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I have a divx file that I am trying to convert but no matter what options I a trying it doesn't give the the full original letterbox verion of the movie. I try keeping the aspect ratio. This works but it cut off a significant amount of the edges from the film. to put it simply, I want to convert the movie to look exactly the same way as a mpeg but I want to be able to put on a vcd. pleas help, thank you
That is impossible, you can"t fit a "720 by 480" film in a "352 by 240" area, that is why the sides are cut off, but if you use the "fullscreen(keep aspect ratio 2)" you should get the whole movie in the frame but the visible part of the movie will be very small, meaning that there will be lots of black on the top and bottom, actualy probably half of the screen will be black and this looks worse then haveing the screen cut off on the sides, you can get the whole movie in the frame but it will look like it it squished and things will look tall and skinny......
First you need to know the aspect ratio of the original movie.
If it's 16:9 then all you have to do is simply choose the 16:9 display setting as the source aspect ratio and 4:3 as the output and make sure you use 'Full screen(keep aspect ratio)
If this still cuts off the sides then the movie is probably using an aspect ratio of 24:10 which is cinemascope.
TMPG doesn't support this directly, but you can adjust it your self by using the custom size setting.
Set up the template first then click Setting>advanced>clip frame. Double click clip frame then click 'arrange setting'
Under arrange method choose 'Center(custom size)' from the drop down box and adjust your movie accordingly.
Dont worry about the sizes it will still come out the correct frame size when you encode the movie.
While I am converting certain Divx files, it will reach a certain percitage and then abort telling me that there is an illegal mpeg audio stream. On on divx file I have it happens at 22% on a certain frame EVERY TIME! How can this be fixed
The error probably means what it says, the file could have a incompatible audio format, use "virtua dub" to extract the audio to wav and use that as your audio file, but if the audio is "ac3" you will need a "ac3 decoder".....
If it is you need to extract it to a wav, but I think you will need to use 'Nandub' or 'Virtualdub mp3' to extract to a wav correctly or an audio editor such as Goldwave.
Ok. This is what alot of people have tried to figure out for a long time I'm sure. I have figured out how to burn a .WMV file to VCD, but am still haveing an issue. I changed the extention to .ASF and used TMPG to encode into MPG, so I can burn it with NERO to VCD. The first 2 CDS were fine, but the quality of the video I wasn't really hapy with, kinda VHS quality. That was using the TMPG wizard and leaving it as VGA 1:1. So, when I change it to NTSC 525 RES and encode it, it goes through the encodeing proccess which said it would take 19 hours to do for a 1GB flick, and check the turn the PC off when complete, the end file turns out butifull, but it only encoded 1/8 of the flick. Anyone have a solution?
WMv doesn"t seem totaly compatible with "tmpgenc" I have had limited sucess but I have never been able to encode more that 15 minutes of a flick, but you can get "asf tools" to encode your "wmv" to "avi" and that should work.or give this a try load your "wmv" file in "tmpgenc" do all of your settings then go to file and save it to a project file.Then load the project file in to the "vfapi converter" and it will make a psudo avi that you can use in "tmpgenc" to encode to "mpeg"........
I have the Pinnacle DC30+ card and use AVI_IO from www.nct.ch/multimedia/avi_io to capture longer videos. Avi_io will span the avi to individual 2 gig files.
When I use TMPGEnc to encode the avi I get sound but no video. If I run the avi through Premiere 6.02 and save as a avi then run it through TMPEnc the it encodes perfect. BUT this extra step is very time consuming.
Once in a while someone will post a problem about getting an "x# of packets caused buffer underflow my cause error when played" when multiplexing, and I get this error too when multiplexing..So I have been doing some experiments with some files that I know are fine.I took a mpeg2/svcd file that I had previously burnt to a cd and "de-multiplexed" it into a video and audio stream.
