Is GK still the tool to use?

[rjbell4]

I admit some ignorance here. I don't really follow the "scene". It first installed Gordian Knot a couple of years ago and have re-encoded many DVDs (usually as .ogm XviDs) ever since. I just reinstalled by computer and noticed that it's been nearly a year since the last GK release, and I saw reference to development on AutoGK ceasing. I'd think that within the last year there'd be newer codecs, updated tools, etc. that one would want to use with GK.

So is Gordian Knot still the tool to use? Are there some hot new tools that are being used instead? Simple pointers to something to read would be well accepted; my own research has only found FAQs and guides that seem to be no newer than the last GK release.

Thanks in advance.

[unskinnyboy]

If you don't plan to veer away from XviD in OGM, I don't see a reason for you to stop using Gordian Knot. But if you want to use newer codecs like x264, Snow etc or newer containers like MP4, you would need to switch to one of those "MPEG-4 Encoder GUIs". They also support XviD and old skool containers like AVI. There are quite a few of them around now, and a whole forum dedicated to them too: http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?f=78. Good place to start. MeGUI and StaxRip are widely used, with the former even more so.

[check]

You can read more info on MeGUI on the MeGUI wiki: http://project357.com/MeGUIwiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
I use it for many (if not most) of my encoding tasks now, it supports transcoding as well as DVD encoding so is quite a versatile piece of software.

[rjbell4]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm not particularly wedded to OGM/XviD. I'll basically use anything well-supported by XBMC. In particulary, it seems like Matroska is a good potential container replacement for OGM. I'll reinstall Gordian Knot, but I may install MeGUI, too, so that I can start experimenting with x264.

[Cyberace]

Matroska is not yet 'well-supported' by XBMC, as it uses an old version of Mplayer (version 1.0-pre6) that didn't handle MKV very well, ...nor does that MPlayer handle MP4 containers very well, and the Xbox CPU is too slow to decode x264 (H.264 MPEG-4 AVC) at any resolution greater than 352x288 when encoded with Cabac and Deblocking, (and using AAC as audio codec doesn't help either), so it is not worth it.

I would stick with XviD or DivX as video codec, MP3 CBR as audio codec, and AVI or OGM as container if you plan on using the Xbox as a playback device.

AutoGK (Auto Gardian Knot) (http://www.autogk.me.uk) and Dr.DivX (http://labs.divx.com/DrDivX) are simple yet great tools for such encodes.

My guess is that XBMC will upgrade to a newer version of MPlayer before this year is over, that will fix the lack of good MKV and MP4 support but nothing can be done about the speed of decoding x264/h264, ...unless FFmpeg (the codec-suit used by MPlayer) can come up with some 'magic' solution or workaround to decoding x264/h264 much faster on slower processors (like the Xbox 733Mhz Intel Pentium III), perhaps with better SSE usage.

[Pulp Catalyst]

just my 2 pence worth, Dr divX i would say a no no still, just look at the version changes and you will see that they still have a long way to go, bugs all over the place,

if you don't mind parting with a little money Fairuse Wizard 2.5 is excellent, does Xvid, DivX & x264 (comes with internal codecs, but can also use External if you always want to use the latest versions),

also has geat Reliability (again look at the list of changes in the changelog, and you will see not many problems have been fixed lately, because there are no problem to fix)

with the 1 exception to DTS support, which i'm suprised they haven't done yet, but how many DVD's have DTS sound tracks compared to the ones without DTS.

your right i shouldn't, i appologize,

[CWR03]

:-) Ed2k if you know what i mean ;-)
As in "I promote software piracy?"

[weaver4]

A couple of tools that I use.

Dr. Divx 2.0 is very usable now. I have been using it in parallel with another tool and it has successfully encoded 10 movies for me with good results. 2 months ago I would of said it "stunk", but now it is pretty good. Development is continuing and you can get support here on on the DivX forum. DivX has $$ to continue development which is a plus for me.

FairUse Wizard 2.5 is a good tool but no support at all. You can leave a message for months on the forum with no answer. Last time I checked no one had heard from the author in months.

avi.net is a good tool it is still under development and the author responds to messages on the GUI forum and email.

Staxrip is good but I think the author is not doing much on it now. You can get support in the GUI forum.