Conversion FROM H.264 to Xvid, or Mpeg..Is it possible?

I have a file that's encoded in the H.264-PCR format. I've looked; all I see is guides and tools for encoding almost any format into the H.264 format.

But what I would like to do is simply encode the H.264-PCR format file back into mpeg-2 or Xvid AVI..any thing that will enable the file to be burned onto a dvd, then played back on my dvd player so that I can watch it on my tv.

Can this be done? If so, HOW can it be done? What program would I use to accomplish this?

Any suggestions? Thanks much, ya'll~


Ring-A-Ding-Ding!

H.264, sure. Easy to convert. Don't know what you mean by PCR format though.

You may want to give Alltoavi a try.

Cheers

Ok.. fine, Celtic Druid, it may be easy to convert, but HOW is this done? What program(s) would you suggest that might accomplish this? Thanks for your comments.

And, NormaJ, Thanks for suggesting "AlltoAVI"...I'll give it a try, to see what can be done.

Hmmmm..can AutoGK convert the H.264 format to AVI as well? Because I use AutoGK often, it's the easiest to use program that I know of.

What programs can be used to convert the H.264 format directly to Mpeg-2 ?

Thanks for the suggestions, guys..much appreciated !~


Ring-A-Ding-Ding!~

Well I can't answer the question without knowing what container the H.264 is stored in.

AutoGK as I understand it accepts DVD's an avi's as input. Therefor if the H.264 stream was in an avi container, it would work.

altoavi I believe is basically an mencoder frontend, so it should be able to handle AVC in any container that mencoder supports; so avi, mp4, mov, mkv, ogm, nut, etc. But PCR?

Hi

I have succesfully used GU4FFMEPG 2.0 to convert Xvid to MPEG2 with mp2 Audio (I play these files over a Hauppauge Media MVP which only does these formats natively). Like the person above, recently I got sent a H264 (.MP4) file which I also wanted to convert to MPEG2 with MP2 audio. GUI4FFMEPG starts OK but quickly ends with:

Unsupported codec (id=86018) for input stream

- FFMPEG version is reported (came with GUI4FFMPEG) as SVN-r6252
- libavutil version 49.0.0
- libavcodec version 51.14.0
- libavformat version 50.5.0
built on September 18 2006, gcc: 3.4.4 (mingw special).

Is there something I need to install, or add to the command line, to make this conversion work? Very very new at all this and never changed any settings for Xvid conversions, but love the simplicity of GUI4FFMPEG.

If anyone can recommend another freeware s/w for this task, I'd be grateful.

It's x264 in an mp4 container as far as I can tell, witth audio referred to as mp4a, if that helps any?

Thanks!

k.

Looks like it was compiled without faad enabled. Along with the above version info, it should list the configure params used. --enable-memalign-hack, etc. If you don't see --enable-faad, then it isn't enabled, so no aac decoding since libavcodec doesn't have an aac decoder of its own. Possible they wanted to keep it LGPL. Enabling faad would mean --enable-gpl.

Hi again,

The --enable-memalign-hack line looks like (anyway to get a txt dump of this?)

--enable-memalign-hack --enable-mingw32 --enable-gpl --enable-a52 --enable-mp3lame --enable-cflags=-I/local/include --extra-ldflags=-L/local/lib

Nope, no enable-faad so probably not enabled, although they have enable-gpl.

I have no idea what all that means, is there a version of ffmpeg I can just plonk into that directory to make it run?

If not, is there some other program that can just make an MPEG2 file with MP2 or MP3 audio? I tried some of the DVD converters, but I really don't want a DVD with VOB files etc. I just want MPEG2.

k.

You can use TMPGENC to convert H.264 to mpeg2 with AviSynth. Only two steps:
(1)Write an avs script with notepad ets. An typical avs is like this:
# SOURCE
DirectShowSource("01.h264") //change to your video pathway
# RESIZING
LanczosResize(720,480) //Of course, you need computer the right image size. See here: https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=174200
# BORDERS
AddBorders(0,64,0,64) //Add black borders if necessary.

