This is more or less a reposting. Some questions were partially answered already by ASHY (thanks!). In order to understand the full extent of this issue, I post everything.

--

Until recently, I thought that framerate conversions are a piece of
cake, but read this ...

The entire article belowis quite complex.I try to formulate precise
and short questions; I'd even be happy about a partial answers.

A DivX avi looks like this (from VirtualDub):

*** VIDEO ***
Resolution: 576x320
Framerate: 23.978 fps
Frames: 146071

*** AUDIO ***
Sampling rate: 44100 Hz
Preload skew: 499 samples
# of frames: 146071

*** Video questions ***

Q1. Why would someone create a weird (non-standard) framerate of
23.978 (25.000 or 23.976 are "standard").

When I use TMPGEnc to make SVCD mpg file (PAL, 25.000 fps) out of it,
I get a jerky movie (at the rate of #1.3 second). On top of it,
artefacts build up within dark areas. The rate of their occurance is
also #1.3 second.

Q2. Is this jerky movie and the artefacts due to the fact that TMPGEnc
is possibly not that good in converting framerates?

Q3. Are there options to within TMPGEnc to eliminate these jerks and
artefacts?

Regarding the framerate conversion, I gave VirtualDub a try. It made
the conversion pretty smooth. No jerks and no artefacts any more.
However, to avoid saving the file with a lossy compressor, I chose AVI
to save the file "Uncompressed RBG". The resulting file would have
exceeded my storage capacity by factor 4 (93 GB). Since the DivX
(source) is already lossy, I didn't want to insert an additional lossy
compressor between the initial DivX and the final SVCD mpg.

Q4. Which VirtualDub compressor stores a movie free of loss (if any).

Someone suggested to me already to use the "AVI Frame Rate Changer".
But this utility just changes the framerate, hence makes the movie
shorter but doesn't create new frames (like TMPGEnc and VirtualDub
does).

Q5. Where can I find manuals about TMPGEnc and VirtualDud? Their
respective homepages don^t provide such documents.

*** Audio questions ***

Whatever I tried with TMPGEnc and VirtualDub, the audio was out of
sync. I extracted the audio part using VirtualDub, which came of with
something strange. The original movie is 146071 / 23.978 = 6091.876
seconds long, while CoolEdit reports the extracted audio part being
6088.306 seconds long.

Q6. Why is there a difference of 3.570 seconds?

Q7. What is the "Preload skew" (499 samples in this movie) in
VirtualDub?

As I said ... even partially answered questions might help already
quite a lot.

Many thanks.

I have already answered your questions, so check back to your original post.
You have done things completely the wrong way. Virtualdub does not compensate for frames it simply speeds up or slows down the AVI, so the resulting AVI after the conversion will play smooth, but the audio will be out of sync as the length of this doesn't change unless you use the pulldown filter which is irrelevant for your task.

As for the re-compression, this is the whole point of using AVI framerate changer. It means there is no re-compression of the AVI thus no extra space is required and no quality loss.
Also even if you do decide to use Virtualdub to change the framrate you still DO NOT need to recompress the file. It is a simple matter of choosing the 'Direct stream' copy option. The frame rate will still be changed, but no re-encoding will take place.

Also the AVI is NOT a weird frame rate, it is just slightly off what is normal by a miniscule amount. This could be for 2 reasons. One is the encoder used to create the AVI wasn't to accurate or it was deliberately changed to sync the movie with the audio.

Regarding the length of the audio difference with Virtualdub and Cool edit by 3.570 seconds. This is probaly due to the fact that your Movie and audio are indeed different lengths. Virtualdub is giving you the length of the movie itself regardless of the length of the audio within it.

Once you have extracted the audio it is then becomimg apparant that the audio is actually 3 seconds shorter than the movie itself. This could be due to the fact that the movie has been tweaked by the creator to sync it and is probably why you have the 'weird' frame rate of 23.978 fps in the first place in an effort to speed up the movie to sync it with the audio.

