I have TMPG load without the wizard. The stream types are all greyed out and also when I click on SETTINGS I can't change the stream type or any options having to do with the one it is set to. I have some video without audio that I want to encode but I can not select just the video stream type.

Look in your template folder and find 'unlock.mcf' and double click it. This will unlock the settings.

ASHY

Thanks much, that did the trick.

Hello I have downloaded several movies that seem to contain no audio. I've tried several things but can't figure out what I should do to extract the audio.

Most probaly Ac3 audio is contained in these files. You need to install DVD player software or an Ac3 filter to play these files.
To extract download Virtualdub_ac3 and extract to a wav.

ASHY

For a good codec pack ...try installing the Nimo codec pack

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/nimo/

The audio is windows media audio V2. Where do I find the file I would need to extract the audio to a wav file for conversion?

Install Divx 3.11 then load the file into Virtualdub and extract to a wav.

ASHY

after encoding picture is not smooth i have tried changing number of i p &b pictures in gop, motion search to highest quality interlace to de-interlace bottom field to top field i even thought it might be a windows xp problem so i loaded win 98 again but it didnt help are their any filters that will fix this any suggestions would help

What do you mean not smooth. Does it stutter? Have you changed the framerate.

ASHY

the frane rate is 25fps for vcd and the video studders but the sound is perfect the movie seems to pause once every 2 seconds or so but only for about an eighth of a second. i have done other vcd conversions that have come out perfect and i cant work out why these ones dont. i was using win 98 then but ive tried that and it still didnt work. last time i used the vcd guide from flexion.org and they worked perfectly. i think i used a donald grafton filter and i dont know if that was why

I would guess that the original footage is not 25 fps.
Check the framerate of the original, if it is different this is your problem.

ASHY

Can someone please explain just what frameserving is used for ?
I have looked at articles on vcdhelp.com and trawled newsgroups but they mainly deal with HOW to framserve , not why ?

As I understand it, it is used when ripping from DVD and frameserving directly to TMPGenc.

I only ever take divx fils and convert to XVCD, would I use frameserving ... why ?


thanks

Frameserving is basically a way of fooling software, such as TMPGEnc into thinking it's encoding an AVI file, rather than (a portion of) the origional mpeg. This is because some software is only designed to read specific files - Virtual Dub, for instance won't read mpeg 2 files, but if you frameserve using DVD2AVI it will.

The only other alternative would be to create an actual AVI, which for best quality, would be absolutely huge.

Griff

Frameserving basically uses another piece of software to enable another piece of software to read files it wouldn't normally be able to read.
For example TMPG can not natively read VOBS but it can read project files which DVD2AVI creates and DVD2AVI can read VOBS.

What this means is there is no intermediary encoding step which will result in quality loss. All DVD2AVI does is decode the information in the VOBS and then sends it to TMPG in a format it can read.
This saves time and quality as you are no longer producing an AVI from the VOBS and then encoding that.
You are more or less encoding the VOBS directly through DVD2AVI.

ASHY

Thanks for the informative answer !!
So ... since I am only encoding Divx files to XVCD , frameserving is not relevant to me ..right ?

..since my source is an avi, not a VOB

No not really. It would only be relevant to you if you wanted to use a program such as Virtualdub to edit your AVI and then encode it to MPEG. Rather than edit then re-encode to Avi it makes more sense to edit with virtualdub and apply it's filters and then frameserve the file to TMPG.

ASHY

I thought frameserving VirtualDub to TMPG was very cool until I decided to always use 2-pass VBR with the awesome, but very slow, "High Quality Smoother" filter in VirtualDub. (This is mainly for short clips.)

The performance hit of processing the video twice is so severe it pays to save an intermediate AVI. Luckily, I splurged for 320GB 4-way ATA Raid storage. Huffyuv compression is excellent for this.

So here is what we REALLY need. TMPGEnc should directly support VirtualDub filters plugins and allow different filters to be applied on first and second pass.

NEED HELP!
WHEN TRYING TO CONVERT AVI. FILE TO Mpeg. I KEEP GETTIN THIS MESSEAGE P3Package.dll what do i need to fix this. I tried reloading TMPG AND IT STILL WOULD NOT WORK

Type "P3Package.dll" at the top of this BBS, then press search.

This question has already answered so many times.

Download TMPG again. If that doesn't work you need to use a different extraction program to extract the files as the one you are using is corrupting the files.

ASHY

I normally use TMPGE for encoding TV programs to XVCD which it does great.

Today I tried to encode one in SVCD with version 2.56. It encodes fine until it gets to the 1Gig portion of the AVI but after that the rest of the encode is black picture and no sound.

The source files is PAL 704 x 576. <2Gig in lenght. Created with MSPRO 6.51 and Morgan 3 codec. The AVI plays fine for the full 2 Gigs.

I also tried encoding it with an old copy of 12a that I found but the same results.

Is there some setting for this . I didn't think that there was any source files size limitation.

Thanx in advance..

There isn"t a 1gb limit for files in tmpgenc so I have no idea why it is stopping at 1gb so the only thing I can think of is maybe there is something wrong with your avi file cuz I have encoded 4gb files to svcd with no problem but if you keep haveing problems try frame serveing from virtual dub and if it stops at 1gb while frame serveing then you know that there is something wrong with your file, you can also try setting the begining and end points of your file with the "source range" and see if it reads the file.....

