A lot of people are encoding their avi-file into mpeg-2 (svcd) because they say it has a far superior quality over mpeg-1 (vcd)
Okay, i wont argue the better quality of mpeg-2
BUT ..... in my opinion if you have a avi file which has a video bitrate of ~1000, then it would be a waste to encode this into mpeg-2 (which has bitrates up to 2500)
The best quality you will be able to get, in my mind, is vcd which has a bitrate of 1150

Is this assumption correct, because it is my believe that with a lower bitrate then 1150 you NEVER will be able to get a better quality if you encode this as mpeg-2 with a higher bitrate.

If i'm wrong then i have to make a lot of apologies :)

Don"t look at avi files with Bitrates in mind look at them with Quality in mind,because you aren"t encodeing to avi and you have no controll over the quality of a file that has allready in avi format, but you do have some controll over the mpeg quality, but your mpeg will never look better than the avi you are encodeing and the higher the bitrate you use the closer the mpeg looks in quality to the original avi..A vcd will never look as good as the source you are encodeing cuz the bitrate of a standard vcd isn"t high enough to acurately duplicate the quality of the avi file and mpeg is a lossy format but you can raise the bitrate of the vcd to obtain better quality..The biggest reason that svcd"s have better quality than vcd"s isn"t really the bitrate(it sure helps) or because it is mpeg2 but the increased resolution, a svcd has over twice the resolution of a standard vcd,......

Excuse me Minion but for once I have to disagree with you. I downloaded some Star Trek movies on Kazaa. They were encoded in Divx 3 and the quality wasn't really great... in fact it was poor. I thought I could try to convert it to MPEG-2 (SVCD) and I was really impressed by what I get... quality is now much more superior than the original one... so that's for me, sorry Minion :-D...

Dont forget that an mpeg will always look better on a TV than a monitor ...

Thanks for the responses

So if i understand i right, my little explanation about the bitrates is sofar incorrect that their is NO DIRECT relationship between bitrate AVI vs bitrate mpeg (1or2)

What you are looking for is a good quality avi (in this the bitrate is of course a big factor) and with this good quality avi it will make a difference whether you convert it to mpeg-1 or mpeg-2

Guess i have to start apologizing ;)

Another way to look at this: Once a video has artifacts like noise or pixelation, it requires higher bitrate and resolution to reproduce that noise exactly when transcoding. Defects do not compress as well as clean video.

It is counterintuitive that poor video requires more file space to archive, but that is the mathematical reality.

Filtering defects kills two birds with one stone as long as the quality is not degraded. Although slow, "smart smoother HiQuality" for Virtualdub produces results without the cartoony, "merged pixel" appearance of other smoothers.

After several bug posts, you guys put in a feature that lets the user select the MAX number of frames in a GOP. Well, I am sad to say it doesn't work at all. I have tried 5 differet DV Avi files and for all five of them when I put in output sequence header code to 1 every GOP and set the MAX GOP size to 36 it still outputs occasional GOP with as much as 40 frames in it. I am using Industry Standard Sonic Scenarist DVD creator and it is report this error with the mpeg 2 files generated by TMPGENC. Please actually FORCE THE PROGRAM to stop at 36 frames per GOP, it doesn't do this all the time!!!

Thanks

I don"t know if this is actually the problem it is just a guess, but maybe if you turn off the "detect scene change" option then it might not make the gop"s longer that you specify cuz when Tmpgenc detects a scene change it will add an extra I frame, I don"t know if it just replaces a B or P frame with an I frame or actually adds an extra frame in turn makeing the gop longer, just a thought.
I don"t do DVD"s but I thought the standard number of frames in a gop for DVD"S is like between 15 and 18? If this is actually a bug in Tmpgenc and you are useing the "Plus" version then go to the "Pegassus site" and tell them about it so they can fix it cuz the makers of Tmpgenc don"t really seem to come here.......

