Although I've been lurking for quite some time here, this is my first post
And it's a question about mp3 and using it in DivX movies, do you think that there are specific settings/switches in lame that would give a lower bitrate and acceptable quality? So far --alt-preset 128 is the setting I use for 1CD rips but I was wondering if we can get similar sound quality at even lower bitrates.
Can the sound be further compressed, since it's mostly dialogs and environment sounds with the occasional bomb blast, or is the degradation noticeable?
In short, which switches would you suggest using, the equivalent of an --alt-preset divx .

The n00biest of the n00bies on this forum,
PlaStiK

"--alt-preset 128" is the best you can have for MP3. You don't have to worry about it. If you want lower bitrates, I suggest using Ogg Vorbis. I've been happily ripping into Ogg + Vorbis + XviD and never looked back.

Yes OGG-Vorbis has it's advantages. Along with the OGG files themselves.

Try VBR or ABR. Still, 1CD is too small for movie, I've encode DivX movies on 2 or more CD'S.

i use --alt-preset 128 for my 1 cd encoding
and 96 for encoding TV-series

by u ise 99mins cd which are 865mb

those add'et 165megsg really help alot

This depends on the movie, the encoder, and the parameters you are using. For example, I've just made an excellent quality rip of Rush Hour 2 (which is only around 80 minutes long) to 1 CD (700 MB) with 160kpbs audio and 640x272 XviD video.

In contrast, I've just tried to make a 1 CD rip of Amelie, and the results have not been that impressive, even at a smaller target resolution (in this case, I wanted to burn the subtitles into the video, so I wanted the resolution to be relatively high - but it really requires 2 CD to look good). And, of course, a movie like Magnolia which is over three hours long is never going to look great at a large resolution (although at a smaller resolution, such as VCD-size, it can look quite decent).

Have you ever encoded Magnolia? You should try it some times. If you use resolution of 5xx, it can even fit into one cd with no visible artifacts.

It is the most compressible movie ever I believe. Much much better than Crounching Tiger.

So far I have been using --alt-preset 105 or 110, and I live happily with it.

But I am going to try the OGG way now, probably.

I am aiming for .ogm files with Vorbis sound and DivX5Pro with B-frames, that should allow for nice quality in 1 cd rips...

And I just got a new spanking Athlon XP 1900 with GeForce4 MX440 with TV Out... plugged to a 28" TV... nicely placed in front of my couch... movie watching time! who needs DVD anyway?

Okay, bad example . You're right - at 512xwhatever it looks surprisingly okay. A better example might be 'Saving Private Ryan' - the underwater scenes are nasty (many people say that they can't even get 2CD rips of that movie at an acceptable quality - of course it depends on the resolution).

Give XviD a go before you give your life to DivX5Pro. It doesn't have B-frames yet, but they're not the magic bullet that some people have been portraying them as.

XviD is a GPLed MPEG-4 encoder, derived from the same base code as DivX 4/5 before it went commercial (and there's a long and bitter story lurking in the background there).

Qualitative comparisons such as that at Doom9.org - http://www.doom9.org/codec2.htm - show that XviD compares well with both DivX 5 and DivX ;-) 3.11 (in summary - XviD retains more detail than DivX 5, and is less blocky than DivX ;-) 3.11).

http://www.doom9.org/xvid.htm - Here's the XviD DVD ripping guide, including a link to the latest Windows version of the codec. Development is fast, and new versions are released at least once a week. Recent improvements include an excellent (if complicated) new 2-pass mode.

While you're at it, you might want to download ffdshow from http://cutka.szm.sk/xvid/xvid.html - this is a very fast Windows DirectShow filter (playback plugin) that understands DivX 3/4/5 and XviD. It's very useful when you decide to remove all of that DivX rubbish from your computer, but still want to play back DivX movies.

Thanks for the hints, I was already planning to take a look at it also. I am more than willing to try the totally open-source way...

It's just that I used to do Nandub with DivX 3.11, but got lazy with DivX 4 and forgetting to tweak all those switches...

But XVid was already on my checklist, that's for sure... I like the fact that I can have a CD with BSPlayer, the movie in .ogm, the Ogg filters, the Xvid codec... and everything is free software, giving me a quality that rivals some "professionally" mastered DVDs even!!! (there are some seriously crappy "experts" out there earning money doing really low quality work... )

Check out Everwicked's guides as well:
http://www.everwicked.com/modules.php?op=m...ides&file=index

The FFDSHOW has really impressed me. Worth a look for anyone who watches DivX movies. What I have tried, it seems to outperform Divx codec in every way.

It seems to work ok with BS Player and WMP 6.4 (I have occasional windows resize probs), but seems to crash ZoomPlayer.