Encoding Recommendations

[SirJecht]

I wondering what the best way is to encode in divx/xvid with the highest quality. I am not going to put the files on to CDs or DVDs, so the size is unimportant (the smaller the better though, of course). I have both AutoGK and Gordian Knot... so I'm wondering what the best default settings are to use to get pretty much full DVD quality videos. Or at least as good as I'd notice watching them on and HDTV from my xbox with component video cables. I tried AutoGK for one particular movie at 75%, 70%, and 65% straight quality settings, but I couldn't tell the difference other at 400MB.

Thanks for the help.

[CirTap]

uh oh. you used the "b"-word ... hint: check the FAQs quickly :-)
still: welcome to the forums

[SirJecht]

thank you for the welcome.

Anyway, I read through a lot of the FAQs (because this is actually my first time encoding at all). Everything seems to be based on target size, not quality. Anything about quality seems to be in a "you can do it this way" fashion, but not explained in too great a detail (I'm guessing a lot of people don't encode this way?). So, I was just wondering the magic number for quality percent, and then I was going to just use that one all the time. I saw that I should stay between 67%-80%, or so it seemed. Also, I was unsure if AutoGK or plain Gordian Knot does a better job, and whether to use DivX/Xvid. Though, from the Codec FAQs, it seems like Xvid is the better option.

[CirTap]

me wrong, I actually ment the "forum rules" not FAQ, since you ask for "the best" which no one will answer here, since (as the rulez explain) there is no best way.

While quality "could" be measurable to some degree, it's usually a subjective value.
I found many DVD MPEGs look nice on a regular (50hz PAL) TV but blocky and bad on a 100Hz digi-TV, same with DivX-AVIs on an ole CRT or crispy LCD monitor.
I dunno much about XviD/DivX/MPEG4/H.what-ever-number encoders, but no matter what: fast motion req. different settings than "stills", anime, or CG, involving different bitrates, hence one movie may look "best" with settings XY, white the other would look like crap, thus and then I was going to just use that one all the time won't work.
That's life, and the reason why you get "you can do it this way" replies.
Whether AutoGK or GK "full" do a better job? maybe some of their users can help or give you hints. I do "DVD" only, so I disqualify :-)

Good luck, and have fun,
CirTap

[SirJecht]

ah, I see what your saying about best. Well, right now I have a pretty normal TV, but I don't want to be dissatisfied with all my rips when I get a new 48" HD LCD as my new TV, so I can't tell the difference right now. I figured that you would need different settings for anime/CG, etc. so I'm just looking for specs for your run of the mill fast motion movies. Right now it seems that just using my computer monitor is a good way to judge what the quality will be like on a nicer TV... I have a 19" Samsung that runs 1280x1024... so far I can't really tell the difference of my rips and DVDs, so that seems good... but my files are about 1.4GB, so I'm wondering if I could lower the quality settings or if 65% really is about the lowest I can go and expect it to still look good.

[CirTap]

but my files are about 1.4GBwell, that's the point: do you want to preserve space or quality?
You can't have both - to a certain level - and I doubt you'd be able to squeeze that 1.4gig file to a 700meg CD preserving the same visual quality (and audio).
If they're supposed to be played on a PC, drop two of these file on a DVD, if you have or plan to get a stand-alone player that plays DivX, it should also be able to play them from the very same dics. I don't think DivX-movies are supposed to come on CD-R media only :)
With good quality DVD (DL) media beeing affordable, incl. DVD burners, I can see no practical or financial reason to sacrifice quality for the sake of "this must go an a CD-R". That's rediculous, imho, esp. if you plan to get a HD LCD TV ...

Have fun,
CirTap

[SirJecht]

I don't mind them being that big, I'm just wondering if that's about right. It contains the original AC3, which seems to be about 250-300MB. It's not going to be on any type of media, actually, it's going on to a hard drive on my xbox... so space really isn't much of a consideration, although, the smaller the better.

[manono]

Hi-

I don't mind them being that big, I'm just wondering if that's about right.

Yes, 2 CD size is normal for decent quality video keeping the AC3 audio. You mentioned earlier about people being more concerned with size than quality. Until fairly recently the objective was to fit them to 1 or 2 CDs. Now more and more people are burning their AVIs to DVDRs, or keeping them on a computer being used as a file server, so for many these days getting the exact size isn't so critical any more. If you're still a relative newcomer at this, you might stick with AutoGK until you know your way around AviSynth and encoding using VDubMod. AutoGK's 1-pass Target Quality (there's a quality setting) will give you very good quality at the default 75%. However, the drawback is that you lose complete control over the file size. Because different movies compress differently, you might be surprised one day when one comes in at 3 GB or more.

Edit: And you might edit the thread title to something like "Encoding Recommendations" or some such before some hard-assed mod (wait, that's me!) says something to you about it.

[SirJecht]

Thanks for the information. I wouldn't mind learning to use AVISynth and VDubMod if it can produce the same quality with smaller file sizes. As long as there are FAQs, I can figure how to run them. I have them installed through Gordian Knot. I've been using the target quality setting on AutoGK, and two movies at 75% came in pretty different sizes... 1.25GB and 1.75GB... and the latter is only 10 minutes longer. I ran the movie second movie through AutoGK 7 times to encode at a bunch of different qualities to see what looks different. Even down at 45% it looks pretty good, but you can definately tell that it looks "poorly encoded" for lack of me knowing what to call it... 75% to 65% look roughly the same to me. I saw in one of these FAQs not to go below 67%, so I might just encode my movies at that quality.