Hello,
I have a problem when I try to convert .avi files to mpeg. It doesn`t pick up automatically audio file when i choose .avi file to convert. Then when process complete there is no sound. Only a few times I succeded, it picked the same file .avi and put it to video and audio source. Other then that usually It doesn`t. And when I play that .avi file there is sound. Could you help me with that problem. Probably I miss something.
Thank you in advance.

See the post above.

ASHY

I have problems converting from AVI to MPEG...each time I try the file size comes out the same regardless of what I sent my kbps!

will someone help me??? I would like to fit a complete movie on 1 cd!!!

What an I doing wrong????

See this post for the solution.
Question - Bitrates and File Size No.22818

ASHY

I'm having an impossible time getting DVDitPE to build with the Mpeg file I have. I keep getting the "Each GOP Header must be preceded by a sequence header error". Here are the particulars:

Video was captured from a VCR through a Sony DV-TRV50 camcorder with Premier 6 using a firewire connection. Video was edited in Premier 6 and exported as seperate MS AVI video file and standard PCM 48khz wave file.

I then followed the guidelines on "http://pwp.netcabo.pt/0165394101/TMPGEnc_Template.html" to compress the Avi video. I am using an NTSC file, so I made the appropriate adjustments as required.

I have tried both Upper field and Lower field first, same error. If I just import the avi and wav files in DVD-itPE, it goes through Sonic's own compression process just fine. So it doesn't look to be the fault of the avi file.

Any help is appreciated as it will keep me from becoming a bald man at an early age

I did adjust some settings on the "VFAPI plug-in" tab of the Environmental Settings section. AVI VFW compatibility Reader is at Priority 1 and everything else is at Priority 0. I'm now wondering if this is the problem. I was told by another "guru" that this was what was required for TMPGEnc to read MS AVI files outputed from Adobe Premier 6. Is this where I've been directed wrong? Other than that, I've followed Rui's guide to the letter (except in NTSC).

I'm at my wits end on this one. I'm new to all of this, so I assume I'm missing something really simple. I wanted to use TMPGEnc cause it allowed me some more fine tuning options with the compressed file size and quality.

Make sure "output interval of sequence header" is set to 1 and enable "closed GOPs".

I'm not sure you really need to enable closed GOPs 'output interval of sequence header' is set to 1 should be enough, but this software is known for being finicky for what it accepts.
Here's a page which may help. http://www.vcdhelp.com/panasonic.htm

ASHY

Very interesting, TMPGEnc isn't the problem afterall. I went back and reinstalled MyDVD which came with the burner and it builds with the same files just fine. Arrggghhh!!!! Since I'm not using compressed audio, this will do just fine. I can't remember what the limitations of MyDVD were as compared to DVD-It PE, but I'll live with it. I only wish I hadn't already deleted my previous mpeg2's, thinking they were faulty. Now I to spend another 56hrs recompressing 89min and 72min files! Sounds like I need to redo my OS installation again.

56hrs??!!
Don't tell me you are using the 'highest quality setting'. Honestly this is no better than 'high quality' and even then 56 hrs sounds far to long even for this. It would take me 14 hours to convert a 90 min file to MPEG2 using the 'Highest quality setting' and about 2 1/2hrs using 'Normal'.

ASHY

I have just read that page you have posted a link to and I see you are doing a 2 pass encode.
I wouldn't bother with the 2 pass as the 'constant quality(CQ)' setting gives almost identical results in half the time just ask anybody in this BBS who uses it.

ASHY

What is the easiest way to encode dvd to xvcd.
Have tried vcd, poor picture quality.
various errors using dvdx1.5 with tmpeg, premier video server, bbmpeg and others.
Latest error was using tmpeg, error is IPCSource cannot execute, when I use video server, the error is
Initailise viseo server on dvdx, and sits there doing nothing.

Please help.

the easiest way to encode to xvcd is to load up the neccesary template according to your framerate... 25fps = pal...29.97 = ntsc....23.97 = ntscfilm
do not encode a 23.97fps into xvcd...for this you need xsvcd... anyway.... once you loaded your template... go to load again and go into the folder called extra... in there load up unlock.mcf... you can then change the bitrate for higher quality or can also change the audio bitrate ans well as the resolution... if you do not know standard resolutions do not change them as it will mess it up if it is wrong.... you can also do the same thing with the svcd templates...hope this helps you out... happy encoding