The best thing you can do here is trim the movie to the same length as the audio, but make sure that there is no preload skew of audio.
You can check this in the file info of Virtualdub.

If this movie has been tweaked with an audio skew and had the framerate increased to sync up the audio then you are going to find it difficult to convert and sync this movie perfectly.

If it does have a skew the best way would be to trim the movie to the exact same length as the audio. Convert the audio using the process I have outlined. Then load it all back into Virtualdub with the new wav, change the framerate and re-apply the skew setting to sync up the audio and then either frameserve that to TMPG or create a new AVI using the direct stream copy option for the video.

ASHY

You shouldn"t use "tmpgenc" to do the frame rate conversion for you,allthough it does a fairly good job it isn"t perfect and you Will get jerkey playback ,Doing the conversion with the frame rate converter is the only option that will give you the non-jerkey results.You can do the frame rate conversion and then load it in virtual dub and frame serve it to tmpgenc so you don"t have to re-render it..........

I guess we were both writeing at the same time......

I was posting a lengthy reply, but got the error message "The sentence is too long". I guess the entire reply was too long. You get it split apart tomorrow.

Thanks.

There is a way to convert Divx files to PAL (25 fps), You will need the following tools..

Virtualdub
Headac3e (to convert any AC3 audio to WAV)
Beesweet + GUI (to convert audio to PAL rate)
Tmpgenc

Extract the audio from the Divx file, use Full processing mode for MP3/PCM audio, use direct stream copy for AC3, and convert to WAV with Headac3e.

Use Besweet to convert your WAV to the PAL rate (23.976 fps to 25 fps)

Set the frame rate in virtualdub to 25fps, select direct stream copy, no audio, Extract just the video from you divx file by saving as AVI...

You should now have a converted .WAV file and a 25fps AVI video only file.

You can now load these into Tmpgenc, and use the PAL templates..

MSN: mh2360@blueyonder.co.uk

*** PART 1 ***

ASHY ... Thanks for the explanations.

The audio part is a different story which I would like to treat separetely later on. First I would like to get rid of the jerks and increase the framerate. But talking of "changing framerates" ... there are 2 different approaches:

1. The framerate conversion of VirtualDub and "AVI Frame Rate Changer" ... which simply tells the video part to play back at a certain framerate. The frames themselves are not touched, hence the duration of the video changes.

2. A "real" framerate conversion, which means that the framerate is changed and the duration of the video is kept. Hence frames are dropped or inserted. That's what TMPGEnc doe (not so well).

I initially thought that VirtualDud does 2., but in fact it is doing 1.

*** PART 2 ***

--- ASHY ---
As for the re-compression, this is the whole point of using AVI framerate changer. It means there is no re-compression of the AVI thus no extra space is required and no quality loss.

Also even if you do decide to use Virtualdub to change the framrate you still DO NOT need to recompress the file. It is a simple matter of choosing the 'Direct stream' copy option. The frame rate will still be changed, but no re-encoding will take place.
--- ASHY ---

You are perfectly right. This is what I describe in 1. above. Hence the length of the movie is changing, which is again not what I want. 4.26% of speed change might is visible.

--- ASHY ---
Also the AVI is NOT a weird frame rate, it is just slightly off what is normal by a miniscule amount. This could be for 2 reasons. One is the encoder used to create the AVI wasn't to accurate or it was deliberately changed to sync the movie with the audio.

Regarding the length of the audio difference with Virtualdub and Cool edit by 3.570 seconds. This is probaly due to the fact that your Movie and audio are indeed different lengths. Virtualdub is giving you the length of the movie itself regardless of the length of the audio within it.
--- ASHY ---

A general qustion about AVIs. I checked the audio at the beginning and at the end of the movie. It begins right at the beginning and stops right at the end. Nowhere, 3.570 seconds are missing. Is the audio inside an video stream always "stretched" in order to match the video?

