DVD to DIVX file size question

Hi all,

I'm usually Google savvy when looking for info but, despite hours of searching, I've had to swallow my pride and ask the experts directly.
I'm a little confused with backing up my DVD collection. I have bought DVDFab Plat 6.x.x.x. in order to back up my collection (and box away my DVDs) so I can watch them with this lovely device instead:


DVDFab is excellent and rips the films and shows very well with great quality and very quickly too. However, The file size seems somewhat excessively large. One 24 minute episode of Entourage weighs in at over 350 MB. In contrast, a 1 hour 40 minute movie (DVD rip to divx) I got (somewhere ) was only 696 MB and has absolutely PERFECT quality. The specs for the movie and episode are:

Movie length: 1 hour 40 minute
Frame rate: 23 FPS
Data Rate: 121kbps (!)
Frame Resolution: 640 x 336
File size: 696 MB

Entourage episode converted to DIVX from DVD:

TV Show length: About 24 mins
Aspect Ratio 16:9
Cropping disabled
Deinterlacing enabled
Converting to Divx (Xvid) with audiocopy (as opposed to MP3) from DVD
1 pass encoding
No split chapters
25 FPS
Fixed bitrate at 1440 kbps (default)
File size of 357 MB (default)
Frame resolution: 624 x 352
Bits/pixel: 0.264
Aspect Ratio: 1.78286

If I convert to Xvid with MP3 the file is slightly smaller but nowhere near the quality AND compression on the movie file. Is there another program anyone knows about which can convert to DIVX in better quality at lower file size?

Cheers
Noobsaibot21

Are you using dvdfab to compress your disks to divx?

I've used autogk (freeware) to convert dvd files to avi/divx.

Going to have to agree with RTM, try using AutoGK to convert to avi/divx.

It has the option to alter the output of the file size say from 1cd (700mb) to 2 cd's (1400mb) etc.

It's fairly simple to use as well. Give it a looks and see if that encompasses what your end goal is.

AutoGK. Got a copy of that but couldn't use it too well. However, I will give it another go. Could it have something to do with the fact it is a TV episode? Another program I tried (cant even remember what it was called, possibly fair use) also offered a set file size but, when encoded, each episode was 700MB.

I shall give GK a go anyway.

On a different note, Is this site Irish? If so, **** Nagra 3 NTHell.

this site is WWW world wide web bud!!!

let us know if what the guys posted works

we're all working from all angles here!

Noobsaibot21, can you verify you email address by clicking the activation link in the email sent to you by us please before continuing here.

Originally Posted by Noobsaibot21

AutoGK. Got a copy of that but couldn't use it too well. However, I will give it another go. Could it have something to do with the fact it is a TV episode? Another program I tried (cant even remember what it was called, possibly fair use) also offered a set file size but, when encoded, each episode was 700MB.

I shall give GK a go anyway.

On a different note, Is this site Irish? If so, **** Nagra 3 NTHell.

AutoGK is what I use for almost all of my conversions. FairUse Wizard Lite, works well but I am not fond of being limited to 700mb only. With AGK you can choose from preset sizes down to 175mb or set your own custom size. When you are encoding from dvd files to avi, length is not as important as the initial size of the files are. This is what should be used to determine what your size/quality settings will be.
As long as you have a proper VOB file to work with, it being a TV Episode should not make any difference.
And as for noticing a quality difference between DivX or Xvid, they are pretty well the same thing, just one is spelled backwards .