I need to share some of the MPEG2 files I have created with TMPEGENC Plus 2.5 (registered) from AVI files. I want to make sure that people who get the files can view them, so I am thinking I need to tell them where to download the correct codec if their system doesn't already have it. I am using the TMPEGENC CODEC that came with the software.
Is there a place for people to download the codec from TMPGENC?
Is there another free CODEC that will work?
Should I not use TMPEGENC's codec and instead use another free codec to encode the files so that others can view them?

Thanks for the recommendations!

What do you mean you are using TMPG's codec?
TMPG's codec can only decode MPEG2 files that are loaded into it. It does not get registered with windows and cannot used to play back MPEG2 content with a mediaplayer.

All your friends need is a capable MPEG2 player of which there are several. 2 good free solutions are Media Player Classic and VLC player.
Both are self contained apps that don't need installing and quite small especially Media player classic which is a self contained .EXE and plays nearly any format yet only weighs in at under 1.5MB!

I mean that when I send these short videos to friends they need the same codec I used to create the video. For example if I encode the video with main concept's MPEG2 CODEC, then send the file to a friend, they won't be able to open it without that same CODEC (even if they have WinDVD, Media PLayer, or whatever). So, how do I make sure they can open movies I create with the TMPGENC encoder? What codecs work? Which ones don't? Where can they download the ones that do?

KK.

No, no, you've got it completely wrong. It does not matter which codec was used to encode it. You don't need the same codec it was encoded with, that would be just daft.
As long as you have a compatible MPEG2 codec to play it back then it will play fine.
Of course WinDVD will play it. It will play any MPEG2 files no matter which encoder created them as will the players that I already suggested previously.

Hmmm. Sounds great in theory. But odd because some MPEG2's I have rendered with Mainconcept's encoder play on my home pc but not my laptop. Windows media player errors it cannot find codec. However, it plays videos encoded by TMPEGENC fine. Maybe its just a media player bug??

First of all Media player is crap for MPEG2, especially for DVD content.
Use a real MPEG2 player on your laptop such as WinDVD.

I understand. Unfortunately Media Player is the defacto tool people use, and is a pain in the butt for all who distribute MPEG2 files commercially for playback on the PC. I wish there was another standard that people would adopt. <sigh> Maybe version 10 will solve some problems.

KK.

Use Media Player Classic (it's not made by Microsoft!) or VLC (like Ashy suggested). Both of them are including a good MPEG2-Decoder.
You can also use ffdshow als Universal-Decoder for all kinds of MPEG (from 1-4).

I want to convert an avi without subs and a srt sub file, into an avi with permanent subs. Is this possible with TMPGenc?

I searched old topics but they just show how to convert to VCD

Seems a bit daft, but Virtualdub can do this using the TEXTSUB or VOBSUB filter.

Well it worked, but it turned a 673MB avi + a 64KB srt into a 980MB avi!

The explanation is that I have a DivX DVD player but it does not play subs for foreign films (a friend's player only needs a .sub or a .srt on the disc on the same level as the avi and it auto-plays both movie and subs). What I'm looking for is a way to put subs on to foreign movies but keep the resulting file size small enough to fit on a single CD, thus saving a bit of money each time I burn.

Is there any way to keep the resulting file size down without losing quality?

Well you should have encoded the file at the same bitrate as the original if you wanted to match it's file size.

I tried to convert RM to MPEG1, the video quality is good, but no audio output

same here. I can play *.rmvb file can play in Real Player 10. I have realaudiosplitter.ax registered. Tmpgenc can open the *.rmvb and encode. At the end of the encoding, only about 0.5 second of the MPEG video clip has audio in it. I round up has to de-multiplex the MPEG file into *.m2v and *.mp2 and trash the *.mp2 part. It has no audio in it except the first 0.5 second. I have to rip the audio portion of the *.rmvb and multiplex *.m2v with the *.wav that I ripped. That is a long process.
I would like to know why is there no audio when the *.rmvb file was first imported into Tmpgenc. Anybody knows the answer, I would be very much appreciated.
Thanks,
CC

And why do my submissions repeat themselves - i only click once, honestly.

