for some reason.... after using smart ripper successfully 19 times and dvd2avi 19 times and tmpgenc 38 times.. i cant seem to get an audio (.wav) file from dvd2avi for the movie From Hell... this movie's audio format is DTS . it is the first one i have tried in DTS audio format. does dvd2avi support this format. can someone clarify or help me with this please. thanks :)

First go into your "ifo" file that smartripper made,and check what track the english audio track that isn"t "DD" . then change the track number under audio in dvd2avi, then you will get a wav file...

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND NOT ONLY THAT. BUT NOW I CAN USE THE SUBTITLE TRACKS IF NEED BE!!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU :) :) :) :) :) :)

no problem .I"m here to serve!!!!!!!

im wondering if you ca do a batch encode to do numerous files consecutivly with out manual intervention

Yes you can.

great......how do you do it?

MPEG tools > batch encode

there is no batch encode under MPEG tools

file > batch encode

I must say, this is general question, which you can search net or the software directly. And asking/answering this kind of question may be violates "Term of use" on this BBS.

To moderator
If my comment is not appropriate, please delete it.

I have a serious problem. I converted Avi to VCD many times with TMPGEnc. My system XP, AMD 1600+, 256 MB DDR.
Since two days the complete System freezes after 2-4 Min. of converting. I changed nothing remarkable. Is my system instable or whats the problem. I tried many files, I downloaded a newer version of TMPG, nothing works. Please help. (Answers in german are also welcome)
Thanks

Have the same problem.
Tried different versions of TMPGEnc on different avi files. First started noticing it while converting avi file to DVD MPG2.
Running on WinXP, P4 1.7 MHz, 256 MB RDRAM, 40 and 60 GB 7200 rpm HDs..

I have the same problem! amd 1700+ 512 ram winxp. The cpu usage for the program is running @ 99%. I did look at the know issues and created a new temp file for the output. I'll let you know if that worked.

No luck. Froze again.

me too can hardly get through a 800mb file to encode. whole system crashes. Real pain. 1400 512ddr XP.

Can anyone tell me the proper framerate to encode for DVD? Is it 29.97 or 30fps...Also when you extract audio in virtual dub will the audio automatically synch when you combine and encode with TMPGEnc

It is 29.97fps in "ntsc" and your audio should be in sync if the avi you used to extract the audio has the same frame rate that you are encodeing to....

If the framerate of the original is 25fps pal and I am trying to convert to 29.97 NTSC will the audio automatically convert as well

Hello all....I have been trying to convert from AVI to Mpeg 2 without losing quality but it has been difficult...I can download a pristine copy of a film and when I go to convert to MPEG 2 so I can burn it to DVD I lose quite a bit of quality...Also after it encodes to DVD and I burn I get the digital blocking effect...Can anyone give me a hint as to what I need to do to retain quality ...

The higher the bitrate the higher the quality as a general rule,you should watch you encodes before you burn then so you don"t waste a dvd disk..

When i load a divx, and go use the source function in the advanced tag, i normally see the format and the fps in the upperleft corner. with some divx's the framerate is displayed wrong (30fps instead of 23.970 or 29.970). Does anybody know why? Is it just displayed wrong or does tmpgenc see the file as a 30fps avi. If so, what can i do about it 'cause it's impossible to get files in sync when tmpgenc sees the framerate wrongly.

Thanks in advance.
Richard

All I do is load the file in virtual dub....then go to file...file information....there you will see the original framerate and resolution...if the frame rate is 23.971... then when you know its NTSCFilm... knowing that you load the NTSCFilm template in tmpgenc.... if the framerate is 29.971... then you know it is NTSC...tmpgenc load NTSC template....pay attention to the resolution...if it is 352x240 then choose vcd only...svcd will only waste your time cause the quality will not be there...if the resolution is or close to 480x480 then vcd or svcd will have good quality.... if the resolution is higher than that ...like around 720x480 then you might want to choose xvcd or xsvcd...these last 2 choices are not compatible in all dvd players...so be careful with these last two settings... mine plays them fine and I heard that all apex players do as well... if I were you I would do a test encode with 1-2 min movie clip and burn onto cd-rw and test it in the dvd player....happy encoding

How to use the audio gap correct?Is it possible to hear the sound in the source range for correct adjustement ?

encode a smoall chunk of the movie....then look at it to see if it is in sync...trial and error will perfect it

You have to encode a few seconds of your file and listen to the file to see if it is synced, then repeat till you get it right.I know it seems tedious but you should get it right after a few tries..

No matter what i try to get my tmpgenc to work it just wont. a little while ago i encoded some files using DVD2AVI and then went to use TMPGENC and it wouldn't work at all - something to do with either file type unsupported or cannot open. i added and installed the VFAPI - no change. next i put the DVD2AVI API into the same folder and it worked for 1 encoding - after that it came up with all of the same messages. they are all the latest versions that i am using and i just can'y understand what is going wrong.
Also is there anyway to make the SVCD contain Dolby Digital instead of AC3???