More information, i suggest you look here :https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=222898

(2)Open tempgenc and load avs script. Everything sets ok, then convert ……

PS: Another tool is ConvertXtoDVD, I think it is easy and useful.

--enable-a52 I think also requires --enable-gpl. Lame is lgpl like ffmpeg.

Sure, if it is just a standard ffmpeg compile. Replace the exe with one that has faad enabled (always enabled in my builds).

Originally Posted by celtic_druid

Sure, if it is just a standard ffmpeg compile. Replace the exe with one that has faad enabled (always enabled in my builds).

GUI4FFMPEG with 29 Oct 2006 celtic_druid ffmpeg build

After I posted in the forum, I actually downloaded your updated celtic_druid ffmpeg build from http://ffdshow.faireal.net/mirror/ffmpeg/ (MUST use Firefox, IE7 is banned) and simply popped that into the GUI4FFMPEG dir and ran it with the same settings as I had before and to my surprise it ran. It did not produce the quality as set in the GUI4FFMPEG though as it ran at around only 900 kbps and the audio was also slightly out of sync. This was with an MP4 Video as follows:

Duration: 02:12:48.8, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1580 kb/s
Stream #0.0(und): Video: h264, yuv420p, 720x400, 25.00 fps(r)
Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo

I haven't played with the quality yet, but presumably GUI4FFMPEG is better suited to the settings?

I noticed that celtic_druid'd ffmpeg build had (amongst other things) x264, Xvid and faad. I had a little look at some of the output file it generated and it looks OK. When it starts it says it has all these options enabled.

--enable-mp3lame --enable-libogg --enable-vorbis --enable-faad --enable-faac --enable-xvid --enable-x264 --enable-mingw32 --enable-a52 --enable-dts --enable-pp --enable-gpl --enable-memalign-hack --enable-amr_nb --enable-amr_wb --enable-swscaler --enable-avisynth.

So it looks like GUI4FFMPEG is made to be used with a specific build. I guess I could try and add the correct command line parameters but I've gotten lazy I guess, I'm used to the GUI doing all those things... The command line produced by the GUI was this, which says 6000, so that should have been OK?

"C:\Documents and Settings\Kristian\Desktop\gui4ffmpeg\ffmpeg.exe" -i "E:\GBPVRVids\RugbyUnionNZvsEng061106\RugbyUnionNZ vsEng061106.mp4" -target pal-dvd -b 6000 -aspect 4:3 -s 720x400 -padtop 88 -padbottom 88 -acodec mp2 -ab 224 -ac 2 -mbd 2 -qmin 2 -async 1 -y "E:\GBPVRVids\RugbyUnionNZvsEng061106\RugbyUnionNZ vsEng061106_CelticDruid.mpg"

Cheers and THANK YOU.

k.

Originally Posted by bronwman

More information, i suggest you look here :https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=222898
PS: Another tool is ConvertXtoDVD, I think it is easy and useful.

Thanks bronwman, some good suggestions there, I've tried a few of this (tried 20 -odd converters, some free some paid) I guess I like to stick with one when I find it and GUI4FFMPEG is it for me.

Cheers

k.

Just a follow-up to my H264 transcode to MPEG2 Audio+MP2 Audio problem above.

Mr. GUI4FFMPEG was very helpful and found a solution for me, not unlike that I posted above.

1. Download an updated celtic_druid ffmpeg build from http://ffdshow.faireal.net/mirror/ffmpeg/ (MUST use Firefox, IE7 is banned) and simply pop that ffmpeg.exe file into the GUI4FFMPEG dir.
2. Setup the file transcode options as normal with gui4ffmpeg.
3. However when you click Generate, you need to replace "-qmin 2" with "-sameq" otherwise the Video qulaity is terrible.

Mr. GUI4FFMPEG indicated he would try and update it at some stage.

HTH

k.