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  1. Member
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    I just decided to try the software called "Any Video Converter" to convert some "RM" and "RMVB" files to other formats but I am confused as to what output format to choose. I've tried looking on the AVC website and googling around but I still don't understand all the issues and am hoping someone here can enlighten me. I'd like to be able to understand which formats are the "best" for me to use and why - issues like quality, time to convert, things like that.

    AVC supports the following output choices:

    - Mobile Phone MPEG-4 Movie (*.mp4)
    - Flash video Movie (*.flv)
    - Flash SWF (*.swf)
    - DVD Video NTSC Movie (*.mpg)
    - DVD Video PAL Movie (*.mpg)
    - MPEG-1 Movie (*.mpg)
    - MPEG-2 Movie (*.mpg)
    - Customized AVI Movie (*.avi)
    - Customized WMV Movie (*.wmv)
    - Customized MP4 Movie (*.mp4)

    I am going to assume that "Mobile Phone etc" is going to be extremely low quality and skip that one (yes?).

    I am going to assume that both of the Flash choices are going to be low quality and skip those (yes?).

    I have no idea what they mean by the two "DVD Video" choices other than NTSC vs. PAL. Does this mean that depending on which one you choose it will convert it to either PAL or NTSC??? But what is the difference between these and the other MPEG choices??? These 2 have me totally confused. Are they both MPEG-1 options? Or MPEG-2? Or what??? And what is the difference between choosing these vs. MPEG-1 or MPEG-2??

    I know that MPEG-1 is an older format than MPEG-2 and that MPEG-2 is supposed to be better so I figure I skip the MPEG-1 choice in favor of MPEG-2(yes?).

    Although I am familiar with AVI and WMV files in the sense that I have downloaded many of them and converted them to DVD format, I confess to not really understanding what the differences are or which are "better". Just from what I've seen it appears that AVI is higher quality than WMV but I do not know if that is really true. Why AVC puts the word "customized" in front of these choices completely bewilders me - what is the meaning of that????

    I am guessing that the MP4 Movie choice is the highest quality but I am not sure. Is it? Or what? And what does the word "customized" mean in there?????????

    Thanks very much to anyone that can demystify this for me. In the meantime I will try experimenting around with each choice but I'd rather know what I'm doing rather than shooting in the dark and wasting tons of time (it takes my PC hours to convert each file).

    Btw, my ultimate goal for this is to be able to get these RM/RMVB files to DVD format. I normally use ConvertXtoDVD for converting files to DVDs, but for some reason these particular .rm and .rmvb files will not convert correctly - either they give error messages or they convert to nothing other than screens of solid green garbage. Yet I can play these files on the PC with Media Player Classic so I know they "work". I just can't convert them to watch them on a DVD player. I noticed that although this never happens with WMVs, AVIs, MPGs, FLVs, MKVs, etc, it happens about 99% of the time with files that end in ".rm" and 50% of the time with ones that end in ".rmvb". I'm hoping that AVC will let me convert them to a different format that will work with ConvertX, and do so without losing too much quality or introducing other problems like losing audio sync.
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  2. Member FulciLives's Avatar
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    You would use one of the following:

    - DVD Video NTSC Movie (*.mpg)
    - DVD Video PAL Movie (*.mpg)

    Then you can just author them with any decent DVD authoring software.

    - John "FulciLives" Coleman
    "The eyes are the first thing that you have to destroy ... because they have seen too many bad things" - Lucio Fulci
    EXPLORE THE FILMS OF LUCIO FULCI - THE MAESTRO OF GORE
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  3. Member
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    Originally Posted by FulciLives
    You would use one of the following:

    - DVD Video NTSC Movie (*.mpg)
    - DVD Video PAL Movie (*.mpg)

    Then you can just author them with any decent DVD authoring software.

    - John "FulciLives" Coleman

    Thanks for replying! I appreciate it.

    I did try the NTSC choice so far and it doesn't create a DVD structure, just an MPG file. So what is the difference between using one of those choices, instead of the "MPEG-1 Movie (*.mpg)" or "MPEG-2 Movie (*.mpg)" or "Customized MP4 Movie (*.mp4)" choice??? Does the "DVD VIDEO NTSC" choice use MPEG-1, MPEG-2, or MPEG4???

    Also your advice brings up a question that I have wondered about but never taken the time to figure out. What is "DVD authoring software" as opposed to something like ConvertXtoDVD??? I can feed an MPG file into ConvertX and it gives me DVD format in the end that I can burn to DVD easily, although I suspect that it might be doing an additional conversion that is not needed (and could be degrading quality) based on some remarks I've read, but I am not sure. Sorry for the stupid questions but it's very hard for me to spend the amount of time needed to thoroughly understand everything about video/making DVDs and I know I am probably misunderstanding something.....
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  4. Member FulciLives's Avatar
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    DVD Video comes in two flavors ... NTSC and PAL. The USA uses NTSC as does Canada and Japan and a few other places while pretty much the rest of the world uses PAL.