Somebody please help!!!

Regards
Simon

I think your problem is that the priority of your "dvd2avi" plugin isn"t high enough..go to you "enviromental settings" then to "vfapi plugins" and raise your "dvd2avi project file reader" to "2" this should get your "d2v files" loaded, and remember not to move or delete any of your "vob" files and "d2v files" till encodeing is complaeted....

When I try to convert a divx .avi to SVCD, the file appears to convert fine,
but after it hits 100% an error message comes up "Illegal MPEG System Stream."
The resulting video has noticable flaws, like jerkiness at seemingly random
times, and random blocks that appear on the screen. This occurs when I try
to convert PAL (25 FPS), NTSC (29.97 FPS), or NTSC Film (23.97 FPS), and I
load the proper profile for each (I've even tried loading a different profile).
I've tried 2 pass VBR (setting the average to 2100), CBR (2100), CQ (90), and I
still get the same problem. I can cut the .avi's, and encode say a 5 or 10
minute portion fine, but when i try to do a 20 minute or more portion I get
the error. I'm using a 1.33ghz Athlon with 256megs of RAM, so I don't think
its a hardware problem. I have several gigs free, and I've tried defragmenting
to see if that helps. I'm currently trying this with TMPG 2.54a plus, though
I've tried several versions in the past with the same problem. I'm running
Win2K, and I've even reinstalled but it did not help. I've separated the audio
out and converted to .wav and tried using that as the audio source, and I've
tried leaving out the audio source. I've tried with just divx3.1 installed, just
4, and just divx5, but it makes no difference. Any help would be appreciated,
thanks.

Has anyone had a problem of artifacts (blockiness) show up in their mpeg2 output? Of about 35,000 frames, a total of about 30 or 40 frames exhibit some sort of brief artifact (mostly blockiness) that is annoying. It never happened when I was on Win98SE, but as soon as I upgraded (clean install) to WinXP Pro, I have noticed the occasional occurrence of these "glitches." Is it a problem with TMPGenc, or is it some difference between WinXP and Win98? I'm using version 2.54a.

This may be decoding problem when:

1. you read files to encode.
2. you playback the encoded file.

I assume that you do not have same/similiar decoder (and some other codecs, software etc.) between your Win98 system and WinXP system.

I do my svcd"s with average 2750kbs and a max of 6000kbs and don"t get any artifacts at all .I don"t see artifacts till I use the "zoom" on my dvd player at 3 times.,when I look at the frames of a vob file right off a dvd I see more frames with artifacts than 30 or 40 per 20 minutes...

I've seen exactly what you're describing, and I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only person who's had this problem!

This happens to me when creating MPEG1 (VCD) files from AVI files created with Pinnacle Studio 7. The glitches (very short bursts of blocky frames, with an audible noise) only showed up sporadically, every couple of minutes or so (otherwise, the quality is very good). I have exactly the same problem converting the same AVI files on 2 different machines (one on Win2000 and the other on WinXP).

***********The only way I was able to fix this problem was to reduce to audio bit rate down to 128 kb/sec.*****************

I don't understand why TMPGenc messes up in the same spots every time when the Pinnacle MPEG1 encoder works fine (although the quality isn't quite as good as TMPGenc). The Windows and Elecard players (different codecs) both glitch on playback at the same spots. The weird thing is that the "bad" MPEG file plays back fine in the VirtualDub playback window!

Steve, it sounds like you and I have similar problems. I am using the latest version of Pinnacle Studio 7 to capture and edit. I use the Canopus ADVC-100 to get my VHS footage to DV format. Even if I use the raw, DV/AVI file as input to TMPGenc, I still get the artifacts (usually I make my movie and output it to AVI from S7 and use that as input to TMPGenc). And, like you, S7 creates MPEG2 files without the blocky frames--it's just lower quality. One difference though is I don't recall any audio distortion--only video. For my TMPGenc settings I generally use the DVD template as is except I change the bitrate to 6000Mbps at CBR and let it rip. On Win98SE I never had an artifact. WinXP is a different story. I'm wondering if XP has different math libraries, more background processing with more interrupts, or something that causes TMPGenc to hiccup and splatter a blocky frame here and there. It seems like I've been able to reduce the artifacts by killing off as many background processes as possible, but I haven't had the time to really tackle this problem like I need to. At any rate I appreciate all who have commented on this. It's a sticky problem. Oh, and by the way, I can't get VirtualDub to play an MPEG2 file. Will it do that?

No- I don't think VirtualDub opens MPEG2 files. I always get a "pack synchroization error".

You may be right about something deep within XP (but also Win2000) versus Win98 that causes TMPGenc to mess up.

I have used Studio 7's own "DVD Quality" MPEG2 setting, and the results are great- from what I've seen first-hand and what I've read here, TMPGenc is not the greatest for MPEG2 anyway, so I'd try that route for high bitrate MPEG2's instead.

