Hi folks,

I've been trying to make an SVCD compliant MPEG2 file using FlaskMPG 0.594, Avisynth 0.3 (w/Premiere Plugin), and TMPGEnc 2.55. However, TMPGEnc keeps fooling me:
*If I select CBR, everything works, but the mpg file gets huge. For instance, I encoded a 50min video at a specified average bitrate of 1920kbps (and a max of 2300kbps), which should produce an mpg file of roughly 700..750MB. The file I got eventually was about 1GB!
*If I select 2-Pass VBR, the behavior is even more curious. The resulting mpg file was about the size I'd expect, but it displayed only the last frame throughout the entire playing time, while audio was okay.
*Then I tried to encode just a tiny part of the video. I set Flask to convert the first 5000 frames. Result: I got the audio information out of frame 0..4999, but the video of frame 5000..9999. It looks as if TMPGEnc rewinds the audio stream after Pass 1, but not the video stream.
Is this a bug, or what am I doing wrong?

Martin

When I am trying to convert a .avi file to a .mpg it seems like it works successfully but when I burn it into a SVCD it won't display any image.

In most cases if the file plays fine on your computer then it should burn to a cd-r and play in your dvd player if your player supports svcd, so All I can think of is if the mpeg plays fine on your computer the problem must be with the way you burned it to cd-r or a problem with your dvd/svcd player, There are a few good svcd authoring program out there that if used correctly should author your file to play , "Nero Burning Rom" is probably the easiest and most reliable for burning vcd/svcd, and "VCD Easy" is good if you want to do chapters, if you burn it correctly then the only place left that the problem could be is possibly your dvd/svcd player.....

Ohh, and if you didn"t check the mpeg file after encodeing and before burning to disk,I don"t know why you wouldn"t but in cas you didn"t the problem could be that you need to raise the priority of the "Direct Show File Reader" in your "Vfapi Plugins".Usually if the movie is displayed in the tmpgenc screen while encodeing then it will be there in the file but you should allways watch the mpeg on yer computer before burning cuz sometime the file can have problems like your problem or no audio or out of sync or any other one of a dozzen problems...

I encode with TMPGENC to mp2, and whan i want to import the files in Scenarist 2.6, I get the error message:

Error : Number of fields (300) in GOP(# 1) or between sequence_header_code should be equal or smaller than 30.

I searched in the option, but I couldn't manage to find the "Number of Fields" set option.

Thanks

I have an avi file that I want to bet on to cd as a vcd, can someone tell me what have to do, this is all quite new to me.

Thanks

Go to "www.vcdhelp.com" and there there are a lot of step by step manuals that will help give you and idea on how to go about it and there are links to the software that you will need to do it correctly, makeing vcd/svcd/dvd"s can be a lot harder than it looks so it is good to read up on all you can and get a good idea of the principles involved before you start encodeing......

Hi,
I am new to the world of video editing, I am currently trying out
the TMPGE, I follow some of the template I found to get the best
DVD quality from AVI (VBR, 10bit, high bit-rate, Best quality, 2 pass...)
My 2-hr video need 50 hr of encoding time,
is this normal and can I do anything to speed it up. My system is:

- AMD Athlon 1.2 with 512 Mb RAM
- Windows XP on Seagate 9 Gb, 7200 ATA 66
- Captured AVI is on a separate disk Seagate 40GB, 7200 ATA 100

Thank you

Sonny

First thing you can do to increase speed and maybe even quality is to not use the 2 pass encode mode, most poeple that are farmilliar with tmpgenc know that the CQ method will give you as good results with less than half the encode time, and useing the "high quality" mode instead of "highest quality" will speed things up a lot, and try not to use very many filters, and make sure that the cpu optimizations are enabled (3D-now,sse,sse-2), if you are doing everything correctly then it shouldn"t take more than 10-12 hours to encode a 2 hour avi file on your system...

Yes, me too (as read in yesterday's thread). I've tried everything and still can't get less than 69 hours on a 2:24 video with a P3-800 & 256mb (480x480 SVCD). It's particularly frustrating because so many others are able to easily achieve what I consider to be stunning performance. If I could get it to 24 hrs even, I'd be elated. But unfortunately, 69 hours makes me less than eager about the entire process.

Currently, I'm in the process of defragmenting my boot HD with Norton Speed Disk. I think the disk is fragmented just enough that the windows swap file is having issues. It's only a theory but I'm running out of ideas. It can't hurt at least. If I find out anything, I'll be sure to post it here.

My test encode using VBR (hi 8000 avg 6000 low 2000) took approx. 25 minutes for each minute of footage on a WinXP P4 2G, 512M system. Windows Task Manger showed TMPGEnc consuming 95-100% CPU. Disk light blinked on and off slowly. It appears that the limiting resource is CPU

So based on your results, a movie the size of mine (2:25) would have taken you approximately 19 hours and 20 mins. With a processor about 3.7 times as fast as mine, that makes my 69 hrs seem accurate. So why is everyone else with relatively low speed processors reporting such fast encode times? Hmmmm...

