OK, this might get long, but I want to put it all out there to avoid guesses posing as answers.

(Hardware: 1700gig Athlon, 512megs ram, SIS AGP video with 8mb ram, I know, I know.)

The good experience: I have a number of 8mm analog tapes, basic 8mm, not Hi-8. Based on a bit of research, I determined that the quality level is 352x240 and about 2400 bits/sec, like VHS. I played the tapes in my Sony D8, output to AVI (what a waste!), edited in Studio 8, then used TMPBEnc to convert to MPEG 1's and 2's. If I used a CBR of 3000, I got pretty decent VHS quality files. I also used Auto VBR @50%. Both Audio specs were set to 48k sampling and 128 bits. No Dolby originals here!

Generally, I was VERY pleased. The CBR's file size averaged about 11% of the AVI, and the Auto VBR's, less than half of that! In fact, I got almost 5 hours of video with some room left over onto a DVD-R using Ulead DVD Movie Factory. For just duplicating family video "snapshots", the quality was adequate. And I kept the CBR's on two DVD's as basic data files.

AND NOW FOR THE HEADBANGING! So, now I want to do the same thing with my DV tapes, except I would like to keep most or all of the quality that DV gives me. I had played around with MPEG2 renderings in Studio, and all I got was lots of jaggies with panning or action. You oughtta see a hula hoop! So I selected a clip and started experimenting with TMPGEnc. Essentially, the same thing. I tried a lot of bit rates, Auto, CBR, just about everything. High bit rates helped somewhat, but did not cure the problem. If I went back to my old 352x240, no problem. And the detail level, while less, wasn't catastrophically so. I should add that everything was played back on Zoom Player or my standalone Apex 1200.

I've searched this forum and www.dvdrhelp.com without much genuine insight. One responder to a similar question on this forum said it was a matter of interlaced (TV) vs. progressive (computer) output. If I render "non-interlaced" I just get a strange colored video - with jaggies.

A related question is this: DV has a bit rate of 3745 kb/sec or so. There are never any jaggies or other motion related problems when playing as a tape or AVI. Why would anyone use a greater bit rate? You can't increase what isn't there, right? Something I'm not getting? Do I have to burn many platters to test every quality variation on the standalone?

Any resident TMPGEnc geniuses out there with genuine answers? Is all this related to inadequate video ram? If so, does that mean a cheapie standalone DVD player has more video ram and better processing for $50, less than a better video card?

I know this is a lot to cover, but it seems variations of my question comes up all over the forums and usenets.

Gracias, pzo

PART 1:

>Generally, I was VERY pleased. The CBR's file size averaged about 11% of the AVI, and the Auto VBR's, less than half of that! In fact, I got almost 5 hours of video with some room left over onto a DVD-R using Ulead DVD Movie Factory. For just duplicating family video "snapshots", the quality was adequate. And I kept the CBR's on two DVD's as basic data files.

If you want better quality vs file size then you would be better of using the 'CQ' method of encoding NOT 'Auto VBR' or CBR

>I had played around with MPEG2 renderings in Studio, and all I got was lots of jaggies with panning or action. You oughtta see a hula hoop! So I selected a clip and started experimenting with TMPGEnc. Essentially, the same thing. I tried a lot of bit rates, Auto, CBR, just about everything. High bit rates helped somewhat, but did not cure the problem. If I went back to my old 352x240, no problem

What resolution are your DV's, 720x480?

This seems most likely an interlacing and/or resizing problem.
If your DV's are interlaced then you should encode to interlaced, as for the jaggies DO NOT rely on what you see on your monitor for judgment.
Monitors CANNOT display interlaced material correctly and will almost always invariably result in these type of artifacts. You will most likely NOT have the same problem when viewed on a regular TV.

You will not experience interlacing problems with material that has a resolution of 352x240.
At this resolution you are only viewing half of the lines in the video, the other half is discarded therfore there will be no interlacing problem to speak of.

>One responder to a similar question on this forum said it was a matter of interlaced (TV) vs. progressive (computer) output. If I render "non-interlaced" I just get a strange colored video - with jaggies.

Encoding to 'non-interlace' will NOT automatically give a de-interlaced output from an interlaced source.If you intend this material to be viewed mostly on a PC then you should either de-interlace the material prior to encoding and then encode to progressive (non-interlaced) or encode to 'interlaced' and use a software DVD player to view the material which will bob de-interlace on the fly while playing.

