hello everybody,

1#question

i have a question right now i have got a AMD ATHLON 1000MHZ whit about 300 ram and its very slow to make a svcd i need about 12 hours for a 90min movie thats to much time and i dont have time i wanna buy a new motherboard and a new cpu maybe you guys can tell me what i should buy because i dont know whats bether intel or amd thanks

2#question

well i have a dvb reciever and i can record the movies whit very good quality
and the output i get is a MPEG2 and 1min is about 22mb what i wanna do is i wanna convert the file to 14mb to make a 90min movie on 2cds but i dont know what the best settings are to keep the good qualli maybe somebody can help me please thanks again :)

In answer to queston 2:

I've also got a DVB card, and the mpeg2's this card produces are indeed pretty jaw dropping. I use TMPGenc to back up the mpegs to DVD. It's a shame you want to down convert to mpeg1, you're throwing away 75% of the resolution, still..

Fistly open up the mpeg2 in DVD2AVI, go with the audio defaults. Using the slider at the bottom of the preview window grab approximately the first half of the movie and save the project. You will end up with two files: one with extension .d2v and one with extension .mpa. Forget the .mpa for now.

Repeate for the second half of the movie.

Open up TMPGEnc go to the main menu, select "stream type video only" and select the first .d2v file. Next, click on "load" and in the extras folder open up the VCD template for your region (PAL or NTSC). If you want, play around with the encoding options (to be honest VCD looks crap, compared to off-air or DVD, on a conventional TV so I'd go with the defaults).

Don't be tempted to load up the audio file. TMPGEnc's got a bug which causes these mpa's to skip; you'll multiplex the sound file with the video later on.

After you've fineshed encoding you'll have an m2v file. In TEMPGEnc go to "MPEG tools" and "simple multiplex". Select "Mpeg 1 Video CD (or Mpeg 1 video CD [non-standard] if you modified any of the VCD options) and load up the video and audio files.

Multiplex and burn to CD.

Repeat for second d2v and mpa files.

Griff

thx Griff

but i dont wanna make VCDs i wanna make SVCDS and i wanna know what the best settings are to convert a mpeg2 file to a mpeg2 file hehe like i said 1min is 22mb and thats to much thats about 4 cds and i dont wanna have a movie on 4 or 3 cds i wanna have it on 2 maybe you can help me now please

or please tell me the best way to convert it to divx :)))) thx

In that case instead of loading up the VCD template, load up the SVCD template in TEMPGEnc.

Whatever quality settings you choose, you'll be hard pressed to get an entire movie on just 2 cds at SVCD quality.

If you want to go down the DivX route, dowload whatever flavour of DivX 5 you want, there are three to choose from, install the codec and use either Virtual Dub or Nandub to convert the files.

Griff

Is it possible to encode imagesequences, like 3d packeges produce?
If yes, then i was unable to find that option yet.

Thx in advance
-dan

You can encode image sequences that are in "bmp,jpg,tiff"and a couple other formats, what you do is first you have to make sure the "bmp,jpg,tiff,ect" file reader in the "vfapi plugins" priority is raised to about "1", then get all your immages in the same folder and mane them sequentially, meaning name them something like image#001.bmp then image#002.bmp and image#003.bmp and so on till you got all your images named in the order you want them encoded then you just load the first image "image#001.bmp" then all the other images will be loaded with it, then you just do your settings and encode....

I have two PC's one with a DVD installed the other with a CD Burner.
I use CladDVD on the DVD pc to rip the files and then I copy them to the pc with the burner.
Using TMPGEnc on the pc with the DVD to create an mpg file is fine , but when I copy the ripped DVD files to the burner pc and run TMPEnc the files are not recognised , in particular the video source file file.d2v, the error I get is ,
"Cannot open or not supported"..
The burner pc is XP, the dvd pc is Win 2000 ..

Any ideas on what is misisng on the burner pc?

TIA

Make sure you don"t use dvd2avi to make your d2v project files untill you have transfered the vob files to the encodeing computer, and once you have made the "d2v" files don"t move any of the vob files or d2v files or change any of the the files names, and make sure you have the "dvd2avi file reader" installed in your "vfapi plugins" in tmpgenc....and if you cant get these d2v files loaded try makeing new ones...

