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Page 1 of 3: Introduction + Installation
This guide is all about a free software called AVI ReComp. As the name suggest, AVI ReComp allows you to recompress existing AVI files to XviD files. Now you may ask, why would you want to do this, considering most AVI files out there are already XviD. Well here are just a few reasons why you may need to use AVI ReComp:
- You need to convert an AVI file that's not in XviD format to XviD
- You need to crop or resize a video
- You need to reduce the size of a video so it fits onto some device
- Add burnt-in subtitles to your video files (for example, for foreign movies that you want to play on standalones that don't support loading subtitle files)
- Add a logo to video files
- You need to re-encode a video that's not compatible with your standalone DVD player, Xbox 360 or PS3
The last reason I listed above may be the most common reason why people need AVI ReComp, as many of the video files you download on the Internet may not have been produced in a way that will work on standalone players such as DVD players or game consoles. The reason is that many of them use GMC and Q-Pel, which gives better quality video, but many standlones won't support them. AVI ReComp will attempt to re-encode these videos so that they do work on standalones, and this guide will be focused on this goal, while providing instructions for all the other listed reasons for using AVI ReComp.
This guide, like the AVI ReComp tool itself, is squarely aimed at beginners.
Software you'll need (all freeware):
Step 1: Installation
Installing AVI ReComp is fairly straight forward, despite the software needing several other software to work. All the required tools are included in the installation package and will be installed once you download and run the installer. The screenshot belows shows the additional software needed by AVI ReComp, make sure you select them all unless you know absolutely sure you have a newer version of these tools installed (for example, the XviD codec has been updated to version 1.2.2 at the time of writing this guide, but installing the latest version of a required software may actually make things worse as AVI ReComp may not know how to deal with the new version, so again, it's recommended you install the versions that come with AVI ReComp unless you know what you're doing).
Continue with the AVI ReComp installer and when it's finished, AVI ReComp should be ready to use. If you get an error during the XviD codec installer about xvid.ax being used, this means you already have the XviD codec installed but it is in use - you can skip this error and hope for the best, or uninstall XviD, restart, and then run the AVI ReComp installer again.
