I always made good experiences with my 2-pass xvid encodings regarding compressibility.
With 2-pass-mode you can make smaller filesizes than with 1-pass CQ and the quality is very good. The file size is important for me, I prefer filesizes of 1490 MB with 70-75 % quality.

StaxRip 1.1.6 is very slow in encoding mkv to xvid. V1.1.8 has a lot of changes and good encoding speed. But that's useless if I can't adjust the compressibility settings... for DVD backups there are no improvements in the new version.

[joearmstrong]

When there's no other program with the capabilities of Staxrip I will stay at 1.1.6 for my DVD encodings.
Seems that I have to relinquish the compression check for MKV to XVID. I will now use XMediaRecode instead with 1-Pass CQ.
It's very disappointing that an update can destroy the functions of a program...

[hello_hello]

What can't you configure for the compression test in the latest version which you could in previous versions. I had a look at 1.1.6 and 1.1.8 and I guess I'm missing the obvious.

You can run your own compression test. Set up Xvid with the settings you normally use with cropping and resizing etc, run a 1-Pass CQ encode using a CQ value of 2.0. That's 100% quality for Xvid and as far as I know that's all there is to it. Take the resulting file size and specify 75% of that for a 2 pass encode and you have your 75% quality. Or (if memory serves me correctly) a 75% quality single pass encode would use CQ 2.67.
That's all programs basically do to run a compression test for Xvid, only they encode a percentage of the video rather than all of it. They generally use SelectRangeEvery() in an AVISynth script to do it. The quick test I tried with StaxRip showed it created a script containing SelectRangeEvery(280,14), which means it encoded 14 frames every 280 frames, or 5% of the video. I'm pretty sure AutoGK adjusts the percentage according to the video length for accuracy (StaxRip might too), but an encode of the entire video would produce the most accurate compression test.
That's how I used to do a lot of encoding with AutoGK. I'd run a single pass encode at 75% quality then use the output file size for a 2 pass encode. The reported quality after the first pass would usually be pretty close to 75%.

Other than that, HDConvertToX will run a compression test although I've not used it much myself and I don't think it's been updated in quite a while.

AutoGK would still be my first choice for Xvid encoding, but unfortunately it doesn't play with MKVs. There's a few ways to get it to do so. One is to use MKVCleaver to extract the video from the MKV and remux it as an AVI which AutoGK can then re-encode via DirectShow, but it's a pain if you need to do so regularly.
There's also instructions here (I wrote them) for creating a simple AVISynth script to open MKV video and wrap it into an AVI which AutoGK can then use for encoding. They may seem a bit daunting, but once you have the process down you can literally create a "dummy" AVI in a minute or two. I used to re-encode MKVs with AutoGK that way fairly regularly.

[jagabo]

SelectRangeEvery(280,14), which means it encoded 14 frames every 280 frames, or 20% of the video.

14 of every 280 is 5 percent, or 1/20th.

[rickydavao]

I beg to disagree that the lack of Compression Check settings make the latest versions of StaxRip useless. In the latest versions, the compression check settings are simply a mirror of the settings that you have specified for 1st and 2nd pass (which should be relatively identical anyway), with the exception that it encodes at a constant quant of 2. You wouldn't want to change any of these settings anyways (including the constant quant value) since then StaxRip wouldn't give you an accurate compression check result result. So basically, in the latest versions, if you set your quality value to 100%, you will get compression check results based on your current 1st and 2nd pass settings encoded at a quant of 2, which is as it should be. I really don't see what the fuss is about, unless you were using it incorrectly in the earlier versions. This is why the compression check settings were removed from the menu ... StaxRip simply got smarter and plugged in the correct values for you.

Unless you're using the latest version of XviD (1.3.2) ... then there's a little workaround you have to do before running the compression test.

[jagabo]

The file size is important for me, I prefer filesizes of 1490 MB

Then you have no need for a compression check. You have only once choice of bitrate.

[hello_hello]

SelectRangeEvery(280,14), which means it encoded 14 frames every 280 frames, or 20% of the video.

14 of every 280 is 5 percent, or 1/20th.

You are of course correct.
My bad. I've corrected my previous post.

