Compressability........and codec choice

[Scorpius]

Ok, I have 2 problems I wish u can help me with. :cool:

1. I just encoded movie Sixth Sense with method: dvd2avi, GKnot, virtualdub & Divx pro 5.01. I was aiming for 2cd version with AC3 5.1 sound as usual. When second pass was ready video filesize was only 749M when it should be about 1100M. Is this because of Divx pro 5.01 or because that movie compresses very good? Picture quality was very good but if there is extra 400M space that I can use to improve quality it think it should b used. Any ideas? Should I use divx4log?

2. My project is to encode and archive ~30 movies to 2cd ac3 5.1 versions. Few moths ago when I last encoded movies I used Divx 4. I got good results with it (bitrate I used was 800 - 2000). So I ask now (this legendary question :p ) Should I use new divx 5.01 pro codec or divx 4? I don't have time to learn Divx3 SBC method so it is not an option. Earlier I also used divx4log with divx4 but I didn't notice anything significant difference in quality. Should I use divx4log now? is there a guide how to use it effectively? :confused:
Bitrates what i'm about to use are 600 - 2000. (I think Saving Private Ryan will be most hard to squeeze it to 2cd's with 5.1...:scared: )

[philippas]

1. Because b-frames are set at double quantizer from the rest of the frames in divx5 don't use b-frames if you used them, and do a quality mode encoding at 100%(quantizer 2) you don't have to do a two-pass again. It appears that the movie compresses very well that's why is so undersized.
Also increase the resolution or use a sharper resize and the size will increase also, do a compressibility test and set the resolution accordingly.

2. For a codec i would suggest Xvid i like it more than nandub,divx4,divx5.1. Before Xvid i used use nandub for all my rips, divx5,divx4 is a bit blurry for me.

[Acaila]

The Sixth Sense is a very dark low motion movie, so naturally it compresses very well. There's absolutly no need to put it on 2 CD's, because 1 CD will give you very high quality. Because the audio is mostly dialogue using the original AC3 is overkill, just encode it to Ogg Vorbis instead, you won't hear the difference.
Besides, swapping CD's half-way through a movie can be really irritating. At least it is to me.

As for codec choice, in my opinion DivX5 is definately better than DivX4, but like philippas my preference also goes to XviD.