How to avoid blockiness in dark scenes?

[Divx Dude]

Hi Guys,

This is my 1st thread so please be gentle with me :helpful:

I've been using AutoGK now for a few months. I mainly convert movies and some TV shows to Divx and I use the perentage function at 100%. Recently I noticed that some films such as Sunshine and a couple of others are very blocky during dark scenes. Is there a way of getting the picture to look better with films such as these? Would converting as an Xvid give me a better picture?

Any help on the matter will be appreciated, thanks in advance.

[laserfan]

You should certainly TRY Xvid on a particularly annoying title to see if it's the same.

But are you certain your monitor/TV is adjusted properly? If the black level is set wrong you will see blockiness that otherwise is invisible.

[CWR03]

Using a 2-pass encode will usually do better than single-pass, even at 100%. I also find that Xvid handles dark scenes a little better than DivX. The biggest culprit is AutoGK - it's designed around ease-of-use more than quality. I mostly use x264 now, and my encodes are far superior than anything I could get with AutoGK. Dark , fire/smoke/fog and high-motion scenes are nearly perfect.