I need suggestions...nothing seems to be turning out right

[fyrwurxx]

I'm relatively new to the DVD-conversion scene...and I'm trying to get a really high-quality divxrip of LotR (see my previous thread). i've decided on the DivX5pro codec, because it's obvious that it's going to yield the best quality/filesize. I arbitrarily decided on DVD2AVI, seeing as it's a pretty straightforward, concise tool. GKnot, i found too complex and not really the best tool for what i need. All i need is the BEST possible video encoding for a 2 (or 3) CD DivX rip.

I encoded about 8 minutes of LotR under these settings/conditions:

DVD2AVI:

- Cropped Ogo (?) to 720x272 (16:9 1.85:1 anamorphic) w/ Precise Bicubic (?) filter
- Color Space > RGB (24bit)
- iDCT Algorithm 32bit MMX

DivX5.0Pro:

- 1-pass quality-based Variable Bitrate Mode
- Quantizer: 2 (100%)
- NO MPEG4 Tools
- Max Quant: 14
- Min Quant: 2
- RC averaging period, frames: 2000
- RC reaction period, frames: 15
- RC down/up reaction: 10
- Performance/quality: slowest

These settings yielded a 145Mb 8-minute file. The issues I have with this output are: rediculously high filesize for 8 minutes, and unsightly horizontal lines during high-motion scenes. the quality for low-motion scenes are very acceptable, though. My question to you is, what's causing these unsightly horizontal lines during high-motion scenes? how can i remove them? is there a way to give DivX5pro a target filesize and let it choose bitrates/ variable bitrate modes based on that? is there any other way of achieving the maximum quality while maintaining a reasonable filesize? thanks a lot guys...

[DJ Bobo]

When you hit F5, do you get FILM on the right? if yes, don't forget to enable "Forced Film" in the video tab ¬.¬

You kept 29,97fps with all the fake interlacing and then you're wondering why you're getting 145MB?! the higher fake framerate and especially the interlacing lines push the size dramatically to the top!

Keep color space on YUY2 ¬.¬

cropped (?!?!) to 720x272 directly on DVD2AVI, what remains from your video?!?! nothing!!
LOTR was never 1,85:1! it is 2,35:1 which means, crop first all black bars, then resize to something like 720x304 or 704x304 with bilinear resize as you'll be resizing in only vertically (you must be using some special version of DVD2AVI that also does resizing, aren't you?)

Read the damn guides carefully and be more patient and you'll reach the results you're looking for!! encoding in DVD2AVI was NEVER the way to go, DVD2AVI is only a step to take, nothing more!

[fyrwurxx]

I apologize for my n00bness. rest assured i am quite thouroughly embarrased:p I thank you for your information and advice...but i'm still not quite sure what to do. let's examine what you said, and i'll tell you what i got from it:

When you hit F5, do you get FILM on the right? if yes, don't forget to enable "Forced Film" in the video tab

I derive from this that i'm supposed to ENABLE Forced FILM.

You kept 29,97fps with all the fake interlacing and then you're wondering why you're getting 145MB?! the higher fake framerate and especially the interlacing lines push the size dramatically to the top!

Herein lies my problem, but no solution. Now i know what my unsightly horizontal lines are, but you've given me no solution. Please keep in mind, i am new at this stuff...

cropped (?!?!) to 720x272 directly on DVD2AVI, what remains from your video?!?! nothing!!

I used Crop Ogo (yes, i'm using a special version of DVD2AVI) and i removed the black bars, and returned the height to the proper 2.35:1 (i apologize, i made a mistake by saying 1.85:1) My video APPEARED fine after this, other than the high filesize and the lines.

LOTR was never 1,85:1! it is 2,35:1 which means, crop first all black bars, then resize to something like 720x304 or 704x304 with bilinear resize as you'll be resizing in only vertically (you must be using some special version of DVD2AVI that also does resizing, aren't you?)

Again, i'm sorry, i got mixed up with the aspect ratio. I also derive from this that i need to use bilinear resize. That's useful - thank you. yes, i'm using a special version of DVD2AVI.

