When i convert an avi to vcd i dont get a picture just sound

Whats wrong?

we need more info to fix your problem ,like what kind of file is it and what are it"s properties,and what are you encodeing to, what codecs do you have on yer machine.........

Is there a quick way to convert divx to vcd with this program? I load up the AVI fine and it encodes the video fine. But some how it dont detect and encode the audio from the avi. Possibly because its mp3?

Use Virtualdub to extract the audio to a wav and use that as your audio source.

ASHY

I use Virtual Dub as mentioned above, I refer to vcdhelp.com for the instructions for the audio. Then use TMPGEnc to merge the two files together. This has worked fine for me and had no probs. Check for diff versions of VirtualDub and make sure you have correct Divx codecs installed. vcdhelp.com is a mine of info.

Is there any thing i can to do to make the encoding process faster. It take about 23 hours total to burn a 1 1/2 hour movie. Thanks for your reply

23 hrs!!??
Jaysus what are you running there a 486?
No seriously what are your specs?

Make sure you haven't got the motion search precision set to higher or highest. Set it to normal or to encode faster set it to 'motion estimate search'. Also check to make sure you're not doing a 2pass encode.

ASHY

Hi, where do I check the motion search precision? My computer also took 30 hours to encode a 2 hour video. And how do I check to see if I'm doing a 2-pass encode?

Thanks

You know what encodeing method you are useing by looking at the "rate controll mode" in the "settings" screen, and the "motion precition search" is on the bottom of that same screen...but wow 30 hours ,thats like 4 minutes and hour,I have a fairly slow system(800mhz p3)and it takes less than half that, what kind of system are you running under,there should be some way to go faster unless you got a ,like ashy said a 486.....

On a 1.5GHz AMD Athlon, encoding a 2:30 720x480 MPEG-1 video using highest motion estimation takes 23:50. I'm not sure how reduced the quality would have been if it was done with "normal" motion estimation.

There is definately something wrong,mine is half that speed and more than twice as fast encodeing and with the encoder I usually use I can do a 2 hour movie in 5 hours..try doing a selective start up so you don"t have anything running in the backround while encodeing, and re-install tmpgenc ,but if you keep getting this slow of a encodeing speed get someone to check out your computer cuz there is something wrong.....

P4 1.7ghz (O/C 1.9 ghz) 256mb DDR 100ata 7200 hard drive.
A 2 hr movie on the highest quality setting takes 14hrs 15min.

It is pointless choossing the 'highest quality' setting as it doesn't yield any higher quality than the 'high quality' setting. I have thoughroughly tested this many times. Even the 'high quality' setting is only very slightly better than 'normal'.

On the 'high' setting the same movie would take less than half the time above which means if you really want max quality it would be quicker to do a 2pass encode using the 'high' quality setting than doing a 1pass 'highest' quality encode.
It's just not worth it considering the extra time it takes to encode using 'highest quality'

ASHY

Hi

I had a problem with the picture being distorted with a pink blurr..
I read on this BBS, that if I had Angel Potion installed, remove it.. I did..
The pink blurr dissapeared along with the picture...

Then I read I could ger the VFAPI plugin and install it.. I did...

I still have no picture when making a avi to mpg

The picture shows fine in Windows Media Player..

This is a long standing problem with the angel potion codec.
Some people solve it by uninstalling the codec and installing MS mpeg 4 codecs or by re-installing the angel potion codec and removing all other mpeg4 codecs.

Try both ways see what happens.

ASHY

TY Father
it just took so long.. i pressed ctrl alt del and its said it was responding Father
Carlo ;)

Ok, my son. Now go forth and encode.

ASHY

Thx m8 :)
I guess this is your job...?
cos you know everything it looks m8 :D

WOW!!

What a quick respons...

Thanks alot.

I actually re-installed DivX codec 4.11, and said yes to have 4.11 encode divX 3 films.

I know the guy owns

Hi
when i cut an mpeg i can cut half of it but then when i come to cut again for the 2nd part of the film it says seaking video stream.... and thats all it does its doesnt start the cutting process .... can some one help me please :)
ty

That is correct. Just be patient my son. It will begin.

ASHY

Doh that post was ment to be here
it says Not responding after about 5 mins of waiting m8 :0

It should seek through the video then the audio and the a little wait and then the multiplexing should begin.

If it doesn't start after a good 10 mins or so you can assume the program has has frozen.

This sometimes works.
Totally remove TMPG from your system, download another copy, preferably the latest version, from another source and re-install it.
Now have another go.

ASHY

Wicked it just started... Thx m8
You own

Glad to help, but was it the wait or the re-install that fixed it?

