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Pegasys Products BBS [ Sorted by thread creation date ]
Hi all, just found this board after looking around for help with VCD creation. Anyway, I got questions...
1. Is it me or is TMPGEnc a bit tempramental? I can't figure out why, but it sometimes works and othertimes doesn't. On 2 different PC's too! How can I make TMPGEnc run more smoothly? I've heard many things such as disable USB ports, NICs, all other apps etc. but it seems to make little difference. I also tried using Win2k over XP but that didn't help at all. Anybody got a tried and tested solution for creating the best environment for it to run in?
2. Stutter! Can't get rid of it when creating VCDs. I use DVD Decrypter=>DVD2AVI=>TMPGEnc5.5=>Nero5.59. I've tried swapping the field order in DVD2AVI and reducing the bitrate to stupidly-low in TMPGEnc, but it makes little difference. I still get this regular video stutter. Audio is fine, it's just the video stutters every 40 frames or so just enough to annoy. Is this a problem with the DVD decryption, the TMPGEnc encoding or what? Is there a way to stop it?
I'm running a P4 1.5, GF2 Ultra 64Mb, 384Mb RDRAM with WinXP. The film is NTSC but I think I converted it to PAL in the encoding.
I can answer the stutter question for you .....
The stutter is there because TMPGenc does not do framerate conversion very well. I have sent you my guide for doing framerate conversion outside of TMPGenc to eliminate the stutter.
Watch out for this: swapping fields is NOT the same as making sure your field order is set properly. The swap operation in most tools affects WHERE field lines appear on the screen. Setting a field order determines WHEN they appear.
"Stutter" sounds like a field order problem and to fix it you need to make sure the top/bottom setting in the "source" video sheet matches the actual video.
A foolproof way to check field order is with avisynth. Use DVD2AVI to source the mpeg. (My scripts are not handy so this might need corrections.)
loadPlugin(".../xxxxx") # I forget the file name!
video = mpeg2source("input.d2v")
video = video.assumeFrameBased.SeparateFields
return video
Step through the AVS file with virtualDub to inspect the motion from field to field. Proper motion means the video is "bottom" field (avisynth's default). Stuttering motion means the video is "top" field. My ATI card captures with top field order so I found this out the hard way.
To fix this in the video file would require swapping fields AND delaying one field to the next frame. Better to let the player handle that.
You say that you converted from NTSC to PAL in the encoding.
The stutter is not due to the field order or field swapping or whatever, but is because of the framerate conversion as Olli correctly pointed out. TMPG does not do correct framerate conversion. You need AVIsynth to do this or you can do it the traditional way by usiing AViframerate changer and cooledit.
Just attempted to encode an DVDivX .avi file which is around 700MB. after about 4 hours (at 29%) it was at the end of the movie, but I ended up getting the error (approximately) "0048715A Write error occurred, TMPGENC.EXE in 007C60000"
The file was actually created, but without sound (picture was fine).
Can anyone offer any explanation for this (whether it's regarding the was the .avi was created or the way I am trying to encode the mpeg)
The error you were getting probably didn"t have anything to do with the audio not being encoded, the problem most likely is that the audio format on the Divx file was not supported in Tmpgenc, it is probably "VBR MP3" or "AC3" you need to extract tha audio from the Divx file to a wav file with either "Virtual Dub" if it is "VBR MP3" or and AC3 decoder if the audio is AC3...
I know how to convert AC3 to wav using Virtualdub and heac3he, but I have also found that the following works.
- Decompress the avi using avi2vcd decompress utility. Load the uncompressed avi into Vdub and choose full processing mode and save as wav.
Can anyone explain to me why this works ?? I thought AC3 wav files had to be converted to wav. How can a utility that decompresses audio produce a file which can then be saved as a straight wav ?
Which way is the best way to do it ? ....I tried both and the file output size was nearly identical.
- Can I specify an AC3 file as the audio source for encoding an XVCD or does the audio always have to be a wav file ?
- The AC3 file I have is sourround sound (I think) .. is there any way I can keep sourround sound when converting to XVCD ? What settings should I use in the Audio tab of TMPGenc ?
You can't use Ac3 with TMPG unles you have an Ac3 filter installed.
The best and quickest way I have found is to use VOB2AUDIO to create a wav straight from the vobs or AC3DEC to convert VOBs or Ac3 files to a wav.
Most utilities that convert VOBs or Ac3 files to wavs simply downmix the 5 track Dolby digital audio to Dolby prologic surround audio.
No! There is nothing on the Mac... and I'm not an anti-mac. I'm a former Mac user, I switched 6 months ago to Win XP and I have to say I don't regret it at all. I had a very nice P4-2,53Ghz computer for half the price of a prehistoric-G4. Win XP is very stable and has a "not so bad" interface. And when I see the stinking .mac strategies, the processor technology not evolving and the fact that you have to fully pay Jaguar... it really doesn't want to make me switch back! So, I'm now living in the dark side of force... and I love it :-p
ok i have quite afew movies and been converting them to mpeg
any way to cut a long story short
every time i convert the movies end up in letterbox format
is there any way to keep them full screen or if in letterbox to increase height so that i can watch in full screen
i am in pal by the way
thanks
In the advanced settings under "Clip Frame" you can arrange the screen so there are no black borders and you can use the "video arrange setting" to help you do this also....
I use the TMPG Enc to cut my video cd movies , but after cutting the mpegs files I didn t found the files in the out put. I have try many time , but almost the same problem . I hope you can help me thank you!!!
Can you playback the file with Windows media player?
If not, TMPGEnc would not encode it.
