DivX guide available

[drpaulmhine]

Thanks Jaspa,

I will check that out as soon as I can get VirtualDub to recognize my *.d2v files again. As I said in my last message, I think I need to undo the registry changes first. I will await Accolon's response.

Paul

p.s. Accolon ... In desperation, I did also try the third *.zip file since it seemed to be an AVI reset for the registry file but .. VirtualDub still will not recognize the *.d2v files. I get an error message.

[accolon]

[drpaulmhine]

ACCOLON ..... (you have been VERY much MORE helpful than a LOT of people that I have communicated with - thank you)

Okay, I am making VERY good progress here.

(Should we continue to communicate via this forum or ... take it to emails? .. my preference is to continue here since these messages will help other people trying to follow your EXCELLENT guide) ....

In response to your last post ....

I did your first *.zip again .. then rebooted (I think this ACTION ITEM is VERY important!).

I then went ALL THE WAY BACK to the DVD2AVI step in your guide (I may have not have had to do this .. but, I did it .... the only trouble I had with that was that the program didn't overwrite my original file .. it made a completely new one with a ".2" section (not sure if that is the right "programmer language) inside (note: inside) of the file name.

[An aside to DVD2AVI developers .. please change that ]

OK ... for all future work (as described here) I used the file with the ".2" part inside the file name

After going through the DVD2AVI program (including "audio streams") .. I then went onto VFAPIConv-EN.exe and .. it worked FINE. It seemed like I had to create the *.d2v file again.

I then assumed that the *.WAV file (following your guide) that I had created before was OK.

Now [next step] ....

I went to VirtualDub where I had the "error message" that I mentioned ...

... IT WORKED (if I used the new file with the ".2" file {NOT the original file that was created in VirtualDub}.

THE BOTTOM LINE HERE [for users of your guide] is .....

"DO NOT LEAVE YOUR EXCELLENT GUIDE AT ANY TIME UNTIL IT IS COMPLETED"

... which is what I did (oh woe is me - see my previous posts)

Okay ... I went into VirtualDub successfully ...

I followed your new instructions about "resizing (for landscape)" and removing the black bars and changed the values for X1, X2, Y1 and Y2 .. but .. then I got stuck.

THIS IS WHERE I AM RIGHT NOW

I checked back on video formats that DivX Player has for their system and (if you look at their "Showcase" downloads .. they have several movies (for download) with different resolutions.

They have ...

176 x 320
320 x 192
240 x 128
240 x 320
240 x 176

Out of these choices, which resolution (size/orientation) should I pick?

I KNOW I am getting sooooooo close to transfering (in this case .. MATRIX) to my Compaq iPAQ 3765.

You asked me to post my resolution (see your last post) but .. I'm asking YOU for the resolution that I should use .. SORRY

As for the "multiples of 8 or 16" .. that's something that you and Jaspa have to figure out - I'm trying to use 184 .. but DivX seems to be using 176, 192, or even 128 !!

Paul

p.s.
I think a LOT of praise has to go to the creators of SmartRipper, DVD2AVI, VPAPI Converter, and HeadAC3he. If you know them personally, please pass on my best regards for some excellent developmental (they have a few bugs - but I'm not complaining)

[Jaspa]

[accolon]

Paul, great to hear that it finally worked!
The .REG files will be mentioned in the next revision.

Of the resolutions you mentioned, there's one for landscape (the 320 one), the 240s are for portrait mode; the first one (176 x 320) is useless for DVD movies.

First of all, it depends on your personal taste whether you want to have portrait or landscape, I prefer the latter one since portrait is a little bit small.

I've borrowed "The Matrix" from a friend to find out about the missing ratio, but the German version has a small "16:9 / 2.35:1" logo on the lower left of the backside.

Set the width to 320 then and open the cropping dialogue; a value of 78 for both the Y1 and Y2 removes the black bars perfectly, I think it should be the same for your version of Matrix.

Following my guide, you have to divide the target width by 2.35 (which is on my DVD box), therefore the resolution you should use for landscape is 320x136 with the black bars removed - this fits the multiple of 8 requirement as well as the multiple of 16, so it should be fine.

My guide suggests to try the three standard aspect ratio values first (see step 6.) if there's none on the box; in almost every case you should get good results then. The preview is the key to success, experiment and check if it's okay for you.

[rlefranc]

Thanks so much for posting this guide!!! This is the first DIVX guide that I've been able to follow from start to finish and end up with great results.

I had a small problem with my .wav file the first go around - it delayed the sound by a minute and 15 seconds - but I ran the .ac3 file through headac3he again and all was well.

[Courtney White]

ok, i followed accolons guide to the T, but i ended up with a black AVI. that played the sound only. the screen was resized, but black.

the strangest part was the movie was 1.5 hours long, and encoded at only 23 mbs? it should be about 500 mb? right?

the avi made by that ftda or whatever played right, without sound, the wavefile was fine.

[accolon]

No, 500 MB would be too large, but your small size seems to suggest that the .AVI contains the audio only.

Since the pseudo .AVI played right and you didn't have any problems with the audio at all, there has to be a problem with the video encoding to DivX...

The first pass finished without any problems?
Do you have a quite small, non-playable .AVI after the first pass?
Did you change ANY settings after the first pass, except setting the "Variable bitrate mode" to "2-pass, second pass" (in the codec settings)?
Did you use the correct .AVI (the pseudo .AVI created by VFAPI) for BOTH passes?
Which DivX version did you use?

[accolon]

drpaulmhine:
I'm just wondering if you've been successful now, would be great if you could give some information since you've been very helpful for the next release of the guide.

[Courtney White]

[drpaulmhine]

[Ainvar]

Just wanted to say thanks for the awesome divx guide. It really answered all my questions and made it fairly easy to make my movies into a divx format that the ipaq likes. The only part I had an issue with was the resolution math area. I must say I suck badly at math unless it is basic add, subtrace, divide, and multiply. I am good with money but bad with everything else.

Go figure on that one


Thanks,
Jay

[drpaulmhine]

[Ainvar]

[accolon]

Ainvar explained it correctly.

If the .TXT was supposed to be opened within one of the tools I'd have mentioned it.

The guide says:
Open vts_0x_INFO.txt (it has the same number x as all the .VOBs) from the work folder...

What you need to do is:
Run Windows Explorer, go to the folder that contains all the files and doubleclick on the .TXT file, this should open it with Notepad.

You don't have to close DVD2AVI, simply look for the information needed.