DivX FAQThis page is dedicated to solving some general rip errors - but lots of information is incomplete and there are no 100% working solutions for many problems. Also.. these errors were reported by readers and collected from various newsgroups and I don't know if everything is true, since ripping usually works flawlessly for me. Maybe that is because I have a computer that uses state-of-the-art, major brand products, Windows2000, always the latest drivers and a clean configuration. It's always a good idea to reinstall your system from scratch after some time since Windows tends to collect a lot of garbage drivers, dlls, vxds and other nasty stuff that could possibly lead to problems. Also.. I'm not being paid by Microsoft or something but I highly suggest you use Windows2000, I've been using it for about 5 months now and I had only two crashes and all the rip tools work way better. Just make sure that you have drivers for all your hardware. Some companies really suck if W2k drivers are concerned.. You should also be aware that I've only tested programs that are described in my guides, and sometime even those instructions were reported to me and I'm sometimes unable to verify the results - how can I fix asynch AVI/mp3 when my files are already synch? Or how can I use the ac3 soundtrack on an external receiver when I neither have one, nor does Liveware2000 support my SPDIF output. If you used older versions of the programs than described in the guides, sometimes the results might be unexpected - for instance older releases had a problem with streams that don't have standard telecine flags or no deinterlacer - therefore I suggest you use the programs contained in the most recent rippacks - they have been extensively tested. I'd also like to thank Nicky Page from DivX-Digest for letting me copy parts of his FAQ. You should also read the Glossary if there's any doubt about a certain term. Questions regarding DVD2AVI, TMPG and other SVCD related tools are in the SVCD FAQ. Ripping related Can't open input file
'whatever' or 'too many secrets' in VobDec FlaskMpeg related AVI
Plugin not detected in FlaskMpeg Mpeg2Avi related When I run mpeg2avi
I get a black box and then nothing happens General conversion problems Where's the DivX & MP3
codec after I've installed WMP7? Playback related Quartz.dll error
when playing a movie
How can I select subtitles?You have to open the movie in DVD mode. For that you need the largest .ifo file off the DVD and you have to load that, not the VOB files. For more info please refer to the FlaskMpeg guides which have pictures of the operation. Why are some subs missing?Flask's IFO parser is buggy because it was reverse engineered and it's not based on the official DVD specs (which cost $50'000 just for your info so Flasky can't exactly afford to buy them). You can try the Sub remapper (command line: "slipstream vob1.vob vob2.vob etc", simply list all VOBs after slipstream) or you can use dvd2mpg which will always have all subs. Why are the subs not in the language I selected?Not all subs are contained in the first couple of sub channels but FlaskMpeg assumes they're there. If you have for instance selected the subtitle stream2 (whatever language it may be) Flask will assume that this language is contained in stream 0x21 since it's the second stream. That is not always the case. You can try the Sub remapper (command line: "slipstream vob1.vob vob2.vob etc", simply list all VOBs after slipstream) or you can use dvd2mpg which will always have all subs. Why are there no subs?Not all subs are contained in the first couple of sub channels but FlaskMpeg assumes they're there. If you have for instance selected the subtitle stream2 (whatever language it may be) Flask will assume that this language is contained in stream 0x21 since it's the second stream. That is not always the case. You can try the Sub remapper (command line: "slipstream vob1.vob vob2.vob etc", simply list all VOBs after slipstream) or you can use dvd2mpg which will always have all subs.