In summary:

I need to somehow deinterlace my video. Also, my framerate is off. Though i appreciate you telling me what's wrong, there's no use in telling me what's wrong without telling me how to fix it. that was the point of my post - to recieve answers, not criticism. if you believe this post belongs in the "newbies" category, then that's fine...but i'd just like some clearer information. any help by anyone is appreciated.

[mr.e]

...encoded at 1476kbps/2pass, quant@2x2, audio at abr144kbps/44.1kH(razorlame) gave the whole vid to me with plenty room to spare for 3 CD's. total size around 2000mb w/credits@66%. my biggest problem was finding scene changes to segment at. all-in-all quite pleased, though.

[DJ Bobo]

@ fyrwurx
What do you think "Forced Film" is supposed to do??!! ¬.¬
That was THE answer!

@ Mister e
1) Did you know that 720x288 is already 2,50:1? this is far from 2,35:1! get it to 720x304 and then we will be friends ;)
2) did you know that you wasted a bunch of hours of your life making a needless second pass, as you already set both quantizers to 2, which is equivalent to 1-pass quality based 100%?
3) did you know that you can encode the credits at quality based 0% without any (visual) problem?

[jggimi]

GKnot, i found too complex... After what you've been through trying to make up your own process from scratch???!!!???!!! I don't believe it.

You'll find, that if you use both a standard methodology, and standard tools, you'll have better success. In addition, there will be numerous people who can help with questions you might have, rather than only one or two who might know about just a tiny part of what you're trying to accomplish.

For example, I can help with only one of your many questions. You wondered what "Force FILM" was all about, and where those horrible horizontal lines came from? They came from a process called Telecining. "Force FILM" is one of the many ways available to Inverse Telecine. For more detail, read the section labelled 35mm Film to NTSC Video Conversion in this link: www.doom9.org/synch.htm.

Please read through the DivX 5 guides that Doom9 created to help you, and make the attempt to try it once or twice. You'll discover that the standard methodologies will help you get started, more quickly and easily than your current "methodology" is doing for you. Once you have experience, and the knowledge that comes with it, you will be able to deviate from standard practices, because by then, you will know how to deviate, and why you are doing so.

[mr.e]

Originally posted by DJ Bobo


@ Mister e
1) Did you know that 720x288 is already 2,50:1? this is far from 2,35:1! get it to 720x304 and then we will be friends ;)
2) did you know that you wasted a bunch of hours of your life making a needless second pass, as you already set both quantizers to 2, which is equivalent to 1-pass quality based 100%?
3) did you know that you can encode the credits at quality based 0% without any (visual) problem? [/B]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1) did you know that GKnot gave me the green w/ 0:0 aspect error? and unless you feel that a 800x600 monitor resolution is "out of aspect", a circle is a circle.
here's some caps....

http://e2.tcrf.freewebspace.com/images/01.jpg
http://e2.tcrf.freewebspace.com/images/02.jpg
http://e2.tcrf.freewebspace.com/images/03.jpg
http://e2.tcrf.freewebspace.com/images/05.jpg
http://e2.tcrf.freewebspace.com/images/06.jpg
http://e2.tcrf.freewebspace.com/images/07.jpg
http://e2.tcrf.freewebspace.com/images/08.jpg
http://e2.tcrf.freewebspace.com/images/09.jpg
http://e2.tcrf.freewebspace.com/images/10.jpg


2) did you know that besides being my time to waste, i find that 2pass shaves about 3-5% off my file size, and that it is MUCH faster when making a second or third (2nd)pass to tweak the file sizes, edit, add/remove filters, etc., and that 1pass quality based encoding at 100% is not a very presice method to arrive at a desired file size?

3) did you know that encoding "the credits at quality based 0% without any (visual) problem"s is subject to: interpretation (YOUR opinion on what a "visual problem" is), wanted/needed file size for fill, and whether or not you wish to do justice to the film and it's creators by either a/ compressing the piss out of the credits just because you can, or b/ leaving a somewhat esthicically pleasing visual record to watch as the soundtrack continues to play in the background?
(something tells me that you chop the credits out of half your rips, and leave a movie theatre as soon as the credits start to roll.)

and finally...
4) i have no desire to be "friends" with a pretentious, opinionated hack such as yourself, thank you very much.