ASHY

the wait m8
i learnt from my Father to be patient, thx Dad

No No No
shit.. after it did the video and audio it fecking crashed :@

Bummer.
If at first you don't succeed my son, try and try again.

ASHY(father)

Just to add, don't play with your PC or be on the net or have any other proggy's running while encoding or performing any other operation with TMPG or as you have noticed it may crash.

ASHY

ok m8 sweet.. this is what i did. so maybe if it happends to someone else u know what to tell them...
after its finish doing the audio.. it crashed and said it wasnt responding i left it for 5 mins cos my computer was still doing something... and right now its just re-started and now its making the cut ok :DDDDD.
Thank me l8er for my advice :)

I have just converted a avi film to mpeg burned it on to a cd to play on my dvd player, the quality is pretty good but the audio is slightly out of sync, any ideas on how to sort this out would be much appreciated. please note I have converted the same avi files using versions 2.02.31.119 and 2.54.37.135 and still the audio is slightly out of sync

Also is there any other vcd templates I can use to get top quality.

Is it in sync on your PC or is it just out of sync on you DVD player?

ASHY

just checked the mpeg in my media player and the sound is in sync "strange". I used nero 5.5.5.6 to burn the mpeg on to cd.

The cd is also in sync through my media player

Ok, there have been documented cases of early versions of NERO causing sync probs on some players.
This was a bug and was corrected in one of the earlier versions.
Download the latest version and try again. If you still get the problem then you will have to try a different burning sofware.
Two I know of which have been known to solve the problem are VCDeasy and Instant CD/DVD 6.5

ASHY

Thanks for your time m8 ;) and your quick response. Have a virtual beer on me.

Cheerzz..hic.

ASHY

When I try to single multiplex a SVCD in a MPEG format,I get an error that reads, "246845s Packets cause buffer undeflow. THe MPEG file may cause error when it played." What I amj trying to do is do the thing where if you put a SVCD in the video input, and select the type as MPEG-1 Video-CD, it will create a new MPEG file that tricks your DVD player into thinking it is reading a VCD, when in fact it is reading a SVCD. The reason I want to do this is because my DVD player will not read SVCDs, only VCDs. If someone could help me out I would greatly appreciate it. THank you.

You will always get this error in most cases because what you are doing isn't a natural thing for TMPG to do.
You may be able to lessen the effect by using the MPEG1 VCd(non standard) setting, but don't worry to much about the buffer undrflow warning it will probably still play ok in your player.

ASHY

Don"t use the "multiplex "for this or you will usually get this error , load your file in the merge & cut with the "vcd/mpeg1" setting and just click "run" and it will make a copy of your file with the proper headers and no error.

Does Tmpgenc work with any of the hardware encoding boards on the market? If so which ones.

I don"t know what you mean ,If you have a hardware encodeing board you don"t need "tmpgenc",If the board does the encodeing what would you need a software encoder for, hardware encoders encode in "real time" from an external source where software encoders take there sweet time encodeing from a source on your hard drive, I don"t know of any way to or any reason to use a software encoder with an encodeing board...

Hmm. Your not getting TMPG confused as some kind of MPEG capture software are you that you can use with a hardware capture board.
TMPG is not capture software, it is a software MPEG encoder.

ASHY

I am confused...I am encoding avi to SVCD. When I encode I am using CQ max 4000 min 1800. I can get 50 min on one cd, but when I have a larger movie say 56-57 min I have to drop the max to 2000 and min to 1400-1500...its only another 7 min...why do I have to drop it so much...and how can I tell what my file size is before I encoded the whole 57 min to find out it is too big for a 80 min 700meg cd. I have tried downloading different bitrate calculators but they are wrong...is there a better way to know how big the file will be...this is driving me crazy!!!!! I have asked before and people tell me that I shouldn't have too lower it that much, and some say its not the max bitrate but the min bitrate too worry about but thats not true either...did a test of my own and found that it depends on both!
Please any help on a easier way would be much appreciated.

Another quick question...the noise filter in tmpenc 2.53...what are some good settings to use...tried to use the defaults and movie looked like shit...can someone explain the three options in there...is it good to lower or raise them...

thanks
Jules

It isn"t the max bitrate that you should be adjusting cuz the encoder rarely ever uses the max amount of bits, you should adjust the minimum bitrate the most cuz the actual average bitrate is closer to the minimum than to the maximum,I encode svcd"s with a maximum of 8000kbs and a minimum of 1500kbs and get about 45 minutes on a cd but I use a different encodeing method than you but not much different..

Yes Jules, I know where you are coming from with this, because I had told you not to reduce the Max bitrate so much.

I regularly fit 2 hr movies on to 2 80 mins cd's. You should only need to reduce the max bitrate down to something like 3000-3500 and the minimum down to 1500 and reduce the quality slider down 5 or 10. Reducing the audio to 128 will help keep the file size down even further.