*** PART 3 ***

Also ... is it possible to get the information about the length of the audio part of an AVI stream from VirtualDub (AFAIK, not)?

--- ASHY ---
Once you have extracted the audio it is then becomimg apparant that the audio is actually 3 seconds shorter than the movie itself. This could be due to the fact that the movie has been tweaked by the creator to sync it and is probably why you have the 'weird' frame rate of 23.978 fps in the first place in an effort to speed up the movie to sync it with the audio.
--- ASHY ---

The framnerate ratio (24.976/23.978) is not equal to the difference in sound ratio (6091.875/6088.175). This makes it hard to believe that the framerate change is for a/v sync.

--- ASHY ---
The best thing you can do here is trim the movie to the same length as the audio, but make sure that there is no preload skew of audio.
You can check this in the file info of Virtualdub.
--- ASHY ---

Does a preload skew of 499 samples mean that the audio only starts 499 samples after the movie had started already?

--- ASHY ---
If it does have a skew the best way would be to trim the movie to the exact same length as the audio. Convert the audio using the process I have outlined. Then load it all back into Virtualdub with the new wav, change the framerate and re-apply the skew setting to sync up the audio and then either frameserve that to TMPG or create a new AVI using the direct stream copy option for the video.
--- ASHY ---

But this would again mean that there is a difference in duration (and speed) of the movie (by 4.26%), right?

Is there no utility, like TMPGEnc, which does "real" framerate correction as outlined in 2. above?

Thanks again ASHY for this detailed article!

*** PART 4 ***

MINION

--- MINION ---
You can do the frame rate conversion and then load it in virtual dub and frame serve it to tmpgenc so you don"t have to re-render it..........
--- MINION ---

Why would you do a frame rate conversion (e.g. with AVI Frame Rate Changer) and load it into VirtualDub first before streaming it to TMPGEnc? Would this be to sync a/v?

Thanks to both of you!

--- mh2360 ---
Set the frame rate in virtualdub to 25fps, select direct stream copy, no audio, Extract just the video from you divx file by saving as AVI...

You should now have a converted .WAV file and a 25fps AVI video only file.
--- mh2360 ---

Changing the framerate using VirtualDub, you change the original duration and speed of the movie by 4.26%.

Actually ... I would like to explain why I would like to have PAL (25.000) intead of 23.976 (NTSC Film). PAL is 480x576 25 where NTSC Film is 480x480 23.976. The quality with PAL is better, and since I have a source exceeding (resolution wise) PAL, I would like to go for that format.
Another question ... are DVD player in Central Europe usually playing back 30, 29.97 and 23.976 SVCDs?

Thanks.

Yes it will change the rate and the duration of the movie but you wont notice it at all...

hello,
i use the program to convert my avi-file to mpeg1 und to multiplex the video-files with mp2 or mp3 audio-files.

i find the new progressbar for the mpeg-tool very good, but i think this future make my problems with the systemresource bigger.

after i have multiplexed one file after an onther and then i become problems to open windows or files because the system don't have more system-resources.
i close windows, but this helps only a short time.

this is a bug in windows since the first version and i hate this.
when a program is closed, the system-resources of this program can't be used from other programs.

i use windows 2000 and open always many windows, so that i must reboot the system normaly after 2 to 4 weeks, but after i used the new version of tmpgenc with the new display, i must reboot the system next day.

have some one also this problem ?

is it possible to change this future for select a progressbar or a progressdisplay with only the bytes and % without using of graphic-resources.

goodby

I don't understand your problem with TMPG. If you are having a problem with system resources then that is a problem with your system not TMPG. Do you have enough RAM to start with. Also having many windows open at once and especially while encoding is a bad idea.
As for the progress bar, I wouldn't have thought this is a resource hog as the display for this should be down to your graphics card and not really processor intensive.
Ever thought of an upgrade?

Also if your problem is Windows not returning system resources to use for other programs then why not download one of the many memory managers which are designed to control this problem.