Now wait a minute here. I mis-calculated. At 25 minutes encode time per 1 minute of video, that comes to 60 hours and 25 minues for a movie 2:25. If that's with a 2G P4, and mine takes 72 hous with a P3-800, I would say that CPU isn't quite as big a factor as I once thought. Clearly, the P4-2G performs better, but I would have expected a much larger improvement timewise. But my original question still applies, "How do some of you get such low times on your encodes?". Lower res? Maybe an older version of TMPG? No wonder there's nothing I can do to speed things up!

Dajavou,

I agree entirely. Like I earlier said, the difference between encoding times on my home machine: PIII 450MHz 314MB RAM 2 IDE hard disks, and my work machine: Athon 1.4 GHz, 1.5GB DDR RAM, 3 SCSI hard disks is only around 70-90%. i.e. ~a factor of 2, but my work machine should encode at least 3 time faster.

dpweber,s test movie took 25 minutes to encode 1 minute of video, i.e. thats a factor of 25:1 so a 2 hour movie on his machine will take 50 hours.

On my machine a 3 hour movie took 2 days - in fact it took 2x16 hours = 30 hours, at absolute top quality.

And the version I'm using - beta12a (which in certain quarters is still said to be the best version).

Griff

I have performing a number of tests over the past week to obtain performance and quality info. I've included below some tests that I recently completed with TPMGEnc on my Sony P4 2G, 512M, 2-100G drives. All test files are 5:13 in length.
(the "AVI file created in Step 3" refers to my use of Sonys' GigaPocket capture hardware/software. If you're not familar with this, it's functionality somewhat like a Tivo unit. Once the video is capture, it supports export of AVI and MPEG2 files)

Step 6
Processed AVI file created in Step 3 using free version of TMPGEnc. Used default settings with 8m CBR specified.
length 14:50 (just a little longer than Movie Shaker)
cpu 70-95%
disk light on then off slowly
file size 319M

Step 7
Processed AVI file created in Step 3 using free version of TMPGEnc. Used default settings with 8m CBR specified.
Created elemental output files
length 14:30
cpu 85-100%
available memory 320k
disk light on then off
file sizes: video 299M, audio 14.3M

Step 8
Processed AVI file created in Step 3 using DVgate Assemble to produce 8m CBR
length 5:30
cpu 85-95%
available memory 345k
disk light blinking
file size 299M

Step 9
Processed AVI file created in Step 3 using free version of TMPGEnc. Used settings with 2 pass VBR specified. Max bitrate 8000, min 2000, avg 5000, motion precision set to "Motion estimate search (fast)"
length 27:41
cpu 90-100%
disk light on then off slowly
file size 204M

This final test results in a relatively quick encode; however, the image was only fair and pixelization occurred during pans. The image quality improved significantly when I switch to motion precision Highest. This also resulted in the best quality of all others listed above. However, this difference is quality was not overly significant and I was happy with the results of all tests except for the Step 9 test.

I am currently attempted to resolve another problem where the last frame stutters (you can find the details in another post on this bbs). Once I get that resolved I will conduct the same tests with the CQ setting.

I think there must be something wrong with your guys systems ,Wow 25 minutes to encode 1 minute of mpeg on a p4 with 1.5gb-ram,definately something wrong you should be encodeing in real time or faster, on my 800mhz it is about 4 or 5 to 1 with tmpgenc,I get as fast performence on my p1-133,it takes about 1 hour to encode 3 minutes on my 133.....

Your right there minion. My P4 1.7 O/C at 1.9 with 256 DDR RAM encodes in real time or faster when encoding from AVI using the Normal setting.

My old P3 450 with 128mb used to take around 10 hours for a 2 hr movie.

ASHY

I agree with Minion their is surely some thing wrong with your guys systems. 25min encode time for 1min of video is insane. I average 3-5 Hours dependeing on bitrates I use for 1 Hour of Video in Mpeg format for conversion and alot less for Divx 4.12 encoding.
My system comprises of AMD Athlon 1.33Ghz,256MB 266MhzDDR ,15&40GB 7200Rpm Maxtors, 4xAGP32MB ATI Rage Furry Pro On a MSI KT266Pro Mother Board.

Could the reason for the fast encode times be due to your video cards? I've been out of the video card hardware advances for quite a while but if you have hardware MPEG2 encoding/decoding, could it be that your system is utilizing it? I realize how stupid this must sound, but there has to be a logical explaination for this huge difference in encode times. I know my system runs slow for TMPEG, but I can compile a complex application just fine. I don't think it's as much of what's "wrong" with our systems as it is what's "right" about yours. Now....if we can only identify what that is, we'll all be in business. Well, the slow ones will be anyway. :)

Russ M.

None of us is using hardware encoding and the Video card has absolutely nothing at all to do with it.

I'll give you some specs that my system is using with TMPG.

