Convert MPEG2 to progressive and real fps, ffmpeg warnings, etc

[Wader8]

Hello

Ain't going so well today.

Basically, this is the current situation.

• I'm not really a beginner around PCs, but I only occasionally work with ffmpeg, sony vegas, etc
• I have DVDs over +15 years old, progresses to more sooner, to something like 8 years old.
• I'm trying to save time so i use VOB2MPG V3 FREE EDITION
• This outputs a single, concated mpg file (mpeg2 PS i think, default) which then i playback
• During playback, skipping, I gather excerpts "-ss 00:01:45 -to 00:01:59" not more than 1 minute most of them
• Took me about 2 days to even set up proper ffmpeg command lines and bats, per DVD i excerpt 5-10 segments
• FFMPEG is one of the most crappiest documentations I have ever seen
• 10 out of 9 fixes for problems came after HOURS of goofling to find some corner of the internet with a 2-3 year old post
• This is the code I use for extraction:
• MPEGTS is because it's the closest thing I found it to work with Sony Vegas 12 pro (AC3 won't work without container which is such a POS)
• sometimes I get errors about something "av_interleaved_frame" error i forgot, fixed by changing -ss timecode so it hits another frame
• but each time I do a successful cut output i get warned about some PTS value estimate not set, which again ffmpeg documentation HAS NOTHING about it, what are these programmers thinking, what the hell does that mean.
• EDIT: seems like later DVDS do not require MPEGTS, i tried loading without -f MPEGPS and audio worked for this clip in vegas
• Also, MPEGTS because I didn't found from the ffmpeg codec/format info anything about MPEG2, default .mpg says it's MPEG-1, only "raw MPEG2 video"
• But Sony Vegas, reports default .mpg remux as MPEG2, in Media tab, when i go to General tab it says Type: "MainConcept MPEG-1"

I thought it was progressive, turns out I can see those lines

The goal is just to get excerpts in original quality, but workable well with sony vegas, that means I'd like to have them progressive if that means easier encoding in vegas to save quality, because ... next problem is the codec stuff, I have no idea what settings to use for project.


The problem is, MEDIAINFO, MPC-HC, SonyVegas, ALL REPORT DIFFERENT CODEC INFO ?!?!?!?!?

Resolution is always same, 720x480

Sony Vegas With MPEGTS: Double NTSC (59 fps), interlaced upper field first, pixel aspect ratio 1.2121 (NTSC DV Widescreen)
Sony Vegas With default .mpg remux: NTSC (29), interlaced lower field first, pixel aspect ratio 1.2121

MPC-HC says Video Size: 853x480 ... I figure this is one of those weird "pixel aspect ratio" thingies right, some week ago I was so confused about faux 1080p video that is not square pixel, 1440x1080, again took me about 2 hours to find an explanation about that on some corner of the internet in a obscure forum post.

It's probably not possible to convert to square 1.0 pixels without losing aspect ratio and quality right ?



MPC-HC excerpt with MPEG-TS rendering stats:
I use MAD-VR, at the beginning it says "DXVA PROCESSING FAILED!" then it displays the stats a few sec later

display 144.00354Hz
smooth motion off (settings)
windowed mode [i watch in exclusive]
MPEG2, 8bit, 4:2:0 -> NV12, 8 bit, 4:2:0
movie 29.970 fps (says source filter)
movie resolution 720, 480
vsync interval 6.94ms
movie frame interval 33.37ms
matrix BT.601 (best guess)
primaries SMPTE C (best guess)
limited range (says upstream)
deinterlacing off
decoder queue 128-128 / 128
upload queue 24-24 / 24
render queue 23-24 / 24
backbuffer queue 3-4 / 4

The DVDs are all 23, FPS, Fraps displays it as 24. There's nothing else, nothing's been converted at all. I'm sick of this, I know it's some weird codec stuff with interleaving or WHAT, pull-down 3:2 WTF is that, some kind of weird speeding up and down, I did't knew how much there was to this industry, Im just sick of it, I want to have everything progressive I don't want to figure it out for months, I don't have that kind of time nor do I need to learn because im not doing this anytimes soon at all, I did what I could, searching but no way I'm not going to figure out 10 years of the industry, all cluster****ed with all these weird configs and settings and faux frame rates and the whole thing's just ridicolous, i never use 29,29u4592u4923492u492 or 23,2492749277 that's complete BS imo, I usually work with 30 FPS and that's the highest it's been on youtube, and even if it's not for youtube I don't care, 30 it is, I don't do gaming much so I don't need 60, if I did some special stuff I would go for the highest possible one, if the source is 240FPS, so be it.

