reencoding for smaller file sizes

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zoranb

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I have a few divx videos i want to fit all in one DVD DL disk. I was thinking of maybe reencoding them so i can achieve smaller file sizes in order to fit. Is it possible, what app will i have to use?
 
It's definitely possible, but it will take a fair amount of time and you will lose a fair amount of video quality.

There are several programs you could use. ffmpegX is very powerful. The newest versions of Handbrake supposedly allow you to convert from any format rather than just from DVDs. I haven't tried that myself, but if it works as advertised it's probably the simplest way to go. Handbrake is a lot easier to use than ffmpegX.
 
I dont want any complicated apps, i just want to place the divx and tell the app to lower the bitrate or whatever needed to reduce file size. About the quality issue, i only want a few mb from each clip to be removed. Say if each clip is 400mb, 10mb will be enough, does that mean low quality encoding?
 
I have NVidia's (actually Elemental Technologies Inc.) Badaboom converter on my PC. It does the conversion quite fast (about 200~300 frames a second for Ipod classic from a MPEG2 recorded from digital tv). It uses NVidia's CUDA to calculate the conversion using GPU. I am not sure there are any similar programs for Mac, but I guess after OpenCL on OS X 10.6 there might be several.
 
zoranb said:
Say if each clip is 400mb, 10mb will be enough, does that mean low quality encoding?
Click to expand...

Any time you re-encode, you will lose quality. You could re-encode to a HIGHER bitrate, and you'd still lose quality. Such is the nature of lossy codecs like JPEG, MPEG, Divx, etc. Whether the loss in quality will be significant is ultimately a subjective matter. If the quality is good to start with, it's possible you won't even notice the difference.

If you want to trim off just a little bit of the size, perhaps you could actually cut out part of the video (like, say, the ending credits) using Explicit. This doesn't re-encode, so there's no loss in quality, and it's very fast.

If that won't do, then give Handbrake a shot and judge for yourself whether the quality is acceptable.
 
aslo... how about the overburn feature? can toast do it? i have the Sony/ΝEC/Optiarc 7173A dvd writter, cani do anything with that option?
 
Not sure about Toast. I've never heard of Toast supporting overburning, but I don't have the latest version, so maybe it does now.

I know Firestarter FX supports overburning, but for some reason the latest version crashes on startup for me. Hopefully you'll have better luck.
 
Wow handbreak is exceptional and yes it is very easy to use! Thanx for recommending it!
Can it be used to convert divx with subs to DVD5 format?
 
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