'live' capturing with DivX5 issues

[roland]

I've been capturing live TV with programs like Iuvcr and FreeVCR for about a half a year, using DivX 4.12 codex and without any major issues..... (640*480, YuY2, 1 pass, on a AthlonXP1500 Raid system, WinXP)
:devil:
Well, reading all the propaganda about DivX 5, i thought i could gain even more quality using DivX 5.
What a blunder...cause divX5 showed some serious problems:
1) it would record (a pretty good quality) video using 1st pass, BUT it would do so at a very high Framerate (above 7000), resulting in a very large File (about 1GB/15 mins....) REGARDLESS what framerate i chose in the menu. With other words: The changing of the framerate doesn't work with DivX5....
2) using 2 pass (first recording it with 1st pass and then doing the 2nd pass with the propriate logfile in Virtualdub) results in a black screen, although the prog seems to record it correctly (it doesnt crash/abort recording....)

Well, i know that not many folks is recording video directly in DivX, but for those who do, i would recommend to STAY AWAY FROM DIVX for some time.....

[Acaila]

Do not say DivX5 is shit if you've just used it once and you didn't like what you see. Sure the codec has some issues, but nothing like what you've described here. Did you ever stop to think that maybe you did something wrong?

1) The maximum bitrate that DivX4.12 can handle is 6.000kb/s. I assume you have been using it on 1-pass quality mode? That is indeed the most sensible thing to do.
However DivX5 has a maximum bitrate of up to 10.000kb/s. So if you use the same quality % on DivX5 as you did on DivX4 you will get a much bigger file.
And what do you mean by "framerate"? I assume you mean bitrate?

2) You can't capture video with a 1st pass, because all that does is create a logfile and a dummy video. Running a 2nd pass on that output will of course result in a black screen because the codec has nothing to encode!

[roland]

sorry if i messed up some terms.....

i shall try to reformulate the problem:

the problem is, that on a 1-pass encoding, it produces a very huge file, REGARDLESS of which encoding bitrate i chose.... So i assume, that the selection on the encoding bitrate simply does not work, since it should affect the whole filesize.....
(With DivX 4.12 it was no problem, when you chose a lower bitrate (e.g. 680) you could record 1.5 hrs and get a file around 700MB. while now with DivX you get 700MB within 15 minutes)

[roland]

ok, i found another guy posting about the very same problem:

http://www.divx.com/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=28636&forum=6


seems to be a bug within DivX5

well when you read all the other bugs existing with DivX, then it is pretty obvious that the release of DivX5 was far too early - for a fiinal version at least....

[Acaila]

sorry if i messed up some terms.....

No problem, it just made understanding what you meant a little harder. But we're good now :)

the problem is, that on a 1-pass encoding, it produces a very huge file, REGARDLESS of which encoding bitrate i chose.... So i assume, that the selection on the encoding bitrate simply does not work, since it should affect the whole filesize.....
(With DivX 4.12 it was no problem, when you chose a lower bitrate (e.g. 680) you could record 1.5 hrs and get a file around 700MB. while now with DivX you get 700MB within 15 minutes)

OK, that is indeed very stange. I never do 1-pass bitrate mode myself but AFAIK no other setting should increase the filesize with the bitrate you set.
Have you ever considered capturing to lossless compression, then running a 2-pass on it? The captured video will become huge, so if you have a small HD it won't be feasable, but the quality will be much better in the end.

ok, i found another guy posting about the very same problem:
http://www.divx.com/forums/viewtopi...c=28636&forum=6

That guy found a smaller file than intented, while you got a much bigger one. It shouldn't be the same thing then, but I agree it could very well be a bug.

well when you read all the other bugs existing with DivX, then it is pretty obvious that the release of DivX5 was far too early - for a fiinal version at least....

Yes I agree the codec was released too prematurely. But it's all we got now, so we might just as well make the best of it. Or just don't use it until the first bugfixes are released....

[roland]

i know losless compression would do the job... but i hate to to do hours of hours of encoding and the fact, that even with 2 40GB Hd's your forced to this encoding job every time before you capture another movie.... (ok, i'm a bit lazy yes)

moreover - the quality with direct capturing (under DivX 4.12) was really O.k. (for me at least) - it worked even with 'slowest' setting (= best quality) and 1-pass and a bitrate between 650 and 800 without any dropped frames... well ok, in the beginning there were some Audio Sync problems, but they have been solved tweaking some settings in de VCR-Prog

[Sarreq Teryx]

Originally posted by Acaila
Do not say DivX5 is shit if you've just used it once and you didn't like what you see. Sure the codec has some issues, but nothing like what you've described here. Did you ever stop to think that maybe you did something wrong?

1) The maximum bitrate that DivX4.12 can handle is 6.000kb/s. I assume you have been using it on 1-pass quality mode? That is indeed the most sensible thing to do.
However DivX5 has a maximum bitrate of up to 10.000kb/s. So if you use the same quality % on DivX5 as you did on DivX4 you will get a much bigger file.
And what do you mean by "framerate"? I assume you mean bitrate?
all that would count except that the bitrate selector doesn't work. I turned it all the way up to 10000 and with a 5:30 file it came out as 61.2MB instead of around the ~490MB is should of.

[Sugadaddy]

the 1-pass bitrate works fine for me...

[Acaila]

all that would count except that the bitrate selector doesn't work. I turned it all the way up to 10000 and with a 5:30 file it came out as 61.2MB instead of around the ~490MB is should of.

Does a constant quantizer of 2 encoding of that clip produce a 61.2MB or a 490MB file?

[moonman]

if you want to capture with divx 5. choose 1 -pass quality based.
there you could set the quant to what you want. try quant 3 -5 for example. the the file dont get so big..

[Borland20]

i have the same problem! 52 sec. clip in 640x352 gives me in 1-pass 10000 kb/s and quality based 100% mode a 7.15 MB File :confused:

[theReal]

Divx5 capturing with VirtualDub only gave me errors and corrupted files in Win98 SE (I used the same settings that are working prefectly in Divx 4.12: 1-pass, quality based 100%, 640x480 resolution)
Fortunately, someone posted a guide how to install both codecs - now I capture with the reliable 4.12 but I'm still able to check out encoding with Divx 5.

[bb]

My first tests using DivX5 for a direct analogue TV capture were very successful.

OS: Win2000
Resolution: 352x288 PAL
Codec settings: bitrate 2000 kbps, slowest, q-pel off, gmc off, b-frames on, default settings for the rest

Filesize: ca. 15 MB/min (including 128 kbps MP3 audio, compressed in a second pass)

Source was an anime, quality was awesome (for a direct capture).

bb