But since I don't want to affect the video until it gets renedered for final, I wish to keep it the same until that point, don't worry for final, that's a separate issue, I'll probably render it in 24 or 25, a whole number, depending on how it looks, if it looks okay on 30 so be it, but that'll be for youtube so that site will recompress it all over again, the youtube's rendered usually doesn't change the FPS so that's what I set, so I usually output in a much higher bitrate so when it gets toned down for depoyment the quality's still mostly there.


This is the VOB2MPG extracted DVD:

General
Complete name                            : C:\SG-1-MPG-TMP\VTS_01.mpg
Format                                   : MPEG-PS
File size                                : 4.26 GiB
Duration                                 : 3h 41mn
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 2 757 Kbps

Video
ID                                       : 224 (0xE0)
Format                                   : MPEG Video
Format version                           : Version 2
Format profile                           : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP                    : Yes
Format settings, Matrix                  : Custom
Format settings, GOP                     : Variable
Duration                                 : 3h 41mn
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 2 254 Kbps
Maximum bit rate                         : 9 102 Kbps
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate                               : 29.970 fps
Standard                                 : NTSC
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.218
Time code of first frame                 : 01:00:04;00
Time code source                         : Group of pictures header
Stream size                              : 3.48 GiB (82%)

Audio
ID                                       : 189 (0xBD)-128 (0x80)
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension                           : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Muxing mode                              : DVD-Video
Duration                                 : 3h 41mn
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 448 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Delay relative to video                  : -67ms
Stream size                              : 709 MiB (16%)

Text
ID                                       : 224 (0xE0)-CC3
Format                                   : EIA-608
Muxing mode, more info                   : Muxed in Video #1
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Stream size                              : 0.00 Byte (0%)

This is Excerpt with -f MPEGTS:

General
ID                                       : 1 (0x1)
Complete name                            : C:\SG-1-MPG-TMP\zSG1_002.mpg
Format                                   : MPEG-TS
File size                                : 4.07 MiB
Duration                                 : 11s 879ms
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 2 863 Kbps

Video
ID                                       : 256 (0x100)
Menu ID                                  : 1 (0x1)
Format                                   : MPEG Video
Format version                           : Version 2
Format profile                           : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP                    : Yes
Format settings, Matrix                  : Custom
Format settings, GOP                     : M=3, N=12
Codec ID                                 : 2
Duration                                 : 11s 812ms
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 2 269 Kbps
Maximum bit rate                         : 9 102 Kbps
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate                               : 29.970 fps
Standard                                 : NTSC
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.219
Time code of first frame                 : 01:39:51;05
Time code source                         : Group of pictures header
Stream size                              : 3.20 MiB (78%)

Audio
ID                                       : 257 (0x101)
Menu ID                                  : 1 (0x1)
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension                           : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Codec ID                                 : 129
Duration                                 : 12s 0ms
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 448 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Delay relative to video                  : -244ms
Stream size                              : 656 KiB (16%)

Text
ID                                       : 256 (0x100)-CC3
Menu ID                                  : 1 (0x1)
Format                                   : EIA-608
Muxing mode, more info                   : Muxed in Video #1
Duration                                 : 11s 812ms
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Stream size                              : 0.00 Byte (0%)

Menu
ID                                       : 4096 (0x1000)
Menu ID                                  : 1 (0x1)
Duration                                 : 11s 879ms
List                                     : 256 (0x100) (MPEG Video) / 257 (0x101) (AC-3)
Service name                             : Service01
Service provider                         : FFmpeg
Service type                             : digital television

Latest version of FFMPEG DLed in august.

ffmpeg -i VTS_01.mpg -ss 01:07:30 -to 01:07:41 -map 0:1 -map 0:2 -c copy -y -f mpegts z_001.mpg

Funny thing is MEDIAINFO doesn't scan anything, it reports metadata, which can be as accurate as my

HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSE TO FIND OUT IF A VIDEO IS INTERLACED ? All these programmers can't do a program to SCAN the file instead on relying on stupid mediainfo's and other buggy stuff ?

All i found for FFMPEG interlaced was some YADIF nonsense with some computer code that had nothing to do with command line.