One I use which seems pretty good is Freemem Pro.

ASHY

hello,
i know that this is a problem from windows and i will test different utilities in next time. but i think this tools can only make the problem smaller, so that i can use my pc over a longer time without reboot.

but all programs which have an intensive use of systemresources reduce the time to the next reboot. and it is not nessecary to use many systemresource for all output.

i have 512 mb ram in my workstations, that is more memory as needed, but windows use this memory for all things (harddiskcache 95% of memory, printspooler 300% of memory) and not for the running programs.
i will also need wine under linux in next time and hope, that all programs i need, i can use with this system, so that this problem will go away.

goodby

Interlace or Noninterlace

what is the differents betwean Interlace or Noninterlace i dont understand that sorry :(

Here is a link that gives a good explaination of interlace and non-interlace. Hope this is usefull information.

http://www.lukesvideo.com/

John

I have edited 2 DV file in Premiere 6 and compressed this to (NTSC) MPEG1 (non-stnadard) using TMPEGenc thru a frameserver. I have altered the settings a bit i.e. 720x480, CQ_VBR(min 3000 - max 5000), Motion search (High Quality), under source video (non-interlaced). The quality was really good when i played it back with media player.

Then using Premiere 6, I joined both files and threw in a background music, no editing was made and compressed it to MPEG1 using the same settings. However, the results i get is a stuttered, jumpy video, the quality was retained, though. I tried different settings including VCD standard but i get the same result.

Any interlaced solution on this one or progressive explanation.

Maybe you encoded it to a different frame rate cuz you said you chose the source video as "non-interlaced" that would mean that the video source was 23.97fps for ntsc and you might have encoded it to ntsc 29.9fps instead of ntsc film.....Just a thought....

Hi,

When converting from AVI into MPEG2, I receive following error:

ERROR -272762914 859034592

It appears again and again.

Please help me. Thanks.
Noomee

I had similar problem with v2.56 trying to encode an Xvid to SVCD. I found that disabling MMX (and everything else) in the CPU options solved the problem, but it took FOREVER to encode. And the encode didn't include audio for some reason. Here's how I fixed it, not exactly sure what the problem was though:

1) Upgrade to v2.57 (didn't help by itself)
2) In Environmental settings under VFAPI plugins, Change DirectShow priority to 2 and Cyberlink MPEG2 to 1.

Worked like a charm. Also, previously the Project Wizard estimated the running time of the Xvid file to be over twice as long, now it reports the correct running time. I think my problem was I also have the Ligos MPEG2 codec installed and both the Ligos and Cyberlink codecs had the same priority. It may have just been an issue with the Ligos encoder, but I haven't really took the time to do a detailed analysis. All I know is that TMPG works now with no errors and audio, at least in the 10 second sample I tried. It's still encoding the entire video so I don't know if there'll be any syncing errors. Hope not.

My system: Athlon XP 1.4GHz, 512 DDR, all available CPU options on, including SSE

Thanks very much!!

I've changed like you suggested and it's allready encoding for 2 minutes without error message.

Hopefully it will continue for the entire movie.

Thanks again,
Noomee

i have the same error, but as you suggest, it will work but without the audio??

so, you have to encode with the audio later on??

by the way the error message i got is this number: -272762914 442688

it is different from all your error because of the last part but it pretty much the same error.

I use version 2.58

it pop up every 3 secs or so...

help

Ashy ..sorry to be again but Im trying to follow the guide you gave someone in a previous post re: NTSC to PAL conversion when creating a VCD from an avi but am confused about something which Im hoping you can clear up ...

The point in question is
---------------------------------------
It's not as hard as you think even though it looks complicated.