Also you should encode to MPEG2 for max compatibity and quality. MPEG1 does NOT support interlaced material.

Cont...

PART 2:


>For just duplicating family video "snapshots", the quality was adequate. And I kept the CBR's on two DVD's as basic data files.

This is just a pointless waste of a DVD. You should author this DVD properly. Not only will this make it compatible for all set top players AND PC players, but it will also allow you to fit slightly more data on the disk.
Ordinary data uses more space on disk due to parity data being added, this data is not required with MPEG data.

>A related question is this: DV has a bit rate of 3745 kb/sec or so. There are never any jaggies or other motion related problems when playing as a tape or AVI. Why would anyone use a greater bit rate? You can't increase what isn't there, right? Something I'm not getting? Do I have to burn many platters to test every quality variation on the standalone?

You CANNOT compare bitrates between different compression methods, different methods use different algorithms and AVI generally has a better compression ratio than MPEG.
Just because an AVI uses a bitrate of 3745 Kb/sec it does not mean you can obtain the same quality using this bitrate when encoding to MPEG. In fact you will probably have to double this bitrate to acheive the same quality when using MPEG 1/2.

My advice to you is to de-interlace and re-size this material with AVIsynth and then encode this material as MPEG2 progressive frames. You will need to use a decent bitrate if you wish to maintain the quality of the original DV. Use the CQ method and don't use a min bitrate below 2000 Kb/s, at least a max of 6000 kb/s, Q - 65-80 and a resolution of 720x480 (depending on whether your DV is full res), but even then you may experience some macroblocks. In that case you will need to raise the max bitrate.

Don't even contemplate fitting any more than 2 hours per DVD if you want to maintain the original DV quality.
5/6 hours per DVD will just require such a low bitrate that you will degrade the quality to like VCD.
Author this DVD properly as Video not data.

>Any resident TMPGEnc geniuses out there with genuine answers? Is all this related to inadequate video ram? If so, does that mean a cheapie standalone DVD player has more video ram and better processing for $50, less than a better video card?

None of this is related to either your RAM or your video card, but you will almost always get a better quality output from a standalone DVD player than a PC.

Check this out:
http://www.100fps.com/

Ashy, you are a bloomin' genius! And that link you referred to, wow!

I'm just absolutely appalled that all these software vendors, Ulead, Pinnacle, TMPGEnc, etc. just pretend like this problem doesn't exist. Even the latter defaults all the rendering to a 720x480 NTSC size. It's sort of like saying that if you choose to make your car go faster you must understand chemical engineering for the gasoline and the Otto cycle for the engine.

From what I gathered on that link, rendering into 352x240 is as good as it gets unless one is willing to sacrifice lots of time and file size to get near DV quality without mice teeth and motion problems. So my digital 8mm is worthless in quality unless I use it as tape directly to the TV. Unreal.

Again, thanks for your insights.

pzo

No prob.

Hoping this is a simple question, but I didn't find a direct answer (yet).

What would be the best path to comvert a series of computer-generated bitmaps to an MPEG-1 VCD file. I see that I can use JPEG or BMP as source files, but I haven't found an example, or any tips on the best way.

Can I take a series of images: frame1.jpg, frame2.jpg, etc. and convert it this way.

Heck, I guess I should just try it, but I was hoping someone had done it already and had some handy pointers.

Thanks,

--arne

To do this you just name all of your Pic Files Like this "Frame-001.jpg, Frame-002.jpg, Frame-003.jpg, Frame-004.jpg Ect"...Then Run Tmpgenc and go to "Options" to "Enviromental Settings" and put a Check in the Box next to "Open Sequence Files as Movie",(You might not need to do this with JPG files but check it just to be sure) Then Just Load in "Frame-001.jpg" and the Rest of the Files will load into Tmpgenc sequentually as you have Numbered them...And then just do your setting and Encode away....Cheers

If these are indeed computer generated then using the CG/Animation setting under the 'Quantize matrix' tab should give better results.

Hi, is there anyone that can tell me which is the best configuration for encode cartoon. For example, the gop?????
Usually I make SVCD VBR high quality. If I active the filter anti-noise, the time is very higher.

I hope that anyone can help me, bye and thanks!

