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View Full Version : divx 4 vs. divx 3 for tv capture re-encoding


canadian_fbi
5th February 2002, 04:57
hey everyone... i've been using divx to reencode episodes of iron chef i capture with my ati all-in-wonder radeon in mpeg-1 format. i capture at 320x240, 3 mbps, so there's no noticeable loss in quality from the cable feed, and it can be easily cut and handled in mpeg format. my question concerns which version of divx do people think is better to encode such video at...

i just recently started some dvd encoding and have found fairuse to be an excellent program for that, however the fu method of splicing together multiple encodings to produce an optimized one won't work with a raw mpeg that i get from the a-i-w and that i generate after cutting the commercials out.

i have been using virtualdub and the divx 3 fast-motion codec at about 650 kbps (in order to fit three episodes - about 120 mins - on one cd). an episode of iron chef is generally 10 mins of pre-show stuff that's low motion, 20 minutes of very high motion cooking, and 10 minutes of low motion judging and whatnot. so i found that the fastmotion codec worked best at encoding the fast motion and was worth the loss in quality in the lower motion scenes. however, this dvd encoding has me enjoying the benefits of a more variable bitrate, and so i was wondering if anyone more experienced in divx 4's two-pass system knew if this was a better alternative. i've done some episodes in both and have had trouble distinguishing which was truly the better alternative - they both have strengths and weaknesses, but i'm far better at nitpicking audio compression than video unfortunately.

oh, one more reason i used divx 3 instead of 4 up to now: setting the smoothness to 0 (full smooth) really seems to help counter-act some of the noise i get from the imperfect cable feed. this might be the main reason i've used it so far.

bb
5th February 2002, 07:45
Ummm... I'd capture using PicVideo MJPEG @ full res, then encode in VirtualDub using DivX4 2-pass with a bunch of filters like smart deinterlace (if needed), dynamic denoiser, resize, ...

Ok, if you _really_ want to stick with your MPEG1 low res capture, I still recommend using noise filtering and DivX4 2-pass.

bb

canadian_fbi
5th February 2002, 07:53
i really didn't think standard ntsc tv resolution went any higher than 320x240. my best episodes (the fastmotion codec would be very erratic as to great quality vs. so-so) came out looking not very far from a full-screened tv window.

NeVeRLiFt
8th February 2002, 17:25
I use the DivX 3.11a low-motion or KS VKI mpeg4 V3 codec's and capture straight to DivX and it looks better than a VCD and is small in size. If you want the best quality I say capture to Huffyuv and then convert/encode it to DivX using Nandub. You could also use the PicVideo mjpeg codec if you use a 18-19 setting.