Then I "multiplexed" them back together with the "svcd(vbr)" setting, and sure enough I got a buffer underflow error in 265,343 packets.So I thought this can"t be right because I have allready burnt it to a cd and it works perfectly, so I burnt this file to a cd and when I played it on my dvd player and it shook side to side really badly..So I came to the conclution that "tmpgenc"s multiplexor" is causing the error..So I took the original file that I de-multiplexed and put it in the multiplexor and instead of putting it at the "mpeg2/svcd" setting I used the plain "mpeg2/vbr" setting to multiplex, and didn"t get the buffer underflow error,then I put the newly multiplexed mpeg2 file in "merge & cut" to put the svcd headers on the file, then used that file to burn and it worked perfectly like the original file I burned,so I took the file that I just burned and de-multiplexed it and then multiplexed it in "svcd" mode and came back with the "buffer underflow" error.So I think that there is a major bug in the "multiplex" option.So if you get this error while "multiplexing"you can probably get around the error by not choosing the "svcd or vcd" option in the "multiplex" just choosing the "mpeg1/mpeg2" option then put the headers on with the "merge & cut" feature and it might save you from haveing to encode the file again...It worked well for me so I hope someone can put this information to good use...and may the force be with you all.....
Nice one Minion, good stuff, but I don't bother using TMPG very often now for multiplexing. I use BBMPEG which never gives me buffer underflow errors at all.
Thanks for that Minion, I will try and see if it works for me.
Just to be sure, when you said:
"So if you get this error while "multiplexing"you can probably get around the error by not choosing the "svcd or vcd" option in the "multiplex" just choosing the "mpeg1/mpeg2" option then ....."
by "mpeg1/mpeg2" did you mean the VBR settings? When I got those errors I was actually using the Automatic setting, not the SVCD/VCD.
I have only gotten the error when useing the "svcd/vcd option in "multiplex" so if you get the error when useing the mpeg2/vbr or mpeg1/vbr, then I don"t really have a solution for that ...sory
I would use bbmpeg for multiplexing too but I can"t figure out how to use it..I read the instructions that came with bbmpeg but the options they tell me to use don"t seem to be in the program......wierd
Like Albino_79, I am getting no sound in my MPAG file. The WAV file produced by DVD2AVI is fine as I can play this on the media player. I am setting up TMPGEnc for PAL VCD, and it seems to indicate that sound has been added.
Tip 1 - converting DivX movies to svcd with Tmpgenc:
Alot of people seem to have problems converting their divx movies to mpeg - heres the reason and the sollution:
A divxmovie consist of an avi videotrack compressed with the divxcodec and an audiotrack compressed with an mp3 codec. Normally the videotrack does not create problems but most editors and encoders often choke on the mp3codec especially if it is encoded at 48khz instead of 44khz or are encoded with variable bitrate - this is why you often get no sound or unable to import to for instance tmpgenc.
The sollution is to first convert the audiotrack to a pcm(wav) track - and the easy way to do this without having to take out the audio first and encode separately:
avi2vcd - has a tool called decompress.
Load your divx/mp3 muxed file in decompress and it creates a new divx/pcm muxed file - it does not touch the video, only uncompresses the audiopart within the file. You'l get a new file somewhat bigger - that will directly import to tmpgenc - then just load your favourite vcd/svcd template and hit encode.
Thanks Ashy,
I new to all of this so can you explame more what DIVX 5 codec is and do I already have this in WinTV PVr PCI? I usually select SVCD or VCD from the menu in WinTV and then just record. I then usually try mixing it in Tempg or Ulead but the quality is always the same. When you say capture do you mean AVI and if i change the capture settings in WinTV does this doesn't seem to effect the quality.
All me equipment is new, ie Nero 5.5, WinTV, Ulead and I use Windows ME.
Hope this makes scnse!
1>I like to save multiple formats of movies Divx,MPG1&MPG2. In MP3 when you encode past a certain bitrate you cant detect a noticable quility improvement. As their is with MP3 I am sure their is with the divx codec also. Whats the best video bitrate settings for clearity/quality in DIVX 4 codec? (not worried about size just quality)~NewtronX
When I encode to divx4.12 for best quality I use 2pass at the max bitrate of 6000kbs,or for a quicker encode I use first pass quality based, but I"m sure you have more experience encodeing divx than me.......