[Acaila]

@mr.e

1) did you know that GKnot gave me the green w/ 0:0 aspect error? and unless you feel that a 800x600 monitor resolution is "out of aspect", a circle is a circle.
here's some caps....He was right, 720x288 is not the correct resolution. Whether or not GKnot gives you 0% aspect error has nothing to do with it. The original movie is 2.35:1, not 2.5:1. However I doubt you'd be able to see the difference. To get to the correct AR you need to crop a little more from the sides to let GKnot get back to 304 height.

2) did you know that besides being my time to waste, i find that 2pass shaves about 3-5% off my file size, and that it is MUCH faster when making a second or third (2nd)pass to tweak the file sizes, edit, add/remove filters, etc., and that 1pass quality based encoding at 100% is not a very presice method to arrive at a desired file size?In your earlier post you mentioned that you performed a 2-pass encode with quantizers at 2. This implies that you don't care about the final size, but only want to achieve maximum quality. As DJ Bobo said that 2-pass @ quant 2 is exactly the same as 1-pass 100% quality mode (and thus a lot faster), and he's right. Now you suddenly say that you indeed care about the filesize, in which case using 2-pass @ quant 2 no longer makes sense.

3) did you know that encoding "the credits at quality based 0% without any (visual) problem"s is subject to: interpretation (YOUR opinion on what a "visual problem" is), wanted/needed file size for fill, and whether or not you wish to do justice to the film and it's creators by either a/ compressing the piss out of the credits just because you can, or b/ leaving a somewhat esthicically pleasing visual record to watch as the soundtrack continues to play in the background?
(something tells me that you chop the credits out of half your rips, and leave a movie theatre as soon as the credits start to roll.)To each their own.

4) i have no desire to be "friends" with a pretentious, opinionated hack such as yourself, thank you very much.We're only trying to help here, there's no need for that kind of language. DJ Bobo meant no harm.

[mr.e]

...if indeed "2-pass @ quant 2 is exactly the same as 1-pass 100% quality mode (and thus a lot faster)", then please to explain why different file sizes (and qualities) can be achieved when using different bitrates at quant2x2?

and

i could give you 720x304 with either fat men or stick figures running around, if cropped that way before resize. i chose 720x288 at a mult of 16. again, subjective...

DJ Bobo:
"Did you know that 720x288 is already 2,50:1? this is far from 2,35:1!"

Acaila:
"The original movie is 2.35:1, not 2.5:1. However I doubt you'd be able to see the difference."

and

while Bobo may mean no harm, i found his manner be both abrasive and self-rightous. particular to this is that i, myself, was "only trying to help".

BTW...what'da think of the caps?(yeah, i saw there was a repeater in there. sorry)

[DJ Bobo]

Mister e! heeeeeeee, you're in a bad mood today, aren't you? ¬.¬

I never said I drop the credits :p, I encode them at quality based 0% with bidirectional encoding and they still PERFECTLY readable! so what?!
You wanna encode them at 66%, fine! but if you wanna fill space, why don't you fill it with audio? what is better, better audio quality or better credits quality? keeping in mind that you'll never really watch the credits and the quality is already high enough with quality 0%.

Mister e! how much difference in file size do you get between 2-pass @q2x2 and 1-pass quality 100%, almost nothing! (this is due to "imperfections" in DivX, nothing more). About which so different sizes are you talking?! don't make me laugh!
I repeat, setting both quantizers to the same number means you can't predict the size anymore, the whole movie will be encoded with the same quantizer all along and a 100th pass won't change anything to that!! = bitrate is ignored = wanted size is ignored = no room for tweaking or what so ever! got that into your mind man!

