Hello people. I have spent the last couple of days playing with the ATI "All in Wonder"7500 video capture card... learning first hand what you guys have meant about uncompressed AVI devouring disk space and trying to come up with a comfortable - to me - middle ground. I really don't like the 352 x 240 size and prefer to capture at a slightly larger size. Now I am using an "mpeg 1" format, but I wonder just how good the ATI MPEG 1 really is.... Should I recode the ATI mpg with TMPG, or should I try to use a compressed AVI format and than use TMPG? My end goal is to use NERO to burn to CD-Rs.

You would probably get the best results if you capture un-compressed AVI and then encode to mpeg with Tmpgenc..Captureing to Mpeg then encodeing to mpeg won"t produce very good quality, but if you can Capture good Quality Mpeg to the same resolution that you want the finnished product to be, that would save a lot of time and disk space...

In my experience of capturing (and I have tried all sorts) the DIVX 5 codec still proves to beat any other codec including the so called lossless Huffyuv codec which frankly I think produces crap results.

If you have a fast PC then capturing with the DIVX 5 codec set at it's highest 1 pass quality based setting and fastest performance/quality setting will give very high quality results almost like uncompressed AVI (yes really) and certainly better than MPEG 1 capturing.

The file size is usually a few gigs for a regular movie. If you find you can't use the fastest performace/quality setting because of dropped frames then simply change the setting to a lower one until the dropped frames dissappear this won't affect the actual quality of the capture, but tends to produce a larger file size because of less compression in the file.

Also capturing to at least the framesize of the intended outcome will help too, but having said this I have always found that capturing to the highest resolution possible without dropping frames improves the quality of the final MPEG when the framesize is reduced when encoding.

If you need to know of an excellant capture program and one of the best I have used so far which will give some options other capture programs won't offer then try IUVCR.
I don't use Virtualdub for capturing as I have found it restricts the use of certain drivers and is an old VFW windows program anyway which are slow and offer less advantages than using an improved WDM program such as IUVCR.

ASHY

What can I do to speed up my encoding. I use a custom xsvd from one of the pros on here. But have way to many movies to work on.

Hard space?
Ram?
# of movies being done at one?
What else?

Steven

Hi. I am having trouble converting an avi file to mpeg.
The movie converts fine but the finished mpeg is missin 10 mins of
the original avi.
This has happened with 2 seperate movies (both from SMR).
Does anybody know where i am going wrong?
thanks in advance for any help

Were is the 10 minutes Missing???Fom the end from the middle or is it all there but just 10 minutes shorter...

sorry its right at the end of the AVI file

Well Tmpgenc probably crashed or hit a Bad spot in your avi file, if you don"t want to encode the whole file over again you can use the "Source Range" in the "Advanced Settings" to start encodeing a new file were the other one left off and then use the "Merge & Cut" to join the 2 files together...

lol thats exactly what i did, but thanks anyway.

What would you reccomend as the best audio encoder?

Dbpoweramp is the best allround encoder and gives excellant results. If you are specifically referring to the mp2 format then Dbpoweramp will handle this also. Toolame is another and can be used as a plug in with TMPG.
If you want good quality and very fast encoding then you can't beat MPEGDJencoder. This is the encoder I use and is ten times faster than other encoders including TMPG. What it takes TMPG 25-30 mins to encode only takes MPEGDJencoder 3 mins.

ASHY

thanks for the help, ill check them out

hi all,

i was trying to convert an avi file into mpeg1 using TMPEG but the audio seem distort after the convertion. the audio avi is ok. i've tried to lower the audio at the setting but final mpeg still distort.

please advise

Distort in what way?

ASHY

hi,

it's kinda of sound like the audio is too sharp.

I have problem with TMPEGenc. When I try to start converting DivX from virtualdub vdr it gives me error message: ACM initialization failed or illegal floating decimal point calculation order. I can use TMPEGenc normally if I multiplex the audio into wav format and then serve only video with virtualdub vdr and give wav directly to TMPEGenc. I have tried many TMPEGenc versions so thats not the case. I may have bad coded etc...hopefully someone has a clue that might help. I also installed DivX codecs(3.11,4.12,5.02) again with no luck. It seems this problem is only that TMPEGenc can't handle audio which is coming from virtualdub frameclient ?!?

Ok I solved the problem!!!!!!!! YES!!!!!
I installed DVD2SVCD which had installed its own virtualdub script reader also into TMPEGencs VFAPI plugins...I just disabled the ReadAVS.dll from environmental settings-->VFAPI Plug-in and everything started to work again. Hopefully this information will help someone else someday :=)

i've had the same problem. i think when you d/l from ftps like winmx and things, everytime you resume from a partial file it screws up the index a little. i've fixed the problem in the past bye making a fresh file, audio and video, with virtual dub. don't just do a direct stream copy or it won't fix it, you have to make a new file out of the old one with fresh avi encoding.

Blodshed, you're great! I had the exact same problem you had, and couldn't get TMPGenc to run. Tried your solutions, and now it's working fine.

Thank you!

thank you solved my problem excellent

Hi.

Is there anyone who know how much better CCE is on encoding (not that it's faster) but the quality on the picture compared to Tmpgenc with the best settings (slow encoding). Is it possible to see that there is a difference. ?

I read below that it is possible to encode video in CCE and audio on Tmpgenc and have the best of two worlds, but I can't use CCE since im on a not supportede CPU, sucks.

I would like Tmpgenc to bee just as good as CCE on encoding video even if it's slow :)

You can actually use CCE with the settings of Tmpgenc so it"s like haveing tmpgenc as the front end and CCE is the encodeing engine, so you get to use the filters that Tmpgenc has with CCE..The mpeg2 quality is Better especially at low bitrates, but the mpeg1 isn"t very good at all and CCE has no filters or any way to re-size the resolution so you pretty much have to use it this way to get the best results or you can use AVISynth with the CCE 2.5 version..What kind of system do you have that doesn"t run CCE??On there site they say that have tested it with AThlons Intel Celeron Pentium Xeon Duron,Pretty much any computer optimized with MMX and SSE, but you need at least 600mhz and 256mb-ram...

