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lucylawless · May 5, 2001, 02:26 AM

Ok, the product in question is DivX Player 1.0b10 from http://mac.divx.st/

I have to use the function Movie --> Divx Doctor... on nearly every file to make them watchable

What do all the other menu items of this program do?

for a reminder, they are as follows:

Moose Synchro Split
One Ring
Ring Burst
ATI Ring
BlitBench

Thanks for the precious knowledge, folks

[ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: lucylawless ]

pjkim · May 5, 2001, 07:17 AM

I don't know about other people, but selecting anything other than predecode audio and DivX doctor makes the program and sometimes the computer crash (G4 500 MP under OS 9.1).

memento · May 5, 2001, 03:41 PM

From the faq at divx.mac.st

Moose Synchro split: The MSS was an early test function. It simply splits a Movie into separate Video and Audio tracks.

Ring bursts: These are test blitters we were working on. We're still working on them, and may one day finish them. The most interesting thing you can do with them is benchmark your DivX Performance.

I don't know about blitters.

lucylawless · May 7, 2001, 02:11 PM

not much help, but thanks, guys

anyone who knows what they're talking about want to take a stab?

I guess I really want to know if any of these options will make the video look cleaner. Every movie is choppy and it looks like it's in 256 colors. Compression is all well and good, but if the movie comes out barely watchable...

I know they look much better on windows (on a fast machine)...

oh, yeah, does anyone know if on Windows it's possible to save a DivX file to a more usable format, like uncompressed avi, or mpeg? I would be tinkering with QT pro to convert these to mpeg, but the video quality isn't worth the trouble. But since they look so much better on peecees.......

memento · May 8, 2001, 06:07 PM

Let's see...

I answered the Moose Synchro question. And if all the ring test can do is test the performance, the they are of no help to you in meking the video look better. so actually, you questions are answered, right?

As for converting them to MPEG, download VirtualDub for windows. It'll do it for you. It'll convert to any codec available windows (except M$ WMP). I use it and it works really well. Just wish there were a native mac version!

Archangel · May 10, 2001, 02:46 AM

I'm not here to help because I have no clue. . .I was just wondering if there were any other Mac DivX players available? Besides the one you guys are dealing with. Sorry for the intrusion. . .

------------------
I got a yellow slinky from Outpost.com

lucylawless · May 10, 2001, 03:01 AM

memento-
Yeah, my questions are answered, they just weren't the answers I was looking for....I'll try that program VirtualDub tomorrow when I get to a PC...thanks for the help

Archangel-
I got a couple of divx system codecs of questionable origin. I can send them to you if you email me -- lucylawless@mac.com
They've never provided very good playback, and I suspect they're just whatever is inside the DivX player, but they affect quicktime, and they don't offer any of the options that were the subject of my original questions. (they don't let you use the Divx Doctor, without which most movies are unwatchable)

graphixmaker · May 13, 2001, 12:33 PM

Those "codecs" you're talking about are hacked resources from wmp. From the experience of myself and others they will just cause problems with your system. I wouldn't recommend using them. If you would like to make the DivX movies more usable on your mac without having to resort to using pc programs there's just a few steps to follow.

1. Use the DivX Doctor function. (This gives you your reference movie.)
2. Keep DivX Player open.
3. Open reference movie in Quicktime Player.
4. Export to your desired format.

You might have tried to open it up in Quicktime before with no luck. the problem is that you have to have the DivX Player Open in the background when you start Quicktime and leave it open while you are playing with the file. Hope this helps.

Jim

[Edit: Fixed UBB code.]

[This message has been edited by graphixmaker (edited 05-13-2001).]

lucylawless · May 13, 2001, 05:27 PM

thanks for the help. I tried that method with quicktime 5, with a 100-minute divx file, leaving quicktime to export overnight. It crashed at about 4 am, leaving a mysterious 5 GB missing (a simple restart brought it back, I think). Anyway, do you know of a way to make quicktime happier about this, or to do it in OS X with quicktime 5?

Also, my reasoning for using a PC was that the picture quality in the divx player is just not good enough to make it all worth while, especially when the quality on a PC is so much better, from the same file. I'm not sure if the quality might be better after this quickitme export (?), but if it's not...
oh, and I'm still looking for a PC to try it on; none of the ones I have at work have hard drives bigger than 2 GB...

BigMark · May 14, 2001, 04:59 AM

where are you guys downloading divx files from? Haven't seen this codec before.

graphixmaker · May 14, 2001, 05:24 PM

Yeah, Quicktime doesnt like super huge files. Sometimes it's trial and error. A lot of people have found good results using different codecs. One of the most popular is On2 VP3, it is very customizable and can give very good picture quality with a smaller file size. It all depends on what you are trying to export it to. I use just DV NTSC because then I can take it in to final cut pro and just output it to tape.

But you better have a lot of storage if you are going to do it that way. I have 120 Gigs so I'm ok just keep in mind an hour of DV is approx. 13 Gigs.

A good resource is the DivX homepage's forums. Those guys are really knowledgeable and helpful with the codec and have pretty much done everything you can do with it.

BigMark: The codec and player we are talking about can be found here. And a new codec they are working on can be found here. You can learn everything there is to learn about it there. Sorry, but I can be a little long winded

Jim

[Edit:Fixed UBB code again. God I suck at that.]

[This message has been edited by graphixmaker (edited 05-14-2001).]