Don't refresh, click 'View article' at the bottom of the page

When i open an .avi file in VirualDub i get the common "improper VBR" message, which has not caused a problem in the past. But with this file, when i extract the .wav file it is a full 10 secs shorter than Vdub says in the audio file information. I researched the problem on this forum and d/loaded and tried Avimux, but it just produces a 64K .wav file. The ultimate aim is to produce an mpeg1 file in TmpgEnc.

Any help appreciated, thanks.

Try VirtualDubMOD or GraphEdit to extract Audio.

Thanks B. Racer and Ashy for your imput. To cut a VERY VERY long story short, i finally managed to extract a correct length wav by demuxing to mp3 (in vdmod) and then converting to wav in goldwave.(I could not do it by any other method without ending up 10 secs short.) Unfortunately, when i remuxed with the video in vd, the audio still went out of sync.

Further investigation showed that the descnchronisation was resulting from 2 or 3 points in the movie where the video froze and then the colours "swirled" about (have you seen "predator" lol) for a few seconds. In the original movie with the VBR audio, this did not effect the sync, but in the new avi, as soon as the movie returned to normal, the audio was about 5 secs ahead of the video. I can cut the movie up and readjust the audio using audio skew correction. I did one, but it's messy and i get a black screen for several seconds with
just audio during playback.

If you can understand what i've tried to describe, perhaps you can suggest a more elegant solution?

Your nearly on the right track to fixing it, but you don't need to cut up the movie.
Load the AVI and the wav into Virtualdub, don't use Virtualdubmod for this it doesn't work properly, then sync up the first part of the movie.
At the point where it goes out of sync mark it as the end point and make sure you mark the beginning too, you should see a blue line.

Now goto File>save wav. Next mark the end point as the new start point and the end of the AVI as end point. Sync up the AVI again then where it goes out of sync mark as the end point then again File>save wav (make sure you number each wav in sequence).

Now just repeat the steps for each part that is out of sync, so again mark the end point as the start point and repeat the whole process until you have synched up each part of the AVI.

The next step is to simply combine all the WAV's in Goldwave or whatever in the right order. You should then find the new Wav syncs perfectly with your AVI.

Seems longwinded I know, but it's really quite simple.

Thanks Ashy - i'll give it a go. Before i start, which avi should i use?
(a) the original avi and just click OK when i get the VBR warning, or
(b) do i load the original avi, click OK when i get the VBR warning, save the avi as direct stream copy, and use this file?

BTW using Vdub i do get some strange behaviour at the points where the video starts to corrupt. Just one example: if i move from keyframe to keyframe forwards and then backwards, i get a different picture displayed in the preview window at the same frame number. i.e. in the example below frame 74919 shows a different picture depending on whether you step forwards or backwards by keyframe.

Moving forward

Frame 74780 = picture A
Frame 74919 = picture B
Frame 75127 = picture C

Moving backward

Frame 75127 = picture C
Frame 74919 = picture C
Frame 74780 = picture A

After a bit of messing about setting markers, the whole film seems to go out of synch right from the begining where it was previously OK! Very confusing and it makes it very difficult to decide exactly where the synch is lost!

I tried to convert RM to MPEG1, the video quality is good, but no audio output

When i open an .avi file in VirualDub i get the common "improper VBR" message, which has not caused a problem in the past. But with this file, when i extract the .wav file it is a full 10 secs shorter than Vdub says in the audio file information. I researched the problem on this forum and d/loaded and tried Avimux, but it just produces a 64K .wav file. The ultimate aim is to produce an mpeg1 file in TmpgEnc.

Any help appreciated, thanks.

What do you mean shorter?
Is the audio out of sync with the video?

Hello Ashy - When i first load the file, VDub tells me that the video and audio are (within a 10th of a second) the same length - 1:54:49. If i then save the audio as a .wav and then open it in wavworks or goldwave, it tells me it is 10 seconds shorter - 1:54:39. The original VBR movie file plays perfectly in WM player, but if, for example, i just open it in VDub and save it again with "direct stream copy" video and audio, then it goes way out of synch. I've tried all sorts - cutting the end of the .avi and playing with the audio file using both the above editors - even adding 10 silent seconds to the end of the .wav, but with no sucess at all - the synch is either completely out or it starts OK and goes way out as the movie plays.