Thanks for the help .. re-creating the d2v file on the burner pc with dvd2avi fixed the problem..

I'm trying to convert a PAL MPEG to NTSC. I had the PAL MPEG set up as both the video source and audio source using the NTSC MPEG 1 System filter. When I play the resulting NTSC movie, I get audio for like the first third of the movie, no audio for the second third of the movie, and audio again for the last third of the movie, without any sync errors. Is there some setting that I am missing?

It"s probably because tmpgenc doesn"t like encodeing compressed audio like when you are encodeing mpa to mpa, try de-multiplexing the "pal mpeg" and use the audio from it to multiplex with the ntsc mpeg video,doing pal to ntsc conversions this way can cause chopy playback on your dvd player.....

I tried de-multiplexing the pal mpeg, and I only got 42:05 minutes of audio, not the whole 2 hours and change. Is there a way to fix this, or is there some problem?

>It"s probably because tmpgenc doesn"t like encodeing compressed audio like when you are encodeing mpa to mpa, try de-multiplexing the "pal mpeg" and use the audio from it to multiplex with the ntsc mpeg video,doing pal to ntsc conversions this way can cause chopy playback on your dvd player.....

Try useing a different de-muxer cuz the mpeg tools have quite a few bugs in them, there is a free one called "xmuxer" you can download it here http://moonlight.co.il/products/Xmux.shtml

I had this same problem not so long ago. It is probaly a fault with the audio in your MPEG. Save your self some messing about and don't bother using any other demuxer/muxer to demux the sudio and then remux it as you will most likely still get some sort of error with the file.

The best way I found when this happens is to use MPEG2VCR to demux the file or any other which will work except TMPG then create a wav from this file using Dbpoweramp or something and then use this as your audio source when you re-encode or if you have already encoded the movie you can just encode the audio only and then mux the result with your movie.

ASHY

Hello,
I've downloaded PowerVCR 2 to use with my pinnacle PCTV Pro, and everytime I capture a mpeg, parts of it freezes my system. When I try to repair it with TMPGEnc, it says that 3 s packets buffer underun error MPEG may not play back properly. I was wondering if anyone had experience with power vcr could help, or have any suggestions about how to repair these mpgs.
Thanks,
Zach

What you should maybe do if you are haveing problems captureing to mpeg try captureing to an avi format it isn"t as computer intencive and captureing to mpeg, then encode the avi file with tmpgenc this would be better to because it is easier to edit avi files ,so you could edit your avi format captures and then encode them to mpeg with tmpgenc you would also have much better controll over the encodeing process with better quality.....

I tried using TMPGEnc to take an .avi and transfer it to MPEG2. It completes the process but when I try to view it, I see nothing and hear nothing, but it seems like its playing. I tried viewing it in Windows Media Player. I'm running WinXP Pro. I'm thinking this is some codec problem. However, I did notice that the preview window in the TMPGEnc program also doesn't show any video or audio. So what gives.

The original file is an AVI 720x480.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

Well I don"t think you can watch mpeg2 files in media player unless you have a mpeg2 codec for media player and media player suchs for mpeg anyway try useing a dvdplaying software like power dvd, but if you didn"t see you movie in the tmpgenc view screen while encodeing then the mpeg2 file has no picture, first you should try raiseing the "direct show file reader" you do this by going to "options" to "enviromental settings" to "vfapi plugins" and raise the "direct show file reader" to "2" and lower everything else to "0",and if the audio didn"t come out you have to check the audio format of your avi file and probably have to extract the audio from your avi file to a wav file with "virtual dub" cuz tmpgenc only supports certain audio formats and doesn"t like compressed audio at all, pluss you have to make sure you have all the proper codecs installed on your machine to decode the avi file....

Thanks for the info. Where would you suggest is the best site to aquire the necessary codecs?

I guess that depends on what format of avi you are encodeing but a good all around codec pack is the "Nimo codec pack" you can get it here http://www.btinternet.com/~nimosiro/ just don"t install the "G400 filter" unless you have the "g400 graphic card"...