Your caps look like they don't have the right aspect ratio btw :D :p

And Acaila, thanks for your support, really cool ;)

[manono]

Hi mr.e-

If I can chime in on the 720x288 issue. Of course you can have perfect AR at 2.50:1. Heck, you start hacking away at the tops and bottoms, GKnot can give you perfect 5:1 AR. But why would you want to? 2.35:1 is already narrow enough, that I wouldn't purposely make it any narrower. I suspect that you trimmed the black bars and then used Smart Crop All which cuts more from top and bottom to give it perfect AR. Either that or you didn't check the ITU box in the Options tab. I'd suggest using Smart Crop Left-Right after trimming the black bars to make it 720x304 as it chops from the left and right.

The thing about DJ Bobo is that, yes, he's opinionated and abrasive, but he's also usually right (unless it's the personal preference things like whether or not to give end credits higher quants). So if I were you, I'd swallow my pride and listen to him.

[fyrwurxx]

Wow...this has been informative, and in fact, it's been quite useful. I enabled Force FILM (which cut my filesize in half [or less] and got rid of the lines). This is great, and now i have a wonderful movie. BUT...i've encoded twice now. the first time, i overshot, with my final avi (w/o audio) at like...2,000MB...the second time, MUCH closer to my 1400 (2cd) mark with about 1200MB. However, my 2ch AC3 track is over 200 MB. All-in-all, i've overshot my 1400mb filesize by about 60MB. Any suggestions how i can trim my overal filesize to 1400, without reencoding? (if it ends up i have to, i will reencode)...i like the good quality AC3 sound, but i'm willing to sacrifice a little bit...because the video quality is exceptional :) suggestions and any help would be great...

[manono]

Hi-

A couple of suggestion. You can reencode the end credits at a higher Quant, or cut them out entirely, neither of which are likely to save the whole 60 MB. Or, my preferred suggestion-convert your AC3 to .mp3. If you're not willing to do either or some combination of them, then I see no way around reencoding. Are you using a bit rate calculator (like the one in GKnot) to figure file size? Why are you so far off?

[mr.e]

...first, to manono...
yes, i have 'ITU' enabled. no, i don't use "smart crop", period.
yes, Bobo is indeed "opinionated and abrasive", and, while he may "usually" be right, he appears to be too arrogant to even conceive that he may be wrong, or at least not totally right.
############
...second...
aside from "fyrwurxx", have any of you actually ripped this movie (LotR) ? if not, try first, talk second.
############
...third...
yes, 2.35:1 would be the correct resolution... if you were to see it at a theatre, or watch the DVD. we are not talking about either of these things here. we are talking of ripping a DVD to AVI. yes, certainly you can leave it at 720x304 for your 2.35:1 aspect(714x304 i found to be more accurate, but that's just me), however, this will leave a few pixels width of "bars" at the top and bottom(with the movie centered). you could, as both 'DJ Bobo' and 'manono' suggested, crop into the sides to alleviate this, but then you would be artificially re-creating your 2.35:1 aspect, wouldn't you?

now, being that you all seem to follow the "Guides" like some sort of bible, then you should be well aware of one of the first "rules of thumb" for ripping to AVI. which is...crop the bars. while 'black' may compress very well, and by themselves the 'bars' do not make up that much data, the main reason for cropping them off is that the compressor must work a little harder trying to re-create the "edge" between the 'bar' and the scene. especially so if the scene contains (for example) a landscape, as opposed to a room with flat mono-colored walls. and, in many sources, it may be necessary to crop a few pixel widths into the scene to clean up the periphial distortion that is often found in digital video (again, it takes a lot more to re-create[and add to] that "fish-eye" effect than a clean edge).

so, a little off the top, and a little off the bottom for me added up to 16 pixel widths of 'bar', total.
...hmmm...16 from 304...you do the math.

this leaves me a frame with a "perfect" 2.50:1 aspect, with no error.
that works for me :)

...fourth...
DJ Bobo...
ahh, Bobo, let's start with a few quotes from you, to which i will respond at each, shall we?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1)from 'DJ Bobo' to 'fyrwurxx':