This always works for me in most cases Jules, what you need to remember as a rule is this.
If you have a high action movie the file size will tend to be larger due to the fact that higher bitrates will be used throughout the movie by the encoder to account for this and give you a decent image quality.
Then on the other hand if a movie of the same length is a slow moving more static movie then the file size will be smaller due to lower bitrates being used by the encoder.

This is what makes it difficult to judge the resulting file size.

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, 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 accomadate the file size.

Hope this explains ok and is helpful to you Jules.

ASHY

I read earlier that for compressing DV to mpeg-2, the CQ encoding mode usually gives better quality than the others. The default in CQ is "65". Has anyone noticed a significant quality increase by moving that to "90" or "100". I noticed it does make the files a bit larger...

Oscar

Moveing the slider closer to "100" just allocates more bits to the encodeing, you will get better quality but your file size will be bigger ..

In previous post, reported jagged edges of mpeg-2 output from DV camera compression. Was seeing this in WinMedia player but couldn't get mpeg-2 to run in WinDVD.

After WinDVD install, all runs fine -- and LOOKS fine. Turned out the ragged edges only show up in WinMedia. Lesson learned: never look at file quality with WinMedia.

It now appears I don't need to use the de-interlace filter. For compressing DV (Sony camera) to mpeg-2 is it usually "normal" to not have to use de-interlace filter? I'm guessing "yes" since I can't see any improvement now with using the filter (viewing in WinDVD or PowerDVD)

Oscar

STOP.
Your being fooled by WinDVD and PowerDVD.
The movie still has interlacing artifacts, but it is being hidden by the WinDVD and Power DVD de-interlacing filters.
If you don't believe me just click the display tab in WinDVD properties and uncheck the filters.
Turn these filters off and your interlacing artifacts will look just the same as Mediplayer shows it.
If you don't de-interlace the movie it will still have interlacing artifacts when you play it on your set top DVD player.

ASHY

Interesting... Maybe it's because I have the "OEM" versions of WinDVD (2000), and PowerDVD, but there is no filter enable/disable screen in either.

Also, when in TMPGenc I double click on the interlace filter and "play" the clip there with default to "none" as well as "Even-Odd(field)" for example (playing within TMPGenc), I don't see much difference. When I saw the interlace artifacts in WinMedia, they were VERY exagerated (the clip was almost unwatchable).

So, the "normal" practice is to have to de-interlace DV material on your way to a good mpeg-2 ??

Oscar

Yes, because your DV camera records interlaced frames.

It is there in ALL versions of Power DVD and WinDVD, you're not looking in the right place.

To find it in WinDVD, open WinDVD, right click on the window then click properties from the menu, a box will pop up.
Click the tab that says 'Display' and you will see some options.
One of those options will be 'custom quality options'.
Click 'low' where it says 'quality' and all the options should become unchecked in particular 'software bob(de-interlacing).

Now have a look at your movie.

Also don't forget your only looking at it frame by frame in TMPG, so it won't look as bad as it would be if was played because only certain frames have interlacing artifacts.
You need to find a frame with interlacing artifacts in TMPG using the de-interlace filter set to none and then apply one of the settings to see which looks best.

ASHY

Nope, those options are not there... Probably because it's an older version... On the Properties>Display Tab there are 2 check boxes and that's the only choices. They are:
- Lock Aspect Ratio
- Startup in full screen mode

Probably I'll need to get an upgraded/newer version. This WinDVD is what came with my Dell 8100 about a year ago.

In powerDVD (which came with my new Pioneer 104), I go to Properties>Video, then click the Advanced button, my only choices there are:
Video Mode
-- Auto Select
-- Force bob
-- Force weave
Then screen resolution for 4:3 and 16:9

This appears to be a crippled version, since it doesn't support Dolby 5.1, etc. Have to buy an upgrade to get the good stuff.

Oscar

I would download the latest version of WinDVD. You must have an old version because I have all versions of WINDVD 2000 2.4 upward and the options are in all of them.

As for PowerDVD if you uncheck:
-- Auto Select
-- Force bob
-- Force weave
You should then see the interlacing lines.

ASHY

The movie takes about 16 hours for the first 70 minutes to encode on TMPGE and it encodes fine until it gets to about 6 seconds left. When its gets to the last couple seconds there will be an error message saying illegal operation or error has occured. Why is it waiting until the last few seconds and what can i do to stop it. Thanks for your help.

There is probably an error at that point in the avi file you are encodeing, you can try to encode the remaining six seconds of your file and join the two parts together with the merge and cut feature..

The error occurs with all of the movie files that i try to encode. They are all different movies. How do you encode the last few seconds if that is all i can do.