DVD to DivX settings

[pete_sadlier]

Hi,

I am new to using Auto Gordian Knot. I would like to know peoples view on converting one Decrypted DVD (around 4 gigs) to one DivX avi. What would be a reasonable/normal compression to use - either % wise or final file size. Would 1 gig as a final file size be too much compression? Your views please...

Rgds,
Pete

[chilled]

er...

well it depends on the movie, its runtime, the quality you want, if you want to fit it on CDs or DVDs, if you own a standalone dvd player divXvid cappable, etc etc.

if it is a <2h movie, id go for 1 cd rips and mp3 vbr 112 or so. auto res, adjust subs, credit compression and, of course, xvid.
if you want to keep 5.1 audio or two audio channels or movie is >2h go for 2cd rips.

if size doesnt matter go for quality percent, choose 75. ripping time will be shorter as its 1pass encoding.

[pete_sadlier]

The movie is only about 1hr 40mins. Would around 750-800mb be adequate as I would prefer for it to fit onto 1 CD.

Thanks in advance,
Pete

[jggimi]

Compressibility is content dependant, length alone is not an indicator of whether 1-CD, 2-CD, or other set sizes are appropriate. The settings for one movie may not apply to others. AutoGK will attempt to set the resolution (based on your width settings) after testing compressibility for you.

But file size is your choice, unless you select a single pass quality based encoding, where size is unpredictable.

In addition, perceived quality is also a significant factor, and its entirely subjective. So .... why not use the software, try several sizes with your content, and make your own decisions?

[pete_sadlier]

I'll give your suggestions a shot. Thanks both of you for your suggestions.

Rgds, Pete

[chilled]

jggimi gives better explanations than mine, but assuming you are total agk newbie, for a 100min movie I would absolutely go for 1 cd rips (700-702mb not 750-800!) with the autores option and low audio vbr bitrate, say 112 or even 96 (now that 1.87b encodes as 44.1khz...).
But obviously old movies or very noisy ones (i.e. not from hollywood studios) are often less "downsizeable" (sry for bad english again) than recent "clean" ones (which is not better or worst in terms of esthetics though).
As a general rule, almost every <1h45 movies give you good results in 1cd rips if you low the audio bitrate and compress the credits

[jggimi]

Aspect ratio ALSO is a key indicator of "fit" and it may depend upon whether the input is PAL or NTSC if resolution is minimally resized. This is not compression -- its output pixels per frame.

Compare three different "shapes" simply resized to square pixels: 4:3, 16:9, and 2.35:1.

4:3 and 16:9 start with the exact same number of content pixels, 2.35:1 has letterboxing that is stripped away.

In this example, I resize to square pixels using Modulo 16 resolutions, and try to stay as large as possible with respect to the original source.

D1 PAL source: 720x576. 414,720 pixels per frame.

4:3 = 720x528 = 380,160 ppf
16:9 = 720x400 = 288,000 ppf 32% reduction compared with 4:3
2.35:1 = 720x306 = 218,880 ppf 74% reduction compared with 4:3

D1 NTSC source: 720x480. 345,600 pixels per frame.

4:3 = 656x480 = 314,880 ppf
16:9 = 720x400 = 288,000 ppf 9% reduction compared with 4:3
2.35:1 = 720x306 = 218,880 ppf 44% reduction compared with 4:3