DVD-GOPs are between 14 - 18 Frames or up to 36 FIELDS.
But in TMPGEnc you have to use the Max Number auf Frames. Set it to 16, and all's OK (and compatible).

I was just wondering. Is their an easy way to edit out specific words from the audio, i.e. editing out swear words for my children, etc. Are there any freewre program out there that make it easy or does TMPGEnc have some plugin that makes it possible. Thanks.

Tmpgenc can"t do this ,and it wouldn"t be very easy ,you would need a good audio/video editing program like "Sound Forge 6 "..with it you you could add silence were you needed to or you could add a sould or a Beep were the bad words are or you could even hook up a microphone and dub your own words in, you can download a trial version at the sonic foundry web site here:http://www.sonicfoundry.com/Products/NewShowProduct.asp?PID=668
It actually has a pretty good audio and mpeg video encoder but I don"t know what the limitations of the trial version are and I think it is about $350 to buy so it isn"t cheap but I don"t know of a freeware program that can do what you need done.....

I have a couple of AVI movies that I downloaded a long time ago (at least a year). I think they might be DIVX but I am not sure. Under the properties window (under windows) it shows the audio as Mpeg layer-3 at 40 KBPS. The video it show at 20fps at 55kbps. When I try to load this in TMPGEnc I get the file unsupported error. I have searched the site and have not found any useful information. Is there anyone who can tell me what I can do to convert these files to VCD. Thanks

Go to "options" to "enviromental settings" to "vfapi plugins" and raise the "direct show file reader" to "2"

ASHY

Hey that seemed to work. It at least loaded the file. I'll now see what I can doo with it.

Thanks

P.S. Where can I find a description of all of those setting in the plugin tab. (what exactly did changing that setting do?)

The Plugins Help Tmpgenc decode different formats,for example the direct show plugin lets Tmpgenc read Direct show formats , these are the most common formats like "divx/mpeg4,WMV,ASF,Mpeg1"most of the formats that can be played on Media Player, there is a "DVD2AVI" Plugin so Tmpgenc can read "D2V files from dvd2avi, there is a "Wav File Reader" so Tmpgenc can read wav audio files..There are quite a few plugins and some of the plugins read the same formats like the direct show plugin can read some of the same formats as the "avi VFW(video for windows)" plugin can ,That is one of the reasons they have differant priorities, so you can give a certain plugin priority over another to read the file...

Thanks that helps alot

I just downloaded and installed the 2.57 version and noticed that the audio compression is not any longer the standard 224 kbit/s but has changed into 192 kbit/s

Question:
1. Why was it changed and is it also safe now to use for instance 128 kbit/s for changing the avi into mpeg-1 (with the objective to make a vcd)
2. Does this mean that it is now possible to burn a vcd which has more minutes then the 80 that is now the limit ?

I'm sorry for my crappy English, but i hope you'll understand the question.
TIA for answering
Andrea

The reason is that when you first extract TMPG, the settings are actually set for just ordinary MPEG1 files not VCD files. If you load one of the VCD templates the bitrate will go back to 224 kb/s.

ASHY

Oh and sorry, to answer your other question, yes it should be ok in most DVD players to use a non standard bitrate such as 128 kb/s.

ASHY

Thanks for clarifying this for me
And also for the speed in answering my question

I am trying to convert a quicktime file (music video) into mpeg but i have a small problem. Underneath the video the lyrics run along and they are actually part of the video image not a caption etc. When I convert the file i do not want to see these lyrics. Can anyone tell me how to crop the image size so that i convert only the music video and not the lyrics?
I hope that makes sense and that someone can help me.
Thanks

Click the 'settings' button then advanced and then double click the 'clip frame' filter

Here you will find the option to resize and crop your movie.

ASHY

Thanks a million. That has solved my problem.

David

I've tried looking through the posts but couldn't find anything on this issue.