The only way is to change the framerate of the original AVI.
First you will have to extract the audio to a wav file using virtual dub.
Load the AVI file into virtualdub and extract the audio to a wav.
Next change the framerate to the one you want. When you do this note the time in the box at bottom right exactly and then convert it to seconds. WRITE THIS DOWN, you will need it later.
-------------------------------------------

Now ...when I change the framerate in Virtual Dub ... the time never changes ...Ive tried typing 21 frames in the box 29 ... the time never changes ... what am I doing wrong ?


thanks

Olli

You didn't change the framerate with AVI framerate changer before loading it into Virtualdub did you?
If not try this. Load your AVI, click Edit>end and note the time then click Edit>beginning then change the framerate. Click Edit>end, the timescale should have changed.

Also make sure you have the latest version of Virtualdub.

ASHY

OK will try that ..thanks ... my version of Vdub is fairly old. I didnt change the frame rate using avifrate so it must be the version of vdub that I have.

Can I not get the time by loading the avi into avifrate and then changing the frame rate there ? I have noticed that avifrate then displays the length of the movie in seconds and that it changes as I change the frame rate ...

Avi framerate changer does what?
I can't see what you mean by this as there is no time display in AVI framerate changer, are you sure you're not looking at the current framerate display?

Anyway you should have no problem with finding the timescale with Virtualdub and besides you need it to be exact to the nearest millisecond. For this Virtualdub is best.
This has worked for many other people who have done this conversion, so you shouldn't really have a problem.

ASHY

OK ..Ill use Vdub in future but avifrate does have a time display .....

from the help file :-

Buttons and edit boxes


Flags Contains few bit flags to mark file as indexed one, force index usage, mark file as captured, copyrighted etc.
Init. frames Number of frames to skip
Frames Number of frames mentioned by file header
handler Video Stream handler fourCC id and format header fourCC id
scale divisor of the frame rate
rate multiplier of the frame rate
length Number of frames mentioned by stream header
fps calculated "frames per second" speed
sec calculated duration of the video stream

It gives the seconds of the duration to 3 decimal places

Just thought I'd let you know ...I finished converting an avi from 23.976 fps to 25 fps by using the length of the movie as claculated by avifrate and it is in perfect synch. I did the following

1) Extract wav from avi
2) Load avi into avifrate
3) Changed fps to 25 and noted new length of film (note that avifrate gives lenghth to 3 decimal places)
4) Stretched wav using cooledit to new length as per step (3)
5) Applied the 25fps change to the avi using avifrate
6) Encoded the avi to XVCD using TMPGenc with a PAL aspect ratio, specifying the avi as video source and stretched wav as audio source - I also used ttolame and ssrc as external tools

Im a happy man now ...thanks for getting me this far !!

LOL, I see what has happened Ollie. For some reason you have a completely different version of software than the one I have. How did you get this, I'm sure I didn't give you the link. The funny thing is I have actually had this little piece of software already on my drive for a while but never used it.

There is no reason why you shouldn't use it either as it seems to give accurate results. You learn something new everyday.
I think I'll be pointing people towards this nice little piece of software in future when they require framerate conversion. It just makes it that little bit easier.

Anyway thanks Ollie , glad it worked out for you.

There is one thing you can help me with. I believe you have managed to get certain CDR's to wotk with the Sony DAVS300. Could you post the types of disks you were successful with here Ollie as friend has the same player and we have only managed to get CDRW to work so far.

Cheers,
ASHY.

Heh ... glad to see that I at least was able to pass some information back in retuen for all the hard work you put in on this board. Without people like you and Minion many people would never get their conversion problems solved.

Anyway ... the discs I use for my DAVS300 are the Vivastar brand. In the UK I buy them at Argos, but you have to be careful ..I have had batches before which didnt work, and when I used a prog called CDRidentifier (you can find the homepage using a google search) they turned out to be not Vivastar but a brand called Fornet Pte Ltd despite being branded as Vivastar,

Hope this helps

Olli

Now all I have to do is re-encode all the movies I have done so far ;)

P.S I got avifrate from the homepage which I found doing a google search

http://www.am-soft.ru/avifrate.html

Thanks Ollie. I already got CDRidentifier and Avifrate.
Regarding the Vivastar disks. The info you read using CDRidentifier about the manufacturer of the disks called Fornet Pte Ltd. Is this the manufacturer of the Vivastar brand that works? Have you purchased any lately and are they still made by this company as CDR makers have a habit of changing their disk manufacturers like they change their socks.

