Have started to capture some old VHS tapes to burn onto DVD-R, but these create over 5G MPG files. What is best program to convert these to DIVX without quality loss to burn and play on my home DIVX player? ....and what are best settings to use for the conversion.
AGK is good. Load the video source, choose an output folder and select a 'Custom Size' (maybe 700MB for two hours running time). If the DivX codec is installed, go to the 'Advanced Settings' and select it there - (else it uses 'XviD'). 'Add Job' and 'Start' http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_rippers/autogk.cfm
If you can get your hands onto a copy of canopus procoder 3 it will transcode most formats to another format quite well. The reason that your files are quite large for even an hour is because captures are done at a constant bitrates (CBR). CBR is not the best distribution of bitrate since it assumes that slow scenes requires as much btrate as a fast moving scene. DiVx or Xvid are no longer the best choices to create and Mpeg 4 copy, H.264 encoding can provide superior quality with lower bitrates. Procoder has the ability to encode to H.264.
Am trying AGK right now, but also grabbed a copy of Procoder. I checked my DVD Player (Philips 5140) and spec's state MPEG-1/2 and DIVX....it doesn't show MPEG-4/H.264. Thx for the info on CBR/VBR...am going to check capture programs (currently using Nero) to see if I can set it for VBR and whether it will capture the full movie under 4.3G....then I can just burn. Great tips from both of you and thx again.
If the version of procoder that you have is 3 it has H.264 encoding, just look for settings, and another good choice when procoder doesn't work is Mainconcept reference which is also has H.264 encoding.
If you read the OP he wants Divx to play on a standalone. H.264 does indeed do some pretty phenominal crunching, but his standalone won't play it. I'd suggest VirtualDub with the MPEG2 plug in myself. Assuming the source is home made video, VDub can be used to filter and cut some of the 'flaws'.
