Help with Divx

[Speediakal]

i have an ATI TV Wonder Pro and i wanted to record into Divx. so i installed Divx, but it doesn't come up. like i can't pick Divx when setting up in ATI Multimedia Centre. but i have all the Divx files installed correctly. help.

[FishTank]

installed codec correctly? (can you select it in vdub e.g.)

id use xvid over divx anyway, maybe try that. no idea if that
ati software even supports it, but maybe someone else knows.

good luck

[ilovejedd]

I have the ATI HDTV Wonder so I'm not sure if we have a similar ATI Multimedia Center version. Anyways, in case it's the same.

Go to Configuration -> Personal Video Recorder. Select a preset you want to replace and choose 'Map Preset' then 'Create New'. Change to preferred settings and codecs and it'll replace your default preset. If that doesn't do it, maybe you can do your capturing via another program such as VirtualDub?

[Speediakal]

i know that DivX is installed because i have been converting tons of files with Dr.DivX (if you know of better ones tell me, its just soo slow)

i have MMC v9.08 and the new ones like 9.16 or something.

i found that if i use MPEG-4 it puts it into DivX codec in a .avi container. but the files are extremely huge, 2.7GB for a one hour show with commercials and 2GB for a one hour show without commercials.

i also have these weird lines going across the screen. like this:
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/6439/untitled2ib3.th.jpg (http://img442.imageshack.us/my.php?image=untitled2ib3.jpg)
see those weird lines on the black?
is that from my reception from the cable or what?

because when i downloaded a certain tv show from a certain source, the quality was amazing, it was like DVD quality, and it was captured from the T.V., though it was in HD.

so my question is, how can i get great quality captures? or do i need to get a better card?

i hate capturing with virtualdub, it won't let me make the screen bigger and it wont change the channel.

[setarip_old]

Hi!i hate capturing with virtualdub, it won't let me make the screen bigger and it wont change the channel.You might want to try "Virtual VCR"...

[Speediakal]

ok, so when i try to select which codec to compress the video in any program (Vdub, avi_io, FlyCap) the DivX codec doesn't come up. but when im in VirtualDub or DVD2AVI, the DivX codec comes up.

[setarip_old]

Have you as yet tried VirtualVCR?

[mgh]

you need to select the color space correctly-try yuy2 or yv12
the codecs displayed in list in any capture software depend on your choice of color space

[Speediakal]

i don't get it. when i go to the drop down menu, yuy2 is default. and when i go to yv12, a 10 second clip is 109mb, and it isn't DivX.

[FishTank]

divx/xvid should work with yuy2.

10 secs = 109mb.. sure, uncompressed. you have to select divx.

little tip though. if you want good quality captures, then dont
capture as divx. capture as either huffyuv (90mins = ~40gb) or
as mjpeg with ffdshow (90miins = ~7gb with default settings)

then crop/resize and do a propper 2-pass encode to divx/xvid.

[Speediakal]

so tell me, how do i pick DivX with the yuy2 or yv12 codec?
http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/531/untitled1zl8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


and where do i put the huffyuv dll file?

how about the H.263 codec?

[ilovejedd]

Hmm, interesting. I'm using version 9.04 (came in the installation CD, it worked so I didn't see the point in upgrading). I can see the DivX 3.11 and XviD codecs just fine. I don't know about DivX (4.0-6.5), though, as I don't have those installed on my PC.
http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/6162/screencapds2.png (http://imageshack.us)

I guess whatever codecs are usable in VirtualDub should be usable with ATI MMC, supposedly. As for reality... blame ATI.

Anyhow, I'm with FishTank. Don't use XviD to capture. Use HuffYUV. ffdshow has a HuffYUV encoder so if you want, you can use that. If you want to install just HuffYUV and provided the DLL you downloaded has an included inf file:
Right-click on the huffyuv.inf file and select "Install." You can delete the files in the temporary directory after the installation completes (which takes only a fraction of a second). There should be no need to reboot.

If not, you can download the dll here (http://neuron2.net/www.math.berkeley.edu/benrg/huffyuv.html).

Since you mentioned cable, I assume you're capturing from an analog source? Judging from the 24 screenshot, that seems to be the case... If so, then quality of the capture won't be as good as, say, a 624x352 DivX encode from a 1280x720 or 1920x1080 MPEG2 broadcast source. If you're looking to capture only programs from local (free) channels and you're reasonably near transmission towers (www.antennaweb.org), then may I suggest getting an over-the-air HDTV capture card. Nowadays, you have several HDTV capture cards to choose from and they're not that expensive anymore. I think most even feature dual tuners, one for analog and one for OTA HDTV, so you can still record from your regular cable TV.

[Speediakal]

hmmm..odd.

i'll try installing ffdshow, huffyuv, DivX 3 and XviD and see what i get. ill probably look at getting an OTA HDTV capture card later on.

thanx for the help.

[Speediakal]

thanks for all the help, i got it working. but i dont know why x264 isn't showing up, have to check that it's installed properly.

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/1044/untitled2xf9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
so huffyuv is the best one to use?
also, what is the main difference between DivX and XviD?

[ilovejedd]

Woah... That's a whole lot of codecs... HuffYUV is lossless and is pretty fast. Expect your captures to still be huge (although not as huge as raw). Just do a multi-pass conversion of the HuffYUV AVI to DivX or XviD or maybe even x264 afterwards.

Don't bother with the VfW x264 codec. x264 wasn't designed for VfW (and AVI for that matter) so you're better off just converting with the commandline x264.

DivX and XviD are both implementations of the MPEG-4 Part 2 standard. As to which is better, I'll leave that up for you to decide. :p

[Speediakal]

what should i use to convert HuffYUV AVI to Divx/XviD?

[ilovejedd]

Fast recompress with VirtualDub will do. Take note, HuffYUV will still give you insanely huge AVIs (see FishTank's post). If you don't have the hard disk space for it, you can probably get away with encoding directly to XviD, maybe using a constant quantizer if you're not very concerned with file size.

From a test I did (DVD rip source, cropped to 720x304)
HuffYUV, Lossless: 5 mins = 1,396 MB
XviD, quant 2: 5 mins = 118 MB

However, if you need the captures to be of a certain size (maybe to fit on a DVD or something), capturing to a temporary HuffYUV AVI (with uncompressed audio) and converting subsequently using a multi-pass codec is the way to go.

[FishTank]

the problem with capturing to xvid directly is that you need one
heck of a pc to do it in 720x576 (or 480 for NTSC) without dropping
frames.

if you dont want 40gb files (huffyuv), then id use mjpeg with ffdshow.
the files will then be around 6gb for 90mins.

[dexy]

Well, if you have a slow computer, than you should use Huffyuv, otherwise my suggestion is MPEG-2. And afterwards ofcourse conversion to xvid (this is one of the best methods for any kind of source). If you still want to capture directly to divx, than you should use divx 3 if you otherwise use xvid. BTW, if source is noisy than it is better to use divx 4 instead of other codecs. As you can see, there is not universal best codec, you must select the proper one for your need. ;)

[jeffy]

the problem with capturing to xvid directly is that you need one
heck of a pc to do it in 720x576 (or 480 for NTSC) without dropping
frames.

if you dont want 40gb files (huffyuv), then id use mjpeg with ffdshow.
the files will then be around 6gb for 90mins.
May I ask, is there a free mjpeg codec available for encoding?
Thank you.

[ilovejedd]

ffdshow has one. :D

[FishTank]

@jeffy.. as ilovejedd said, ffdshow comes with it :)

heres the link:
http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/

[jeffy]

I have ffdshow installed and I didn't know it has mjpeg :o