transcode: mpeg->xvid or wmv (newbie question)

[venkman]

Hello all,

I tried the transcode to xvid through mencoder (and just about every other freeware out there, tmpegenc, flask etc) and I'm not getting comparable quality video output. I've tried to mess with the options to the best of my abilities but nothing I've done so far seems to produce a reasonable quality video from the mpeg files of the tv recordings.

I tried a software called blaze media player and it was able to convert to wmv (including other formats). But what made me take notice was the file was nearly 1/3rd in size and I could not perceive loss of quality (in the wmv file).

My question is:
From what I can see from online searches, it appears a lot of people are looking to create xvid files - is there any advantage over a wmv file in doing so?

Thanks,

[Raffka]

Hello all,

I tried the transcode to xvid through mencoder (and just about every other freeware out there, tmpegenc, flask etc) and I'm not getting comparable quality video output. I've tried to mess with the options to the best of my abilities but nothing I've done so far seems to produce a reasonable quality video from the mpeg files of the tv recordings.

I tried a software called blaze media player and it was able to convert to wmv (including other formats). But what made me take notice was the file was nearly 1/3rd in size and I could not perceive loss of quality (in the wmv file).

My question is:
From what I can see from online searches, it appears a lot of people are looking to create xvid files - is there any advantage over a wmv file in doing so?

Thanks,

From my experience, it depends on the quality of your capture card. Before I had a Theatrix 550, I used xvid codec with my old Lifeview Flyvideo 98, then would use movie maker to convert the avi file to wmv. Frankly, wmv video looked worse if trying to capture directly from television using windows movie maker (but then again, Flyvideo 98 is a terrible capture card). It's just in my case, re-encoding from avi to wmv made the image quality better. Now with my Theatrix 550, WMV gives superior image quality, albeit with slight stuttering. Having said that, the downside is WMV is proprietary and may not be compatible with all dvd authoring software. It does works with nerovision express dvd authoring though. Now when ripping a DVD movie, Xvid's quality is the preferred choice.

[reboot]

I use virtualdubmod.
Load the mpg (takes a few seconds), edit commercials, select Video, compression, DivX (or Xvid), and set up the quality settings, then File, Save avi.

[Torque]

Thanks for the information Reboot, I just needed to convert some short clips I ripped from a DVD and virtualdubmod worked great.