Please send me your favorite (and proven) SVCD template (NTSC) for version 2.54 that maintains compliance and produces highest quality without exceeding the standard. Please send it as an e-mail attachment.

I have been using TMPGEnc for some months now and have been successful most of the time. They play just fine on my Hitachi 505 stand-alone DVD player. But, I feel that I may be missing something. Here are my specs:

P4 (w/384mb RAM)
WinXP Home
Dedicated 2nd HDD for video capture, sound files, stills, and encoding
DV Camcorder
Firewire (I capture from the camcorder in DV footage)
Pinnacle Studio 7 (w/latest patch) - I edit DV footage w/S7 and Make Movie to uncompressed AVI, then
TMPGEnc 2.54 to encode to compliant SVCD (MPEG2) w/2-Pass VBR (new), High Quality, 2520K bitrate (MAX=2520K, AVE=1950, MIN=950). The result is a smaller file than using CBR, so I can fit more minutes on a CD.
NERO 5.5 (w/latest patch) - it never complains about the MPEG2 that I use.

They play fine on my DVD player, BUT will not play on my friends or relatives players (even though their player's specs (owner's manual) says they will play VCD and SVCDs). THAT'S THE PROBLEM.

I used Bitrate Viewer to check my MPEG2 files and it says:

BITRATE:
Peak = 2637
Average = 1852

Q-LEVEL:
Peak = 19.37
Average = 11.62

FRAMERATE: 29.97

Nom. Bitrate: 2,520

Chroma Format: 4:2:0

Please, can you help me? Are my files out of compliance, or what? Beats me? The SVCDs won't play in anyone's players, but will play fine in mine. Please send me a compliant NTSC configuration template... that produces high quality video on my TV and A/V surround-sound system... or some advise or suggestions, please. Thank you very much. I appreciate your help in this matter.

Don't know... have read that should set Full Screen (keep aspect ratio), but I use Full Screen. Please advise... suggestions, please? Thank you.

How many other players have you tried this on and what are the models?

If you say that the manual states that the players are capable of handling VCD and SVCD it could be that it only refers to the pre-recorded type as is usually the case with cheaper players. These players will play VCD/SVCD, but can't read CDR so are unable to play the home made variety.
Even so some of these players are able to play CDRW, so try this.

Another reason could be your settings.
You need to be more detailed with the settings you post.
Most important is:

1. Video Bitrate
2. Audio Bitrate
3. Resolution
4. Framerate

Some players will only accept bitrates at certain settings. The players you are using may not be able to handle the lower bitrates you are using in VBR.
Try the standard CBR template on a CDRW and see what happens.

ASHY

MPEG2 480x480 29.92 VBR 1950kbps Layer2 44100hz 224kbps

Using 2-Pass (new) VBR, I set the MAX to 2520kps, AVE to 1950, and MIN to 950 and use High Quality (Motion Search). It takes about 5 hours to encode it to MPEG2. Bitrate Viewer says the MPEG file averages 1852 and has a Peak of 2637. The 35 minute movie has a size of 550mb and easily fits on a CD. I finalize the disks with NERO. I use a variety of SmartSounds (44K) during the movie for music and sound effects. I tried CBR at 2520 and the file was too large to fit on the CD.

I have tried both R and RW disk and both play fine in my DVD player, but won't play in others. But, on my player, they sound and look great.

Got any other suggestions, please. They won't play in my friends' players even though their user's manuals indicates they will or should play. Are my settings out of compliance? Most other settings, I do not modify:

* Video arrange: full screen
* Detect screen change, checked
* No motion search for stills, checked (I have a 1-minute slide show at the end of the movie)
* Field order: Bottom first (field B)
* Profile and Level: (MP:ML) - isn't this for DVD?

I realize that SVCDs won't play in many stand-alone DVD players, but if their owners manual says they will, why don't they play as they do in my player. My player is a progressive scan unit with two lasers.