ASHY

The brand that works is the Vivastar one ..Fornet ones do not work.
I have bought several tubs of 100 discs labelled as Vivastar from Argos but a couple of the tubs turned out to contain discs manufactured by Fornet not Vivastar. I returned them to Argos explained to the assistant what the problem was ... blah blah ASPI layer ... etc .. got a very puzzled look (heh) and exchanged them for another tub which looked identical but this time contained genuine Vivastar discs.

I stocked up ...so I have around 150 discs now

The last batch I bought was about 2 or 3 weeks ago.
It seems that some of the discs are manufactured by Vivastar and branded as Vivastar - these ones are the ones you want - where CDRidentifier shows the manufacturer as Vivastar AG.

It also looks like some of the tubs that are labelled Vivastar actually contain discs manufactured by Fornet Pte Ltd

Hope this clears things up

Olli

Is there a marked difference between the two batch numbers on the disk that would allow me to identify which disk is which at a glance without having to purchase first. Usually when a disk comes from the same manufacturer part of the batch code is the same, it may only be a few numbers, but it will give me something to look for. Where as the batch number from a different company will be completely different.

Cheers,
ASHY

Sorry ... I never looked at the batch numbers .... I guess its a case of try it and return if it doesnt work

Ollie look on the inner part of the disk itself. There will be a set of numbers.
Compare the good disks from two different batches and you should see some numbers within the batch code which are common to both disks, it may only be 3 or 4, but it would help.

ASHY

i tried two times - both times same thing happened at the same point...
what's wrong? any way to fix it?

There is a search on this forum, if you had used it, you would have found the answer. Here's a posting from 2 days ago:

John

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Msquared 2002/07/17 (Wed.) 15:47 ( IP:80.198.100.247 ) [ Edit / Delete / Reply with quotation ]

Have any of you guys ever come across an error labled "illegal floating point calculation" ??? I've got it a couple of times, and it's starting to annoy me.
Does anyone know how to get around it ?

-M


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Minion ( Mail ) 07/17 (Wed.) 16:17 ( IP:24.64.223.203 ) [ Edit / Delete / Reply with quotation ]
You get the floating point error when your avi file is corrupted or has corrupted sectors in it, there is a way to get rid of the error but it will make encodeing take quite a bit longer, what you do is first go to "options" to "enviromental settings" to "cpu" and un-check the "SSE" box then go to "settings" to "quantize matrix" and un-check the "use floating piont DCT" box
this will stop the error from occuring but like I said the encodeing will take longer.You can also get this error if you do anything with your computer while encodeing accept encode......


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Msquared 07/18 (Th.) 05:44 ( IP:80.198.100.247 ) [ Edit / Delete / Reply with quotation ]
Thanks ! I'll try that

Will there be any quality issues where the avi file was corrupted, such as missing frames, or sync problems between audio & video ?
As you can probably tell I'm a newbie ;)
-M


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
bewley ( Mail ) 07/18 (Th.) 12:08 ( IP:63.160.191.5 ) [ Edit / Delete / Reply with quotation ]
I keep reading that the floating point error is caused by corrupted AVI's, but I have found that is not always the case. I have an AVI that I can encode perfectly in version 2.54, but it consistently errors (floating point or read error) in version 2.56.

I have done everything I can think of to resolve the issues in 2.56 -- reinstall TMPGEnc, turn off 3D Now/SSE, remove all loading programs on boot, diddle with cache setting, lower my memory speed, turn off all power saving features... Nothing works and I still get one of the two errors. The AVI also encodes fine with other encoding software. Only TMPGEnc has a problem with it.

