Help with encoding ATI AIW files to divx

[chuckvb]

I have a ATI All-In-Wonder card that I use to record TV programs and movies. Now I want to compress them using DIVX so I can put more of them on a CD. What's the best file type to save the orginal AIW files to (you can go with AVI, MPG and MP2, plus some AIW types)? And what is the best program and procedure to get these shows in to Divx?

Thanks for the ideas. Most of the guides assume your starting with ripped DVDs so they confuse me a bit as to the best way.

Chuck

[TelemachusMH]

Well, if you have the space and a fast enough hard drive, I would suggest that you go with Huffyuv inside of an avi. It will take many gigs per hour, but it would be lossless and therefore the highest quality. After that you could either open it strait into VirtualDub, or you could use AviSynth then VirtualDub. I would suggest the second method because AviSynth has much better delinterlacing and IVTC tools. Although ... perhaps later today, or at least soon Doom9 will be posting a TV Capture guide, I'd make sure to give that a close read. :)

TelemachusMH

[naysayer]

huffyuv is great if youve got lots of space, and mjpeg at q19 or higher is good too. but my AIW radeon loses audio sync if i capture in an avi format. fortunetly is does pretty great mpeg2. and dvd2avi opens the mpeg2 files it creates just great.
if youre just using your pc like tivo and are going to watch a show and erase it, i've found that using the ATI MMC set at mpeg2 @ 3mbps, 480x480, & deinterlace is about vcr quality. but that low of a quality isnt worth archiving to xvid or divx.

if you plan on transcoding to xvid/divx later, capture mpeg2 as high as a bitrate and resolution as your pc can handle without starting to drop frames, for me thats about 640x480 @ 8mbps. ATI's deinterlace is awfully blurry too, so turn off deinterlacing during capture, and deinterlace when you transcode. you can get a pretty nice mpeg2 capture with a high bitrate and resolution.

once youve got the mpeg2 captured, you're pretty much following the dvd ripping guides, except skip the ripping parts and youve got a .mpeg instead of a .vob when using dvd2avi.

i know this is a dvd2avi forum, but if youre a newbie and want something simple and to the point, FlaskMpeg can load the mpeg2 and go straight to xvid & mp3 at almost realtime encoding with nothing else to install or figure out. i used flaskmpeg (or its clone Xmpeg) for a long time because you couldnt beat its speed.

lately though, i've beein doing this instead...
-use dvd2avi to make a .d2v index of the mpeg2 and demux the audio to .mp2
-use headac3he to transcode the .mp2 to either ogg or mp3 audio
-use avisynth 2.5 to open the .d2v, using yv12 resize and cleaning filters. i'd suggest decomb to deinterlace, convolution3d to clean up noise, and lanzcos to resize.
-use virtualdubmod to open avisynth avs file and encode video as xvid
-use virtualdubmod to mux video and audio to .ogm or .avi
the above seems like alot of work, but i've hacked together a few batch files to automate it a bit. avisynth 2.5 using yv12 into virtualdubmod can now encode as fast as flaskmpeg, and the wide variety of filters gives a much cleaner and crisper video, and its much more flexible once you get the hang of it.