Generally you should not touch the GOP structure unless you really Know what you are Doing, I usually use a 12 Frame GOP which seems to produce better Quality than say a 18 frame GOP but there is a Slight increase in the File size ....As for Filters Like the Noise Filter it is better to Not use the Tmpgenc Filters and use Filters Like the Ones in AVISynth or Virtual Dub and Frameserve the File to Tmpgenc, this is a Lot faster than useing the Tmpgenc Filters ....Good Luck

The parameters for cartoons would be the same as for any other movie. It is motion video and should be treated as such.

You don't say what your source is, so I can't say whether it is worth you using the Anti-noise filter or not.
If it is captured video then using one of AVIsynths or Virtualdubs filters will speed up the process and give better results.
Flaxen's VHS virtualdub filter generally gives pretty good results with captured video.
It depends on your source whether you use filters or not. If it's already pretty good quality then there is no point in using filters which may infact degrade the quality of a decent source.

If your source is DVD then no filters are required.

As for GOP level changes, I wouldn't touch these and I'm not sure about using 12 frames in a GOP either compared to 18 as this would only make the file size larger.
In my experience if you can handle the larger file size then increasing the bitrate will yield better quality than using a smaller GOP as this will increase the quality of ALL frames not just I frames.

Hi there. Can anyone please help me. When i encode a large video file at around 83% i get an error message "Index of scan line out of range". Does anybody know what this means and if so how could i get around it.Thanks very much. :)

I'm terribly sorry. I had no idea i had put it under "bug report" i meant it just as a question. I am new to this....obviously.

Usually this error pops up when encodeing Downloaded files, I think it is Due to Corrupt Frames or Corrupt Index in the Source AVI file...Usually it should have a Number after "Index Scan Line is out of Range" Like "Index Scan Line is Out of Range 240" You Might be able to Fix the AVI file by rebuliding the Index, You can use a Program called "DivFiX" to Strip the Index and then Rebuild the Index then the File should Work..You can also Use Virtual Dub to rebuild the Index or even Just Frameserve the File to Tmpgenc useing Virtual Dub should work cuz Virtual Dub should automaticly fix the corrupt index and take out Corrupt Frames.....Good Luck

i have an avi movie i did in adobe premier and i am trying to convert it to mp2 so i can get it on a dvd. i have never done this before. when i try to put in the video source/audio source in the free download it says it is unsupported. what am i doing wrong? i thought it could do avi files. do i have the wrong software?

Go to "Options" to Enviromental Settings" to "Vfapi Plugins" and Raise the Priority of the "Direct Show File Reader" to "2"..This should get your File Loaded....Cheers

ok, i got it to load. now the problem is, i am trying to burn it to a DVD. why is it so hard? i have tried using sonic my dvd with the same movie saved as an .avi, .mpg, .tpr, .m2v and every time it is almost finished the blue screen comes on and says that there's some sort of problem and i have to reboot. is there an easier way to burn dvds? i bought this thinking it would be like a cd burner (naive).

This seems like a system or software problem not an encoding problem.
What operating system are you using and do you have plenty of free space?

Have you tried a different authoring program?
Give TMPGenc DVD author a try. It is simple to use and guaranteed to work with TMPG's own files.

How did you create the MPEG files? Did you use a template or the wizard and what where your settings?

You should have 1 or 2 main files when TMPG has finished encoding depending on the method you chose.

If you have 1 file with an .MPG extension the this will be a combined Video and Audio stream which can be imported directly into some not all authoring programs.
If you have 2 files then you will have one with an .m2v extension for the video and one with a .wav extension for the audio, both of which can be imported into an authoring program.

From past experiences, I know that if an audio and video files do not have matching frame counts, TMPGEnc would disappear at 99%. So how do I know if the frames for audio and video are the same? Usually, I go to Source Range and then move the End Marker a bit before the end of the video. I switch on the audio readings and then click the fast forward button. I set the End Marker whenever there is a flat green line. But just now, I converted a test clip. I selected the last few seconds of the video. I also used the audio readings as well. The very last frame had no green lines. It was just gray. But the visual was still there. Despite that, it still converted fine with no problems. So is there a way to find out accurately if TMPGEnc would disappear at the last minute?

Also, I was wondering what the difference was between normal conversion and the option "Output MPG"?

Well I can't say I have ever had that problem which is a strange one at that.

It's not necessary to have the same length of Audio as Video and shouldn't even affect the encoding and I don't actually think your problem is even related to the audio and is probably something else.

If you set the source range to the end of the film it will encode up to that point regardless whether there is audio present or not.
If it did matter if there was audio present then I wouldn't be able to encode Video elementry streams.