There is no sutch a thing as over kill when it comes to quality, with divx5 I use 10,000kbs to get the best quality,The higher the bitrate the better the quality with all most every format.......
Minion are you telling us that the difference between one bitrate can never get to the point where you can't tell the difference between the two?
Because this has shown to be untrue with MP3 once you get beyond 160Kbs the human ear has a hard time detecting a difference. Hell I encode at 128Kbs and cant tell hardly any difference between that and 160kbs.
I have done 600,800,1000, 1200, 1600, 2000 and 2500kbs Divx myself just never encoded the same file at all those bitrates to find out since it takes a time. Guess thats what I am going to have to do encode at 600 then step up every 300 or 500kbs till I get to 6000. I will report back next week on this endeavour. Guess I will use a 2min DVD clip. But how do I judge it is their any programs to detect picture quality from the original clip besides doing it by eye which might make for a lame or biased opinion? Can any one help? ~NewtronX
I do exactly as minion. I'm a quality freak and want every encode I do to be as perfect as possible within reason.
I use the DIVX 5 codec to capture at full screen as this gives almost identical quality to the original then convert to MPEG2. I always use the highest setting at 10,000kb/s and this makes a big difference, any lower an the quality drops accordingly.
I agree though that after a certain point you only get diminishing returns, but again this depends on your source and output.
If I was encoding to archive these movies to DIVX then I would probably lower the bitrate to keep the file size down and try and achieve a medium between quality and file size.
As for audio I must have good ears because there is a definite difference between mp3 at 192kb/s and 128 kb/s. This has also been proven in blind tests and studies.
I would never use 128 kb/s for encoding my audio as I want my compressed audio to sound as good as the original cd and 128 kb/s is definitely NOT cd audio quality.
When people refer to the quality of VCD being good and SVCD being excellant, they are referring to VCD's or SVCD's made from sources such as DVD rips or AVI's not plain old VHS.
The quality is bound to degrade if you are using a capture card to create your movies. The most you could hope for is just similar quality to the VHS video you are copying.
If you are saying that your copies aren't anywhere as good as the original then it's probably your capture technique thats letting you down.
To get the best quality I would advise capturing to as high a resolution as your card will allow without dropping frames.
If you can go to at least 640x480 and use a decent codec if you are capturing to compression such as the DIVX 5 codec set at highest quality, but fastest encode mode.
After that encode to SVCD using VBR not CBR.
As long as your card is decent you should get decent movies out of these settings.
I have a WinTV GO card and can capture at 720x576 using the DIVX 5 codec and the quality is excellent. Practically as good as the original when encoded to MPEG2.
I have thousands of short clips with very similar file names that must be converted to MPEG-2. I know how to run batches in TMPGENC and that is not my question. I am trying to avoid setting up the project files individually.
I've tried opening the .tpr files with a text editor and changing the source and destination names, and that works unless the source files come from a different directory. This is semi-acceptable, but I would prefer a more automated method.
If I knew more about the structure of a .tpr file, I could export my clip list from a MySQL database and just add the rest of the contents of the .tpr project file with a script. Any suggestions? Or is there some extremely simple method that I'm not seeing?
TIA,
Bob
--
Bob Hayes
Systems Administrator
Artbeats Digital Film Library
bob@artbeats.com http://www.artbeats.com
(541) 863-4429
The size of the mpeg file is directly related to the bitrate used in encodeing, but there is a minimum bitrate you can use,I wouldn"t use any bitrate lower than the standard vcd template..But if you need to split your file use the "merge& cut" in the "mpeg tools".for vcd"s the most you will get on a cd with any sort of acceptable quality is 60-80min, 80min if you are useing the standard vcd template and 60 minutes at a bitrate of about 1650kbs..
When I use smartripper it doesn't seem like it is making a wave file. What am I doing wrong? I was able to get one the first time I used smartripper but not since.