DivX5 Complete Encoding Guide

DivX5

+: completely legitimate solution, free for private use, under heavy development, offers the most advanced MPEG-4 features from all MPEG-4 codecs, compatible to all previous DivX versions
-: still very young and untested, Pro version comes with a spyware installer due to licensing fees (circumvention is in my guide;)

DivX5 guide

Since version 0.25 Gordian Knot natively supports DivX5 making DivX5 encoding a breeze while still offering many features like BeSweet support for superb audio encoding, Decomb for IVTC, but also regular GKnot features like multiple audio tracks, batch encoding, etc.

You will need the following software for this guide:

GordianKnot Rippack

GordianKnot Codec pack

What's the difference between DivX5 and DivX5 Pro? The latter has advanced the following features that the standard edition does not have: B frames, QPel motion compensation, Global Motion Compensation, integrated preprocessing, resizing and cropping and deinterlacing/IVTC. Basically, you should be mostly concerned about the first 3 features, which result in slower processing speed but also can improve quality. In order to finance the MPEG-4 licensing fees that DivXNetworks may have to pay they've included the GAIN program that will display some ads from time to time.

Step 0: First time setup

You will only have to perform this step once.

Install the GordianKnot Rippack, then install the GordianKnot Codec pack. When installing the codec pack, only select the codec you really want to include. As for the selection of DivX5.02 or DivX5.05 I leave that up to you. Version 5.03 introduced several new features like multipass encoding (where multi means larger than two) but also introduced a few bugs that should be squashed by now. The guide deals with DivX5.05 but setting up Gordian Knot for DivX5.02 is very similar, all the options are the same, they are just to be found in different places in the codec setup phase.

After installation start Nandub and VirtualDubMod manually one time and click OK to every warning that might appear after startup. You can find the link to both applications in your start menu under Programs - Gordian Knot - Apps.

Then start up Gordian Knot and click on the options tab. Then configure the DivX5 codec by clicking on the buttons for First Pass, Nth Pass and Credits.

Let's do the first pass first.

In the first screen there's not much you have to change. Obviously, setting a bitrate doesn't make any sense since the bitrate will be different for each movie (don't worry, GKnot will fill this in automatically for each movie). So all you should do is check Write MV file, which will speed up the 2nd and following passes.

Then go to the general parameters tab.

Psychovisual settings use a model of the human eye to save bits in areas where the eye wouldn't notice. Use light settings for high bitrate movies (2 CD and such) and normal for lower bitrate movies (1 CD).

Then go to the profiles tab. If you believe that you'll eventually get a hardware device that is specifically tailored for DivX rather than MPEG-4 in general, you can use one of the provided profiles to ensure that your file will be playable on a device that qualifies for a certain profile. The home theater profile is probably the most suitable for a DVD standalone player capable of playing DivX videos. But since existing and upcoming players don't require such a profile I'm not sure you should bother too much about them. Personally I don't use any profile, all I select is GMC and bidirectional encoding:

Then press OK to save those settings as default. Then press the Nth pass button and make sure the settings correspond to what you set for the first pass. For credits I suggest you use the defaults, which are 1 pass constant quality at quality 20. The higher the quality number the lower the quality for your credits by the way.

Now as previously mentioned, you'll make those settings once and they are then used for each encoding session. But of course you can always change the defaults, or use special parameters just for a specific movie. In that case you can manipulate the codec settings just before you start encoding (and they will only be applied to the movie you're about to encode).

To be continued....

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Norberto Restrepo