how can i convert a rmvb movie to avi ?

i tried searching for it but it seams thats its a rare question with no answer that i have found

BUMP

This command works
mencoder foo.rmvb -o foo.avi -ovc xvid -xvidencopts fixed_quant=5 -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=128
or
mencoder Smallville\ 422\ Commencement\ hdtv.rmvb -o /disks/402/smallville402.avi -ovc xvid -xvidencopts fixed_quant=5 -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3

But somehow the size is more than that of the rmvb file. Also there is some loss. I still have to try different options. I would really like to just view rmvb files. Do you know any player that can do so. I have tried Realplayer which plays the video well but the audio is not good. You can't make out what the person is saying.
Mplayer and xine play the audio well but the video is b&w and with some coloured lines. an older version of xine-lib does play them but with it my processsor usage jumps to 70% while playing divx files

1 members found this post helpful.

So is this still the only option to convert rmvb files

I've done 'mencoder foo.rmvb -o foo.avi -ovc divx4 -oac pcm' in the past, which worked fine.

If mencoder works at reencoding I would expect mplayer to play too.

I get this error tho

[flebber@localhost ~]$ mencoder /home/Torrent/Blood Diamond/Blood Diamond.rmbus.rmvb -o blood.avi -ovc divx4 -oac pcm
MEncoder 1.0rc1-4.1.1 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz (Family: 15, Model: 2, Stepping: 9)
CPUflags: Type: 15 MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
Option ovc: Unknown suboption divx4
Error parsing option on the command line: -ovc

Exiting... (error parsing command line)
[flebber@localhost ~]$

Try quoting the file name in "" or escaping the spaces:
a: "/home/Torrent/Blood Diamond/Blood Diamond.rmbus.rmvb"
b: /home/Torrent/Blood\ Diamond/Blood\ Diamond.rmbus.rmvb

Same error unfortuneately -ovc suboption for divx.

but I have the rpm installe

divx4linux.i386 5.0.5-0.fc6.rf installed

Try a different encoder with -ovc.
man mencoder for some ideas.