Got any suggestions, please? Well, if they won't play in other's players, guess its time to move on and upgrade to DVD+RW/+R. The new Sony DVD/CD Rewriter will burn everything to include +R disks and has a $50 rebate on to the end of June... bringing the total to below $400 and a 5-pack of +R disks for $21. I can get the whole thing for $425 to include postage. PLUS, I will be able to get at least 3 home movies on one disk with a graphic menu to select one or the other. Using a little less resolution, I should be able to get 6 to 10 movies on 1 4.7gb disk. AND, they will play and most existing DVD stand-alone players. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE NEW +RW/+R DVD REWRITERS (not the initial rewriters that would only play +RW disks), PLEASE? Well, SVCDs was fun, but time has come and gone for them. Time to go DVD or wait, again, for the new format to come out in about 2 years (already settled by major manufactures) that will allow much-much more video on one disk than the 4.7gb format allows? I think I'll jump-in with the 4.7gb DVD+RW/+R format and if the new format is fully implemented, move up to it in a couple of years. Or, the +RW/+R format will win the battle, maybe, probably not if what I have read about the newly approved format is true. Ooo, can you imagine 14 to 20 35-minutes DVD movies on one disk?!!! I've got to have a format that I can share with family and friends. The DVD quality should be even better... can't wait. Looks like DVD+RW/+R is it for now, then....

The only thing I will change is hardware. I'll still use:

* Pinnacle Studio 7 for firewire capture, editing, and encoding to AVI
* TMPGEnc for encoding to DVD format
* NERO to burn to DVD+RW and +R disks w/menus (5-pack of +R is now about $20... and to be lower in the near future)

Or, may use Studio 7 or NERO's DVD output format to skip a step... depending on the resulting video quality.

Glad I got all that off my chest. Time to move on... goodbye SVCDs... sorry to see you go, but ........

PS. I've shot 6 movies (tapes) over the past year, worked with only one, and I have not yet finalized that one movie! Guess it won't be final until I go DVD.

I created MPEG2-Files from AVI-Videocamera Files. Now I'm not able to play it with any tool on my PC. So I choose the MPEG-Tool Cut&Merge in the encoder software and opened the file. I received an Error message with the following content: "Could not open file wit direct show (0x80040200)"

Before that I installed directX 8.1 and the latest version of windows media player. The media player tries to download a codec, but it failed although the Explorer safty settings are low. The error message contains although 0x80040200.

So, there must be something wrong, but I dont know what!

Do you have an idea?

Best regards,
Michael

You need to install some MPEG2 player software such as windvd or powerdvd.
Or the alternative is to install an MPEG2 codec.
Do a search on google for MPEG2 codecs.

ASHY

At MPEG Tools I can only choose from 5 vcd, svcd options with fixed parameters. While I am living in the pal world, the last type specifies svcd ntsc. i want to set pal and a rate of 3600.

How can I change the types, or add other *.mcf types?

load the "unlock mfc" template and you can change all the perameters of your output file ,after you have set all the perameters of your file click the save button at the bottom right of the screen and you can save the settings in a template.....

Thanks for your quick response, but the stream types in the mpeg tools dialog boxes are not the same as the *.mcf files that can be edit after unlocked.

So I still have the same problem. After editing a vob file I want a direct output as 720x576, 3600, 48000, and this isn't offered by the "types"

Somebody is confused here and I'm not sure if it's you or me.
I think you misunderstand what the MPEGtools are for.
The MPEGtools can't be used for encoding or changing the parameters in a file.
They are purely used for combining or spliting Video and audio files.

If you really mean the templates then all you have to do to change the parameters is load the template you wish to use and then double click the unlock.mcf template, this will allow you to set whichever parameters you want, but this won't affect the MPRGtools.

Exactly what is it you are trying to acheive?

ASHY

may be I want to do something in a complicated way.