Can't open input file 'whatever' or 'too many secrets' in VobDecI'd really like to get the latter error message some time - reminds me of Sneakers, a really great flick. These messages basically mean that you have not read my instructions and/or the readme for VobDec carefully. There you could've read that you have to authenticate your DVD drive first - just insert a disk and start up the player, that's all. You have to repeat this procedure as soon as you've opened your DVD drive again - doesn't matter whether you insert the same movie again or not or as soon as you reboot. Lost Synch [@ LBA X], was expecting...You'll get this error either when you're ripping from the DVD directly and forgot to authenticate the drive or if you've corrupt VOB files. In the latter case you'll have to rerip the VOBs, preferably using Vstrip directly. The ripped VOB files have green blocks all over itDelete DeCSS and DODSrip immediately and use VobDec. That program has been around for more several month now and I can't possibly understand why there's still people that haven't even heard of VobDec. Why does ripping a DVD takes so long on my machine?Make sure that you've turned on DMA on your DVD drive. This settings can be found in Control Panel - System - Device Manager - CD/DVD Drives. Then right click on the DVD drive and select properties and you'll find it. In Windows2000 it's in Control Panel - System - Hardware - Device Manager - IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller - Primary / Secondary IDE-Channel. Why doesn't VobDec work?It's a command line based tool, you can't just double click on it. Check this detailed description of VobDec and it's options. Can I rip a DVD with a CD-ROM drive?No! CD-ROMs have another physical structure than DVDs which makes it unreadable to standard CD lasers. After flasking my file can't be read (size < 2GB)Did you choose DivX audio maybe? That's a no go (and if you had read my guides before you'd knew that). Then there's the possibility that the Flask splitting screws you so don't use it. Furthermore you should of course have the DivX codecs installed. AVI Plugin not detected in FlaskMpegGet an updated copy of mfc42.dll. There's a copy included in the Iomega tools, or you can search a site to download from using FTPSearch. Place the downloaded file into your windows/system directory - usually it's c:\windows\system for Windows 98 or c:\winnt\system32 for Windows 2000. AVI Plugin Error: AVIFileOpen doesn't worked. VFW-Errorcode..We now have a much more elegant way to solve the problem. Only do the things described above if this doesn't work. First of all download AviFile.reg, unzip it, then double click on the .reg file and add it to your registry. Then reboot. Start Regedit - start, run, Regedit - search for FlaskMpeg. Delete all the keys that contain the word FlaskMpeg - you can leave the links to the FlaskMpeg homepage, they're not important here. Then reboot and try again. If it doesn't work, get rid of all the FlaskMpeg keys in Regedit again, uninstall the codec, reboot, reinstall the codec, reboot again and try again. If still no luck there's no way around reinstalling Windows - don't just overwrite, format the partition and reinstall from scratch. Shortcut to Flaskmpeg.exe won't workIf you create a shortcut to flaskmpeg.exe there are some problems with the plugin selection. You have to right click on the shortcut, then select properties, and then set the working folder to the folder where flaskmpeg.exe is located. Quartz.dll error when playing a movieGet un updated copy of quartz.dll - use FTPSearch to find one. Then replace the quartz.dll in the windows - system directory with the copy you downloaded. Another problem seems to be the mp3 codec. If you make more than one movie without closing FlaskMpeg in between all the other files may have that error - this means among others that you can't use FlaskMpeg's splitting option I'm afraid. Horizontal lines when playing backI had this error, too. Strangely the files were fine on another pc which leads me to believe that the issue is driver related. You could try to get new drivers for your video card, and to reinstall the DivX codec. Flask detects no soundtrack or only one.Go to global project options, click on the General tab and set search size to a larger value. If there's still no soundtrack available then maybe you have a VOB that contains PCM soundtrack and Flask doesn't support that at the moment. You need to extract the audio with another program in that case. Soundtrack is not loud enoughIf using ac3dec, try using the -gain option, set it to 250 and it will be loud enough. In flask it's more complicated. You can use version 0.563 which is a lot louder than 0.593 and if this is still not enough, you have to either just copy the ac3 track - Direct Stream Copy in Flask global project options instead of Audio Decoding - then use ac3dec or another software to extract the audio and increase the volume - gain option in ac3dec, graphedit should give you an ok volume since it's uses a DVD player's audio filter. If that is still not enough, you have to load the wav track - load the AVI and chose save as wav in VirtualDub if you've already multiplexed - in a wav editor, use the normalize function, then remultiplex again, or you can use the free normalizer software from this site. Or you could simply turn up the volume, that's a lot easier, don't you think? Playback is choppyRead this small how-to.. If you used FlaskMpeg on an NTSC source make sure you watch the status window for a couple of 1000 frames, if it constantly changes between progressive and interlaced you have to set Timebase to 29.97fps and enable the deinterlacer, or to use IVTC, just follow the links in the corresponding guide. DivX can be a really CPU eater. A D1 resolution movie may work smooth on a P2-300 and play jerky on a P3-600.. for reasons that are beyond me and probably also beyond the codec's creators.. since when does Microsoft really know their products? In any case you can try to change the CPU settings by right clicking on the movie window during playback, then select properties - advanced - then select the DivX codec and then select advanced and move the CPU slider to the left. Full-screen playback will even use more horsepower so you might consider playing in windowed mode only. In case of a high-motion movie you may consider lowering the crispness settings. This problems have nothing to do with the ripping program or the converter used. Otherwise I must have had experienced such a thing at least once in my ripping career.. and believe me, I have ripped quite a lot of movies. No AC3 output on your SB LiveFollow the procedure mentioned at the bottom of the ac3 guide. No 4 speaker output for AVI/AC3Most commercial sound decoders won't allow you to use 4 speaker output due to licensing issues with Dolby Laboratories. There are some directsound filters that should work, but I don't know which. How do I make XX in MDVD Player?Read the mdvdp guide very carefully, study the example and if you still have trouble read the excellent documentation and look at the examples provided with the player. If you still have questions then you should go to the official homepage, and post a message to the forum. It's highly likely that if you have a question it can be either answered by carefully reading the documentation or then it's an issue that I can't help you with either, so you better ask the experts right away. Interlaced images after encoding with FlaskMpeg0.59XClearly you didn't read my guide carefully enough. Otherwise you'd have found out that the movie was telecined incorrectly and changed the fps and enabled the deinterlacer. There's 2 ways to fix your problem now. The first one is loading the movie in VirtualDub and run it thru the deinterlacer (use the smart Deinterlacer which is better), the other is reencoding and making sure that this time you set Timebase to 29.97fps and enable the deinterlacer. What is rff/tff?RFF means repeat first frame, it's a technique used to make the necessary 29.97 frames per second out of a 24 frames per second source - the movie like it was recorded. Movies that are encoding using the rff flag - the flag tells the player to repeat one field. Tff means top field first and is also used to perform a telecine to make a 24fps movie into 29.97fps. You can read more about film to video transfer in Robshot's article on synch. My video is still interlaced no matter what program I useSome movies are encoded in a really fucked up - excuse my French - way and they will look interlaced even when you play them on your computer. In that case encode with maximum bitrate and run the video thru the smart deinterlacer in VirtualDub. Why can't I select the MP3 codec in FlaskMpeg?This problem usually arises when you've already encoded something and then try to encode again without closing FlaskMpeg in the meantime. Logging off and on again should fix the problem, if not try to reboot. If the codec is still not available then you have to reinstall it again. Run the Register_DivX.exe file in the folder where you installed the DivX codec in. My just created AVI won't play in Media PlayerUse DivX fix on it, after the process it should work just fine. It could also be that the movie is larger than the filesize limit of your operating system (that's 2GB in Win9x/ME). You can try to open the file in VirtualDub and split but if that doesn't work you're basically screwed. Maybe (and that's a wild guess here which I can't verify) you could split the AVI at an arbitrary position using a general file splitter and then run DivXFix on the parts. Can I play DivX/AVI files on my Hollywood Plus / DXR3?Nope. There's no hardware acceleration for MPEG-4/DivX