divx4 filter queue help

[bluesix]

I currently produce 1 minute training clips from dv tapes using virtualdub and divx4.

My filter queue looks something like the following

720x480 704x480 smart deinterlace (2.7 beta 2)
704x480 640x480 resize bicubic
640x480 640x480 hues/sat/intens sat 1.09
640x480 640x480 smart smoother HiQuality (1.1) diam 3, thru 26 amt 254


Audio: mpeg layer3 32kbits/ 16000hz

video: divx4.12 2 pass 1300 (rest set to defaults)

anything else i should try? for hi motion clips i need the bitrate set that high or else it looks blocky.

ideally i would like a file size ~ 8mb / min. I am now closer to 10mb.

Any suggestions. I don't wish to upgrade to 5.0x unless you guys feel it is very worthwhile.

[jeremymacmull]

hey there a couple of things

I dont understand why u are using such low quality sound (32kbit??) and then complaining about video quality surely ud benefit overall much more from upping the sound to at least 128 k with very little size diff

secondly DivX 5.02 with Bi directional encoding enabled is definately worthwile

there should be a great great deal of difference in quality compared to divx 4

as for filters why are u resizing it twice ie
720x480 704x480 smart deinterlace (2.7 beta 2)
704x480 640x480 resize bicubic

If you are just cropping ignore this other wise resize it once and have the deinterlace filter first for quality

check back with more info

and definately try divx 5

but if u dont try divx 3 with nandub i personally found it much better than divx 4

JEREMY

[bluesix]

I do only resize once and simply trim and crop to get the proper aspect ratio going from dv to windows avi.

I have been using the minimum bitrate for sound because it appears to affect video quality and raise the file size ~ 15%.

A few have suggested I upgrade to divx 5 and another few have said it won't make much difference. I am willing to try it again. The first time I tried it was with my older pc. A 500mhz athlon with a riva tnt2 card. It was horribly pixelated. Does divx 5 require a higher performance system as opposed to divx 4?

Divx 5 also has a lot of new options I am not familiar with. Can you recommend a setting for each option? I realize that would be asking a lot but it would be highly appreciated.

Thanks for your help.

Blue.