DivX to MPEG Converter

DivX to MPEG — MPEG-1 or MPEG-2?

Converting a .divx rip to .mpeg produces an MPEG program stream: the same structure a .mpg file uses, and the format DVD-Video, Video CD and pre-2010 broadcast equipment were all built around. The page gives you two video codecs and the choice between them is the whole decision. Pick MPEG-2 — the preselected one — for anything DVD, SVCD, DVB or ATSC related. Pick MPEG-1 only when you are authoring a Video CD or feeding hardware that predates MPEG-2. If neither of those describes you, MPEG is probably the wrong target altogether and the comparison below will say so.

DivX and MPEG Side by Side

When to Pick MPEG-2

• You are authoring a DVD-Video disc. The spec is locked to MPEG-2 at 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL), with video capped at 9.8 Mbit/s and video plus audio together at 10.08 Mbit/s. A DivX file cannot be burned as a Video DVD no matter how you write the disc.
• You are feeding DVD-authoring software such as DVDStyler, DVD Flick or TMPGEnc DVD Author. They accept compliant MPEG-2 directly, which saves the slow internal transcode they otherwise run on every DivX import.
• You are authoring an SVCD, which uses MPEG-2 at 480x480 (NTSC) or 480x576 (PAL).
• Something in a broadcast or set-top chain needs it — DVB-T receivers, satellite IRDs, ATSC tuners and broadcast automation tools ingest MPEG program and transport streams natively and will not open an AVI.
• An old edit suite handles MPG natively but stumbles on DivX in AVI.

When to Pick MPEG-1

• You are authoring a Video CD. The White Book spec is MPEG-1 at 352x240 (NTSC) or 352x288 (PAL) at 1150 kbps, and nothing else will pass.
• The target hardware predates MPEG-2 decoding — mid-1990s set-top boxes and the earliest portable players.
• Maximum decoder compatibility matters more than picture quality. MPEG-1 is the lowest common denominator of digital video; almost any decoder written since 1993 will open it.
• Note that MPEG-1's ceiling is genuinely low. It is the right answer for a VCD project and the wrong answer for anything else, including a DVD.

How to Convert DivX to MPEG

1. Upload Your DivX File: Drag the .divx onto the page or click "+ Add Files". Several can be queued and converted with the same settings in one pass.
2. Choose the Video and Audio Codec: Video Codec starts on MPEG-2; switch it to MPEG-1 only for a VCD project. Audio Codec starts on MP2 — the MPEG-1 Layer II codec that DVD and VCD both specify — with AC3 for Dolby Digital, DTS (DCA) and MP3 as the alternatives.
3. Set File Compression, Resolution and Trim: File Compression opens on the Quality Preset "Very High (Recommended)"; Constant Bitrate, Variable Bitrate and Specific file size give you direct control, which is what you want when a disc spec names a number. Set Video resolution from "Keep original" to a Preset Resolution or an exact Width x Height when the destination demands a fixed raster. Trim starts on Unchanged — switch it to Time Range to cut out an intro or a recap.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert and save the .mpeg. Your file is uploaded over an encrypted connection, converted on our servers and deleted automatically a few hours later — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared or made public.

Audio Codec Choices for an MPEG File

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is the MPEG so much bigger than the DivX it came from?

Two effects stack. MPEG-2 is roughly half as efficient as the MPEG-4 Part 2 codec DivX uses, which is exactly why the DivX scene existed — fitting a film onto one CD-R was the whole point. On top of that, our MPEG-2 encoder enforces a minimum bitrate, because MPEG-2's rate control fails outright below a certain point and simply errors instead of producing a file. That floor is 2 Mbit/s for anything up to 720p, rising with resolution — around 2.8 Mbit/s at 1280x720 and about 7.5 Mbit/s at 1920x1080. A 90-minute rip whose video averaged roughly 1 Mbit/s therefore comes out near 2 Mbit/s and roughly doubles in size, and there is no setting that avoids it while keeping MPEG-2.

Can I burn the converted .mpeg straight to a DVD a normal player will read?