"...resize to something like 720x304 or 704x304 with bilinear resize as you'll be resizing in only vertically"

response: see "...third..." above ^^^ (and why bilinear? makes no sense after the IVTC that i can see, but, oh well)

-----------------------------------------------------------------
2)from 'DJ Bobo to mr.e':

"...a needless second pass, as you already set both quantizers to 2, which is equivalent to 1-pass quality based 100%?"

response: says who? you? [see 4) below vvv]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
3)from 'DJ Bobo' to 'mr.e':

"...but if you wanna fill space, why don't you fill it with audio? what is better, better audio quality or better credits quality?"

response: i stated in my original reply to 'fyrwurxx'..."my biggest problem was finding scene changes to segment at." as opposed to simply hacking into the middle of a scene or dialog to fill a disc, i prefer to find a clean scene change that i may overlap and fade in/out of, video as well as audio, and maintain some continuity of the film.
between doing this and trying to keep each disk at roughly one hour each, i found that my "middle" of the rip contained much more video DATA than either the "beginning" or "end". so, in my desire to keep things consistent in quality, i compromised my 160kbps (targeted bit-rate) soundtrack (a lousy 2mb over including overburn, btw), to 144kbps. not my first choice, but it did allow me to meet my other criteria, which was, for this movie, an over-all same quality three disc rip with smooth transitions. my choice.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
4)from 'DJ Bobo' to 'mr.e':

"...how much difference in file size do you get between 2-pass @q2x2 and 1-pass quality 100%, almost nothing! (this is due to "imperfections" in DivX, nothing more). About which so different sizes are you talking?! don't make me laugh!
I repeat, setting both quantizers to the same number means you can't predict the size anymore, the whole movie will be encoded with the same quantizer all along and a 100th pass won't change anything to that!! = bitrate is ignored = wanted size is ignored = no room for tweaking or what so ever! got that into your mind man!"

response: you appear to be confused. while i understand that the enclosed screen caps are not "hard evidence", i assure you that I in NO way manipulated the files toward my argument. all were processed with quantizer levels on the 'advanced'tab in DivX5.02 set to maximum=2 and minimum=2. rate contol specs were also kept the same throughout, as were all other options except for bitrate and pass-type. i used the first 1438 frames from the second VOB file created by "SmartRipper" in "Movie" mode (the movie being, of course, "LotR"), then 'DVD2AVI'>'GKnot'>'AVSynth'>'VDub'(you know the drill). all use 'Sharp Bi-Cubic' re-size run from the .avs script. i will point out that 'VDub' wanted to over-ride my bitrate selections made at and below 400kbps 2pass mode on the second pass. only 401kbps and up were allowed during 2pass @ the 2nd pass(new to me!:)).there is a seperate divx.log for each 2pass encoding.
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
here are two caps that show files and sizes created. please find that the file names reflect the parimeters used to encode.

http://e2.tcrf.freewebspace.com/images/size_example01.jpg

http://e2.tcrf.freewebspace.com/images/size_example02.jpg

(i'll be more than happy to submit any "hard" data you wish. just tell me what you would consider conclusive.)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
also, please to notice that it is the 1pass(quant2x2) and the 1pass (quality base 100%:quant2x2) files that are identicle in size. the 2pass(quant2x2:10000kbps) is still sized slightly under all the 1pass files, and continues to drop as the bitrate is lowered, where as the 1pass(quant2x2) files remain consistent in size regardless of bit rate.

which leads me to.....

5) 'DJ"Booboo"' to 'fyrwurxx':
"Read the damn guides carefully...."

response: hahahaha....i'll never be finished if i start here! LOL!
-----------------------------------------------------------------

6)from 'DJ Booboo' to 'mr.e':

"Your caps look like they don't have the right aspect ratio btw"

reponse: yeah, okay, uh-huh, right, sure...like i need your opinion.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

7)from 'fyrwurxx' to the forum:

"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they're not."

response: how true.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

end "Quotes"

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

and finally...
###########
...fifth...

to Acaila,

i want you to know that i fully appreciate what being a moderator is, and stands for. and that there is a fine line between fairness and taking sides. you have been fair thus far. but, though you may consider DJ Bobo to be a friend and comrad, how you can let him expound that the sky is green, with no proof,and that we are fools if we think otherwise, is beyond me. i feel sorry for those that have saught advice here and have had DJ Bobo cram his mis-conceptions down their throats.in the future be assured i will ignore his bombastic comments.
he is lucky to have you as a friend. i cannot say the reverse is true.

i'm outta here.

