capture to divX?

Who was it that said they can capture directly to DivX? (I can't find the message and my newsserver has poor retention). I finally tried it with Virtual Dub and I'm dropping frames like Zap Brannigan drops cheasy lines.

AMD Athlon 700 Mhz Windows 98SE VirtualDub IBM HD supports Ultra DMA 66 (but I think its at 33 since I do not have the 80-pin ribbon) AMD Bus drivers for 756 chipset 1.32 -- automatically supports UDMA BIOS and Motherboard chipset support UDMA...

I downloaded the newest DivX;) codec and it has all kinds of crazy options. What are the options that people use for cartoons?

352x280, 24 bit color 29.97 FPS but what # of bits per second for encoding? (What is the rate used for the average 70 Mb Futurama DivX?)

FYI - I can capture to a lossless compression format without much trouble (but I don't have much HD space!), or to the Microsoft MPEG 4 Fast Compression format, but that has crappy quality (only up to 256 bits- or was it kbits?).

So if anyone's got any ideas on how I can tackle this, lemme know..

I read somewhere that cartoons only have 15 frames per second on average. Would it be ok to capture at 15 FPS instead of 29.97 FPS if that is true? Or do they mix in extra frames into Futurama with stuff in them that would otherwise be missed?

It was me, but instead of boring you with a half assed explanation here, go to www.vcdhelp.com and read up about it there.

Cheers - Neil

In short, I did 384*288, 24 bit colour, 25 fps with 64kbit stereo divxmp3 sound, all realtime compressed and no drops. I used 910kbits and keyframes every 10 sec for the divx 3.11a codec settings (default).

On Wed, 20 Jun 2001 15:18:51 -0700, "luther" wrote:

The old newsgroups search, Deja News, was purchased by Google and is up and running. You can search here: http://groups.google.com/googlegroups/deja_announcement.html

They have archives of non-binary groups going back a zillion or so years.

Wow, according to my metaphor conversion utility, that is almost as fast as Leela'a opinion of Zapp dropped when he through her in the brig (the first time).

First thing to do is replace that cable. When they first came out, they were charging over $20 for the 80 wire cables. Now I see them at Fry's Electronics for $6.99. Regardless of what speed you're running the drive, the better cable helps prevent data loss on the way to the drive. If some data does get lost, the whole system has to wait while it is re-sent. Also, it your BIOS recognizes the drive as UDMA-66 and it supports it, it is going to run at that speed.

Second, you don't mention how much memory you have. I would recommend a minimum of 256MB. That may sound excessive, but 256MB of PC100 or PC133 is in the $49.99 to $64.99 range. It's a good time to boost your memory.

Since your final file size will probably be <100MB, you could create a RAM disk and capture the file to it, then copy to the hard drive when you're done.

That should rule out your HDD as a bottle neck, but I would still look at replacing the cable.

You could capture just one segment (between commercials, about 10 mins) and then compress it. Then put the show back together after it's all compressed. If you still don't have enough drive space, You may want to look at a additional drive. I've seen 30-40GB for <$100. I just added a 40GB Western Digital for $89. It's only 5400rpm, but it's mostly for bulk storage.

You can also run some of the system monitors built into Win98. This will slow down our system and make the problem worse. However, it should also allow you to see where the bottle neck is. Once you know what is running too slow, you'll have a better idea what needs to be upgraded the most.

I hope some of this helps,

--Larry

Hi Larry-

"Larry F" wrote in message news:[email]...

Ok, I'll pick up a new cable ASAP. My BIOS options for UDMA are "Disabled" and "Auto" - Auto should autodetect the capabilities. The drive is an IBM model that supports UDMA 66 -- the motherboard also supports up to UDMA 66. (And so does Windows 98SE of course, and the driver I have installed...)

Sorry, forgot - I've got 256 MB.

Good idea!

Thanks for all the feedback... I'll see what I can do. I think it might have to do with using the newest DivX;) Codec, which has different options than what are listed in places like vcdhelp.com.

I'll let you know how it goes...

Luther

"luther" escribi� en el mensaje news:tIdY6.3767$[email]...

have

Exactly! The "newest" DivX ;-) Codec is a completetly new codec, that is known to be a lot slower than the original and its quality is not better at all. The "original" DivX ;-) Codec is a cracked version of Microsoft's MPEG4 Codec. MS "locked" that codec so that it couldn't be used in regular AVI files, but it was cracked, and the crackers called it DivX ;-) (as a "spoof" or something, of the DivX DVDs). So, in short, the original DivX ;-) Codec is a codec developed by Microsoft for its ASF format, that was cracked to be used in regular (and editable) AVI files.

The "new" DivX ;-) Codec is actually called "DivX MPEG 4" and it was developed by the guys of "Project Mayo" completely from scratch (I think), so it's not an update for the "original" DivX ;-) codec, just a new different codec.

The new Windows Media Video 8 Codec (WM8) is even better than the MPEG4 codec (used in both ASF and DivX ;-)). You get better quality and smaller files. The bad thing is that it can only be used in .WMV files.... but since they cracked their ASF codec before, maybe someone would crack this new codec so that it can be used in AVI files... that would be super cool :-)

Oh, one more thing, I heard that there are programs that encode DivX ;-) files faster than VirtualDub. I tried some of them but none of them worked well for me, so I still use VirtualDub. But maybe you should try some other programs. A good site to visit with lots of info and download is http://www.doom9.org/