No — a DVD player needs the full disc structure, a VIDEO_TS folder holding .IFO, .VOB and .BUP files, not a bare program stream. What this page gives you is the video stream the player decodes; you still run it through authoring software such as DVDStyler, DVD Flick or TMPGEnc DVD Author to build the disc layout and burn it. To make that step painless, set MPEG-2 with MP2 or AC3 audio at 720x480 for NTSC or 720x576 for PAL, so the authoring tool takes the file without a second re-encode of its own.

What is the difference between .mpeg, .mpg and .mpeg2 on this site?

Nothing inside the file — all three write an MPEG program stream, and the extension is the only difference. Use whichever spelling the software on the receiving end expects. .mpg is the most widely recognised of the three, so DivX to MPG is the safer pick when you have no particular requirement; DivX to MPEG-2 exists for tools that insist on that name. If you need the DVD-native flavour instead, DivX to VOB writes the object files a VIDEO_TS folder is made of.

Which bitrate fits a two-hour film on a single-layer DVD-R?

For NTSC regions, 720x480 at 4-6 Mbit/s fits a two-hour film on a 4.7 GB disc alongside stereo MP2 audio; for PAL, 720x576 at the same rates. Push to 7-8 Mbit/s for a 90-minute film if quality matters more than headroom, and drop to 2-3 Mbit/s at half-D1 (352x480 or 352x576) to fit three or four hours on one disc. Remember the hard ceiling: the DVD-Video spec allows 9.8 Mbit/s of video and 10.08 Mbit/s including audio, so 9 Mbit/s of video is the realistic maximum.

Should I use Constant Quality for MPEG-2?

No — use the bitrate-based modes instead. MPEG-2 has no constant-quality rate control of the kind H.264 offers, so the reliable levers on this page are the Quality Preset, Constant Bitrate, Variable Bitrate and Specific file size. That also matches how disc and broadcast specs are written: they name bitrates, not quality indices. The Quality Preset works by scaling the source's own video bitrate — the top preset asks for roughly 1.5x it and the lowest for about 0.3x — before the minimum-bitrate floor described above is applied.

Will converting DivX to MPEG improve the picture?

No. This is a lossy-to-lossy re-encode from a newer codec generation to an older, less efficient one, so the best possible outcome is that MPEG-2 costs you nothing visible on top of what the DivX encoder already discarded. It cannot add detail, and choosing a larger frame size only stretches what is there. Leave Video resolution on "Keep original" unless a disc or broadcast spec is forcing a particular raster, and if you do need 720x480 or 720x576, accept that a 640x480 source is being reshaped rather than improved.

What happens to a 5.1 AC-3 track from my DivX file?

Choose AC3 as the output audio codec and a Dolby Digital track stays Dolby Digital, which is the codec DVD-Video uses for surround. Choose MP2 and the mix is folded down to stereo, because MP2 as written here is a two-channel format — fine for playback, but the discrete channel layout is gone and cannot be recovered afterwards. If your .divx has a surround track and the destination is a Video DVD, AC3 is the setting that preserves it.

Do subtitles, chapters and extra audio tracks survive the conversion?

No, and mostly they have nowhere to go. A DivX Media Format .divx file can hold multiple audio tracks, chapter points and subtitle streams, but an MPEG program stream carries none of that — on a DVD those live in the authoring layer, in the VIDEO_TS structure rather than in the video file. Add chapters and subtitles when you build the disc in DVDStyler or DVD Flick. Subtitles already burned into the picture stay burned in and re-encode straight through. For a target that keeps soft subtitle and multi-audio tracks as tracks, use DivX to MKV.

My file has an .avi extension rather than .divx — will it work here?

Not on this page, which matches the .divx extension specifically. That is the narrower case: DivX is a codec, AVI is the container it normally rides in, and most DivX video is therefore named .avi. The .divx extension belongs to DivX Media Format, introduced with DivX 6 in 2005 as an extension of AVI rather than a separate container. For an ordinary rip use AVI to MPEG, which reads the MPEG-4 Part 2 stream inside whether DivX or Xvid produced it.

How are my files handled, and how long are they kept?

Your DivX file is uploaded over an encrypted connection, converted on our servers, and deleted automatically a few hours afterwards — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared or made public. Because MPEG-2 output is larger than the DivX source, the download is usually the bigger of the two transfers; on a feature-length rip, trimming to the range you actually need first saves time at both ends.