Thanks for the response. Hope this is clear. I shall now hit submit and view article ;-)

Does this video have any sort of logo before the movie starts?
It is common for these to cause sync problems.

My advice is this. Resave the audio as a wav in Virtualdub. Next reload the AVI and then your new wav together in Virtualdub. If it's out of sync then go to Audio>Interleaving and then in the 'Audio skew correction' put a value in until you find the one that syncs up the movie then just resave the wav again.

You should find when you reload this WAV and your AVI into Virtualdub it will then sync perfectly.

Hi.

My problem I believe relates to the guy below that said that there is flickering in his SVCD and DVD movies.

So far I can tell this does appear only in such formats as they support interlaced encoding. However, besides having Tmpgenc I also tried Pinnacle Instant DVD and Studio 8 to burn a DVD.

What happens, one scene will be played fine however on the next one there is that flickering effect present and it looks like the deinterlaced and interlaced frames are present (it looks like frames repeat each other leaving trail on screen). (don't pay attention to that deinterlaced and interlaced frame are present - I am not so technical with this but it's just an assumption).

The strange thing like I said above is that one scene is OK but then when it jumps to next one (it like detects scene change - maybe I should uncheck this in Tmpgenc and do the Closed GOP) it gets messed up. I think by some next scene it will correct itself but my test DVD file isn't that big so I can't tell.

I use dvdauthor to author my DVD and some gui application. Very often it screws up the PAL / NTSC format although I checked NTSC. I am sure some of these DVD's came out OK as they have been played right in WinDVD only, however none of my Home DVD players and Power DVD with hardware acceleration can't play this right.

I'll try some more options but would appreciate any help with this.

UDX

Sorry for double post. I forgot to say that ALL of the tools that I used to create DVD (Pinnacle, Tmpgenc) yield the same result BUT I am guessing that it is something with the Encoding the mpeg file to DVD.

I use Tmpgenc the most so I thought I might ask here.

thanks

And another update.

I just tried the closed GOP and Undetect Scene Changes however that DID not improve the results but something else did PARTIALLY.

What I did now was I switched the filed order (Top Field First A - Previously it was B).

Now the scene that was messed up is showing OK, but the scene afterwards gets messed up.

I am not sure but does this indicate wrongly captured File?

(this file was originally Joined at some point and at that point it gets messed up)

I'll try something different now.

Any ideas welcome

What is the source material, PAL, NTSC, is it interlaced and what is the frame rate.

Try this:

Video Tab:
- Encode Mode: Non-Interlace

Advanced Tab:
- Video Source type: Non interlace (progressive)
- Field Order: Bottom field
- (Filters): Deinterlace (Odd Field)

Hi guys. Thanks for the suggestion but I would try to Encode the video as Interlaced rather than deinterlaced (picture just looks better, more depth is present). The Source is NTSC format and there were two files.

I ended up re-splitting the file to their original form (2 avi files) and encoded them as different field order (one with top field first, the other with bottom field first). Then I played them separately and even joined them and surprisingly the end-file played fine.

Tmpgenc IS AWESOME!!!! Many say that CCE is better (quality probably IS tiny bit better) but to me TMPGENC RULES with all the extra features (audio edit, noise reduction, sharpen edge bla bla bla).

Tmpgenc Plus $37 VS CCE SP $1950, sigh.......

Im just converted to .avi files and now I want to merge them but when /i add the 2 and select run, it said "file 2 of 2.mpeg is not compatible with the other MPEG file" does anyone now why this happend.

On my standalone DVD player (united) the main menu motion background is still, while all works well on my PC with PowerDVD. I'm using TDA 1.5.
Any idea? Thank you.

Buy a new Player, your's crap...

I've seen this problem with cheap, crap Players only.

Hi to all,
I've the need to use some clips from a home made DVD in my project, so I think I must extract the MPEG2 video stream and the audio stream from the VOBs. I red many threads in this forum regarding to do that, and they say to use DVD2AVI to produce a .d2v project file and "frameserve" TMPGEnc with it to create a MPEG2 file. My question is:
inside the VOB file there is already a MPEG2 stream, how can I extract it without re-encoding it?

