Easy VOB to divx conversion on OSX

[major]

Check the new GUI to ffmpeg
http://dsl092-130-211.chi1.dsl.speakeasy.net/~hmason/macdvd2divx/

[tgpo]

Bad. I'll have to give that a try when I get home, it looks great and like it would save a lot of time. I just hope it works as good as it looks.

[Tolly]

this is great! the prog i have been waiting for! this is another time when u can be proud to be a mac user, once again, u can do something a pc does plus a whole lot more! sounds awesome, im going to check it out. what codec do u guys recommend if i plan to create movies that i will eventually send to a pc? what is the most common or best divx codecon PC, of the the ones to choose from in this macdcd2divx prog? annyone know?

[tgpo]

I'm using it now. It'll be done sometime tomarrow. I'll give the results I get then. But so far so good.

[Tolly]

i git my vob, i adjust my settings in MacDVD2DivX, then i get a weird error when i hit convert. it says:
<-AppleScript Error-Application isn't running. (-600)>
anyone know what this means or what i can do about it?[/b]

[AntnyMD]

I received the same error, too, but I assumed it was because I was trying to run the GUI from an external drive and/or the VOB file was on an external drive? I'm gonna fiddle with some things tonight when I get home.

[major]

Check where you installed MacDVD2DivX package. It should be the Applications folder. Also, the path to the package folder should not include spaces.

[Tolly]

im really sorry, im a newbie w/ macintosh, what do u mean when u say the path to the package folder should not include spaces? can u please explain this, im a little slow. thanks a lot, sorry.

[AntnyMD]

Check where you installed MacDVD2DivX package. It should be the Applications folder. Also, the path to the package folder should not include spaces.

Well I made every mistake in the book Not only is it not in the Applications folder, its not on the Macintosh HD at all, and the folder its in has spaces in the name. This should also explain why the new ffMPEG stuff doesnt work either.

[major]

im really sorry, im a newbie w/ macintosh, what do u mean when u say the path to the package folder should not include spaces? can u please explain this, im a little slow. thanks a lot, sorry.

it means if you installed the package into

MacHD 76GB/Documents/The Hell/Stuff/Backlog 4/To be sorted in 2004/

then there are 7 spaces in the path.

Try to move the app into MacOSX/Applications instead.

[Tolly]

well looks like i have a problem. my HD already has a space in its name, which is (Macintosh HD). the prog has to be installed on yer hard drive doesnt it? and it can create problems to change the name of your HD, cant it? what can i do! please let me know. i really need some help, thanks.

[Tolly]

oh yea, i forgot to add, i already tried to run the program while it was under Macintosh HD/Applications on my computer. didnt work. goes right back to the problem with the space in my HD name, doesnt it?

[major]

oh yea, i forgot to add, i already tried to run the program while it was under Macintosh HD/Applications on my computer. didnt work. goes right back to the problem with the space in my HD name, doesnt it?

hum, that one should have worked..
have you got the latest version of the software (the author has fixed some bugs in the current version)? it seems in particular that the implementation of some settings generates a script error. Try to encode with the default settings.

[Tolly]

yea u were right, if you change some of the default settings it does in fact generate a script eroor. this is what was happening to me. i think it was because of where i wanted the exported file to go, so this should be kept to default. everything works fine now and im encoding to opendivx! so far so good, ill let you know what i think when its done.

[tgpo]

Thus far I've been running this program for 24 hours. It's completed 37000 frames. However, I'm doing the very best settings for everything. I have a filling it's gonna take a while.

[major]

Check the new version 0.1.1 which has just been put online.
It is faster, has a new manual, and many bugs are now fixed.

[Tolly]

how do you view the files youve created? i used the instructions in the readme and it spit out a mov, with a blank white picture and scrambled/fuzzed audio when played in QT Pro. anyone know what i can do so my divx video will play correctly?

[major]

tolly, impossible to help you if you don't give more details on your source file and which settings you used, also needed is the ffmpeg terminal window output.

[Tolly]

sorry, i used a 3.96GB (96 mins) VOB of Caddyshack which i encoded into DivX 4 (OpenDivX/MPEG-4) and one MP3 audio track at 128 kbits/sec, 44.1 KHz Stereo. the videos bitrate was 800 kbits/s, which resulted in a avi that was 649 MB, 640x352. i kept all other features in MACDVD2DivX at default. i was having problems at first with the program, but i finally got it to encode once i opened terminal first then hit encode. the resulting avi did play in QT, but it doesnt have any audio. then like i mentioned before, when i use DDII on the avi, the mov it produces plays a white screen w/ scrambled/garbled audio. hope that is the info u needed.

[tgpo]

With DDII and the white screen. Make sure the 3ivx codec is installed.

[Tolly]

i had 3ivx, but got rid of it because somewhere i read there is problems between 3ivx and mac divx. it makes quicktime recognize divx fils u make on a mac as 3ivx files. this was in the divx 5.0 readme:

Q : I’ve installed the DivX codec, but it says “3ivx” in the data format information dialog when attempting to playback a DivX movie, is this correct?
A : This means you have the 3ivx codec installed. The 3ivx software improperly registers itself to playback DivX video. You must remove or disable the 3ivx software before using DivX for Mac OS.


well, should i go ahead and get 3ivx again anyways?

[major]

The 3ivx D4 codec is noticeably faster than divx.com one. Unless you use postfilters I would suggest you to simply remove your installed divx codecs and just keep 3ivx D4.

http://3ivx.com/codec/3ivx_d4_pr1.sit

[tgpo]

I would suggest you to simply remove your installed divx codecs and just keep 3ivx D4.

I totally agree.

[tgpo]

I just finished my first use of this program and I must say it does a good job. I used the high quality setting and believe me it will take a long time to encode! The final quality of the move was very good for the file fize/resolution. I'll have to test 1.1 now.

[AntnyMD]

Do I have to have some MPEG-4/DivX codecs pre-installed? Or was it just my source that caused the problem? This is what I did:

I downloaded and installed the latest version of MacMPEG2DivX. I put it on the Mac HD, and set my output path to a destination that contained no spaces in the filename. I left all other settings alone. I hit encode. My source was an MPEG-1 video.

The result had no picture and the audio wouldn't play. In Finder and in Quicktime 6 preview, I got a message saying there was no codec found on the Quicktime servers.

The encoder, for what its worth, worked remarkably fast, analysed the MPEG-1 video (and returned accurate results), and didn't seem to mind the source was MPEG-1 (rather than MPEG-2).

[major]

do you have the 3ivx codec properly installed?

http://3ivx.com/codec/3ivx_d4_pr1.sit

[AntnyMD]

No. I'll download it tonight and give it a go. Will this enable encoding to the "standard" MPEG-4 that Apple is hyping?

[major]

No, but it will allow you to play back DivX correctly. To encode to mp4 you simply need QT6 with no additional codec. However, DivX will play faster than mp4.

[AntnyMD]

... but my goal is to make the mp4 standard files Apple is hyping. I have QT6preview installed. I think I'm just going to have to spend more than 5 minutes with it before I post more.

[major]

To make mp4 files you just need QT6, open a movie in Quicktime player and select the Export command. You will notice a "Movie to MPEG 4" option.