Mencode/Mplayer codec.config file
 

When I use Mencoder to convert a file, the only formats that will work are the 'copy' 'lavc' and 'lidv' my video editor doesn't use MPEG, but mencoder also can do MPEG-1.
I want to be able to use raw .avi, dv .avi and divx formats that are listed as possible under -ovc help. Yet when I try them I get the message '/usr/local/etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: no such file or directory'
So I go there and find nothing (I have loaded several codecs) so I guess I need to write a codecs.conf file. Does anyone know what they are supposed to look like, does anyone have an example?