I've downloaded an *.avi file - and there is no problem in viewing it on the computer with sound. But if I try to convert it to an mpeg file using tmpgenc, it can't find the audio track, and hence the mpeg won't contain any audio.
If I use 'avi audio decompressor' to extract the audio track, it stops just short of 1 mb, takes approx 10 secs.
It seems as if it's a packed file, have any of you had the same problem ???
I would appreciate some help, thanks.
Would it help to use Virtual Dub, instead of 'aad' ?

-M

I have a similar problem. I have downloaded an avi file and am converting to mpeg for svcd. The sound only goes for the first 10 seconds and then cuts out!

Can any body help?

Boner

The audio is probably Ac3 which TMPG can't natively read. Download AVImux and extract the audio to a wav and load that as your audio source in TMPG.

ASHY

Thanks - I'll try that!
-M

Hi
I am having a bit of trouble with a SVCD.
I am trying to extract the mpg from the CD to convert to VCD in TMPgenc (to reduce no of CDs)
This is nothing I haven't done many times before but for some reason I can't extract the mpg using isobuster all I get is a file that is recognised as music in media player and TMPgenc won't recognise format.
I am using the newest version of TMPgenc and SVCD is on trial period.
I have also tried CDmage with no luck.

Any suggestion please

Thanks

Flash

The best thing to do when this happens and is a sure fire way to extract it correctly is to go to http://www.daemon-tools.com and download this small and free program called 'Daemon tools'.

This will create another drive on your PC which you can load virtually any image into and the just simply copy and paste the file or load it straight into TMPG from the drive itself as if it was a real drive.

ASHY

The best thing to do when this happens and is a sure fire way to extract it correctly is to go to http://www.daemon-tools.com and download this small and free program called 'Daemon tools'.

This will create another drive on your PC which you can load virtually any image into and then just simply copy and paste the file or load it straight into TMPG from the drive itself as if it was a real drive.

ASHY

well a quick one
using the newest verstion of temp
any way i normaly batch files to run while i am a sleep
but a couple of files which i have
it starts encoding them
then just quits no error message or anything temp just closes down for no reason
any idea
thanks

I have this same problem and have ask about it before with no replies. It seems to happen to me when I set up a batch of file using the Project Wizard. Also, it seems to occur when I am using inverse telecine to convert NTSC to NTSC film. Also when this happens TMPGENC clears the batch list and shuts down on its own. A possible clue was found when I made a batch with only one file. At the end of the run, the blue arrow that normal indicates the file has been encoded was not there. There was an error message that said "Stream Error". The file was perfectly encoded though.

I wish someone would address this because it is very frustrating to set a batch of files to run overnight only to find the first one finished and TMPGENC has shutdown without doing the rest of the batch.

MrSmith

>well a quick one
>using the newest verstion of temp
>any way i normaly batch files to run while i am a sleep
>but a couple of files which i have
>it starts encoding them
>then just quits no error message or anything temp just closes down for no reason
>any idea
>thanks
>
well i have figured it out i just set like it said in so many posts
set the direct read to under enviromental to 2 and works fine

Hello!!!

I ask myself a little question about noise reduction. What do you think of the "High quality" option in noise reduction? Is it really high quality? For the moment i don't see a real improvment except the time of encoding that is longer.
So what do you think about and are you using it?

Thanks,
Nico...

Hi,Nico
You only use "Noise Reduction" if your source file is Noisy and the noise reduction seems to give it a smoothed apearance, usually VHS captures and movies shot on a video cameras have quite a bit of noise in them but if you have a clean source then you won"t need the noise reduction it could even make a clean source look worse if to much noise reduction is applied....

Thanks, generally my sources are divx so to lower to noise created by divx codec I usually use noise reduction. For the moment it has given me very great SVCD...

I have downloaded the VFAPI plugin but how exactly do I use it? because even after I put the file into the same directory as TMPGEnc.exe, TMPGEnc still does not read my .d2v files... can someone please help me out, keep in mind i'm a newbie, so if answers could be detailed it would be much apreciated

[Options Menu]
This menu contains all of the set up options for TMPGEnc.