If yes, go to "options" > "enviromental settings" > "vfapi plugins" and raise the "direct show file reader" to "2", this might help.
but tmpgenc does the first 11 minutes with out any problems at all.
It's windows 2000 with NTFS.
I have used vdub to rebuild the missing index's in the avi file but that then leads to audio/sync being way out by several minutes by the end of the file.
If the file can not be playback with media player, it can not
be encoded properly. This is 1st minimum condition to be
encoded properly with TMPGEnc.
You may need certain codec to play first anyway.
I convert my downloaded anime episodes with TMPGenc. However, this one episode that was around 170 megs, converted to around 600 megs, while the rest was around 200. I do not know why this is happening please help me.
The input size has nothing to do with the output size, the output size is directly related to the length of the input file and the bitrate used, so takeing this in mind if the file is still to big the only thing I can think of is if you are doing a vcd in the settings under "System" change it to "video-cd non-standard".......
I have a question about 2 pass VBR settings. I take home movies on my canon DV camera which I then edit in an editor and produces a nice AVI file. I then drag this file into TMPGencoder and make SVCD movies (NTSC). I have had my settings set to average bitrate 2520, max bit rate 2520 and minimum to 300.
I have had someone comment to me that my minimum bit rate is set too low. My question to you is what is a fairly averag setting all of you use out there for minimum. I mean I usually try to fit my DV movies (33 minutes) on one 700 mb CDR and works just fine. If I set the minimum to let's say, 1100, does this change the size of the file too much and does the CD become non SVCD mPEG compatibel?
I wouldn"t say that you minimum is really too low but all your settings are off, you sort of defeat the purpose of encodeing to VBR if your average and maximum are the same, that means that your file will be closer to a CBR stream than a VBR stream,that is why you are only getting 33 minutes on a CD-r, you can get much better quality and get up to 45 minutes or more on a cd-r if you tried settings something like 500kbs minimum 2250 average and 5000kbs max..With these settings you will have a true VBR mpeg stream with a higher max bitrate the average is about the same and the minimum..I used these settings last night on a 704 by 480 file and got 43 minutes and the file was 707mb so I could still have fit another 75mb on this file(you can get 795mb on a 80 min cd-r) and the file looks great...These numbers are just an example of worked good for me but a VBR stream is supposed to be encoded with parameters simular to this.......
Personnally I prefer CQ than 2-pass VBR... thanks to ASHY I use Max. 4000, min. 1800 and CQ 65... I have very great results and at least 60 minutes with it!
Thanks for the reply. However, one very important question. If I am not mistaken, True SVCD has a maximum of 2520 kb. Does this not mean that if I put the maximum at 5000 kb and at times it goes that high, my Pioneer player can't read it?
maybe you should check on www.vcdhelp.com for the compatibility list but lots of DVD players are able to read what we could call XSVCD... mine (a JVC) read them perfectly...
Your right that certain players may not read the higher bitrate and could choke your player, so check out VCDhelp to see ehat it can handle.
As far as encoding goes you will find, as do many of the others on this BBS, that the CQ method will yeild superior results to the 2 pass method in most cases.
Regarding the chosen bitrate settings as Nico has pointed out, why the minimum bitrate of 1800 kb/s?
This is because due to extensive testing with various settings and different movies I came to the conclusion that 1800 is the minimum setting possible when encoding to MPEG2 to prevent the dreaded macro blocks.
Any lower and macro blocks begin to appear in normal scenes and using this bitrate prevents this.
With the quality setting at 65% it seems to be enough to keep the bitrate at a reasonably high enough level and allow TMPG to adjust the bitrate high enough to compensate for faster action scenes without introducing blockiness and produce a small enough file size to allow most movies to fit on 2 disks.
Also in my opinion it is better to use the standard 480x480 resolution for SVCD rather than 704x480 0r 720x480.
Why? Because I have found that the difference in picture quality of the two resolutions when viewed on a standard TV is not that great or noticable and seeing as higher resolutions need more bitrate, it is better to use that valuble bitrate to improve the picture quality of a 480x480 image.
By this I mean I would rather give up a little less and hardly noticible sharpness rather than run out of bitrate because of the higher resolution on high action scenes and thus end up with horrible macro blocks.
These settings weren't just pulled out of a hat, but were eventually arrived upon after many tests with both TMPG and CCE and the settings are true for both these encoders.
So in conclusion I would say CQ is the way to go for improved image vs filesize quality.
Thanks for all the wonderful info. One last comment though. My old Pioneer 343 plays anything I throw at it. SVCD XSVCD DVD-R etc. I see no problem there. However, the point of filming home movies is so I can supply the rest of my family in Europe (I'm in the US) with acceptable formats they can play. I feel that most of them can play the better quality, however, some are having problem with higher bitrates.
Now, If I use CQ and set the high to be 2520 and the low to be 1800 and then Quality to 100%. Will this yield a good quality flick that will fit on a 700 MB CDR MPEG2...(about 30 minutes of video).. or is that set too high?
P>S I guess I can test my way but I don't have a finsihed edited 22 gig avi file now to convert... :-(
If you are trying to keep your files totally compliant so they will play on the biggest variety of dvd players then the 1800min and 2520max 100 quality would be the best bet but if you lower the quality level to say 85 then you will be able to fit more on a cd-r and not loose any noticeable quality...I like useing the higher resolutions for movies that have a lot of action but you do need to raise the bitrate a bit to keep the same quality...
If you only intend to put 30 mins of video on to a disk then you may as well stick with CBR and the standard bitrate as it's pointless going any lower with the bitrate because 30 mins will easily fit on to an 800mb disk at this bitrate. It may even be possible to use max resolution with this bitrate and still fit it on to an 800mb disk.