Example: I have a video, 720x576 PAL, 5 minutes. 1 minute at the end is advertising.

I am cutting with MPEG Tools and the type svcd (vbr)(ntsc). while there is no svcd (cbr) and PAL I get after editing and clicking the run button a mpg-file in NTSC format.

So now I have to compress again with my required settings the 4 minute video into PAL and loosing quality?

I want to save one compression.

Thanks for your help.

I doubt the resulting file is as you described as the setting you are referring to DOES NOT exist in the MERGE&CUT feature of MPEG tools.

These are the settings you should see:
MPEG-1 system (automatic)
MPEG-1 sytem (VBR)
MPEG-1 Video CD
MPEG-1 Video CD(non standard)
MPEG-2 Program(VBR)
MPEG-2 Super VideoCD(VBR)

To cut your movie follow these insructions.

1. Click the MERGE&CUT tab in File>MPEGtools

2. Click the 'Type' box and choose 'MPEG-2 Super VideoCD(VBR)'
(It doesn't matter if MPEG is VBR or CBR)

3. Click the 'Add' button and add your file.

4. Highlight your file and click edit. Use the trimming options to trim your file and click 'OK'

5. Now choose where you want to output the file and then click 'Run'

Your file will be cut and will have exactly the same parameters as your original.

ASHY

Your right Ashy he is seeing something that isn"t there,those settings in the "merge & cut" don"t say "ntsc" or " pal"......

I have used TMPGenc to convert a divx video (320x240_1500kbps) to mpeg-1 using this settngs:
size:320x240
Frame rate:25
Rate control mode:2-pass VBR (average bitrate_1500; maximun bitrate_2000; minimun bitrate_1000)
Motion search precision: Highest quality

No problem during conversion and the video looks better but when I want jump to another scene in the video this freezes. This happened to me also with videos created with automatic VBR.
Greetings & Thanks for any help that can give me.

you mean it freezes when you try to go to the next scene on your dvd player?did you put chapters in your movie?don"t quote me on this but you can"t jump to the next scene on your dvd player unless you put chapters in so if you didn"t maybe this is your problem and I"m not sure but I don"t think that vcd supports chapters.....but maybe someone has a better answer for you ....good luck...

I understand what you mean as it happens to me.
It's just the way mediaplayer handles VBR MPEG files.
When you move the slider to another scene the movie isn't actually freezing it just seems like it.
What's happening is because the file is VBR mediaplayer has to seek from the beginning of the movie to the part you selected.
If you wait a while it WILL carry on playing, but depending on the speed of your machine could take take a while.

The best solution would be to download windvd or powerdvd as these players don't have this problem with VBR MPEG files and will seek and play the selection instantly.

ASHY

Thanks a lot Ashy!

I recently got to download and install tmpgenc and find that when I create a video cd, it has a jerky playback on my PC, but once I write it to cd and play back, it no longer jerks. Am I doing something wrong or is it normal?

Regards

Ken

you must be doing something right cuz most poeple get the opposite, plays good on the computer but it jerks when played on a dvd player,so keep it up.....

What are your system specs?

ASHY

Is there a feature to stop/save and continue in the program? I doupt it but since it takes AGES (50-60 hours) to make mpeg-files on my mashine (AMD K6-III 400Mhz, 128 MB RAM, I know it's old) it would be quite neat if one could save the mpeg-file and continue at a later point, so I don't have to let my pc running ALL THE TIME. I think it's quite annoying if the computer is running when you want to sleep ;-).

I don't mind the focus on quality but even if it would "only" take 5 hours it would be good to have such a feature.

Thanks,

Haymaker

No there is no feature like that,if you got more ram the encodeing would be quicker,but i"m puprised that it takes that long,on my 800mhz system it takes about 4 hours to do 1 hour of mpeg1 and 6 to do mpeg 2,if you are in the states you can buy a brand new celeron 1.0ghz system for $400 so bite the bullet and upgrade.....