The file size is important for me, I prefer filesizes of 1490 MB

Then you have no need for a compression check. You have only once choice of bitrate.

One could find oneself arguing there's also a choice of resolution for which a compression test could be useful.

[jagabo]

The file size is important for me, I prefer filesizes of 1490 MB

Then you have no need for a compression check. You have only once choice of bitrate.

One could find oneself arguing there's also a choice of resolution for which a compression test could be useful.

Yes, that's true. I almost always keep the source resolution (and use AR flags). Except occasionally when I have a very blurry, noisy source.

[joearmstrong]

For the people who don't understand my matter:

1.1.6 had two options in 2-pass Xvid: Compressibility Check and Run Compressibility Check. In Compressibility Check you could adjust your xvid options. This is gone in 1.1.8.
No matter what custom matrix I choose or other settings like b-frames, vaq, etc. - It always runs the Compressibility Check at its default options. So it is definitely useless!

I always loved 2-pass mode but with this missing setting I have to deal with 1-pass CQ.

[hello_hello]

Here's how I think it works.

Select "Xvid 2 pass" as the encoding method.
Click on Options in the codec setup section and change the number of passes to 1.
Click on Codec Configuration and configure Xvid for single pass encoding while adding your required codec settings.
Run the compressibility test.
Click on Options again to switch back to 2 pass encoding.
Configure Xvid again.

You could probably save 2 Xvid profiles with your preferred settings. One for the single pass encode to run the compression test, and one for the actual 2 pass encoding. That way you wouldn't have to keep re-configuring Xvid for 2 pass encoding after every compression test as I needed to.

The reason I say I "think" it works that way is because I could definitely get StaxRip to use different settings while running the compression test and the compression test result changed accordingly, but in my case it didn't work exactly as I'd expected. I think though, it's because I don't have the correct version of Xvid installed so StaxRip wasn't able to configure it correctly, however I wasn't motivated enough to change Xvid versions to find out.

As an example, I'd have expected the compression test to use the same CQ value each time (probably CQ2.0) but instead it used whichever CQ value I specified when setting up Xvid, which then changed the compression test result dramatically. Hopefully that's simply because I had the wrong Xvid version installed and StaxRip couldn't configure the CQ value itself.

Anyway..... hopefully I'm on the right track and the above will point you in the right direction to being able to run a compression test with your preferred Xvid settings.

[joearmstrong]

Thanks for the advices, I will give it a try this afternoon...

[joearmstrong]

I tried it and can confirm, that this method doesn't work with latest xvid (1.3.2) installed.
No configurations possible in Xvid-Codec. I don't want to switch to an old Xvid-Version so I think it is time to throw StaxRip away, at least for mkv to xvid encodings. Only if you want to keep the default xvid settings, you can still use compressibility check. If you you want to change settings ( vaq, b-frames, etc.) there ist no use for compressibility check anymore.

My tip: Stay at v1.1.6, which runs fine!

[rickydavao]

As I mentioned in my earlier post, there is a small workaround if you want to use the latest version of StaxRip with the latest version of XviD, specifically regarding the compression test. Let's say you've already set up your first and second pass settings and saved them as a StaxRip template. Before you do your compression test, do the following: click on either first pass or second pass settings (doesn't matter which) to bring up the configure encoder dialogue, and then immediately close it (this will have the effect of setting up the XviD codec with your current template settings). Now go to your Windows Start Menu, go to All programs, go to your XviD subfolder and click on Configure Encoder (I put the Configure Encoder shortcut straight in my Start Menu to save time). You should see the exact same settings as you just clicked on in StaxRip. Technically, you should be running your compression test with the same settings, except change Encoding Type to Single pass, and set Target Quantizer to 2.00, then click OK. Now back to StaxRip, click on Compression Test, and you should be good to go. This has always worked for me. Strangely enough (I guess it's a bug), if you install the latest version of StaxRip's XviD encoder (the one that comes with it, which I believe is 1.2.2 with VAQ), you need to do this as well. It's a little inconvenient, but it only takes a second, and lets you use the latest version of StaxRip with XviD 1.3.2. Hope this helps!

[joearmstrong]

Thanks for the help!

[jagabo]

Oops, wrong thread.