It is a real pain, I know! Did you try lowering the audio bitrate to see if the video glitches disappear? For me, (MPEG1) lowering the audio bitrate to 160 helped, but they didn't disappear completely until I lowered it to 128. There is a slight reduction in sound quality, but decent enough for my VCD's. Good luck!

Studio 7's MPEG2 encoder does okay on quality, but is clearly behind the quality of TMPGenc. I tried for a long time to get the VCD angle to work as I didn't really want to buy a DVD burner. In the end though, the lower quality of VCD bothered me so I bit the bullet and went for MPEG2. I'm a whole lot happier now. I found that you need the higher bitrates to get the quailty. Anyway, I believe for DVD I can only go down to 224Kbps and still meet the standard. I really think there's something going on with XP that creates these "glitches" so I'll keep experimenting until I figure it out and let you know--unless I grow old and die first.

I am using TMPGEnc for MPEG encoding for DVD creation. I use Studio7 to capture DV from my camera (Sony TRV-17)and even if I do no editing and rendering, the video quality after encoding and writing to a DVD (using DVDit PE) is still noticably different (worse - not as sharp, some graininess, some limited gause effect) from the original DV. I have used CQ, CBR, VBR all at high settings and while the output quality is good, I expected better and can only fit slightly more than an hour on a DVD.

Maybe my expectations were too high but I would certainly welcome suggestions. Clearly it can be done because studios can put multi-hour perfect videos onto DVD's. Is it just that they use big $ encoders?

Thanks for any suggestions or advice.

Fred

You can"t expect to get the quality of say a store bought dvd with a $50 encoder,I use a $2000 encoder and don"t get the quality of the store bought dvd.And you can"t get that kind of quality from captures and home editing equipment..the dvd rip"s I do look about 90% as good as the original dvd,but there is allways the studio quality look you just can"t get with off the shelf software.The best quality allways comes with time...

Are we truly identifying "$50 software" or "Off the shelf software" as the problem? Until I figure out how to do this flawlessly and (somewhat) painlessly, I'm going to be taking my final Avid output on DigiBeta to a post house in L.A. that professionally encodes MPEG-2 for feature films and other high-end projects. But my clients (largely museums who won't be mass producing the final product) want and need to see rough cuts on DVD. I don't see why a $50 software package (or a $5 software package or a $2000 software package for that matter) can't closely approximate the performance of a $250,000 hardware encoder. The hardware encoder, granted, works in real time but the advantage of the software encoder is that it should be able to take its sweet time and flawlessly convert an uncompressed video file into MPEG-2. Many people are working on it, some of them are doing a better job than others. Some are content to sell an obiously flawed product for far more than its worth and others are kind enough to offer their efforts for little or nothing as they strive for perfection. The cost of the product isn't really, it seems, an indicator of its quality. And, obviously, the skill of the operator is the most important factor after the quality of the software. My professional encoder knows, from lots of experience, how to handle a wide range of source material. Build that into a software program and we'll all be happy as clams.

Of course it can closely aproximate the source material, it just wont look like you went to the video store and rented a dvd ..It can only look as good as what you put in,and no software can make it look better than it is.The problem is not the software but false expectations....

I am using TMPGEnc to encode MPEG2 with 2-pass VBR encoding, 6500 kbps avg. and 8000 kbps max. I use the "noise reduction" option with Still=0, Range=1, Time axis=100. My source material is DV taken with my Sony VX2000 camera which is already very low noise, but the slight noise reduction with that setting definitely improves the encode. Of course I also use custom color correction for proper MPEG2 contrast, due to DV following ITU-R BT.601 encoding of black=16, white=235. Bottom line, I find the playback quality is excellent with very infrequent noticible artifacts. There is a slight loss of high-frequency detail but nothing too bothersome.

I think if I had professionally shot 35mm film at 24 fps, scanned in as starting material, then TMPGEnc output in "3:2 pulldown at playback" mode might indeed approach the quality of a store-bought DVD. TMPGEnc does offer you a lot of control, even down to the manual placement of your I-frames if you want to spend the time doing that (just one of the many hand tweeks done in professional DVD production.)

I've been having trouble re-encoding a series of files. When I start up the process, the time remaining is ~5 hours when it normally takes ~1 for a file of the size. After an hour, the process was done, but it was still going on. I stopped it and the video was properly done. However, there was no sound and the last frame of the original video went on for a couple of minutes until the file ended. Anyone ever had this problem before? I haven't been able to get help in solving this yet...

I hear of this happening from time to time and haven"t heard a solution, but there is a way to fix your mpeg file, first edit out the two minutes of the last frame, and de-multiplex the mpeg file and save the video.Next take your divx file and use "virtua dub" to extract the audio to "wav" format.Now just load your wav file into "tmpgenc" click the "audio only" selection and encode your audio, then take the encoded audio file and multiplex it with your mpeg video file and you should have a working mpeg1 file..