You've either got a problem with your machine there or you have some crazy settings for your file.
It shouldn't take anywhere near that long on your PC even if it is a AMD k6-III 400.

I would say about 15 hours on your system.

Check you are not doing a 2 pass encode and make sure the motion search precision is either set to normal or motion estimate search(fast).
If you are using the Highest quality setting, forget it.
This doesn't yeild hardly a noticible difference if any compared to high quality and even then high quality isn't that noticible from normal and for the time it would take to encode a movie using the highest quality setting it's pointless.

Also check that the optimiztions are ticked if it allows you under the CPU tab in the enviromental settings.
Another thing which would speed things up slightly, is untick the floating point DCT setting under the quantize matrix tab.

Anyway to answer your original question it is possible to resume encoding in a roundabout way.
If you are using an operating system which allows you to hibernate the PC, when you wish to stop encoding just click the stop button and TMPG will ask you if you wish to abort just leave it like that and hibernate your PC.

When your PC restarts you will be able to cancel the abort and carry on encoding.

ASHY

Oh and just to agree with Minion. To be honest encoding is a job for a more powerful machine.
I used to have a p3 450 with 128mb ram and that used to take around 10 hours to encode a 2hr movie.

Now with my P4 1.7ghz overclocked at 1.9ghz with 256mb 2600 DDR ram it only takes about 1hr 20 mins to encode a 2hr movie.
Think about it.

ASHY

Hey "Ashy" I wanted to ask you how do you overclock your cpu? is it a setting in the computer or do you need some sort of software? I have the speed of my cpu to the highest setting but it doesn"t say anything about overclocking..your input would be appriciated....thanx

What is your processor?
You will find the option in the BIOS settings somewhere in the options there will be something refering to the FSB (Front Side Bus) frequency or Host/PCI clock. It will be set at default.

This refers to the frequency which your PCI bus is running at.
So if you have a motherboard whhich runs at a FSB of 100mhz and a processor that runs at 450mhz using a multiplier of 4.5x then raising the FSB to 112mhz will raise the CPU speed to 504mhz .

Bear in mind that raising the FSB also speeds up the frequency of other components such as your graphics card and memory, so make sure you don't overclock too much. Memory and graphics cards usually handle this overclocking quite well though.

See here for more info: http://www.overclockers.com/tips120/index06.asp

ASHY

to try and answer haymaker's question....
there is no option for this, but if you click on "File"...."MPEG Tools", this will stop the progress and you can carry on doing other things with your PC, close the "tools" window to resume. hope this is helpfull to you!

That's more or less what I had said, but I suppose if you just wanted to pause for a while that would be a better option than just leaving the abort button as it is as you could accidentally hit the enter button and stop the encode all together.

ASHY

everytime i try and use my TMPGEnc it says can't load P3Package.dll.
what is that and how do i fix the problem?

The "p3p package" optimizes the program to work with pentium 3,to get rid of this error go in to your "tmpgenc" and look for the file called "p3p package" and copy and paste it in your "system" and "system32" folder. this should get it to work but if it doesn"t post back and I will tell you a way that will work but it would make encodeing take longer.....

worked beautifully. thanks for the help. i really appriciated it.

Can you please email me and help me with this same issue. I cannot find the p3p package in the "tmpgenc". i am not a pro with this thing and am getting very frustrated. PLEASE HELLLLLLLLP.

Thank you,
Rick Miller
Memphis, TN

I have been using TMPGEnc ver 253.35.130 and until a few days ago all was ok.
Now every time I encode avi and burn final product to disc half of the screen
has a green bar displayed vertical down the right side. The movie plays and
looks fine on PC, but when played in dvd TV screen displays this green bar.
I am new at this and not to sure what to look for to see if I have accidently changed a setting or something that will cause this.
Has anyone else ever come accross this problem before ?
Thank you in advance for your help.