Msquared, one thing to check is where the errors appear. If it always happens at the same location, then I would think corrupted AVI... However, if the error appears to be random, then I would consider looking for a lower version of the software and giving that a try.

Maybe this will help ....

http://screw.wz.cz/avidef/AVIDeFreezer%20Tutorial.htm

Hi there!
I have an Athlon XP 1800+ that I use to capture video for SVCDs using a Pinnacle DC10plus. After capture I use TMPGEnc to compress to MPEG. I use 2-pass VBR in TMPGEnc and it takes about 4-5 hours to encode a 30 minutes movie.
I have a 40 GB IBM UDMA hard disk.

So the question is: I'm considering buying a new and larger harddisk. What will be fastest, one 120 GB disks or two 60 GB disks using RAID to work as one disk? I know the RAID solution should give a higher transfer rate, but will that be noticable during the MPEG-encoding.
In other word, is the harddisk speed or the cpu-speed the bottleneck when encoding MPEG-files?

Thanks a lot in advance.
Soren

Hi,
I have an xp 1800+ too with FIC AN11 motherboard with a RAID 0 connection. Personally, I think RAID is great for video editing. I'm using RAID 0 (stripping) with two maxtor 60 gig with 7200 rpm, and I can encode 40 minutes of avi video in about 25-30 minutes to mpeg-1 vcd format. DVD and SVCD still take quite a while, especially if I specify the VBR double pass setting. I LOVE Raid. I will be upgrading to RAID 0+1 (stripping and mirroring) soon so I can get fault tolerance. I increased my pcmark harddrive benchmark score by about 300 points (I was scoring about 800-900 with UDMA 5, brought that up to 1150 or so after RAID) when I installed RAID.

However, as I'm sure you know you won't see any increase in performance if you use RAID 1 (mirroring), which doesn't support stripping. Also, RAID 0 is not fault tolerant. You will lose your entire partition if one of the disks fail--so be warned.

I forgot to specify that for the "25-30" minutes, I'm using one pass, CBR.

Just did a quick check of svcd encoding timer for 20 minutes of video 2 pass VBR 1950kbps svcd--reading it at an hour on the timer.

The bottleneck is overwhelmingly CPU speed.

While a computer's processor is always important, a system is only a strong as it's weakest link. Since you are writing to the harddrive as well as processing the video during the encoding process, having a high performance harddrive can only help. And according to RAID-Info http://www.acnc.com/04_01_00.html, RAID 0 is recommended for video editing. I'd go with the raid over the single harddive--it's worth it imo.

my tmpg does not accept .vdr files how come ??

Make sure you set up the virtual dub frame server by double clicking "auxsetup" and choose "setup frame server" but you probably know that.

hi, i've been using Tmpgenc to make svcds but i heard that you can make a cvd from tmpgenc...is this true?...if so, how can i do it?

To make a cvd you just change the resolution to 352 by 480 and do the rest of the settings like a svcd....

looking at previous posts someone mentioned that ver 2.56 is bugged and thats why this problem occurs with divxmpeg4 v3 and that everything works fine with ver 2.54. So is it possible to get the older version?

This might be a problem with microsoft's mp43 dll--not tmpg. MS doesn't want us encoding in mp43 (according to Virtual Dub's "coach message") so they have taken measures to prevent playback etc. I had problems encoding mpeg from mp43 until I installed some dll fix I downloaded (which has subsequently been removed from the site due to MS complaint).

So does TMPGEnc support conversion of divxmpeg4 v3 files? One 25 minute show turns into a whopping 70 minute file with no sound. I hope someone can help here.

There shouldn"t be a problem encodeing any form of divx files as long as you have the proper codecs installed on your machine, try raiseing the "direct show file reader" in the "vfapi plugins" and if you can"t see the movie in the screen while encodeing then the movie probably isn"t encodeing properly.