files at all (besides having a good GFX card and CPU). If you want to play the movie on your TV the only way is to get a graphic card that has a TV output. How can I fix freeze-frames? audio goes on while video is stuckYou have to reencode the part in question then join it together with the main movie again (for that you have to cut the movie into pieces). Read my guide on joining avis on how to join without synch problems. My conversion program crashed on movie XYFirst of all (BEFORE contacting me) you have to test whether the files you've ripped to your harddisk are playable in a software DVD player. If yes, reboot, check if all drivers and codecs are correctly installed, or try another conversion program. If not use another rip program, preferably run vobdec in a command prompt, then test if the files are okay. If not the disc may be scratched, some files may be too large (then you have to manually specify start and end lba... not sure how to do that since I never had such a disk), your DVD drive somehow screws up, bad windows/software/drivers installation (->format and reinstall), etc. Keep in mind: There's no such think as a new encryption format... that can't be done since there's more than 10 million players out and you can't update them all. Where's the DivX & MP3 codec after I've installed WMP7?First of all... why WMP7 (Windows Media Player v7)? There's nothing really great about it so you'd better stick with the old release in this case. WMP and the latest Windows Media Encoder will overwrite the mp3 codec with it's own version that hasn't been licensed for use in encoding software and therefore can only be used for mp3 playback, not encoding. Run the Register_DivX.exe file in the directory where you've installed the DivX codec. The same applies for disappearing DivX codecs. If you want to install the WMP7 then I strongly suggest that you install the DivX codec before it, then reinstall it after installing the WMP7. That way I was still able to use these codecs while having WMP7 on my system. What's the difference between DivX and MS Windows Video v3?There's none. The DivX codec bases on the official Microsoft versions. The only things that were changed are the removal of the AVI encoding limit (the official codec will only allow you to encode to the proprietary ASF format) and the name change (the fourff code was changed if you want to know it more precisely) in order to allow the official codecs to co-exist with the hacked ones. There's also a hacked MS V3 codec that has the same name but allows for AVI encoding. If you don't believe that there's no difference ask Gej himself.. How do I play navi, or angelpotion files?Every format out there, including DivX, navi, angelpotion, smr, etc are based on MS Windows Video v3! Period! Whoever told you otherwise is a liar. The only changed are again the removal of the AVI encoding limit, the namechange and usually these codecs have a nicer settings window. You can get the Angelpotion codec package which allows you to play back almost any MPEG-4 format (select custom install so you can install additional codecs). Mpeg2avi/ac3dec/vstrip GUI doesn't workMost likely you have your dos based programs which it's supposed to run in a directory that has a non dos-compliant name (or in other words not respecting the 8.3 filename limit). mpeg2avi, ac3dec and vstrip are dos tools and therefore cannot always handle large filenames. Try to put these programs in a folder that has a short name (like c:\rip for instance). The DivX codec does not show up after installingSometime the problem can be fixed by using the up and down keys on your keyboard in the codec selection window. Another reason can be that FlaskMpeg only picks the first video codec line in your system.ini file. So start sysedit (run - sysedit) and edit the system.ini file which is usually located at c:\windows\system.ini, then locate the [driver32] section. Move the DivX codecs on top of the list: [drivers32] vidc.DIV3 is the DivX Low motion and vidc.DIV4 is the DivX high motion codec. Reverse the order if you want DivX high motion. After flaking my file is larger than 2.0GB and no app can read itDespite my warnings you could use a compressed audio track, then load the file in VirtualDub, set audio and video to Direct Stream Copy and set Interleaving to 500ms and save the AVI again to fix asynch. Another method would be to use DVD2AVI and VirtualDub. And yet another option is to install Windows 2000 which doesn't have these stupid filesize limits. What is the best Bitrate for a movie?Are you looking for an easy way to piss me off big time? I can't stand questions of this kind. Every human being has another visual perception. I have really good eyes and can spot the smallest compression error. Therefore I aim for a really high bitrate, at least 2.8MBit/s. If you are aiming for 1 CD then you should consider