Many thanks for the help.

Depending on what the audio is in the VOBS you could simply cut out the bit you need with th 'Merge&Cut' feature in the MPEG tools.
If the audio is AC3 you will lose the audio, however if it is MP2 then you will be fine.

I think VOB is not just an MPEG2 stream, but contains multiple MPEG2 video, audio, subtitle streams, so you still have to use software like DVD2AVI that understand VOB to locate particular MPEG2 video or audio stream, extract it, and re-encode it into standalone MPEG2 again.

Trust me, no you don't.
The Merge&Cut feature will work just fine with VOBs. VOBs don't contain multiple video only multiple audio and subs.
Either way it doesn't matter.

TMPG will simply ignore the subs streams and just output an ordinary MPEG2 stream, however it won't output AC3 and it will automatically select the first audio track.

If you do want to keep multiple streams or then AC3 then use a VOB cutter like MPE2cut or the one I prefer is ChopperXP: http://www.digital-miner.com/chopperxpf.html

Whatever you use there is no need whatsoever to do any re-encoding.

>Trust me, no you don't.
>The Merge&Cut feature will work just fine with VOBs. VOBs don't contain multiple video only multiple audio and subs.
>Either way it doesn't matter.
>
I've tried but the Merge&Cut feature of TMPGEnc doesn't work in my case: it can cut only the first clip in the VOB which contains 3 clips. When I try to cut other parts of the VOB (which I'see perfectly in preview)it says "illegal MPEG stream" or something like that.
For the audio part I've tried with the Demultiplex feature (not simple de-multiplex...)and I've been able to extract perfectly the AC3 audio strem which I wanted (2 are present in the VOB).

Many thanks for the help.

Hi,

I've done a conversion to SVCD. Apparently all right. Burned and tryied.
The problem: there is an annoying flickering in scenes with much movement.
I've tryied to set the DVDPlayer from PAL to NTSC and then the problem disapears.
I need PAL format, and i don't exactly know if the problem is with the Interlace/Non-interlaced parameter...
Any clue?.

Thanks!.

What do you mean by flickering?
If it was an interlacing problem then you would see a sort of combing effect on verticals when there is movement.
Changing from PAL to NTSC wouldn't correct this.

If you mean jerky playback then if the source is NTSC and you encode to PAL then this would cause it.

However if the effect is more like a strobing effect then it could be you have set the field order wrong.

>What do you mean by flickering?

A blinking effect, like overlaping frames, resulting in a non smooth playback. It's like a framerate problem (but i think that 25 fps is ok). The question is: why does it work fine and smooth when i set the player in NTSC format?

>If it was an interlacing problem then you
>would see a sort of combing effect on verticals
>when there is movement.
>Changing from PAL to NTSC wouldn't correct this.

Then perhaps that's not the problem.

>If you mean jerky playback then if the source
>is NTSC and you encode to PAL then this would
>cause it.

The source and destination are PAL. Definitively not jerky playback.

>However if the effect is more like a strobing effect
>then it could be you have set the field order wrong.

I would discard this option.

Thanks anyway.

Solved! An interlaced problem. I had to set the output as Non-interlaced, and thus apply the Deinterlace filter. Now it runs perfect!.

I solved my flickering problem by select "Force FILM" in DVD2AVI which converts 29fps progress source VOBs to 23fps progress d2v, and then use "NTSC Film" and "Non-interlace" in TMPGEnc to encode.

Just using the "Non-interlace" in TMPGEnc doesn't solve my flickering problem.

As i wrote in other thread, i configured TMPGEnc this way:

Video Tab:
- Encode Mode: Non-Interlace

Advanced Tab:
- Video Source type: Non interlace (progressive)
- Field Order: Bottom field
- (Filters): Deinterlace (Odd Field)

PS:
Remember that i needed PAL format.

I can'tunderstand why you are attempting to de-interlace a progressive stream.
There is no need worry about field order or de-interlacing with a progressive stream.

I always re-encode progressive sources to progressive frames whether they be PAL or NTSC.