HomePage 4 of 4: Using VirtualDubMod
Step 3: Using VirtualDubMod
In this step, we'll use VirtualDubMod to join the AVI and MP3 file into a single AVI file, and also optionally, convert the video to DivX or XviD format from the current FLV1/FLV4 format.
If you plan on re-encoding the video to DivX/XviD, first make sure you have the DivX codec or the XviD codec installed. Both come with installers, so installation should be easy.
Download VirtualDubMod and extract the contents of the ZIP file to a folder (eg. C:\Program Files\VirtualDubMod\) and start VirtualDubMod.
Open the extracted AVI file using VirtualDubMod (File -> "Open video file"). From the "Streams" menu, select "Stream list".
In the "Available streams" window, use the "Add" button to load in the extracted MP3 file. You might get an warning dialog about VBR MP3 files, press "No".
The MP3 audio file should now be loaded into the "Available streams" window as track 1. Right click on the track and make sure "Direct stream copy" is selected, and then select "Interleaving".
The "Audio/Video Interleave Options" window will now open. Uncheck the "Enable audio/video interleaving" option, keep "Audio skew correction" set at 0ms. Uncheck both "Offset audio to maintain a/v sync" and "Cut off audio when video stream ends". Press "OK" to close this window and then "OK" again to close the "Available streams" window.
Now, there are two ways to continue on. One is to re-encode the video to DivX/XviD for maximum compatibility. The other is to keep the current FLV1/FLV4 video compression and just mux (join) the video/audio so that the AVI file is playable with sound - this approach will work on your system because you've set up ffdshow to decode FLV1/FLV4 in the previous step, but it will not work on a computer where this isn't setup (most computers). If you want to re-encode to DivX/XviD, skip to the instructions in the boxed section below, otherwise continue on with the next step.
As we are not re-encoding with DivX/XviD, we'll need to set the video encoding option to "Direct Stream Copy".
From the "File" menu, select "Save As" and save the video to a new file (very important to create a new file, not overwrite the original AVI file). Make sure the "Don't run this job now..." option is unchecked. Press "Save" to save the AVI file. After a few seconds, the new AVI file is created and this should be playable (test it). If it all works, then we're done and you can now delete the FLV and the extracted AVI/MP3 files. This guide is now finished, and you don't need to continue with the instructions in the boxed section below as that's for re-encoding the video.
From the "Video" menu, select "Full processing mode" and then "Compression".
Select either the "DivX 6.x.x Codec" or "XviD MPEG-4 Codec" and press "Configure" to set up the codec. This guide won't go into each and every DivX/XviD setting, instead you can find full explanations of each setting in our DivX 6.x Setup Guide and the XviD Setup Guide.
If you are using a multi-pass encoding mode, skip to the "Multi-pass encoding" section below. If you have selected to use a single pass encoding mode in DivX/XviD, you can now press "OK" to close the video compression window. From the "File" menu, select "Save As" and save the video to a new file (very important to create a new file, not overwrite the original AVI file). Make sure the "Don't run this job now..." option is unchecked. Press "Save" to save the AVI file. The re-encoding will now start and after a short while, the new DivX/XviD AVI file is created. Test the newly created file, and if it all works, then we're done and you can now delete the FLV and the extracted AVI/MP3 files. This guide is now finished, and you don't need to continue with the instructions below for multi-pass encoding only.
Multi-pass encoding:
What will happen now is that we'll use VirtualDubMod's job control system to create a job for the first pass, and then create jobs for the other passes, and then run the jobs to get the encoding done.
Still within the video compression window, configure the codec for the first pass now and press "OK" to close the video compression window. From the "File" menu, select "Save As" and choose to save to a new file (don't overwrite the original) and I'd like to add "1stpass" to the end of the filename to make it clear that this is AVI produced from the first pass. Make sure the "Don't run this job now..." option is checked. Press "Save" to add the current job to the job control queue.
Go back to Video -> Compression and configure the codec for the next pass. Once that is done, go to File -> Save As again and as before, choose a new filename (eg. "bsg_season3_2ndpass.avi") and make sure the "Don't run this job now..." option is checked. Press "Save" to save the next pass. Continue with this for as many passes as you wish (3 passes is usually more than enough).
When you're read to start the encoding, from the "File" menu, select "Job control" to launch the job control window. Here, all the passes you've setup should be listed in the correct order.
Press the "Start" button and encoding will start. When all the jobs have been listed as completed, the encoding process is done. The last AVI file produced (eg. "bsg_season3_2ndpass.avi" from the screenshot above) is the one you want, and you can delete all the other files. And we're done!
