DivX Encoding - XviD Not An Option

[Selfdestruktor]

Hi,

First time post!

I've been reading and experimenting for the last few weeks, and i'm ALMOST there.
I have 2 x Hauppauge Nova-T-500 (so 4 x tuners in total).
Everything is tuned in, working and recording perfectly.

The only problem I have is with the DivX conversion quality.
It's just not up to the standard of other programs i've used, such as AutoGK or Dr. DivX, even if I increase the bitrate in the config.xml to ~1300.

The standard response to this seems to be 'use XviD', but i'm afraid this isn't an option, as the completed videos are going to be imported into a management system that only supports DivX (long story).

I've looked up the command line options for FFMPEG but there doesn't seem to be anything useful to me.

Can anyone tell me why the DivX movies converted using this process with 1300kbps looks so much worse than using one of the other above mentioned programs with 780kbps?

[sub]

Single pass ffmpeg divx encodes just dont look that good. You can bump up the bitrate or try hooking in some external command line driven encoder.

As you've already read, the ffmpeg xvid encoder does a much better job.

[Selfdestruktor]

try hooking in some external command line driven encoder.

That might be possible.
If I find a program that's suitable, how do I put it into the Config.xml?

[sub]

From memory it's something like:

<Conversion name="DivX" exe="myconverter.exe" cmd="-i {SOURCE_FILE} -o{DEST_FILE}" targetExtension=".avi" />

Replacing with the appropriate executable and parameters.

[Selfdestruktor]

Okay, makes sense, i'll have a play.

One more thing, I wanted to have a look at the quality of a 2 pass FFMPEG conversion, but when I added the 'pass' variable, all it did was create a 'blank' avi file (as in 0kb).

[SIZE="1"]<Conversion name="ClickView" cmd="-y -i {SOURCE_FILE} -f avi -ab 160 -ac 2 -acodec mp3 -vcodec mpeg4 -b 1300k -pass 2 -vtag DIVX {DEST_FILE}" targetExtension=".avi" />[/SIZE]

What have I done wrong?

[sub]

I've not played with the multipass stuff myself, but I think you're just trying to run the second pass without having run the first. I think to do multipass stuff you need to actually run ffmpeg multiple times.

[Selfdestruktor]

Ah, okay.
I just experimented with it via the Windows command line and I have to run that string with '-pass 1' then '-pass 2'.
Results in a much better file, but still no good to me I guess.

Hopefully the last question, regarding the exe="myconverter.exe" parameter, i'm trying to get this to work with Dr. DivX with no success.
Is there anything I have to do when the path to the executable file has spaces in it?

[sub]

I cant remember for sure since its been a very long time since I wrote this.

The executable might need to be listed without a path, and the executable needs to be in the 'gbpvr\third party' directory. The logs should spit out the path it is trying to run.

[daveid]

without reading through your whole post, I can tell you xvid is an option, if you set similar compression options (BVOPS, QPEL, etc) and after compression change the FourCC code from XVID to DIVX it will be virtually identical to you player.