I have a movie that I performed IVTC on it...it looks great, but the problem is I cannot do source range while selecting IVTC .... so should I bother to put in the audio source while encoding? OR should I just encode the video... then merge the mp2 file... or use the wav file and encode it into the video directly in tmpgenc? is there a speed/time difference? or a loss in quality by using tmpgenc for the audio? or will I get sync errors? and if its faster to just do the video... and not the audio and video together...what mp2 encoder should I use... I originally ripped it with force fim option... the type was FILM... there was no % so it should not have mattered... I used dvd2avi to save the original ac3 soundtrack... then I used headac3e to encode the ac3 directly into an mp2 file... I then encoded the video only...when I multiplexed them the sound was off by about 9 sec... I tried to do the audio time stretch trick with soundforge...but it would not go exactly to the specified point... I decided to reencode it over again... and want to know the proper things to do to avoid this sync problem... so anywhere along those lines if you see the problem or solution and time saving effects as well please let me know...thanx again... you guys rock... on a side note...the times for the movie and sound were the same length...yet the audio was gradually off sync... the beginning was synced perfectly...it gradually got worse... I heard dvd2avi was bad at decoding the ac3...so I just let dvd2avi rip the ac2...but used headac3e to encode..was that the problem? erg!>!>! my newest way was let dvd2avi rip the ac3 track....then I used graphedit to convert the ac3 to a stream then to wav then wrote out the file.... then I processed the wav in dvd2avi to account for the offet value on the audio.... I now have a wav file of about 1.2gig... now you have the whole story... any ideas? suggestions?

You have to choose the source range first and then perform the IVTC. This way IVTC is only applied to the part you have selected not the whole thing.

If you were to apply IVTC first and then choose the source range, it would be pointless because you have performed IVTC on a part that you didn't need to. This is why TMPG doesn't let you do it this way.

ASHY

I have yet another question.... I have the tmpgenc templates from ashy...using cq as encode method.... how do you calculate the max and min bitrates to fit the movie onto cd? like for 3 cds in SVCD...ntscfilm... each cd is 50min 47sec.... I can calculate for 2pass vbr...but it gives you average bitrate...cq does not have this option...so how do I calculate it?

I recon that with CQ you can only roughly measure average bitrate since it depends on how much fast action scenes are in the movie.
Since Im lazy anyway I just do 1-3 1 minute scenes across the movie(which I do anyway to ensure all settings are ok) to see if the movie will fit neatly on the intended ammount of CD-Rs.

Btw. Big thanks Ashy for pointing out the potential of CQ a while back! Compared to 2Pass VBR its blazing fast and indistinguishable from 2Pass encoding if the Movie is under ~65 Mins per CD-R or without fast action Scenes.
I just wish TMPGEnc had the option to use CQ combined with 2Pass VBR...means an detection algorithm that switches from CQ to 2Pass and back when the motion exeeds/goes under an specific treshold.

cheers
M.Bastian

Cheers M.Bastian.

The general method I use to find out the size roughly, and this more less gives me the right information, is to encode one or two minutes of a typical scene in the movie.

Now here comes the maths.
It is possible to have an average of around 13mb of movie per minute on 2 80min cd's for a 2hr movie.

So to work out the final size you would encode 1 min of movie, check the file size, lets say it is 11mb then multiply that by the length of the movie which will give us 11mb x 120min for a 2hr movie which = 1320 mb which will easily fit on 2 disks.
Using this method you should always shoot for the maximum amount of bitrate you can have in 1 min of movie without going over the final full size of the movie.

For example, for a 2 hr movie you would work out the average bitrate per minute by dividing 2 x 800(80min) = 1600 mb by 120 min = 13.333 mb/min

This would let you use an average bitrate of 13mb per min of movie, but remember this will fluctuate up and down depending on the action scenes the movie, so some minutes in the movie will have a smaller size some will have a larger size.
As I say it is only average and this is only a general guide, but it gives you something to aim for and if you encode more than a minute, lets say 5 min, you will get a more accurate representation of the final output size.
I leave you to do the maths with that one.

The only other thing I will add is that I use all these calculations with the standard audio bitrate of 224, if the calculations are slightly off and the file size is bigger than expected, then you can always re-encode the audio with a lower bitrate thus shrinking the file size, this is one reason why I always encode my audio separately because I never know if I have to reduce it or not to accomodate the file size.

ASHY

Ok, here's the situation. I am trying to convert an AVI to to MPeg1.