If I were you I would check your config in TMPG and maybe have a look at the kind of files you are encoding.

If these are encodings from AVI's downloaded from the net then I'm not surprised you have problems because more often than not they are dodgy with corrupted indexes.
You will never get this problem with a good clean source such as a real DVD rip using something like DVD2AVI.

>Also, I was wondering what the difference was between normal conversion and the option "Output MPG"?

No difference really except this will show the shutdown option in the main window.

No it happened again! :( As I said earlier, I did a test clip of converting the last few seconds to MPEG. TMPGEnc did not disappear. But when I converted the entire thing without Source Range, it disappeared at 99%! :( This extra frustrating because my computer is so slow at converting. :( Is there a way to solve this problem? I think the AVI was a TV rip and then people subtitled it and had it up for Bittorrent.

Like I said you likely will get problems with downloaded crap off the net.

Have you tried raising the Directshow reader priority in the VFAPI plugins and installing FFDSHOW?
Maybe you could try re-idexing the AVI with Virtualdub.
When opening an AVI with Virtual dub make sur you check the box which says 'Pop up extended open options' then check 'Re-derive keyframe flags'

You can the either re-save it using the direct stream copy option or frame serve it to TMPG.

I already have FFDSHOW. Where do I find the "Pop up extended open options"?

Run Virtualdub then when you click 'Open video file' to load your AVI there will be a check box.

So what does that function really do to the AVI? Thanks for your help!

hello - regarding the environment/cpu setting 'save analyzing result of
multipass vbr to cache" - What gets saved? Where is it saved? How does it
help.
Thanks,
Dave

I belive this Option will either save the Information from the First Pass of 2-Pass VBR to the Cache or to your Hard disk so if you do not have a Lot of Disk Space you should Probably save it to your Cache but I think this will Take a Little Longer in the encodeing time, and saveing to your Hard drive is a Little Faster...The First Pass Info gets automaticly deleted after encodeing has Finnished.....Cheers

I look in c: emp and I can see files vbr_3.tmp and vbr_4.
These files are "both in use" (I have an encode running)
I have a checkmark in 'save analyzing result of
multipass vbr to cache'
These seem to be the items, but these are produced whether or not I have
a checkmark there.
What is "cache" isn't that the same as disk space?

Dave

Using this package? Thank you

What is Jepg2000??? Do you mean some form of Mjpeg??

No. Jpeg 2000 is the new jpeg format for static images.

Are you trying to convert JPEG2000 to a movie?

If you are then convert the JPEG2000 into bitmaps. Load the bitmaps into TMPGEnc and encode.

If you are just trying to view them, then TMPGEnc won't help you any. You need to download a special plug-in or viewwer application to view the images.

For those you don't know, JPEG2000 was released a few years ago and from what I heard it has much better compression than standard JPEG. It is based on wavelet compression. One of the founders of JPEG2000 was on the televison show "The ScreenSavers" on the station TechTV a couple years ago. I have not heard about it since.

Video Guy

Jepg2000 was released in 1989 from NTHU in Trondheim Norway. This is the type of com. they use in digital cinemas in 2006.

I am attempting to turn a movie into a VCD. I loaded the movie, the setting to VideoCD (NTSCFilm) and started the process. 12 hours later the file was over 4 times the original, no sound, seemingly weaker quality, and after the end of the movie it continued to run for another 3 hours (extended well beyond where the original movie ends). Can anyone tell me what I did wrong? I used Gspot to confirm things (which is VideoCD (NTSCFilm)), but I was unaware that I needed to do anything else to it (the tutorial I read made no mention of anything else). Can anyone enlighten me on what I did wrong? I used WinDVD to see if the file was ok, but, like I said, has all the symptoms I mentioned above, and is almost 4 gigs in size (so not likely to fit on less than 4 cds). Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

A full length movie can't fit on 1 VCD.

You say it is 4 times bigger. This sounds correct if your source is MPEG-4 (Divx, Xvid, etc) and you are converting to MPEG-1. MPEG-4 is much more efficient so you can fit the full movie on 1 cd.

It sounds like you are trying to convert a Divx file (perhaps one you downloaded since you are having sounds problems and the 23.97 (film) frames per second).

If you want it on one disc then buy the DVD!!


Video Guy

The size of the original is 690mb, the new version is 3.9 gigs. Not even 4 cds could hold that. As well, the movie doesn't end at its appointed time...it continues on for 3 hours after that. No sound at any point and extended 3 hours (which is two times the size of the movie; only an hour and a half movie). So, I am thinking there is a problem with the settings.