Hardrive- IBM deskstar 40gb ATA 100 (using 80 pin cable a must) DMA enabled
Graphics- Nvidia TNT2
Processor- P4 1.7
Ram- 256 DDR 266
**************************************************

TMPG settings. Under Option>enviroment setting.

GENERAL:
All unchecked except,
Canapus DVD codec- 'enable reading reffered AVI through network'
Panasonic IO Data DV GigaAVI CODEC- 'enable reading reffered AVI through network'

Temporary file- same drive as operating system.

CPU:
All unchecked except MMX, MMX2, SSE, SSE2

SOUND:
Non checked.

EXTERNAL TOOL:
Non checked

VFAPI PLUGIN:
ALL checked and at priority 0

***********************************************

Under Option>preview option.

Display with thinning is checked.
Fix to 320x240 is checked.
Automatically resize window for preview is checked.
*************************************************

Under Option>Task priority.
When active - Normal priority is checked.
When not active - Idle time only is checked
**************************************************

When encoding all filters are unchecked and motion search precision is set to Normal.

Floating point DCT is checked.
**********************************************

Hope this helps.

ASHY

Thanks Ashy. We have some different options with the new software that I couldn't set, but overall, your list was helpful. I did some testing with a :30 promo and it looks like I'll be getting 9 minutes per 1 min of vid. Not what I had hoped for but an improvement just the same.

Thanks again!

Iam using the new version - TMPENC PLUS 2.56.39.143 so you should have exactly the same options as me.

ASHY

ASHY, are you encoding it to MPEG-2 in SVCD resolution?

Yes I usually do encode to SVCD, but when I do decide to do MPEG1 VCD it's only usually an hour or so quicker.

ASHY

While running version ... 2.55.38.142, I get to 89% encoding this AVI file (I have encoded the source to AVI more than once) and I get the dreaded "crash to desktop" phenomenon. WinXP Pro, AthlonXP1700, 256MB-DDR, 40GB HDD (of which 5GB free).

1. Why isn't it at least giving me an error message?
2. Why isn't it leaving something in the event log?
3. How do I get around it? (Bearing in mind that the original encoding to AVI has happened more than once)

TIA

--XP

The MPEG I encode from an AVI plays upside down on my Windows Media Player. What did I do wrong?

Thanks,

Tony

What you did wrong is use "media player" cuz it has to be the worst mpeg player there is, so you should never play you mpeg files in media player, use dvd playing software like "power dvd" and your file should play correctly....

Let's not forget the baggage. Media Player (especially the recent versions, super-especially the one for Windows XP) aren't exactly renowned for being lightweight. Compare that to something like WinAmp, which from v3 will support playing video as well as audio. The whole download is about 1.8MB (but probably won't increase by much to add video support), and the executable is *TINY*. I personally use JetAudio (which reminds me - must check for updates)

I cant understand. I have no problems with the beta 12 version but with 2.56 i cant neither see the avi file on screen. I only see diferents colours green, blue, red, etc moving. I supposed v2.56 would be an improve but i realize not for me.
Im not able to solve the problem.
Can you find me.
Thank tou.

I tried to edit(cut a piece off) an mpg I recorded and now the audio and video isn't synchronized. Is there anything I can do or will Tmpgenc keep doing that? I did check, it was fine before I edited it.

Tmpgenc will cause de-sync when editing quite often, that is why it is best to use a different mpeg editor, try "mpeg2vcr" or "m2-edit pro" these will edit your mpeg files with out causeing de-sync....

Thank you very much. I will try those :)

Whenever I try to encode avi to mpeg1 whenever i try to use the avi for the video source it says can not open or unsupported. I have read other questions and have tried altering the VFAPI plug in on environmental settings by raising DirectShow... Reader to 2 but this also doesn't work. Is there anything else that could fix this problem
Someone Please Help Me!!!

i am new to this video downloading etc, i have a few films that i try to convert from avi to mpeg but whenever i put the file in the box it tells me
that eh lets say it was spiderman it would come up saying spiderman.avi can not open or unsupported.........I WOULD BE VERY GRATEFUL FOR ANY HELP

This is "newbie question #1" and the solution is to raise the "direct show file reader" in your vfapi plugins.. go to "options" to "enviromental settings" to "vfapi plugins" and raise the priority of the "direct show" to "2" and lower everything else to "0"...

I ve just downloaded 2.56 version. I cant convert any avi file. When i used the beta12 verion i had no problem.
The problem now is tha the screen shows multiple colours, blue, green, red, etc but it is imposible to identify the real image. Of course the resulting mpeg1 is a multiple colours file too absolutly diferent from the initial one.
Where is the problem. Must i come back to the old version?
Thank you

Maybe it's a problem that YUY is expected and RGB is there or the
other way round.

Sorry but i cant solve the problem.

If I was you I would download TMPG again if that doesn't work wipe all AVI codecs from your system and only install the one you need and then try it.

ASHY

I´ve solved the problem changing some parameters in the enviroment setting, VFAPI Plugin. Avi priority 2 avi2 priority 2 and the rest 0.
Than you