DivX AVIs, .divx and DVD authoring

[DaMunk]

caveat: I am a Mac user...

I've downloaded torrents of a bunch of WC games that I would like to burn dvds that will play in a DivX certified dvd player, but they are all .avi files encoded using DivX. As I understand things, AVI is not a method of encoding AV, but rather a familiar vessel to carry audio and video. Strangely, DviX cert. DVD players will play the audio on these files, but no picture.

So I thought the solution would be to convert the .avi files to .divx using DivX Converter. It worked. The files are incredibly small and have a .divx extension. However, after checking the picture I noticed a drop in quality and it dawned on me that I compressed an already compressed file.

The next aha! moment came when I thought of simply changing the file extenson to .divx. I have not burned anything to disk trying this yet, so I don't know if it will play in the dvd player, though DivX player has no problems (not that this necessarily means anything). Is this a real fix or just a bit of trickery that may or may not fool dvd players? It sure is infinitely faster than re-encoding.

With regards to the authoring, my other solution was to cut and the sections of each game, then save as a Quicktime mov. My plan was then to import the .mov into iMovieHD where I could synch up Brit commentary with the ESPN/ABC HD picture. Then, I planned on dumping this new Quicktime mov, into iDVD, making chapters, setting up alt audio tracks, etc. Is all this even possible with iDVD? I've never used it. Is there other software that would be better suited for the job?

I'm counting on the help of BS members who are never shy to offer their opinions and the Mac community who are always eager to prove Macs can do everything PCs can do ... even better.

[srd....]

try asking here mate. (http://www.videohelp.com/)

[iougs]

kinda late on this one, but I have a dvd player that can play divx and also xvid compressed movies. Files that you can get from various sources can be played directly with the .avi extension. No need to do anything, just put them on a cd or dvd and you're good to go. I got mine in Europe but there is one Philips (I think it's model 642 but don't remember, was available at target though) that you can get in the US that plays divx stuff beautifully.

About editing, get yourself virtualdub (or nandub). If you are just doing some cutting, use 'direct stream processing' for both video/audio, select beginning and end, and save as. Then put them all together by appending to the first cut.
It's real easy and virtualdub is free of charge. The beauty of this is that you don't need to re-encode so it's very fast to do. Commercial video editors that can work with divx are pretty rare, they usuall decode and re-encode, so virtualdub is probably your best choice.

Now, for the audio, if you want to add your own soundtrack, all you need to do is get some audio software like cooledit pro, match the length of the audio to the video and merge video and audio with virtualdub.

Check http://www.doom9.org for all kinds of info.

[DaMunk]

Yeah, I tried the .avi burned onto a dvd, but it didn't work in my buddy's divx certified player. It may have been a firmware issue. A divx cert. dvd player is the way I want to go, but I want to see it work before I plunk down the dough...the proof is in the pudding.

As far as the authoring goes, I'm a Mac user so my options are limited. I appreciate the links. One source leads to another. THere's plenty of info out there, it just takes time to sort through it all.

[DaMunk]

First, DivX can handle multiple audio tracks. No need to convert to DVD for that feature.

So, I imported the 3 original AVI files into iMovie. Then I imported the audio for the second track, synched it up, filling in dead space to make the runtime EXACTLY the same as the joined AVIs (this is important later). Then, I exported the secondary audio track as a WAV file.

Supposedly, ffmpeg and DVision 3 will join AVI files, but it didn't work for me. Both joined the files, but would not play smoothly. Instead, I found the following instructions I found here
http://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=252806&highlight=terminal

1. Open Finder
2. Click On "Applications"
3. Open "Utilities"
4. Open "Terminal"
5. In the Box that appears type "cat " and then drag {AVI1}
6. then add {AVI2}
7. put in ">"
8. and then type the title that you want the new file to have.
it will look like this:

cat movie1.avi movie2.avi >> movie.avi

The resulting joined file plays smoothly.

Then I used ffmpegx ->tools ->mux to add the WAV file as the second audio track. That's as far as I have gotten...the machine is still processing. I'll check back when it's done to report how it all worked out.