'e'
!

[fyrwurxx]

Excellent! after much trial-and-error, i've gotten exactly what i want. just in case any of you want to make a good rip of LotR, then i'll list my settings below:

DVD2AVI:

- 720x304 (2.35:1)
- Forced FILM
- 32bit SSE MMX
- bilinear (MMX) resize filtering

DIVX5pro:

- 1-pass, quality-based
- Quantizer @ 3, and min/max at 2/18
- Keyframe @300
- Performance/quality: slowest

This encoding took about five hours, and sample jpegs of the output can be viewed here:

www.firefighter.d2g.com/images/lotr-sample.jpg
www.firefighter.d2g.com/images/lotr-sample1.jpg

The resulting AVI was about 1845mb, with a 2ch AC3 sound stream at 245mb. The end result was about 4mb oversize (2100mb, 3cds) but i can jsut reencode the credits at lower quality (or cut off like 10 seconds of it). HOWEVER...i still have one problem, and thats when i mux the audio w/ nandub, and i skip ahead to parts, the audio is offtrack. the audio is fine if i just let it play through, but if i jump ahead, it's off - by a LOT. I'm re-ripping my ac3 stream (using DVD decoder w/ stream processing and gonna try to remux...if that doesnt work, do any of you have any suggestions? if this is a n00b q, then i'll just post this there...but i'm so close, so any help would be GREATLY appreciated :):)

[mr.e]

...if your happy, i'm happy.
hold off on re-ripping your AC3 for right now, it's most likely fine.
try setting your interleaving to around 0.65 milliseconds (not frames).see if that helps (play around with it a little, but personally, i wouldn't go below 0.30ms).
AC3 i don't deal much with, but if you ever need to sync a stubborn VBR mp3, i know i can help.

[theReal]

fyrwurxx,

a hint for your next encoding: leave the "Data Rate Control (RC)" parameters at their defaults. There is hardly ever a reason to change those settings - and if you do, you should know exactly what you're doing, otherwise you will make the quality worse, not better.
That being said, I can now show you that you don't know yet what these parameters do :D

"- 1-pass, quality-based
- Quantizer @ 3, and min/max at 2/18"

--> quality based encoding uses a fixed quantizer. You set it to three and so the 2 min and 18 max are totally irrelevant.
By the way you would under no circumstances ever want the codec to use quant 18 for a good movie.
Again: leave these settings at their defaults - there are only two exceptions you could make: 1. set the max. quantizer to something lower than 12 (like 8 or 10) if you feel that high action scenes should be better quality. 2. Set the RC averaging period to half of your movie's frame-count to make the VBR mechanism work more effectively on a larger amount of frames.
However if you do so you cannot expect the filesize prediction in 2-pass mode to work precisely anymore.

In 1-pass quality based, these setting are irrelevant anyways because there is no Data Rate Control in quality based encoding.

On your screenshots I can see there is still a small black line at the top of the picture that you didn't crop off (about 2-4 lines thick). This eats a lot of bitrate and introduces mosquito noise in the next few lines below. Better crop off one line more than one line less, it makes the quality better and the filesize smaller!
I was surprised recently to see how much better a movie compresses without any leftover black lines. A compress test for Die Hard III showed me that with only ONE black line at the top, the movie would have been 150MB bigger in 100% quality mode than without that one black line.

