I had some extremely newbie questions for anyone willing to help.

I just wanted to convert some avis to mpegs so I can watch them on my dvd/vcd player (was planning to burn them in Nero).

1) interlace or non-interlace?
2) aspect ratio at default 1:1 (VGA)
3) do I need to change source range, clip frame or noise reduction, or leave them unchecked?

Anything else I should know.

Thanks!

Montage,

Try this link
http://www.afterdawn.com/articles/archive/dvd2vcd_with_smart_dvd2avi_tmpgenc.cfm?wide=true

The website is called afterdawn.com and it shows you in exact details on how to use the software including TMPGEnc.

Sweet, thanks alot. I'm checking it out right now.

Add the possibility of more than two passes in Tmpgenc.

I don"t really know why, the 2-pass vbr doesn"t seem any better than the CQ so why would 3 or 4 passes make any differance, if you want multi-pass use CCE....

I agree with you Minion... CQ is already enough for most people... I don't like 2 (or more) pass for the time you lose encoding it and the fact that this time lost does not improve the quality significantly... so I'll stick with CQ ;-)

Long videos would benefit greatly from multiple passes and currently DO benefit from 2-pass. You can set the average bitrate just sightly higher than the minimum and still get perfect results in the high motion sections.

With multiple bitrate you could set min=2Mbs, max=8Mbs, ave=3Mbs and get a 3Mbs file with NO motion artifacts (effective quality equals 100%). Using the same min/max in CQ mode with a high quality setting will result in a bigger file.

The problem is that most people are not "pushing" 2-pass VBR to its limits by setting the average low. It IS time consuming to get the average setting optimized because this method requires processing the entire video. You can not experiment on short sections.

Why would you need (and want) more passes? The video needs to be analyzed just once (and then once again for the encoding of course) and for the best quality use the selection of highest quality of motion search precision. And I agree with wcpaul about 2-pass giving the BEST quality possible when file size is a determining factor or if you want a specific size. 2 pass is actually equivelant to CQ-100-quality when the resulting file size comes out lower than what you specified as the avg. bitrate. It means that the encoder has more than needed room for encoding the file at your max bitrate and the bitrate allocated rates (which depends on the motion of the movie). ehh hard to explain... but yeah, 2-pass takes forever though.. I'd say for an SVCD, if your file is 40 minutes or less, then you are safe for encoding at CQ at 100 quality, 2520 Max, 300 min, with padding for the MPG to fit on an 80-min CD. Unless your movie has very lottle motion, more than 40 mins, you'd probably wanna go with 2-pass to get the best quality with the space you have. Use a bitrate calculator like FitCD. okay.. off topic...ill go now..

Pro encoders do more than two passes because it is an iterative process to determine exactly where more and more bits can be stolen to make high motion scenes better. Until the guess from pass N is tested in pass N+1, you don't know whether it is optimal. If it is not, you need pass N+2, etc.

With just two passes, bit stealing probably needs to be conservative.

Bitrate/Q analysis on the final product should show a steady and low Q with a fluctating, but purposeful, bitrate even with a low average setting. TMPGenc in single pass CQ mode produces a nice Q but bitrate stays high and always seems to be "hunting" around unecessarily.

How important is the system - setting "MPEG1-VCD(non-standard)"?

I recompressed a MPEG1 with the following settings: CQ, 3000-4000 bit rate, 100% quality, 44100khz and 320kbps to MPEG1 CQ, 1856-3000 bit rate, 100% quality, 44100khz and 320 kbps. (Its a 15 mins video i have all the space in the CD to use).

When i played back with my DVD/VCD player the video was perfect except for the audio there's a bit stuttering which is quite noticeable, about 97% good 3% stuttered. When i reviewed my settings aside from the above i used the option "MPEG1-VCD" not the "non-standard". Did this setting somehow affect my audio? or has to do with my bit rate?

Second question, when i fast forward the video in my DVD player the audio disappear, but if you play it normally till the end the audio is there, any explanation to this mystery?

thanks.

You are creating a non-standard VD so the setting "MPEG1-VCD" not the "non-standard" is correct.

