easyencode is one of the easiest DVD to DivX encoding packets currently
available (all used software is freeware!). but unlike the new commercial
encoders, i did never make any compromises about the quality. about 2-3
years ago, converting DVD movies into DivX (in high quality) was nearly
impossible and you had to do everything by hand. because every single
process needs a few hours, this can be very annoying. why not let a simple
bat-file do all this for you? this is what easyencode is all about.
- download, unpack and setup
download the file easyencode.zip and extract everything (including
the empty folders!) to a nice place with MUCH free space (10 GB should
fit for most movies). please do not use any dots, spaces or other
special characters in the directory name! now launch setup.exe (the
red fish) and it will ask you about the IDCT to use. IDCT is that piece
of software which decodes your MPEG2 video. most of you will have newer
CPUs like AMD Athlon+ or Intel Pentium III+ and the 64bit FPU IDCT (nr.
3) is what you should choose. for older CPUs choose one of the others
(32bit is a little faster, 16bit a little better in quality).
- ripping the DVD
maybe you already know that the files on DVDs are encrypted for all
this region code bullshit. of course, any encryption can be broken and
today there are many legal DVD-rippers which can decrypt the
files and copy them onto your HD. the best ripper in my opinion is smartripper.
all you have to do is launch smartripper and do a "movie rip"
into the folder input of your easyencode directory (change the
target at the bottom of the smartripper-GUI). if you get some 1GB .vob
files in your input directory, it should be all right :-) if you don't
know which audiostream of the DVD carries which language, you can switch
to "Stream Processing". if there is something like 0x80
Audio English AC3... it means audiostream nr. 0 is english. 0x81
Audio German AC3... therefore means that audiostream nr. 1 is
german. it's not that difficult, is it? :-)
- generate the bat-file
now let's launch the main program: easyencode.exe (the green fish).
if it can't find any vob-files or the config file from setup.exe it
will notify you. but normally it will ask you about the following:
region code
i hope i don't need to explain that... (read on the DVD case!)
if you choose code1 there will be a new feature available: in the normal
case 23 fps should work fine. if you are experiencing audio-sync problems,
try it with 29 fps.
audiostream
just enter the audiostream you want to have. if you are unsure which
one to use, read step 2 again.
VBR mp3
VBR (variable bitrate) means better audio quality at a smaller size.
if you are a newbie or simply not that quality addicted you don't need
that.
with VBR:
minimum bitrate
enter the minimum bitrate for the mp3 audio. (eg. 112)
maximum bitrate
enter the maximum bitrate for the mp3 audio. (eg. 192)
quality level
the higher the quality level, the higher the bitrate (inside the limits
you chose) that will be used. (eg. 4)
without VBR:
bitrate
128 or 160 kbit/s are the most used values for audio encoding.
higher values will give you better quality (the difference is really
small) and lower values a much worse quality.
aspect ratio
a DVD can be encoded in two aspect ratios: 4:3 and 16:9. to get
widescreen (aka cinemascope, panavision etc.) they often add some black
bars. smartripper tells you if the video is coded in 4:3 or 16:9 but
it can't tell you if it is widescreen. but you can normally get this
info from the DVD case. now choose nr. 5 for widescreen, nr. 4 for 16:9
or nr. 1 for 4:3 (very rare).
that was it! all the other settings have been set by easyencode. you
can press 'y' to launch the encoding process right now or press 'n'
to close easyencode and start process.bat later.
- launch the encoding process
after you launched process.bat, mpeg2avi will let you choose the video-codec.
choose DivX and set the bitrate (and if needed the other settings).
a bigger bitrate will make a bigger file and better quality. to fit
the final avi file on a CD-R (or 2), you can use the DivX BitRate calculator
in the download section. press ok and go to sleep (or drink a LOT of
coffee). your final avi should be in the output dir. have fun!
big thanks again to Toa! i don't think i would have made this new version
without him :-)
do you think easyencode is useful? easyencode will stay freeware forever
but of course, i would be happy about some donations. i can use almost
everything, old hardware, serverspace, money (of course ;-) etc. if you
think you could help me with anything, feel free to contact
me! thanks :-)
... sorry for all the mistakes on this page, but i'm very tired at the
moment :-) just post them in my messageboard and i'll correct them...
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