DiVX Tutorial ///
how to ripp DVD and save them into AVI or Mpeg Part 2

AVI Specific:

Within this section, you'll want to click the Audio Lame button and change the bitrate to 128 kbps. 192 is unnecessary for an mp3 file, and just makes your video bigger. If you want to keep 192, your video quality will suffer VERY slightly. If you're encoding with XViD or DiVX. Both formats fully support LAME's mp3/AC3 encoding schemes. However what one MUST change is the codec to DiVX 5.0.5. You'll notice at the very top of the window I have set it to use AVI (DiVX, YUV,...), this allows you to have access to the third-party video codecs we're employing. So drop down, select DiVX 5.0.5 and notice you now have Pass 1 settings, and pass 2 settings.

Two pass DiVX/XViD files are the best. On the first rendering pass, the DiVX codec does not output anything. Rather it examines the file and continuously maintains a log of the theoretical bitrate it requires to adequately display the scene within the bitrate you will select. On the second pass of the file, it actually renders the final output according to the log and the selected bitrate. This produces the highest quality videos for any given resolution and bitrate. So to configure pass 1, click the button and see this screen:

This is the DiVX console for selecting bitrate. On the variable bitrate mode under FIRST PASS, select Multipass, 1st pass. Now, you question how to acquire the proper bitrate settings? Launch CladBRC now and see this window:

In the movie length section, set the length of the movie in minutes. In the second red box is how many megabytes you wish the output to be. In this case I selected 1400MB (You can make it any size you please) for the final calculated bitrate of 1331. Going back to the DiVX window, type your calculated bitrate within the box to the left of the "kbps" acronym and hit ok.

Now you'll click the Second Pass button on DVDx, and select Multipass, Nth pass and otherwise keep the same settings (In this case 1331kbps). You've now defined the most important part, the bitrate parameters. Going back to this window:

It's now time to define the resolution. To do this, select Zoom -> custom. Now hit apply and revert back to the main window for a moment (Never close this program). You'll see something like this:

Notice that I have taken the green box and moved it from the full 720x480 down to the 720x356 that The Matrix uses. I have pulled the green bar around the VIDEO ONLY (very important to get the most out of your bitrate). However, most times you will not drag properly and get a video height that's a multiple of 8, so here's where the DiVX4 bitrate calculator by Spark has a valuable tool, the ability to select proper, custom aspect ratios:

You noticed that you dragged the green crop box in DVDx to the height of 356, but that's not right. So using DivX4 bitrate calc v2.4.2 by Spark, you can move the little arrows at the top of the first box to lower the height of the film to the Nearest Correct Height. In this case, it's 352. Remember that number and close the program. Go back to DVDx, and go into the output settings:

For the resolution put 720 as the width, and your new multiple-8 width in the second box. For Max Frame, click the Whole button. For Volume don't exceed, disable this feature as you cannot split multipass DiVX files using this program. With these settings all defined, you're now ready to hit apply! Going back to the main window it's time to click on the yellow folder to select the encoding destination. Once that is done, hit the red dot and wait between 2-5 hours for the computers most of you use.

Here is The Matrix encoding the first few minutes with the lovely Trinity:

And when you're all done, you should have a high-quality DiVX rip of your DVD with image quality that rivals DVD, identical DVD resolution, and 6 channel sound! And all at 1/4-1/6th of the space a DVD requires. Should you wish to reduce the size of the video, you can reduce the resolution, reduce the sound quality, or reduce the bitrate. Of all of these methods, reducing the sound quality to 128kbps and reducing the resolution to another integer with the same aspect ratio (The Matrix is 2.04:1, so 720x352 could be reduced to 512x256) are the best options.

Best of luck rippers!

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Disclaimer:

This document does not promote, condone, or otherwise legitimize piracy. All Digital Video Discs (DVDs) used herein are legitimate retail copies with copyrights belonging to the respective authors and associated facilities of creation. The author of this document and the domain on which it is hosted shall incur no penalties from mishandling of this document in the extrapolation thereof for illegal purposes. We insist that this guideline is to be used with Digital Video Discs (DVDs) that are also legal, retail copies.