is 'DivX 5.0' codec different from 'DivX 5.0 Pro' codec ??

[VanDine]

Hi there,

I followed the Gordian Knot guide here and successfully encoded some movies using the free DivX 5.0 codec (didn't want to use the Advertising Pro version) >> I encoded several 20 min long animated comics films like Simpsons... then, because they seemed to come out fairly big like 500 to 600 MB each (I thought if you can fit real 1.5h to 2h movie on one CDR, then 20 minutes of animated film might take some 100 or 200 MBs max but maybe I made too conservative settings in GK...), I decided to try out the DivX 5 Pro Gator version... I successfully encoded two more of those movies but they weren't coming out much smaller even using the Pro features of the codec as advised in the guide here... but my prob is not the size, its is that now I can't play those first movies I made with the free DivX 5 codec

I can hear the soundtrack but the picture is solid rectangle of green color of the size that movie should be... you just don't see any movie

does that mean that the FREE DivX5 codec (installer DivX502Bundle.exe) is different codec from the DivX5Pro codec (installler DivXPro5GAINBundle.exe)??

The only thing I can trace my difficulties to is the installation of the Pro 'Gator' version of the codec, I tested those movies as they were made of course and even burned them on CDRs and tested after burning too and they played OK.

I used Winamp3 to play them but now use only MicroDVD since I made subtitles and left them in SubRip srt format, both Winamp and MDVD show subtitles no problems but Winamp seems to have prob of making the movie longer by the inserted subtitle frames (I suppose) and so the sound plays faster and is soon far ahead of the movie whereas MDVD somehow manages to play all in synch.

VD

[Enchanter]

As far as I'm aware, the only difference between the free and pro version is simply the availability of MPEG-4 encoding tools (ie. GMC, QPel and Bi-directional Encoding).

As to you getting a green screen, it may be due to a number of factors. Incorrect resolution size is what I can think of (The resolution, horizontal and vertical, has to be a factor of 16).

[VanDine]

Originally posted by Enchanter
As far as I'm aware, the only difference between the free and pro version is simply the availability of MPEG-4 encoding tools (ie. GMC, QPel and Bi-directional Encoding).

As to you getting a green screen, it may be due to a number of factors. Incorrect resolution size is what I can think of (The resolution, horizontal and vertical, has to be a factor of 16).

thx for replying, don't know about resolution, those avis did play before and I haven't done anything to them after they were made in GK nor changed res of my monitor or something like that, even those avis already burned on CDRs are doing the same thing (just a solid pea green color rectangle 640x 464 I think with corect sound and subtitles playing on this funny background in MicroDVD, in Winamp, its solid black color instead), I followed the advices given here to some pple in these cases and loaded the avis into virutalDub and check file info but it reports all movies as DivXpro codec, even the ones that don't play now and that were made before I installed pro codec...

one thing that possibly may be culprit, when I originally installed GK, I didn't do custom install and allowed it to install DivX4 (laready had DivX5 on my machine, so it maybe replaced it??) when I followed the guide, it said I should have not installed DivX that comes with GK, so I deinstalled it separately and installed free DivX5 and after some trashing, I got GK to show on its pannel the DivX5 blue logo in that pic there... funny thing was, after I installed that Gator infested pro version, I still had only that blue logo and DivX5 written in GK on that 'bitrate' tab just like before, I expected to have that Golden colored logo of the pro version to show up there and also 'DivX Pro' next to that radio button where you choose btw Divx3 and Divx5 versions...
but it works now with the pro version, I did make two movies ok and checked 'use pro version' on 'options' tab in GK and also in last step where you are adding job to que...

basically, this is the thing that puts pple like me off any encoding/converting anything, as if it wasn't all confusing for beginers as it is
if it works, its like it barely works and breaks if you look the other way, the sound that was in synch yesterday is not today, those subtitles that worked in Winamp just fine now make the sound go out of synch... oh brother

seeing as the Pro version of the codec didn't reduce avi size much (and I naively thought, animated movies could be compressed much better than normal films showing photo like pictures) I am going to deinstall it and go back to free DivX5 and see if those older avis (7 movies each 20 min long) will be ok again, that way maybe I will only loose those 2 I made with the pro version

why would pple be willing to put up with addware or pay $30?? how much size it saves at about the same picture quality when we are talking about typical movie length like Tombraider??

I suppose, I should get some really small avi file to experiment on, it is frustrating to make some change in your encoding routine to see how it will work and then wait 2 to 3 hours (in my case of 20 min movies) to see the result of the tweak only to find out something went wrong and result is funny or useless...

VD

btw, here are two pics of file info from Nandub, the first one is the avi that was made with 'Divx5' and that stopped working under pro codec


and the following one works now, made with Divx pro installed

[VanDine]

I deinstalled the Gator infested PRO version and installed back the FREE DivX502bundle and BANG, all my movies now play, including those ones I made last with the Pro version installed!!

upon further search, I think my difficulties came about because I supposed ver 5 is enough... but the installer I used to install the Pro version was 'DivXPro5GAINBundle.exe' and I downloaded it from somewhere else than DivX site... there they have 'DivXPro502GAINBundle.exe'

often, the 'decimal' version numbers aren't shown and so I assumed they were the same... but I still have to test this theory


VD

[khp]

Hmmm very long posts, lots of issues that need to be addressed.