The AVIs (3 of them) are all Divx compressed. I tried to convert and noticed that on each one, the audio cuts at 8 seconds into the clip. When i pull up an AVI into the Source Range selection window, I can see the audio track on the screen. The audio track cuts at the 8 second mark. Now, I can watch these clips just fine. The audio is present when I play the AVI in Media Player. However, TMPGEnc doesn't seem to see it after 8 seconds. I have tried to output to WAV, but the audio goes dead after 8 seconds as well.

Does this have anything to do with them being in DIVX compression? If so, What can I do to convert these files?? I want to make VCDs out of these AVIs. I can watch them just fine on my PC.

I just saw a previous article that is similar to this one. I am going to try to use Virtualdub to extract the audio first, then encode.

Any other advice would still be very helpful, though!

Sounds as if the audio is VBR mp3 or something similar.
Try to extract it to a wav with Virtualdub mp3
http://www.dvd-digest.net/downloads/files/virtualdub/vdub_mp3_freeze.zip
Or use Goldwave to extact the audio.

ASHY

Am taking an avi file in TMPG and changing to MPG-1 file. The sound comes out but there is a chirping noise thru out the video after encoded with TMPG.
Any help would be appreciated. Will TMPG allow me to take a 320 x120 file and reduce it to a 160x60? Am an obvious newbie, thanks for all your help.
MK

Good question! I came here for the exact same problem!

Interestingly, I've done lots of encoding with TMPGenc and I didn't have many problems. But then one day I seemed to get the problems all the time!

I've tried fiddling some sound parameters like bit rate and frequency, but no luck. Did I turn some noise removal option off perhaps? If so, I don't know.

320x120? Where did you get that file? Must be low quality as it is, so I wouldn't reduce it to 160x60, I mean why would you want to do that it would look terrible and most likely your DVD player would reject it or have problems with it.
Standard VCD has to be 352x240 NTSC or 352x288 PAL.

As for your sound problems make sure the sample rate is 44.1khz and the bitrate 224kb/s. If that doesn't help then try using an one of the external sample rate converters you can use with TMPG such as SCMPX. TMPG sometimes has problems with it's own samplerate converter and SCMPX seems to be better. Also try using toolame as an external encoder for TMPG. You can find where to use the extrernal tools under Option>Enviromental setting>External tool.

Another option is to extract the audio to a wav with Virtualdub and convert the samplerate with that and use it as the audio in TMPG, but make sure you tick the high quality box when converting.

ASHY

Hi to everybody!

I am creating some SVCDs in the past and I have used DVD2SVCD for
that purpose. In the end I have used the created mpg file and written
an xml file for vcdxbuild in order to have a bin/cue file.

Between these steps I have created some bmp files which I have used
for menus infos and so on. These bmp files I have converted with TSCV
in order to have the still mpegs needed. For the first time I was
satisfied with the quality of the still mpegs (because it is so easy
to create them with TSCV).

But now I want to enhance the quality and I think that I can use
TMPGENC for that purpose.

Does somebody know how to do that? (I am only interested in producing
hires still mpegs!)

Moreover, I am using PAL. Thus I have used a bmp of size 704x576. Is
this the right way to do that?

i am trying to burn to vcd files that i donwload and that have allready been compressed. problem is that i cannot change bitrates etc for it to fit on the 80min cd do i have to uncompress first or is there another way

cheers

In TMPG click Load, find a folder called 'template' in your TMPG folder. Inside is a folder called 'extra'. Double click the file called 'unlock.mcf' inside it and the settings will unlock allowing you to change the bitrate.

ASHY

thanks ashy but how do i know what the file size is going to be then, i need to get an avi file down from say 120mins to 80 mins to fit on or am i flogging a dead horse

cheers

>thanks ashy but how do i know what the file size is going to be then, i need to get an avi file down from say 120mins to 80 mins to fit on or am i flogging a dead horse
>
>cheers

thanks ashy but how do i know what the file size is going to be then, i need to get an avi file down from say 120mins to 80 mins to fit on or am i flogging a dead horse

I would forget it. To fit 120mins of movie on to an 80min cd means the bitrate would have to be very low. The quality of this movie would be awful. The standard VCD bitrate is bad enough without lowering it any more.
Most VCD's take up 2 cd's and is a better option as using 2 80 min cd's actually allows you to increase the bitrate giving even better quality.
Is it so much of a hassle just to change the cd when the first half of the movie finishes?

ASHY

Hi all

I've been trying to use DVDmotion to author DVD's with MPEG2 video streams created using TMPGenc.

If I use the CBR format to encode the streams they are rejected by DVDmotion which reports that the streams contain duplicate frame numbers. The same happens if I use VBR or CQ and I manually enable the "padding" to ensure the bitrate does not fall below the minimum.