Thanks a lot! Your tips about raising the "direct show file reader" to 2 and everthing else to 0 worked. I've got video now, but still no sound. I'll have to bring in the sound separately, which should work. Thanks for the link to the codec site as well.

One more question, do you know if TMPGenc supports wide screen 16:9. The avi was created with Premier as a wide screen movie (it was filmed 16:9), then exported as an .avi (dv avi, not microsoft avi). When I brought it into DVDit, it opens correctly in 16:9 format with the black frame on top and bottom. However DVDit won't burn it to DVD in 16:9 unless the original source file is MPEG2, so that's why I'm using TMPGenc. However, when I open the .avi in TMPGenc, it's not in 16:9 format. It stretches out the movie to cover the whole 720x480 space, eliminating the top and bottom black frame.

You seem to be very knowledgeable about digital video, so I was just wondering if you had any thoughts on this problem. If not, no big deal, and thanks for your help with the other stuff!

You can change the output aspect ratio to "16:9" but if you play it on a regular TV(4:3) the sides might be cut off, but if you choose the "full screen (keep aspect ratio)" in the "video arange method" the movie should look like the source file keeping the widescreen perspective while displaying it on your 4:3 TV correctly....

Thanks again! It worked too. If you'll be so kind as to answer another question, I'd appreciate it.

After making the mpeg2 file, it seems to be only displaying every other frame (there are lines throughout the image, and as I understand it, raw DV frames only capture every other line per frame.) The mpeg2 file looks poor because of this every other frame issue. Is there a way to improve the output, or is this how the mpeg2 compression reduces the file size?

Also, I can hear the audio from the source .avi when I go to the "audio" tab under "mpeg settings", and click the "setting" button under audio edit. It plays fine in here, but just doesn't play in the final mpeg2 file. I tried it in PowerDVD, but only video and no audio still. I must just be missing something.

Hello,
I am sure that this question has been asked before but I haven't been able to locate a well documented answer so I figured I would try here. I have been trying to create a very good quality VCD from .AVI for playback on my stand alone DVD player. I have tried to determine the correct filters to reproduce the quality found in the AVI file but once I have burned my videos to CD they still come out either blurry or blocky (if that is even a word). It looks fine on the PC but when played through the DVD player they lose their sharp picture. THerefore I was wondering if there is a place to describe in detail the purpose of the filters and which settings would provide the best possible output for viewing on a stand alone DVD (USA by the way so I assume NTSC). Any help or document would be much appreciated on the best possible filter settings for this purpose. Also does the size of the TV screen affect the picture quality as well? Thanks in advance

The best way to get rid of the blockyness or "macro blocks" is to raise the bitrate, the standard bitrate for vcd"s(1150kbs) isn"t nearly high enough to give an optimal picture quality, to raise the bitrate you will have to first load the "unlock.mcf" Template in the "Extra" folder.Raiseing the bitrate will increase the file size but you can get about 60 minutes of pretty good quality on a cd-r with tha bitrate of 1650kbs and useing the "CQ" encodeing method will allow you to increase the bitrate and still have a small file size, most of the filters won"t help with getting rid of macro blocks but they will make the encodeing take much longer....

Is there any way to create a mpg using TMPGEnc that will have the subtitles from the original? I don't even know if it's a feature of this program or not. If there's a way and I'm just not seeing it, please help :(

-kreauchee

You can not add subtitles with tmpgenc but you can add subtitles with "virtual dub" and the subtitle filter then frame serve the file with the subs to tmpgenc, you can download virtual dub and the subtitle filter at http://www.virtualdub.com

thx...ill give it a try. im rather new to this whole process and am finding it to be an unrefined field to a certain extent. again, thx for the quick answer =)

-k

when converting an pdivx avi to dvd mpeg i keep getting this error
Index of scan line is out of range(240)
what this mean ?

i'm running windows 2000 on an amd 750mhz with 512 mb memory
windows xp on two different computers
pentium 3 550 512 mb
pentium 4 1.8ghz 312mb

and get the same error

hi - i have been trying to convert my wmv file to avi with tmpgenc but it keeps saying that the file cannot be opened or is unsupported. i have all the divx and nimo codecs installed per instructions i got from the vcdhelp website. can someone tell me what i am doing wrong? thanks.