I don't mind splitting it between two cds, but over 4 cds with no sound?! That is why I am asking if I did something incorrectly. Which I obviously did. I read a bunch of threads and TMPGEnc is only suppose to double the size of the file (which I knew and accepted), which is why I know there is a problem.

According to Gspot, some of the specifics of this movie include:
type: OpenDML AVI
FPS: 23.97
running time: 01:40:24 (though, the new mpeg that TMPGEnc made is 04:36:00)

Any advice on how to make this convert properly would be appreciated.

The Extra Amount of Blank Video at the end Can be edited out useing the "Merge & Cut" and if you use the Source Range and set the Beginning and end Piont of the file it should not do that anymore...If you are Makeing a Standard VCD the File size should be about 10mb per Minute of Video...And the Reason why you did not get any audio is Probably because the audio in your AVI file is of a Format that Tmpgenc Can not Natively Decode, Like either AC3 or VBR Mp3...You should Extract the audio from your AVI file to WAV format and use the Wav file as the Audio source in Tmpgenc, You can use Virtual Dub for this But I find it easier to use a Little Utility called "Decompress.exe" which will turn your AVI file with Compressed audio into an AVI with Uncompressed audio which Tmpgenc will Happily encode....Good Luck

how long is your movie (in minutes).
Did you choose an svcd template or vcd ?
A vcd can only hold 80 minutes or so, because the bitrate is fixed.
SVCD bitrate is variable, so a 50 minute movie *may* fix on
an svcd, or may not. It depends what the average bitrate of the SVCD is.

If the encode seems to going "off the end", it could be a problem with
the audio. Are you encoding a AVI? If so, download virtyaldub, open the
avi and set audio to "direct stream copy" and select file/sav wav.
If the wav is VBR and virtualdub will tell you, tmpgenc has problems
with it, and you have to use something else to convert it eith to an
uncpmpressed WAV file, of a CBR mp3.
Dave

There is No such a thing as VBR Wav...

"there's no such things as a vbr wav"
Not strictly speaking, no, but vitualdub will save the vbr mp3 with a
WAV header, and it gives it a WAV file name.

I got a SVCD movie with nearly double height and half width frame after TMPGEnc-ing my DV(avi) movie. And the left edge of frame is squeezed. Can anyone tell me how to sovle this problem? My DV(avi) source is 720x480. SVCD is set to 480x480 NTSC. The DV(avi) file was captured from JVC DV using MGI StudioWave.

You need to play back the SVCD with a player that will adjust the aspect ratio. Sometimes windows media player will play it back in 480X480 (square) resulting in tall skinny people, the effect you described. If you play it back using DVD software, like WinDVD or PowerDVD, or your home player it will adjust the aspect ratio making it 4:3 instead of 1:1.

When you encode DV to SVCD make sure you select "Full Screen", If you choose "Center" you will loose the edges.


Video Guy

Thank you Video Guy. I will try again the day afer tomorrow.

I plan on using TMPGEnc DVD Author and would like to know if there is an option to create a continuous play DVD.

There are some other programs that do this, listed in this thread...

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=174260&highlight=continuous+play

but I am really hoping TMPGEnc DVD Author has this option as well.

Menu Display Settings -> General -> Action to take after all tracks have been played

What will you find there? Yeah, a Loop Mode! ;)

Great! Thanks for the reply B_Racer

I have certain mpeg1(*.mpg) files recorded in (640x480) output for PAL tv, recorded via sony cybershot.I woud like to improve the brightness in someof them and save them,woud be burning them to a VCD (PAL).I have nero 5.5 and pixela's Imagemixer1.5.1,Imagemi..can only crop the file but has no movie enhancement features and it can also change the files to VCD(*.dat) format.
Will TMPEencd improve the brightness ? I could then save it in my image mixer folder
and burn the files.I have Win98SE and also Direct X9.0b,read somewhere on this BB that direct X9.0b caused problems.Please help
Thank you
Ak.

I don't think you'll be playing those files on any TV if you intend to use a DVD player.
640x480 is not an accepted standard for VCD,SVCD or DVD, so you will have to re-encode to the right format first.

As for the answer to your question:

Load your file then in the main window of TMPG click the 'Setting' button then click the 'Advanced' tab and finally double click the 'Simple color correction' filter.