The audio stutter could be because the bitrate you are using is too high for your player. Check out www.vcdhelp.com, there is a 'Plaayer List' section where you can look up your player and check up to what bitrate limits other people are encoding to.

No ,if you are makeing a "NON-standard" vcd useing the "VCD-non-standard" setting is the Correct setting.if you use the "mpeg1 setting the correct VCD headers might not be added to the file.The reason that the audio cuts out could be because the bitrate is peeking out, which can make the audio cut out, if you lowered the minimum bitrate then you might overcome this problem without looseing quality.........

I should stop replying early in the morning ... allow myself to wake up first.
Of course Minion is right ...if you are creating a non standard VCD, that is the setting you should use ...

hi, i'm trying to convert a pal-divx movie into cvd but when it is complete the picture comes out a bit jerky. I put the size at 352x576 and the GOP at 15. Actually i splited the divx movie into 2 parts but the first part came out fine. However i don't know why the second part is a little bit jerky (i used the same setting for both parts.Does anybody know what is the best setting for this in tmpgenc and Why part 2 comes out jerky and part 1 didn't....thank you for your time

Maybe the "Field Order" for the second part was not set correctly..The field order for the first part of a movie can be differant than the second part..If you load the file into Tmpgenc useing the Wizard" then Tmpgenc scans the file for the correct field order.....

Hi,

I am ripping a DVD to VCD by frame-serving using DVD2AVI. However it seems that this process feeds TMPGenc with a 4:3 (pan&scan) aspect ratio. That is, full width video with vertically scretched. I would like to preserve original aspect ratio.
I have played around with the settings in TMPGenc but only with minimal success. The main change was with the "Image positioning method" in the Advanced Tab. If I change this setting to Centred(Custom Size) and set the pixel size to 352x252 the final video is closer to the original aspect ratio. From DVD2AVI the source is shown as PAL 16:9 interlaced.

Is this the only way to fix this or is there a better/easier way?

Also I would like to say that the quality from TMPGenc is excellent. Hopefully later releases will improve on the speed though.

Thanks in Advance.

Try changeing the output aspect ratio to 16:9 and try the "fullscreen(keep aspect ratio)" setting in the video arrange method, if you use the "clip frame" feature then you might be able to arrange it correctly.........

anyone know what this means i beleive it is an audio problem but im not sure what to do , the error mssg appears every every frame it seems..

any help ?
simon

You can try to delete Tmpgenc and re-install it and see if that helps, but the problem is most likely because Tmpgenc does not like something about your file..Have you tried to use a differant file and see if it encodes it properly?? if it does then it is a problem with your file..

In the middle of encoding an .avi to .mpg in order to play on my dvd player, I got an error. It was an error window with numbers like.. "-4839452 91103" or something; always starting with a negative. That's all the window says, just numbers. I press "ok" and TMPGEnc continues encoding, then after a few frames, the window pops up again, i press "ok", pop up again, I press "ok", etc... I stopped encoding and opened the .mpg to see what it looked like. It was fine, actually. I just dont want to sit here for 1 hour+ and press enter on my keyboard every 2 seconds. What's wrong?? thanks..

I have a 3.7gig mpeg2 file I am trying to burn to DVD with my Pioneer A04 burner.

When I try to burn it with Nero, it tells me that since the file is over 2gigs it cannot be stored into an ISO file system.

When I tried to burn it with Sonic MyDVD it tells me it is too big to fit on the disc


TIA,
-John

try using neoDVD it works for me.

Newbie here,

Downloaded all necessary software from afterdawn.com (Smart Ripper, DVD2AVI, TMPGEnc.) I've following all the directions perfectly. Now when I use TMPGEnc to open my d2v file, it says "it can not open, or unsupported". I have downloaded the VFAPI plugin and is properly installed. Trying this whole DVD/VCD thing on my new Athlon XP 1800 computer with 512 PC2700 DDR! Am I doing something wrong or is it the new Lord of the Rings DVD has to much antipiracy software in it?