[Acaila]

@fyrwurxx:

Your sync problem is most probably because you've exceeded the 2GB barrier. AVI's don't like to be bigger than 2 GB, it makes them do funny things :D
Seriously though, you should not mux the entire AVI with the AC3 file, but mux it in pieces of the size you want (3x700MB instead of 1x2100MB). To do this you can use Nandub's "Save Segmented AVI", set the cutoff to 702MB and let it mux. Now you will end up with three files approximately 700MB in size, however they will not be cut at keyframes. Check the length of each file and mux the original AVI file with AC3 again, but this time manually set the cutoff point so you can set it to cut at a keyframe.

For (usually successfull) AC3 interleaving settings please take a look at the AC3 FAQ (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18318).

@mr.e:

Let me start off by saying that DJ Bobo is not my friend. I backed him up because he was right, as I will support anyone who is right (at least I try, nobody is perfect).
I agree with you that his answers usually aren't very "tactful" or even, like manono (another very valued member) said, "abrasive", however he is very knowledgable and almost always correct. Although it is not a general rule to follow, people with high post counts usually know their business, and you'd be wise to follow their advise. Whatever the underlying attitude.

1-pass 100% quality = 1-pass contant quantizer 2 = 2-pass min/max quant@2:
Theoretically this is correct, because the lowest quantizer the codec can use is quant 2. Therefor 100% quality mode uses solely quants of 2. Restrict the min/max quant to 2 for 2-pass and the codec will use only that. It's always been like that (DivX4, DivX5, XviD), and probably always will be (unless the quant range is expanded to 1 someday).
Now what you have found (bitrate having an effect even though min/max was at 2) is most interesting, because it means that DivX5 does not abide by the quant range restrictions we set it to. In which case it can only be a bug.
I have no idea what to do with this knowledge, because like I said theoretically it's not supposed to happen.

Aspect Ratio (AR):
The original AR is the one you should always try to maintain. I know this sometimes means either cropping from the sides or leaving small bars on top and bottom.
This is because the original picture is not put on the DVD with perfect AR, but always needs to be resized during playback. The black bars are added to fill the gap and give a valid AR when resized during playback. As you might have noticed these black bars are hardly ever equal between movies, because the size of the movie part depends on the processing that is done prior to putting it on DVD (e.g. the type of camera it was shot with), and so the black bars are variable even for the same final movie AR (2.35:1 or 1.85:1). So if you only crop the black bars you will not necessarily end up with a movie AR that is equal to the original unless you either crop more or less to compensate (with more being the preference because of the edge problem you justly mentioned). That's just the way it is and we have to live with it.

Whether or not anyone is able to see the difference between 2.5:1 and 2.35:1 AR is quite another story. I believe hardly anyone would notice during playback unless they directly compared them. So if you feel that 2.5:1 is good enough I won't detest that, it's your own call. Even though isn't not the correct AR...

[Acaila]

theReal wrote:
In 1-pass quality based, these setting are irrelevant anyways because there is no
Data Rate Control in quality based encoding.Actually in 'the old days' (:)) the Rate Control settings only affected the 1-pass modes, the only thing that had effect in 2-pass mode was the Rate Control Averaging Period. This is because the 2-pass mode has a logfile to see back and ahead of the current frame while the 1-pass modes have nothing, so they need something to look behind in order to maintain average bitrate/quantizer.

Whether or not setting the other Rate Control settings in DivX5 has any effect, I honestly have to admit I'm not sure. I haven't seen any recent reports that prove they do have any effect.
Gej in his DivX5 guide only mentions the Rate Control Averaging Period. Although he does say not to touch the other Rate Control settings, he doesn't say if he means this for 1-pass or 2-pass mode and thus that doesn't prove for me whether or not changing it in 2-pass does any good or has any effect whatsoever.

If anyone has any evidence that changing Rate Control settings other than Rate Control Averaging Period does anything in 2-pass mode, please let me know :)

[theReal]

Actually in 'the old days' () the Rate Control settings only affected the 1-pass modes

You mean it also affected 1-pass quality based?

btw. the only time I ever change one of those settings is when I do a manual compress check with an avi file (then max quant has to be 2).

[Acaila]

Yes, AFAIK it affected all 1-pass variations.