Btw, switching to Premiere Pro is out of the question, not wasting time learning that UI from scratch. Basically what im doing here is not-life-important, I can throw the whole PC out of the window if I have to, that's going to fix FFMPEG BS in an instant.

Also, I had a copy of these in H264, but MKVextract turns it into separate H264 and AAC audio files which i tried to concat with FFMPEG, not having enough skills again turned into a dead end as MPEG-TS just doesn't support and I don't know more of a plain container to work with sony vegas.

Also I'd like to work with originals, not with compressed video that's final for distrubution, that's the whole point im doing this remuxing.


Oh forgot, the exact warning from ffmpeg is:

[null @ 003fd260] start time for stream 0 is not set in estimate_timings_from_pts

It's it's possible, I'd like to have segments cut out as progressive and REAL frame rate without losing any quality and not in a highly compressed container like h264, so when I use it in Sony Vegas it's less confusing and possibly more stable with possibility of less rendering error or hicckups or a bad result. That's important to me because there's a hell of a lot of these segments and I'm not doing it all over again if I find a problem later.

[smrpix]

I'd like to work with originals, not with compressed video that's final for distrubution, that's the whole point im doing this remuxing.

Then work with the originals. Don't remux or convert -- which is what this entire (long-winded) thread seems to be about.

I'd like to have segments cut out as progressive and REAL frame rate without losing any quality and not in a highly compressed container like h264, so when I use it in Sony Vegas it's less confusing and possibly more stable with possibility of less rendering error or hicckups or a bad result.[/B] That's important to me because there's a hell of a lot of these segments and I'm not doing it all over again if I find a problem later.

Any conversion will lose quality. Vegas is certainly capable of interpreting the frame rate correctly, so there is no need to use anything other than your original mpegs or vobs. What are you using Vegas for, combining the clips?

I like ffmpeg a lot, but see no reason for you to be using it here.

[Wader8]

Loading the VOBs as a whole DVD in Vegas produces about 50 DVD-scene segments each it's own file, each it's own clip, I use VOB2MPG specifically for the purpose to output the DVD into ONE FILE, the DVD's VOBs are already in 5 segments so it's not one file again.

Also the segments Vegas produces are again different remux and I found them less workable that's why I searched for VOB2MPG.

With ONE file it is much easier to make a dictionary slash log file of all the timecodes of extracted scenes, easier to watch(analyze and pick out parts to extract) as well.

I do not need +95% of the content inside the DVDs, I am going through them to only cut out what I specifically need and it's usually 1-to-4 segments per episode, about 10-15 segments per DVD, and one season has 5 DVDs and there are 10 seasons.

Most segments are 2 minutes or less long.

Season 1 ended up with 1 GB of segments, out of 22GB.

THe clips will later be combined randomly and probably used slightly out of context, as well as mixed with other unrelated material, and not all of the segments would be used for a particular project, only like 10 percent of all of the segments, so there was no point for me to start with vegas from point 1 as I don't even know myself what exactly im going to use, i'm just doing a library of clips now.

So, I don't have to load 250GB of DVDs into the Vegas project later and spend hours cutting etc each time I do a project, only the clips I need, so I can delete the unnecessary data. I have 5 project already in mind, I want to save time for searching and cutting in all later projects, that's why this pre-process.

But the quality is not THAT important in this case, a little lost won't really ruin, because the original DVD already looks worse than the whole re-encoded H264 stuff which has a TON of rendering configs (post effects) applied to it that I have no idea about, and the finals are going probably to youtube and other RTMP streaming so it's goign to lose quality there as well anyways, I mentioned I tried to use that, but MKV extract produces 2 files, again more work to combine those 2 and I just stopped there before brainstorming how to efficiently remux it back to a container useful for vegas.

Pretty much what I search for is a FFMPEG command to convert to progressive and real frame rate if possible without a big loss in quality.

Better yet, VOB2MPG appears to be some years old, appears to use internal FFMPEG from 2007, maybe doing my own FFMPEG VOB to MPG extract directly with progressive and real frame rate conversion and to MPEGTS, and then extract the clips. I thought of doing that, it would again require much brainstorming with ffmpeg command line which has poor documentation imo, gogole just keeps finding stuff I don't need at all.

I simply don't want to fiddle with Vegas to do the library, has it's own annoyances. I could load the remuxed and concated MPG to Vegas directly (after again remuxing it to MPEGTS ofcourse) and make out the clips there in Vegas, but I chose a different method,

I have the timecodes saved into a logfile and all the batch files, so I don't need to do double the work, re-remuxing and extracting scenes from scratch is not a problem, and I only started with season 2.