The reason is probably because "wmv" isn"t fully suported in tmpgenc, I have been able to encode short clips but the longer ones seem to crash, you can try raiseing the "direct show file reader" in the vfapi plugins to "2" and this might get your file loaded but there are better tools for converting "wmv" to "avi", I found this cool tool for encodeing wmv to avi or any other format you have the codecs for, it is called "Stoik Video Converter" it is quite fast and makes pretty good quality conversions pluss you can change the frame size and frame rate if you want, you can download it here
http://www.stoik.com/products/morphman/mm30_svc.htm

hi minion - thanks for answering my question. the software works great, but it did take a long time to finish. the only thing is my file is like 100 times bigger now. should it be like that, or do i need to compress it? please help. thanks.

Wmv is the most compressed format there is and avi is not nearly as compressed so yes that is normal, useing a divx codec would probably give you the best quality with the smallest file size for avi formats......

Hi,

I have a problem regarding the creation of MPEG2 files: whenever I try to convert from Avi or Mpeg1 to Mpeg2, the destination file has some issues...
If I analyze the Mpeg2 stream, produced by TMPGEnc 2.56 with the SVCD template, using VCDImager, I obtain this result:

mpeg user scan data: one or more BCD fields out of range for 'next_I_offset ': [00:01.0c]
mpeg user scan data: one or more BCD fields out of range for 'forward_I_offset ': [00:09.2b]
mpeg user scan data: one or more BCD fields out of range for 'previous_I_offset': [00:01.0c]

("update scan offsets" is enabled)

Moreover if I try to author a SVCD using TSCV and the Mpeg2 just created, the program hangs every time I add menu or charapters. If I encode the AVI/Mpeg1 files using BBMpeg or CinemaCraft, instead of TMPGEnc, VCDImager doesn't complain at all and I can use TSCV flawlessy.

Thanks in advance

I am transferring my video file from a DV camcorder for editing,and it is using an .avi file which is so large to edit. So i compress this with MPEG1 with the highest quality settings possible i.e CQ, 5000 kbps, high - motion setting etc., BTW i intend to make a VCD out of this.

Is compressing the file to MPEG1, so i can edit it, my best options,without affecting the quality of the video. I read in an article it has something to do with frame "references" and "differences"...encoding what only changed from the reference etc, anyways is there a setting in TMPEG that i should set --- I,B,P or GOP --- so that i can edit my file without affecting those"references" & "differences"?

It is not advisable to encode to MPEG for editing as MPEGs are not meant to be edited in the first place.

What is your problem with editing your AVI?
Just because it is large this shouldn't prevent you from editing it.
What do you wish to do with the file?

ASHY

You certainly don't want to encode to mpeg for editing, ASHY's right, mpegs were never meant to be edited. And you most certainly don't want to be converting to mpeg1 from DV, you're throwing away 3/4 of your video resolution.

If you can, get hold of a copy of Adobe Premier. It's a powerful video editing tool, which will have no problem with AVI files of ANY size (the package is aimed at the DV user), operating system permitting.

Learning to edit in Premier requires a long and somewhat steep learning curve to be traversed, but it's worth it. You can do some very neat transitions with its built in effects, and the documentation supplied is excellent.

Griff

Also consider Ulead Media Studio Director's Cut. At $180 it is a bargain for a fully featured timeline editor.

Convert your Mpegs to Huffyuv AVI files (YUV format): Use TMPGEnc to extract a WAV audio file and DVD2AVI serving into VirtualDub to merge the audio and convert to AVI. Save in segmented files of 4000 frames each since Ulead can't handle OpenDML files > 2GB. This method seems to keep audio synced up.

If you get the project settings in Ulead to exactly match the input format, it does not render/reencode when saving unless effects are used. For detailed editing, the instantaneous response AVI allows during timeline scrubbing is well worth the extra effort.