lowering to the resolution to between 400 and 500 horizontally and take a corresponding vertical size... according to the bitrate & resolution guide of course. For a visual comparison of various bitrates read the WM7 test. Why do my rips look worse than movies downloaded from the internet?How would I know.. I don't do piracy. And the ones I've seen looked terrible to my eyes. The database at divxnews tells you the settings used for every movie releases.. usually it's DivX high motion so the action scenes will look less blocky than with DivX lowmotion at low bitrates. To duplicate the results of downloadable movies simply search the divxnews database and read the nfo that was released with the rips. The DivX release rules state that you have to indicate which settings have been used. Jumping forward/backwards takes an awful lot of timeThis behavior is dependent if your keyframe settings. The media players "calculate forward" from the last keyframe to the position you want to go. So if you have a movie that has a keyframe every minute and let's assume a keyframe at 5:00 and you want to jump to 5:59 there's a lot of calculations to be done. The more keyframes the faster searching will go. To insert more keyframes load the AVI in VirtualDub, check pop up extended options, then in the next window select rederive keyframe flags. Then select Video - Range, take the number of frames and divide it by 8. Then set audio and video to direct stream copy and save the AVI again. How do I play an aborted DivX download or aborted Flask session file?Run DivXFix on the file.. this will fix it. However if you plan to add to this file - for instance you have downloaded the first part and want to watch it but there's more parts to come - keep the original file.. you'll have to merge the additional parts with the original un-divxfixed file. Audio and video are not synchWhat did you think my manual synching guide is good for? Sometimes it's due to the structure of the DVD, and sometime due to the codec selected, or to solar eruptions or whatever. Using FlaskMpeg and PCM sound I have made more than 40 completely synch conversions. FlaskMpeg has NEVER failed me before.. so maybe you consider using it next time. Where has the MP3 codec gone?When flaking, don't try to make more than one file without closing FlaskMpeg.. it has the habit to leave the mp3 codec "open" so it can't be used anymore. In some cases you even have to reboot to fix the problem. What is the difference between DivX, ASF, MPEG4, SMR, etcAll these codes are based on the Microsoft Windows Video V3 codec. ASF is Microsoft's streaming format, but it uses the same codec. The official MS Windows V3 codec only allows for ASF output, or also for WMV output using the Windows Media Encoder v7. There's hacked MPEG4 codecs which remove the ASF encoding only limit, and the only difference between them and DivX/SMR/etc is that these codecs have another name and another fourff code identifying them. The tell the media player which codec to use during playback. There's NO quality difference between the various codecs. Is High motion better than Low motion?Definitely not. In low bitrates the high motion codec will look a bit better in action scenes but in low action scenes it will look terribly. Besides.. if you look closely at it you'll see a lot of compression errors even in high motion scenes.. check the WM7 test for more info - it has sample video clips and a lot of pictures. Despite rumors DivX high motion will rarely go beyond 1000KBit/s. Even DivX low motion will only use the full bitrate you set when it encounters a really demanding scene. What do the smoothness and crispness settings do?The smoothness refers to framerate, how smoothly the video plays back. In low bitrate movies the mpeg-4 codec gives you the option to preserve the smoothness of playback in favor of picture quality. This is the reason why frames are not dropped so much at low crispiness settings, because motion is considered more vital than picture detail. This is also the reason why MS streaming .asf files use default 75% smoothness, because motion compensates for detail loss in terms of viewability. Conversely, the crispiness is to do with sharpness and keeping detail. At 100% crispiness a movie will favor keeping higher quality sharp images and loose unnecessary frames making a less smooth playback. Because most DivX movies use a comparatively high bitrate there is no real difference between high crispiness or high smoothness because the bitrate can cope. With the Fast Motion codec the bitrate will often drop very low indeed. If you keep crispiness too high you could easily end up with dropped frames. My audio track sounds really badHave you been using ac3dec and a Dolby surround track? At the beginning ac3dec will show the audio mode of the file you're about to encode. If it doesn't say Dolby Digital 5.1 