[smrpix]

I would...

1) Load the originals in Vegas with project settings that match the source.
2) Subclip the sections I wanted to keep.
2a) Optionally, render out the subclips to cut down on storage space.
3) Do my combining/rearranging in Vegas.
4) Output to a suitable format for final use.

But this obviously isn't the answer you're looking for.

[Wader8]

The "sections" I think it displays are chapters several minutes long, like 12 or something, too much anyway. But I'm not a Vegas expert, rendering one by one seems slow for me and putting it into a command line and letting it all do at once I like more, besides I think im going to brainstorm to replace VOB2MPG with my own ffmpeg script.

Plus, I'm doing this in a way anyone can extract the clips and even add more clips without the use of a particular program.

And there's some other few reasons as well.

EDIT: okay I know what you mean with subclip now, but I think you're too much about the final 2 stages, don't worry about that, let's just focus on getting the clips

the clips just need to be ready for video editing software, I wished them to be progressive and real framerate without pulldown nonsense, if I can do that, what happens to them after that isn't a problem. The "final" format im talking about is the "final of cutting" which means it's intermediary clips for vegas, not the actual final project of what im going to do, and ofcourse im not discussing that because it's just not important at all, or in other words, I know how to handle that myself.

EDIT2; I fixed a MADVR problem in MPCHC, so interlacing is turned on now which means the video is interlaced and not progressive, doesn't matter what the display is, i just want the source to be progressive in the most basic form for sony vegas, i just want less complexity when importing into vegas.

First time ever when I started with Vegas I imported 1 hour of H264 video, the program was worthless, I accomplished nothing and wasting 1 week of time, but i shurgget it off as experience at least I learned the UI, started from scrach using lagarith and probably went into super-brainstorm mode for a few days to figure out why the hell 264 was lagging vegas so much. Never used 264 ever again, so that's why im not this time and using original DVDs in MPEG codecs.

EDIT: I'm just being honest here, i just don't like the DVD standards and config at all, I think it's stone-age ideas and methods, I just don't want to get rid of it, and that means, i'll probably reconvert the video to true resolution, removing the abhorent pixel aspect ratio , hopefully it's possible and not a dead end. So if somebody's sure it's a dead end, please tell so I don't waste brainstorming time.

I usually when I really want something get to the bottom of it, reluctantly, but looking back 5+ years, rarely I failed, usually most of the computer annoyances are caused by stupid programmers who think they know better and make configs "non-user-configurable". No, im not referring to FFMPEG this time.

[manono]

You can dump VOB2MPEG and ffmpeg (if you're using it for cutting), by just opening the VOB(s) in MPEG2Cut2, isolating the piece you want, and saving it. You'll get an unreencoded MPG.

HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSE TO FIND OUT IF A VIDEO IS INTERLACED ?

All NTSC DVDs output interlaced 29.97fps. That may be different from how it was encoded. It could have been encoded as progressive 23.976fps with 3:2 pulldown applied, or as 'hard-telecined' and interlaced 29.97fps with the repeated fields encoded into the video (inefficient but it's often done that way). For the hard telecined ones, they'll require an IVTC and a reencode if you require everything to be progressive. I don't (and won't) use ffmpeg for anything so if you insist on using it, someone else can advise.

...and even if it's not for youtube I don't care, 30 it is...

So audio synch isn't a concern?

[Wader8]

...and even if it's not for youtube I don't care, 30 it is...

So audio synch isn't a concern?

I mentioned that what I use when I don't do work that requires top quality. Also, if there's audio desync in vegas that can get fixed easily, or you think it would ignore vegas rendering congfig and end up desyncing when output, eg, not the same as in preview ? - i work with frames&time, I don't use any odd timelines, one of the weirdest things I just never got into is how to even display each frame that's not a whole number in the ... so i guess timecodes are used not absolute frames, i just use the simplest one so I always put it at 30.

Doesn't mean it has to be 30 here, 24 to 30 is quite something, but why does FRAPS report as 24 ? so it's not really running at 29.

If it's 29 there's no practical issue converting it to 30 ( i think ). 23 is harder ofcourse there's a lot of new frames to be interpolated.

I heard some of the terms you used, and now that you summarizued it's much more helpful that what I found when searching.

EDIT; I tried the 2011 beta version and every video i open is with an audio desync, and not compatible with win 7.