Every Flavour Beans

SimpleDivX is a simple to use, Free software to convert DVD movies to AVI(XviD/DivX) format in a few straight-forward steps. It has got its limitations but if those can be accommodated, then it’s one of the easiest DivX/XviD conversion tools available. Below is a screenshot-guided tour through the steps needed to convert movies from DVD format to DivX/XviD format using SimpleDivX.

1. After installing SimpleDivX on the computer, start it from the Start menu. You will see the main window of SimpleDivX displaying nine tabs labelled ‘Input,’ ‘video,’ ‘Audio,’ etc, each containing settings related to that particular category. We will go through all of them one at a time.
   
2. In the ‘Input’ tab, select the folder where the ripped DVD VOB/IFO files are stored by clicking the “…” button. SimpleDivX will list all the IFO files found in the folder and lets you select one or more of them. If you only want to convert the main movie and no additional tracks, then checking “Select Main Movie” check-box will in most of the cases select the correct IFO file automatically. Unfortunately, SimpleDivX doesn’t show the lengths of the tracks associated with these IFO files(as do #1 DVD Ripper and AutoGK), so selecting tracks based on their play time is not possible from the SimpleDivX interface. Just make an estimate from the sizes of the VOB files in the DVD folder. If you want to convert all the titles and tracks from the DVD, make sure that you select ‘all’ from “Choose Title” drop-down box for every IFO file you select.
   
3. In the ‘Video’ tab, you can select the format of the input source(you are converting a DVD movie at 23fps or a home-made video at 29fps? this example is of a Movie), format of the output file(aspect ratio, resolution etc), and optionally, if the output should be cropped during the conversion. Select ‘Original’ as the Output Format to use the format/resolution of the original DVD movie or select a new resolution, for example, if converting for a specific target device.
   
4. In the ‘Audio’ tab, check the ‘Check Audio’ check-box in ‘Audio Streams & Languages’ panel if not already checked and select the audio stream you want to use for the AVI output file. The options are for multiple language and bitrate streams. Select the stream with the language and the bitrate of your choice(or the best choice available, like ‘AC3 6 Channel 448kbps’). In ‘Auido Format’ panel, select MP3 to save space or AC3(2 channels or 6 channels) for superior quality. Remember that if only a few options are available in this tab, it means that the original DVD movie supports only those many. Select the bitrate(say, 192kbps) and conversion sample rate(say, 48000 Hz) for the output file.
   
5. In the ‘Codec’ tab, select 2-pass video file for better quality(takes more time than 1-pass), XviD codec(DivX if converting for a device that plays only DivX), and ‘Do both passes’ in Pass Options(this last option is very important or you will get only intermediate files in the temp folder). You can configure more options like selecting ‘Very High Quality’ from the ‘Advanced Settings’ of XviD codec.
   
6. In the ‘Compression’ tab, you can either select the bitrate of the output file(above 800kbps is recommended) or the size. To do the latter, select ‘Enter final movie size’ and specify a size(any size that shows ‘normal quality’ or even ‘medium quality’ should be acceptable; or a bit rate greater than 800kbps) in ‘File Size’ text box. I select a file size of 700-900 MB for 90-120 min movies(larger sizes for movies with good graphic and audio content). You will learn the proper setting for this field for different type of movies with experience.
   
7. In the ‘Misc’ tab(that should have been called ‘Subtitles’ tab), check ‘Create subtitles using VobSub’ checkbox and select the preferred language for the subtitles from the ‘Language’ list box. SimpleDivX generates external subtitles only(no hard-coding) and that too only in VobSub format(two files per output video file, supported by media players like Windows Media Player). I think it is better extract the subtitles in preferred format(a single srt or sub file, for example) directly from the DVD using a separate application.
   
8. In the ‘Project’ tab, uncheck the check-box ‘Overwrite Files’ if you want to play safe like me, and choose if you want to spit the generated AVI output file into several files(for ex, to fit on CD-ROMs etc). If this is the only conversion you want to do, then move to the next tab; otherwise, select ‘Batch Mode’ in ‘Batch Settings’ and click the ‘Add’ button to add this job to the batch/queue: Now you can go back to the Step 1 and repeat all the above steps to add more conversion jobs to this batch. To change the settings of a particular conversion job, select it from the list and click the ‘Modify’ button; this modification feature of added jobs is sadly absent from AutoGK.
   
9. In the ‘Output’ tab, select ‘Shutdown windows when finished’ if you want to shut down the system after all the conversion jobs that you have selected are completed, and then click the ‘Start’ button to start the conversion process. A command window and the ‘Status Information’ panel within SimpleDivX ‘Output’ tab will show the information about the conversion process.
   
10. You don’t really have to change anything in the ‘Setup’ tab. From this tab, tools that are recognised by SimpleDivX(and installed on your computer) can be added by clicking “….” button but the basic ones needed by SimpleDivX will already be there. One can also set the priority of SimpleDivX application from this tab: Select ‘highest’ if you are not running any other applications on the computer(not even in the background, except anti-virus software etc) or ‘lowest’ if you are running an important task in the foreground and don’t want SimpleDivX to make it run slower. You can also set all the settings of SimpleDivX to their default state if you think that you have messed them up with wrong choices and want to make a fresh start.

The media conversion procedure using SimpleDivX is simpler than what may appear from the above description, for I have talked about settings that can safely be ignored in their default settings. Here is a summary of the steps to get simpler picture of the process:

1. Open the folder where ripped DVD files are stored. Check the ‘Select Main Movie’ check-box and select ‘all’ from the Title drop-down box if the option is available.
2. Go to ‘Audio’ tab and select the preferred audio language from ‘Auido Streams and Languages’ panel.
3. Select 2-pass video file option and preferred conversion codec(XviD) from the ‘Codec’ tab. Make sure that ‘Do both passes’ is selected in the ‘Pass Options’ panel.
4. Specify big enough size in the ‘File Size’ text box in the ‘Compression’ tab until it at least says ‘Medium Quality’ in the description or until the bitrate shown becomes more than 800kbps.
5. Go to the ‘Output’ tab and click the ‘Start’ button.

I remember reading somewhere on the Internet that it is better to manage the temporary folder of SimpleDivX manually(delete everything from the folder every few days) and uncheck the ‘Delete temp files when finished’ check-box from the ‘Project’ tab. I concur with this assessment, otherwise SimpleDivX seems to mess up with the conversion process one or the other way. Apart from this minor annoyance, and lack of good support for subtitles, SimpleDivX is an amazingly simple to use application for DivX/XviD conversion.