You won't be able to match the MPEG2 encoding quality of CCE no matter what you do with TMPG, but you can come close.
CCE uses the 'Constant quality(CQ)' method so use this method with TMPG also and you will acheive superior results. Forget about 2 pass.
Bitrate= Min- 1800 Max- 4000 Quality- 65%
VBV buffer set at 0(automatic)
DC component precision- 10

Use 'High quality' as the motion search precision. No point in using highest as you probably wont notice a difference in quality except for the dramatic increase in encoding time.
If you use the MPEG standard encoding setting in the Quantize matrix this will also give slightly better results, but at the sacrifice of a slightly higher file size. Check soften block noise unless you are using ver high bitrates, but for SVCD I would recommend checking it to reduce blockiness.

ASHY

Well im only on 500mhz K6-2+ and I have 256mb ram.. so the thing is that CCE ueses specific things in the CPU's.. seems lame, since I don't care if it would take 2weeks of encoding instead of 1week and so on. I have a server so I don't care about that, just that Im not going to buy a new computer just to be able to use CCE, not worth it. You can install CCE 2.50 but it craches when it runs, probably becaus my cpu is not supported and 2.64 you can't install, checks for some MMX or something.

I see, so the best way to encode SVCD is a combination of Tmpgenc and CCE as the video encoding engien :]

Thanks for the tip on what to do.

What do you mean it's not worth upgrading just to use CCE. The processor you are using is terribly slow and outdated compared to todays processors and if you are serious about quality which is why I presume you want to use CCE then why not upgrade.
Processors are dirt cheap nowadays and a 1.7 ghz AMD or Intel processor can be picked up quite cheap and the encoding speed increase you will gain will be huge compared to your current processor. Using your current CPU it must be taking you somewhere between 15-20 hours to encode a movie. Using a 1.7 P4 I can encode a movie in about 1-2 hrs using CCE.
Think of the savings you will making on your electricity supply due to the fact you don't have to run your computer for long hours and also the wear and tear on your PC components such as your hard drive.

ASHY

Hi, I'm trying to convert a divx avi file I have into an mpg (so I can make a vcd out of it) now I need to split it in two, because its just a little bit too big. When I try to play it on my dvd player/pc(I've tried playing from hard disk and from cd) it will speed up for like 1 second, then slow back down to normal speed, and get more and more out of sync, but then speeds back up and resyncs! Anyone know what might cause this? I tried splitting it with virtual dub before and got a similar problem (same problem except it would never resync) Thank you for any help.

The most likely cause of this is that you encoded the file to a Different frame rate than the Divx file..The mpeg you are makeing has to have the same frame rate as the avi file you are makeing it from...

Yeah thats what it sounds like i know, but it isn't, I checked it in virtual dub and it said 23.976 and so I used NTSF film (whatever it is :) ) but still no luck :(

when you changed the frame rate at all it can desync audio. try to find an audio maker, such as goldwave, and demultiplex the audio and video, add a half second of silence in the beggining and re-multiplex. theres instructions on how to do this on www.digitaldigest.com

Ok so does this de-sync happen before or after splitting the MPEG? Also are you using a template to create this file or have you played around with the settings and what sort of MPEG are you creating, MPEG1 or 2?

ASHY

I'm creating mpeg1, im using the NTSF film template because of the frame rate, the frame rates are exactly the same, I haven't changed them at all, when I try to encode into mpg I am using the source range option and cutting it in half. Thanks again for all the help so far, and I'm pretty sure its just the video that messes up, I have been using VirtualDub to extract the audio into an uncompressed wav, and the video looks like its speeding up and then resyncing later.

Are you saying that you experience the problem with the AVI when you split it with Virtualdub and before it is encoded to MPEG?

ASHY

No, I'm splitting it with TMPGEnc, so what I do is I open the file, use the NTSC Film preset, and set the video to the avi and the audio to the uncompressed .wav, then I set the source range from the start to roughly mid way so it is small enough for a cd.

Does anyone know of any other program to use when scripting subtitles to an svcd?? I have used Virtualdub and go through the whole process of converting the srt to an ssa then starting the frame server then Tmpg enc and running it that way but the quality really sux when doing it that way, there seems to be some kind of distortment within the film.... Please reply with any good suggestions... thanks zenxeon

Every time I try to load an .avi file into TMPGENC 2.5 it comes up as unsupported. Ive searched the boards, raised the direct show to 2 in environmental settings, and still cant get the .avi to load.

I'm running an an old E-Machine
Pentium 2
256 (??) Mhz
and A P.O.S. Video Card

I'm loading my files from a CD direct from my D: drive. Would that have anything to do with why my files wont load up?

Any other software to use to take care or this?

Thanks

Maybe you can tell me how to raise the value as it appears the priority field is non-editable.

Would appreciate the help

While in environmental settings just right-click on direct show and choose higher priority, keep doing it till you reach 2

peace

Thanks. Been there, done that, still here at BBS

Finally got the hang of it. Let's see if it helps at all.

Thanks.

Been there, done that also, and still have the same problem you have experienced.

nevermind, i figured it out

What did you finally do?

Hi, I'm trying to encode div-x to mpeg2. I'm getting the audio but no video, all I have is a blank screen. Any ideas? thanks.

Tis' ok read through some of the other posts and it was the direct show priority in envronmental settings. thanks.

I cutted my mpg but now the file lost the sound. Can I set to have sound after cutting?
Thanks