    DVD Video uses MPEG-2 video and it can have PCM WAV audio or MP2 audio or AC-3 audio or DTS audio or any combination (technically not allowed to have just DTS so if it is DTS must also have at least one of the other formats). At first it was argued that MP2 was not apart of the official spec (at least not in the USA) so AC-3 is favored over MP2 to this day (plus AC-3 is better sound quality anyways).

    Now notice I said that DVD Video uses MPEG-2 for video BUT it is important to understand that MPEG-2 does not necessarily = DVD Video

    With MPEG-2 you have a lot room as to how to set up various aspects of the encoder and the resolution that can be used and the frame rate that can be used etc.

    DVD Video says, "OK we are using MPEG-2 but only within some fairly tight restrictions as to how it is encoded"

    If I can make an analogy (and I'm not sure this is the greatest analogy) but imagine this: anyone can have a cup of water. But what is the water like? Imagine someone comes along and says, "If you want to be in my club that's great but your cup of water must have no more than 8 oz. of water in it and it must be between 40f and 50f but you can't have ice in it and the water must be from a spring in Colorado". So yes it is water these people have that are in this "club" but that water adheres to a specific set of parameters.

    So there is MPEG-2 and then there is MPEG-2 that is DVD Video compliant or that fits the specifications of the DVD Video format.

    So getting back to your case ... since you said your ultimate goal was to make a DVD Video ... well ... that is why I said to use "DVD Video NTSC Movie (*.mpg)" or "DVD Video PAL Movie (*.mpg)" and since you are in the USA you really want to stick with "DVD Video NTSC Movie (*.mpg)"

    Now once you have a DVD Video compliant MPG file (with video and audio) you can use what is called "DVD authoring" software.

    If you go to the tools section of the website you will find a section for such software. There are some freeware choices but one of the easiest-to-use is TMPGEnc DVD Author and yes you have to pay for it but it really easy-to-use yet mostly full featured. So basically you import your MPG file into it and it allows you to create a menu etc. and then will output to a DVD folder (VIDEO_TS) that you can then burn (it even has a burning protocol built-in but many of us prefer ImgBurn for DVD Video burning). TMPGEnc DVD Author (as of version 2.x which is a long time ago) can convert ala ConvertXtoDVD but us old timers don't like to do it that way and if you input a DVD Video compliant MPG file into TMPGEnc DVD Author it will not convert.

    That's the end of class 101 for now ...

    - John "FulciLives" Coleman
    "The eyes are the first thing that you have to destroy ... because they have seen too many bad things" - Lucio Fulci
    EXPLORE THE FILMS OF LUCIO FULCI - THE MAESTRO OF GORE
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    Thanks very much John!

    I think I understand. Sounds like the "DVD Video" choices use mpeg-2 BUT hard set some kind of coding parameters to certain defaults, that are better quality/take longer than the straight MPEG-2 choice (in addition to encoding as either PAL or NTSC). So that is the one I will use!! Thanks again.

    I tried some tests over night using one file and it seems to confirm the above. I found that using the "DVD Video NTSC Movie (*.mpg)" choice it gave me an output file that was about 1.15GB large. Converting the same file as "MPEG-2 Movie (*.mpg)" choice gave me a converted file of only about 180MB large! I haven't tried viewing them yet but I am assuming the one that is 10 times larger is better quality.

    I will have to investigate "TMPGEnc DVD Author". I have heard much about it over the years but chose not to bother with it b4 since (a) it costs $ and (b) I can already do what I want with ConvertX (and I have already figured that one out). I do already use IMGBURN. I had decided b4 to wait regarding investigating TMPGEnc (or other "authoring" packages) until/if I ever get to the point where I am doing some 'serious' stuff with DVDs where I want to master/create/setup some "real" DVDs projects with special chapter breaks and fancy menus; what I am doing now isn't that fancy, not needing anything like menus, just straight conversions so I can view some files on an old normal DVD player.

    Thanks again.
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  6. Member FulciLives's Avatar
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    I could be wrong but I believe that ConvertXtoDVD will convert any input even if that input is already DVD Video compliant.

    However the program seems to get updated every-so-often and I haven't used it nor kept up with it for a long time now so it is possible I suppose that it has been made so as to NOT re-encode compliant input ... in which case ... one could argue it is safe to use.

    However if it converts all inputs (as I expect) then you really don't want to use it for this project.

    I've used the freeware dvdauthorgui and if you keep it real simple it actually is not all that hard to use. The only "bad" thing is that you have to create your own menu but again if you keep it really simple it really isn't that hard and there are plenty of guides here on how-to-use it.

    - John "FulciLives" Coleman
    "The eyes are the first thing that you have to destroy ... because they have seen too many bad things" - Lucio Fulci
    EXPLORE THE FILMS OF LUCIO FULCI - THE MAESTRO OF GORE
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