Does any one know why I get the error "stream write error"?

never mind, my disk was full.

When using DVD2AVI with Tmpenc or Tmpenc PLus on W2K it will not open or encode a d2v file extensions. Help

I had a similar problem ... did some poking about and found out that the DVD2AVI program I had was missing a file ... make sure you have the file DVD2AVI.vfp in the folder with DVD2AVI and from what I've read you also need to copy that file into the TMPGen folder as well.

Hope that helps.


Talismar

I have an .avi file that plays fine on computers but when I try to convert it mpeg I get the error ... can not open, or unsupported

I am using TMPG 2.56

What do I need to do to have a compatable file?

Thanks in advance
rick

install divx 3.1 and five.I had the same issue and it worked.

Or install the Nimo codec pack which will provide Divx3 - 5 support

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/nimo/

Search at the top of this BBS for 'unsupported'
Your answer will be presented many times.

ASHY

I had the same problem. And looked everywhere for the answer. The only info I received from this forum was from ASHY who tells everyone to look on the page (and I looked thru several pages and found that a lot of us had this problem but couldn't get a straight answer from ASHY) Anyway. I found the answer by spending many hours looking. . . hope this helps.

Go to: http://nickyguides.digital.com/AVItoVCD.htm

This article addresses the issue. You must have TMPG12a. You have a later version and it won't support VCD's. You can download TMPG12A from the following address:

http://205.180.85.40/w/pc.cgi?mid=12499&sid=6751

Since the original TMPG12A is in Japanese,you will also need to download the English patch. This fixed the problem for me. Hope it helps you.

Pam

Well Pamela you obviously did not check back to your original post, as I did answer your question there.
Also the solution to the problem is not using TMPG12a and is easily solved with ANY version.

Check back to your original post and you will find the answer waiting for you.

ASHY

This is your original post.
Question - How do I convert .avi files to mpeg? No.24754

I installed WinDVD with no apparent problems.

Then I used TMPGEnc to create an MPG file (SVCD) using output of DVD2AVI and this worked fine. Then when I tried to use MERGE and CUT, TMPGEnc gave an error message that it had an internal problem and had to shutdown. Other features of TMPGEnc appear to work fine (at least those that I use).

I de-installed WinDVD (because things worked before I installed it) and then TMPGEnc Merge and Cut gave the error message that it could not open DIRECTSHOW.

I then used Windows XP's System Restore to restore to an earlier date (I think it restores system files and the registry) and then TMPGEnc Merge and Cut ran fine.

I searched the registry for DIRECTSHOW and there are many entries. It apparently has something to do with audio.

Anyone have ideas on how to install WinDVD and still be able to use TMPGEnc Merge and Cut? The rest of TMPGEnc seems to work with WinDVD installed.

What is the TMPGenc.vfp file used for? I downloaded a zip file which has this in it but I don't know what to use it for.

Thanks for your help.

It is used for registering TMPG to VFAPI and is to allow other programs such as the VFAPI converter to open TMPG project files.

ASHY

Thank you. What is VFAPI - is it a standard API for reading video? What programs use it?

VFAPI is one of the coolest and handyest tools and I use it all the time, What it can do is turn "d2v" files from dvd rips into avi files in a couple seconds so you can run the file through any program that eccepts avi files, and you can use tmpgenc progect files to turn into avi files also.This tool is very handy if you want to import d2v files into "premier" or any video editing or encodeing program,....

Thank you. What is VFAPI - is it a standard API for reading video? What programs use it?

Yes it is an interface which allows any file which has the relevant plugin installed to be opened with TMPG or indeed any program which uses the VFAPI interface.

ASHY

Is there a simple way to convert a 20 fps avi file to VCD format? Do I have to worry about audio sync?

I'll give you the simple answer, no.

It involves a few steps and two other pieces of software. Virtual dub and Cooledit.

But it's not really that much of a big deal if you really want this conversion.

ASHY

THanks. I do have the two software packages. I would reall appreciate any help you would be willing to give. Thanks again.

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.

Close Virtualdub and download Cooledit 2000.
open Cool edit 2000.

When the program opens you will be presented with a box allowing you to choose 2 options. Choose options 1 and 3.

In the program click file>open and open the wav you created earlier.
Wait for it to finish then click 'Edit' and untick 'enable undo' then click 'select entire wave' next click 'Transform' and choose 'Time/pitch' from the drop down menu then click 'stretch'
In this box tick the following options:

Low precision
Time stretch (preserves pitch)

In the box that says 'Length' type in the exact figure you got in secs from Virtualdub for e.g. 4802.360 then click ok.
Wait for the program to do it's stuff then when its finished click 'file' then 'save as' and name and save your file as a wav.

This should give you a Wav file which will be the same length as the movie in the next step. Close Cool edit 2000.

To change the framerate of an AVI all you need is this program.
http://www.divx-digest.com/software/avifrate.html

Change it to the framerate you want then load your AVI and your new wav into TMPG and encode as normal using the VCD PAL template.

Note: you may check that the audio is in sync with AVI by multiplexing the files with Virtualdub first.

ASHY

Note to the above.
The suggestion of the VCD PAL template is only for use if it is relevant to your TV system. If not choose whichever template suits your system.

ASHY

Many thanks! - I am anxious to give it a try.