917MB AVI :( What settings to make it smaller?

[Two Dog Band]

Can anyone tell me what settings I should use with XMPEG 4.2a so it will fit on a 700MB CD and still have the best quality. In the 2-Pass window what do I set everything to?

[dragoman]

Hi,

Could use a little more info here.

Basically all I can tell you is that a bitrate calculator with Xmpeg is your best friend. But this won't be perfect since a bitrate calculator can't predict the exact size of the audio file, the overhead from the muxing, etc....

If you are really concerned about reaching your desired filesize exactly with an encode, check out Gordianknot. It really is easy, and I get within a 150k of my desired filesize (702MB) every time...

dragoman

[Two Dog Band]

I've never got that gordon thing to work. Flask worked for me but always skipped every 10 seconds. Xmpeg works but file size is too big. I don't even know what to adjust to make the file size smaller.

[dragoman]

Hi,

One of the things you can do is try to encode the video and audio seperate. Once the audio is encoded you can see the exact size of the audio stream.

Then feed the video size (final size desired - audio size = size of video) into a bitrate calculator and see what you get.

I would take a few kb/sec (maybe 10) off this predicted size in order to compensate for the overhead when you mux the video and audio.

That would probably be the best way to make sure you get the same file size.

If you don't know how to do these things, (ie. encoding audio and video seperate, muxing video and audio, etc...) check out the guides on doom9. They should tell you anything you need to know.

dragoman

[vcespon]

Well, basically you only have to adjust the bitrate. It's not enough to select Divx 4.12 as the video codec, you must set the bitrate apropiate for your movie.

And that depends on the length of the movie. Rougly you can use this formula:

bitrate = 100000 / (length in minutes) - (audio bitrate)

Example: 1 hr 47 min movie:

bitrate = 100000 / 107 - 128 = 806

For movies over 2 hours you can lower the audio bitrate to 112 or 96 kbps.

Don't forguet to put the correct video bitrate on the first and second pass settings.