Sounds like you did something wrong in your frame serving part(the use of DVD2AVI). I've finished making a Lord of the Rings XVCD last week, and it came out great! The programs I used were CladDVD XP w/ DVD2AVI bundled, and of course TMPGenc 2.57. I usually use CladDVD XP to do both my ripping and frame serving at ounce. CladDVD XP has a function that goes automatically (should you choose the option) to DVD2AVI after ripping. Smartripper is great when you want alot more info off your DVD and not just the basics that CladDVD XP offers. You'll have to trouble shoot the options in DVD2AVI to see which option you mistakenly did or didn't choose. Since you didn't write down which settings you choosed, I can't help you find the problem. Check with VCDHelp.com to see their guides on setting up DVD2AVI. Good Luck

The message comes from several things.

DVD2AVI and the plugin vfp need to be in the same directory.

The audio and video ( mymovie.d2v and mymovie.wav) need to be in the same directory.

The finicky issue which I have verified over -over again. It the files can't be moved before imprting into TMPGENC. If you move them from there original location you will get that error. If move them and put them back you will get the error.

Last if you create and leave the D2v project in the directory where the dvd files are you eliminate your problem.

Frustrating but I have seen it

I've run into this problem also. I've also tried to send the created audio and vob file with the d2v file to another machine by way of a mapped drive and it doesn't work either. Any definitive way to get this to work?

Kahnman,

Thanks a million buddy! My fault was that (being a newbie) I cut the movie's .wav file and pasted it in another folder. Basically I created two folders, one for the video and the other for the audio. Now I know, just leaving all the work that DVD2AVI does in one folder. Then, when you use TMPGEnc, and asks for a 2DV file, just point it to the one in that single folder.

Wheeew! This whole new DVD ripping thing has got me all excited again about computers.

Question for all of you folks, which do you prefer VCD, SVCD or DivX?


Thanks again all!

Oh and one more thing,

Lord of the Rings on 3 CD's turned out beautifully. I've even made a nice custom Menu page with my own photoshop made logo (Eventhough there's only one link per CD) courtesy of Nero Burning Rom 5.5.9.0 !

Thanks again all :)!

Picture perfect details on how to make VCDs are courtesy of www.afterdawn.com

http://www.afterdawn.com/articles/archive/dvd2vcd_with_smart_dvd2avi_tmpgenc.cfm?wide=true

I am a newbie to Tmpgenc. I have only been encoding/burning with Nero for a month or so. I downloaded a video that was in Divx format, and had to search to find a codec pack so that I could hear the sound in Windows Media Player (and the Divx player)

Meantime, I thought that maybe if I just burned it onto CD, Nero might get the sound onto the CD so that my DVD player would play it. Didn't happen, so I have yet another coaster, albeit one with pretty awesome picture quality. After installing the codecs, though, the sound works fine in either player on my computer.... so I know it is there.

Found this site after reading MANY BB's. Downloaded Tmpgenc and am now encoding the video again. Read on THIS bb that I may need to convert the sound to a wav file with Virtual Dub. Downloaded & installed that, but haven't yet figured out how to extract the sound file :-( Any pointers to help with this process? The Virtual Dub help files don't address the issue.

I hate to abort the encoding that has been processing for a couple of hours at this point, but I need to know if there is a way to TEST the encoded file before burning it, to see if the sound is indeed there?

This BB community is GREAT, BTW! :-)

You can play the file in media player , but if you want to see what it will look like on your TV you will need a software DVD player like Cyberlinks Power DVD.

To extract the audio to a wav file with Virtual dub is totally simple , you just load in your file then go to "file" to "Save as wav" and that is it.......

Hi!!!

I don't understand much of it, but I tried. Well, I have some videos in AVI type and I wanna to change it for MPEG. I changed it, but there is no sound!!! Please help me!!!

I have the same problem. The sound worked when i played it in AVI.

You should ALLWAYS extract the audio from your avi files to wav file with "Virtual dub" and use that as your audio source..Tmpgenc does not like compressed audio sources and most AVI files especially ones downloaded off the net have compressed audio ........

on trying to convert from avi to mpeg ,as soon as i start i get an error message index of scan line is out of range(240). any help would be appreciated