How to Edit MPEG with VDubMod and save as MPEG?

[DVFun]

Hi!,
I am trying to edit (cut ads and apply "smoother" + "sharpen" filters to clean the picture up a bit) a movie MPEG file imported thru TDA from DVD-Ram disc, that was burned on my standalone DVD Recorder (Panny E85).
I am having problems (or don't know how to) re-save or re-export as mpeg format.
I can save as AVI. But, if I select "Full Processing Mode" under the Video selections, I end up with an 18Gb file (the original Mpeg is only 25mins 2Gb).
If I select "Direct Stream Copy" to save as AVI (I know this way the file size would remain reasonably small), it says that "the source video stream uses a compression algorithm which is not compatible with AVI files. Direct stream copy cannot be used with this video stream". And so it won't allow me to save the file that way.
And I would not use any of the other compression modes whcih might degrade the picture quality (my assumption!!!)
Anyway, my 2 questions about VDubMod are:
1. Can I only save as AVI or is there any way to re-save as MPEG, thus saving me time to re-encode to MPEG before authoring?
2. If I can only save as AVI, is there another way to keep the file size resonably small?
Thank you in advance!

[SallyDog]

You can't save as mpeg.

To reduce AVI size, compress with either Huffy or PIC Mpeg.

[lantern]

You could frameserve to Tmpgenc or other encoder and eliminate the avi file.

[Sartori]

You can save as mpg - using the tool YMpg (but it costs money)

http://www.videohelp.com/tools?toolsearch=ympg

But I presume you have an Mpg Encoder anyway , so as Lantern suggests - frameserve to your encoder , to save the cost of another encoder .

If you were only cutting the ads , then TDA can do that , but if you are cleaning it up then see above paragraph .

If you wish to spend zero money then use TMPGenc Free but that rather defeats the point of DVD really , as it only outputs Mpg1 .

[DVFun]

Thanks!
Is there any guide on "how to frameserve" with VDubMod?
To be honest, I have no idea what frameserve is, let alone how to do it!?!?
Pls bear with me!
Yes I do have an encoder already. I use Procoder Express.
I am now trying to convert the MPEG file to AVI with Procoder first and then edit with VDubMod and re-save as AVI, hoping this time I can save with "Direct Stream Copy" option.
Otherwise, I will have to compress it with Huffyuv.
Cut ads is the least of my worries. I just need to clean the file from some noise and VDubMod is the only free software that I know that can do the job.
Anyway, I'd love to learn more about frameserve if any of you is patient enough to point me to a how to guide!!! :
Thank a lot again!

[redwudz]

Here you are: Frameserving. http://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?...lect=5;21#5;21

There are several guides there covering VD and frameserving.

[rgs_uk]

If you do any filtering in VirtualDub you must save using Full Processing Mode, which recompresses the video. There is always a slight quality loss when recompressing.

There is no quality loss with Direct Stream Copy, which copies the frames to the new file without any modification. You can chop frames out and save with Direct Stream Copy, but you can't filter, add titles etc.

VirtualDub can't do Direct Stream with MPEG. It always has to recompress it to an AVI which will use some other type of compression (HuffyUV, PicVideo MJPEG, DivX, XVid) or will be a huge file uncompressed. Alternatively you can frameserve the video to an MPEG encoder which will then recompress it. I use the DebugMode frameserver:

http://www.debugmode.com/

If you want to cut MPEGs (no filtering) then the best tool is Womble MPEG-VCR. This does direct stream for as much of the the file as possible and only re-encodes the frames immediately surrounding any cut.

[Cunhambebe]

It may be too late to discuss this, but doesn't VD has it's own FrameServer?! As far as I know Debugmode FrameServer is for Vegas and Premiere. How do you install it for VD?

[Stormin Norman]

Install the handler in the auxsetup utility that came bundled with Virtualdub. Then start frameserver, open up your .vdr file in your favorite mpeg encoder. Or you can use an Avisynth script.

[Cunhambebe]

Thanks for the input, Stormin. In fact I've installed VDMod and it seems that it wasn't necessary to intall the handler - Frameserver was already enabled. I asked this question because I thought it was strange rgs_uk's statement on using Debugmode. I don't think it's possible to frameserve from VD to any other MPEG encoder using Debugmode FrameServer. Thanks again.

[rgs_uk]

Yep absolutely right, I must have had a brainstorm or something when I wrote that. I do use the built in frameserver with VirtualDub and I use DebugMode to frameserve from Vegas Video to MainConcept MPEG Encoder.

[FaeGiN]

oops.