First of all, Divx5 and and Divx5 pro are the same except the Mpeg-4 features, which can only be encoded with the pro version. The standard version will also decode clips encoded with the pro features, I do this quite a lot.

I would suspect winamp3 and MicroDVD player to be the cause of your problems, IMHO it's the worst players there is, even worse than the Divx player (and that says quite a lot). Use Windows Media Player 6.4

Your filesize issues in GKnot, is probably caused by setting GKnot to aim for 1 CD. Enter a lower filesize and you should be able to get your desired file size.

why would pple be willing to put up with addware or pay $30?? how much size it saves at about the same picture quality when we are talking about typical movie length like Tombraider??

With the B-frames and GMC turned on you get near the same picture quality at about 20-25% less filesize.

seeing as the Pro version of the codec didn't reduce avi size much (and I naively thought, animated movies could be compressed much better than normal films showing photo like pictures) I am going to deinstall it and go back to free DivX5 and see if those older avis (7 movies each 20 min long) will be ok again, that way maybe I will only loose those 2 I made with the pro version

Anime can often be just as difficult to encode as normal video, the problem is that sharp edges are very hard to encode.

funny thing was, after I installed that Gator infested pro version, I still had only that blue logo and DivX5 written in GK on that 'bitrate' tab just like before

The blue Divx5 logo is hardcoded into GKnot 0.26 it doesn't change no matter which version of divx you have installed.

[VanDine]

while you were replying, I posted just before plus I edited that post a bit...

seems like I used older version of Pro codec but as I say, I have to test it
just checking file size of the two installers, the ver 5 has 2.86 MB whereas the 5.0.2 ver has 3.26 MB
so I believe now this is where my troubles started

and yes, I suspect I was maybe too conservative in setting files sizes in GK, that's because experimenting is so time consuming... what prog one uses to cut off a bit of your film to experiment with quality setting on the very movie you are about to encode (waiting for the whole movie to encode is too time consuming after every tweak)?? not sure it can be done, I doubt you can cut off a piece of the movie from vob files... when I used to experiment with Flask before givning it up, I sometimes aborted encoding but the piece of film already encoded could be played, not sure it that can be done with GK when it uses two pass encoding...
I used about 0.40 and 65% to 70% values in Bits/(Pixel*Frame) area of GK, if I reduce file size, some indicators become 'yellow' even red... unless I decrease resoution with that slider there but I thought I shouldn't use less than ~640 by 480 roughly if I want to get decent pic when you play movie in full screen view (normally my desktop is 1024x764)

VD

[VanDine]

Originally posted by khp

First of all, Divx5 and and Divx5 pro are the same except the Mpeg-4 features, which can only be encoded with the pro version. The standard version will also decode clips encoded with the pro features, I do this quite a lot.

I believe now, my prob was trying to decode clips with ver 5.0 of DivX (Pro) that were originally encoded with 5.0.2 version of DivX (Free), the versions are not backwards compatible it seems

Originally posted by khp
I would suspect winamp3 and MicroDVD player to be the cause of your problems, IMHO it's the worst players there is, even worse than the Divx player (and that says quite a lot). Use Windows Media Player 6.4

winamp3 just started with movies and I was amazed that it played my encoded movies at all, before I used the MicroDVD1.2 and found controls a bit quirky and response rather slow when moving forward in film or switching to full screen view... but when I started to use subbtitles (Subrip srt files) I found that winamp couldn't cope technically (the subtitles made movie longer in winamp and so the movie lagged behind sound) so I went back to MDVD which handled my subtitles ok with everything being in synch, I think now I will check out that old WMP6.4 as per your advice

just checked, I have WinMedPlayer ver 7.1, wonder if Microsoft still offers the old version and how easy it is to go back to older version?? hope the 7.1 ver can even be deinstalled.

thx for answering and clearing up some points, one learns all the time

VD

[UncasMS]

dont worry to deintall wmp7/8

go to your run command and type in MPLAYER2
this should start good ole wmp6.4

[VanDine]

Originally posted by UncasMS
dont worry to deintall wmp7/8

go to your run command and type in MPLAYER2
this should start good ole wmp6.4

wow, that's amazing
thx a bunch

VD

[Enchanter]

what prog one uses to cut off a bit of your film to experiment with quality setting on the very movie you are about to encode

You can use Virtual/nandub to do this.
1. Load up the AVS file created by GK into the encoder
2. Use the Mark In/Out buttons to specify the start and end of your encoding
3, Set the Video and Audio tabs to Full Processing Mode
4. Under video -> compression, configure the codec the way you desire it
5. Go to File -> Save as AVI and start the encoding

I thought I shouldn't use less than ~640 by 480 roughly if I want to get decent pic when you play movie in full screen view (normally my desktop is 1024x764)

That depends on the amount of bitrate that you are using. For a resolution of 640x480, even 1000kbps may not be enough to avoid macroblocks. If you are using a bitrate even lower than 1000, you SHOULD use a lower resolution. The reason? Using a lower resolution may result in slightly lower picture sharpness (when playing full-screen), but it is far less bleeding obvious than macroblocks, which are bound to appear in their full squarish glory in low-bitrate, high-resolution videos.

Oh by the way, are you aware that Winamp 2.x can play videos as well? All you need to do is install the vid-amp plug-in. HOwever, I have always preferred the classic WMP 6.4 and PowerDivX for video playback. Winamp, IMHO, is better for playing music.