Register TMPGEnc.vfp with VFAPI
VFAPI stands for "Video File API". This is used to write plugins for TMPGEnc. The current settings need to be registered before the plugins can be used.
Make sure to "check" this menu before using the plugins.

[Environmental Settings]-[VFAPI Plugins]
General settings for VFAPI Plugins.This panel displays a list of the VFAPI plugins that have been registered with TMPGEnc. Select plugins to use from the list.

~NewtronX

Yes make sure you run the TMPGEncVFP_Install.bat file that comes with the VFAPI plugin and then tick it under options.
Next you need to copy 'DVD2AVI.VFP' from you DVD2AVI folder into your TMPG folder where the TMPG.exe is located and then restart TMPG and load your D2v file.

Also remember once the d2v file is created DO NOT move, delete or rename the file or folders or the Vobs associated with it until you finish encoding.

ASHY

Hi,
I am prettyew to this, but I noticed that thereis a template for SVCD-NTSC Film, but none for SVCD-PAL Film. I have a AV fle which is 24Fps whic I would like to put as SVCD and I don't want the choppiness thatmay be introduced if I used the SVCD-PAL Film format. Is there a SVCD-PAL Film format at all please?

Next question-I got a DivX AVI file which is 1 hour and 49 minutes long, but when I load the file into TMPG, it says that the file is 292 minutes long!! Is this a bug or something please? My version is 2.56...

Thanks very much,
Sreenath

There is no such thing as Pal Film, 24fps is a NTSC format, try this ,load in your file choose the NTSC Film template then load the "unlock.mfc" template from the "Extra" Folder(so you can change the framerate) then go to "Settings" and under "Video" change the framerate to 24fps, this should give you correct playback on your DVD player...

I doubt the file will play correctly in your DVD player at 24 fps if it is a PAL machine.
It is likely it will do it's own conversion to 25 fps which will still result in jerky playback associated with framerate conversion.

You could try it by loading the PAL template then just unlock the settings and change the frame rate to 24 fps.
If you use the NTSC template it will most likely end up playing in black and white due to the format difference.

If you want my advice do a proper conversion. It's not difficult and you will find easy step by step instructions on this BBS how to do it.

ASHY

Thats strange cuz my cheapo ntsc dvd player plays pal and ntsc movies without a problem, in the instructions is doesn"t say that it supports Pal but it doesn"t say it doesn"t either ,so I guess It depends on your dvd player...

Minion do u have a multistandard TV. If this is the case then it may be why you don't get a black and white picture.
In my experience I have seen this happen on a number of machines. I have a machine which will play PAL or NTSC, but if I choose to play an NTSC movie then I have to decide whether I want the movie to play smooth which means my player won't do any conversion and then just outputs in the NTSC format which would need a multiformat TV as I live in a PAL world or I can choose to invoke the NTSC to PAL conversion.
This gives me a colour picture, but it also changes the framerate to 25 fps and causes the dreaded jerky playback effect.

ASHY

I actually have no idea what kind of TV I have ,it is a 32 inch Samsung and thats all I know ,I inherited it from my father when he died, I don"t know if this has any relation but I have some european Video tapes that have to be played on a VCR that plays European tapes and they play fine also.I have allways been able to play Pal vcd/svcd"s on my system so i allways wondered why poeple go through the trouble of converting from pal to ntsc and visa versa, but I guess you learn something new every day..So what is the differance between 23.9fps ntsc film and 25fps Pal besides the frame rate and resolution?

NTSC also has a lower number of scan lines (525) compared to PAL (625) which is why the PAL system is considered the better system. Also I think the colour information is coded differently in an NTSC signal compared to PAL which is probably why the picture is black and white when the wrong format is played on the wrong type of recieving equipment.

With what you have said about your european VCR playing ok on your TV, then I'm pretty sure you have a multi standard TV.

ASHY