Any ideas for divx conversion software?

Byron172Byron172 Adelaide, South Australia Member
edited February 2009 in Science & Tech
Does anyone know of a decent program that I can use to convert my movie files (mostly mpeg files) to Divx or avi? Basically I have heaps of movies on a 120Gb HDD and I want to compress them to save space without losing too much quality.

Any ideas?

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2009
    AutoGK.
  • Byron172Byron172 Adelaide, South Australia Member
    edited February 2009
    Thanks Thrax.......perfect solution.

    BTW - in your opinion what is the optimum amount of compression in order to get the best playback using the least amount of disk space?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2009
    I generally recommend about 850Kbps for 45 minutes of footage for a video that's roughly 700x380 in size. That'll crap out a video that's around 400MB. I can't remember if AutoGK has a bits/pixel calculator, but you want to stay near to .135 or .14 bits per pixel in quality. You can find a calculator for this all over the Googlenets.
  • Byron172Byron172 Adelaide, South Australia Member
    edited February 2009
    Cool thanks for your help.
  • RichDRichD Essex, UK
    edited February 2009
    http://www.videohelp.com/calc.htm
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2009
    A bitrate calculator is useful, but less useful than a bits/pixel calculator. If you have a massive video with a high bitrate, it can still look like crap because the bits/pixel density is low.
  • RichDRichD Essex, UK
    edited February 2009
    True but the reolution is related to what you are playing back on. If it is on a mobile phone or similar you want a smaller res than if you plan to play it through your 32" TV. Id look at what I plan to play back or to set the resolution then use a calculator to get the optimum bit rate. At the end of the day you can try the settings and tweak them to get the best results. Trial and error. Any compression, audio or video, is a coprimise and balancing act.
  • Byron172Byron172 Adelaide, South Australia Member
    edited February 2009
    OK - you guys obviously know your stuff, but I'm a layman when it comes to video compression. All I know is that I can compress video to a certain extent where it is going to be virtually unnoticeable to the naked eye and therefore just need a simple way to do this with the most disk space efficiency. I am under the impression (rightly or wrongly) that AVI file compression (DivX, Xvid etc.) is the most efficient (let me know if this is or is not the case) and now just want to see if anyone out there has found the ideal setting to save me mucking about with calculators and the like.
    If it helps - I want to playback through 28" TV and I use a 5.1 sound system. Not to seem lazy - I will also research the BPP calculators and bitrate calculators myself but doubt I will have the time and patience to master them.
    Thanks again for all your help.
  • Byron172Byron172 Adelaide, South Australia Member
    edited February 2009
    BTW - I should note that Thrax has quite helpfully already done this in the 4th post of this thread.....
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2009
    Do you have a player capable of playing MPEG4 files? Or are you going to use TV out of some sort?
  • Byron172Byron172 Adelaide, South Australia Member
    edited February 2009
    I'm playing from my PC to my TV using my video card output (s-video port).

    The other reason I was dabbling with DivX is that my DVD player is capable of playing DivX files giving me the option to burn onto disc and playing that way if I ever need to. But mainly viewing straight from the Hard Drive to my TV.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2009
    Set AutoGK to two CDs and let it do its thing. Your needs aren't advanced enough to require substantial fiddling.
  • Byron172Byron172 Adelaide, South Australia Member
    edited February 2009
    Yep - cool. Works a treat doing it that way. Thanks again for referring me to AuotoGK, great app.
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