Is it necessary to have padding enabled to create compliant streams (I know that the CBR mode forces padding to be anabled)?

Also can someone verify for me whether the stream padding does infact produce streams with duplicate frame numbers - I have no way of checking the actual streams in detail. I know that DVDmotion is very strict in what it will accept as far as stream compliance goes. Ideally I need to be able to use CBR streams with DVDmotion so I'd appreciate some help with this.

Regards

Bill

CBR automatically creates duplicate frames with padding... you have to use cq or VBR and disable use padding to not drop below minimum bitrate... other than that I really have no clue... hope this helps... happy encoding

What am I missing?

No matter what I change about bitrates for the .mpg output, the resulting files size is always the same and exactly equal to the MPEG 1 standard bitrates. I've seen the article on furiousg.com and even created the same exact settings, but the file size is the same. I've even put the video bitrate down so low it kills the quality and the file size comes out the same. I'm just trying to make smaller files for downloading & computer viewing.

What am I missing?

How low are you putting it at?Generally you can"t put it lower than like 800-900kbs,cuz less that that would not create a viable picture.And it seems that tmpgenc has a minimum bitrate it will work with cuz the program is for encodeing avi to a high quality mpeg file and you can"t do that with out a minimum bitrate,What would you expect to do if you set the bitrate at 50kbs or zero?Tmpgenc isn"t going to work for hours to create nothing..I have doen the same thing and tried to encode at rediculously low bitrates just to see what it would do,and it would allways make a file much bigger than i set it at..You should just leave your files in avi/divx format for watching on your computer, turning them into mpeg won"t make them look better or make them smaller ,it will do just the opposite.....

Thanks for your message.

My intent is not to set the bitrate extremely low, I just mentioned that I tried to do it as test to see if the file size would change. I would be happy if I can reduce the size of a 15 second clip from 2.6 MB to say 1.0 or 1.5 MB. I know this can be done and it seems TMPG Enc is the best tool to do it. When I try to make AVI files smaller the quality is too poor.

You can see movies that are very good for viewing but very small for download at the web site http://www.furiousg.com . Also there is an article there explaining how the files are created using TMPG Enc. However, now matter what I try my file size result is always the same as the standard VCD bitrates!

I am using the free trial version of TMPGEnc. Do you think I need to purchase it to unlock it?

I am afraid to pay the money if I can't use it for my purpose, but I am happy to pay for it does do what I am seeking.

There is nothing to unlock ,the demo is pretty much like the plus version you pay for,as for trying to get your 15 second avi to 1.5 mb in mpeg, you can get it close but but not quite ,the smallest you will be able to get it is about 7mb per minute believe me I have tried it many times, maybe the older versions will encode at the really low bitrates like below 700kbs,what you should try which i have had exelent results with if your not makeing vcd"s is to convert your avi"s to "wmv"you can get increadibly small file sizes at really high bitrates and good quality,but i usually use divx4.12 for encodeing avi"s with high quality and fairly small file sizes..

In take it you are trying to create MPEG1 files.
At a guess I would say you are loading the VCD template and then just 'unlocking' it with the 'unlock.mcf' template.
The reason therfore that you are having a problem reducing the file size no matter what bitrate you choose is simply down to the fact that you are now creating a non standard VCD, but you haven't changed the settings accordingly.

In this cause you need to go to Setting>System and change the 'stream type' to 'MPEG1 VCD(non standard)'.
It happens because TMPG automatically adds padding to the MPEG, when you choose the standard VCD template, to keep the minimum bitrate within standard VCD specs no matter how low you set the bitrate.

There is an easy way to remove the padding of the files you have already encoded which will reduce the file size to what they should have been.
Just load the MPEG into the 'simple multiplex' in MPEGtools and choose 'MPEG1 VCD(non standard)' as the type from the drop down menu and run, the padding will be removed and should reduce the file size.

In future if you create a VCD which is not standard always choose the 'MPEG1 VCD(non standard) option as the 'type'.

ASHY

Thank you, ASHY, my problem is solved. This bit of info is what I was missing:

ASHY Wrote:
.........

>In this cause you need to go to Setting>System and change the 'stream type' >to 'MPEG1 VCD(non standard)'.
>It happens because TMPG automatically adds padding to the MPEG, when you >choose the standard VCD template, to keep the minimum bitrate within standard >VCD specs no matter how low you set the bitrate.
........

>In future if you create a VCD which is not standard always choose the 'MPEG1 VCD(non standard) option as the 'type'.
>
>ASHY