divx3 to divx4/5

[novafire]

I have an xcard and a lot of divx3 files and have a few questions reguarding converting to divx4/5:

1. Are there any recommendations as to which version (4 or 5) to convert to?

2. I have been using virtual dub so far in my conversions and converting to divx5. I see minimal loss of quality surprisingly (to me anyway). But I would prefer a command-line based converter that I could use in a script I write on my file server that simply goes out and looks for new movies I download and converts them over to divx5. Any suggestions? Linux or windows would both work. I have messed with
avi2divx but have not had luck getting to to run and I am not even certain it will convert divx3 to divx4/5 anyway.

3. I have a bunch of files that make virtual dub die during the encode process. How can I "fix" these files.

Thanks again. Any comments/suggestions would be great.

bjz

[Acaila]

1) DivX 5
2) VDub has a way to save settings (with the save settings button :) ), so you don't have to change them with every movie. However you'll still want to change the bitrate for each movie so they end up the correct size afterwards.
As for command line, I don't know, I never use them to encode. Nothing can beat VDub anyway.
3) Die how? Do you get a specific error (or even the same error every time)?
Could be DivX3's freeze frames that VDub chokes on, try opening a file with extended options enabled and check the "rederive keyframes" setting.