This sounds as if you could have incorrect resolution settings.
Resolution settings need to be in multiples of 16 to display correctly.

Use one of the templates to encode you movie and make sure you set the source aspect ratio correctly.
If the movie is widescreen choose 16:9 and check that the Video arrange method is 'Full screen (keep aspect ratio)'

If you still get errors post the parameters you have set for the file, just copy the info from the line at the bottom in TMPG.


ASHY

I have a movie made by Pinnacle Studio 7 and converted it into a MPEG2 file. I have taken this Mpeg2 file and loaded into TMPG. The file contains both audio and video. (MP2 audio) I get no sound when previewing this file in TMPG main window. I took the file and Demultiplexed it. I took the audio MP2 file and converted into a Wav file using Winamp. I loaded this audio file into the main window of TMPG along with the video stream file of my demultiplexed file and I still get no sound when previewing. I get video just find but no sound. I can play both the original MPEG2 file converted by Pinnacle and the Audio wave file converted by Winamp seperately on other software and I do get sound. What in the world am I missing?

Firstly make sure you have encoded it to 41000hz,then try to use a external encoder like "toolame" or "scmpx" the encoder built in to "tmpgenc" isn"t very good,and another thing don"t play your mpeg2 files in "media player" cuz on some sysyems it will play mpeg2"s with no sound or out of sync,what i have doen with audio problems is use "db power amp" to convert the audio to mp2 then multiplex the video and audio together....

When cutting a large file into burnable segments the first cut is in synch. Thereafter each cut is out of synch. Can anyone tell me why and how I can cut large files using mpeg tools and retain synch. The mpeg2 file was created using Instant dvd hardware digitizer and encoder. The only way I could retain synch on each segment was to interrupt the creation and creat a new file for each segment.
Also I would appreciate being directed to a video editing tool that is user friendly and has good instruction that don't assume you know the system. I have Ulead video Version 5 and it's could lose a genius.

Frederick

This is one of the things you have to deal with when you don"t segment your movie as you encode,I think all you can do is try untill it is in sync,or use different editing software,but if you can"t get it cut right no matter what you do you might have to encode it in segments..I don"t use the cut feature unless i absolutely have to because of these bugs it..In the future use the "source range" feature to encode your files in segments ,it saves time and a lot of frustration

My advice if you have problems using the cutting tool in TMPG is to use BBMPEG.
This program will allow you to cut the movie into segments as you multiplex it.

You will have to demultiplex the file first with TMPG then use BBMPEG to multiplex.
This program also has the ability to correct sync problems if you still have a problem.
Download here: http://www.divx-digest.com/software/avi2mpg2.html
Guide how to multiplex with BBMPEG: http://www.spawns.dk/svcd/bbmpeg.htm

If you look at no.5 in the instructions you will see a row of boxes at the bottom titled 'Start up delay ms'. This is where you can adjust the A/V sync.

ASHY

After converting the DIVX/AVI file I only get a black blank screen while no error has been reported. Can you help me out?

hello,

i have a question. under the motion search percision in the mpeg settings window, they have number options. such as high quality and low quality. my question is what is motion estimate search? the wizard automaticaly used that when i was testing it out but i've done high quality usually. which would be better for movies?

The higher the quality setting the further ahead in the file the encoder will search before allocating the bitrate. This lets the encoder decide better where to use the bitrate in the next frame.

If you choose Motion estimate search the encoder will predict what the next scene will be like in the next frame by using the information from previous frames and will allocate the bitate accordingly.
This is used to speed things up, but depending on the type of movie could either give you a worse or better result regarding the speed.
It all depends on how the scenes change from one frame to the next.

In my experience Normal has always been better than Motion estimate.
Higher is slightly better than Normal, but hardly worth it considering the extra time involved.
Highest doesn't give any marked increase ,if any, in quality and regarding the time it would take to encode a movie there really isn't any point.

ASHY