don't use VirtualDub. Use Graphedit. Another problem is that your soundcard could not be 48KHz capable... in that case you'll have to downsample either in FlaskMpeg (bad idea.. because of synch problems) or in VirtualDub. Why can't I have larger files than 2GB?It's a limit of the AVI format. Only OpenDML AVIs can overcome this limit but most ripping programs can't create such files. There's however a possibility to overcome that limit: Windows NT or preferably 2000 have no such problems. When I run mpeg2avi I get a black box and then nothing happensmpeg2avi is a command line tool. Hence it has to be run from the command line. In case you're using a GUI make sure you have mpeg2avi in a pathname that does not violate the 8.3 filename.extension condition. mpeg2avi does not like long filenames and pathnames. Error ID 5 in mpeg2aviUsing mpeg2avi+ or the PX3 releases you can no longer specify an output name.. the output name is set by default. You can only specify a output folder and the file will be called movie.avi in any case. The mpeg2avi GUI will detect the mpeg2avi+ versions and should prevent you from setting something illegal but it's best if you check on your own. Also use a software DVD player to play the VOB files before using mpeg2avi to check if the ripping was properly done. Mpeg2avi GUI crashes upon startupDelete c:\dd-gui.ini and c:\dd-gui.bat. VirtualDub can't encode to mp3This most likely happens when you try to downsample and save to mp3 at the same time. Try to downsample to 44.1KHz first and compressing at a later stage. My rip is in the wrong languageYou probably didn't chose the right language in FlaskMpeg despite my guides telling you how to do that. When using ac3dec you can play the different audio tracks before converting.. make use of that feature. How do I reduce the size of my DivX files?You can use Compress AVI or Project DivX.. but you'll have to have another rip present. Or you can load the AVI in VirtualDub, set video to full processing mode and reencode the whole thing to a lower bitrate but this will of course result in a loss of quality. My rip changes languages all the timeShouldn't happen with the latest releases of the rip tools. But if it still happens you can still use vstrip to split the file, then delete the parts you don't like and remerge as described in the multiangle guide. Why do I get a couple of green/purple frames when encoding vts_XX_2.vob?All but the first VOB file in a movie don't start with a valid header and that's the only thing your decoder gets if there's no header. Always rip the movie as a whole or at least load it as a whole. Can I play a DivX in a standalone?No way. I've heard that you can play DivX on a dreamcast but I've never come across instructions on how to do it so I remain skeptical. In the future there will be MPEG4 hardware decoders but they will most likely only work with files encoded to the ISO MPEG-4 standard.. so you'll have to encode to MS Windows Video V1 of the Windows Media Encoder 7.0. How do I rip non-roman style subtitles?At the moment only FlaskMpeg and it's DVD mode or dvd2mpg are capable of this operation. What is IVTC?IVTC means INverse TeleCine. Telecine is the process to get 29.97fps out of a 24fps source as a movie. There's 2 telecine modes.. one is soft-telecine where the movie is encoded at 24fps but some flags are set to make the player perform a so called 3:2 pulldown which results in 29.97 interlaced/progressive fps. The other possibility is to perform the telecine in a lab and encode the movie at 29.97fps interlaced. IVTC will try to locate the frames/fields that have been duplicated and remove then, and restoring the original 24fps. Can I play a DivX on a console?No. No matter what you've heard that's not possible. If you find a DivX on dreamcast guide the first step will be to convert the video to VCD format. Why is my AVI created with Project DivX larger than the two individual files?Do you know, why you get a big file? look at the following example: Low Motion File: Bitrate 600 700 MB Fast Motion File: Bitrate 2000 600 MB Normally you think, that if you mix Low and Fast, that you get a file between 600 and 700 MB, but that isnt correct. Because ProjectDivX merges different parts together, it could be, that the sum of all parts is bigger than 700 MB: Like the following small example: Part1 part2 part3 Low 10Mb 7 MB 10 MB = 27 MB Fast 7 MB 12 MB 7 MB = 28 MB But if you mix Low Part1 and Fast Part2 and Low part3 = 10 + 12 + 10 = 32 MByte. Can I add copyright info to my AVI? Load your final AVI in AviUtl, select Save AVI, enter your copyright info to the corresponding fields below the codec selection, check "No Recompress" for both audio and video, then save the AVI again (don't overwrite the old one).
Please report and other errors and possible solutions. I can't offer solutions for things I don't know of, right? |