Another question regarding splitting a movie onto 2 cds

[wrawlind]

Hi,

I have a 900 Mb movie that I want split onto 2 vcds. Of course, I could use the 'Cut' function in TMPGEnc and slice it right up the middle, but I am an obsessive stickler for continuity and "smoothness" in my movie watching experience.

Is there a way to quickly find transition frames where the video has faded out so I can cut there with minimal abruptness? I haven't seen the movie in its entirety yet, and my cursory attempts with the TMPGEnc slider bar to find "black" frames have proven unsuccessful. I would prefer not to have to watch the movie for the first time on my tiny computer screen, frame by frame, looking for a good place to cut.

Is there any tool that will enable me to perform the split with a simulated "intermission," short of manually inserting an audio-video fade out myself?

This website and forum have already educated and helped me tremendously in the past and any advice on this issue will be greatly appreciated.
-Roland

[Hardcoreruss]

I think the only way would be by watching it and noting down the time

[christof]

Load the movie into VirtualDub
Go to roughly the middle of the film
Use the transition search buttons next to the time slider to find where frames change

[Matt D]

I use DVD2AVI to frameserve DVD's and the way I do it is to mark the start at the beginning and scroll ahead to the middle area where I want the first disc to end and select that as my endframe. I then save a d2v file with the first half of the film.
Then select the same area where the first disc ends as the start frame for the second disc. Scroll to the end of the film and mark the end frame. Save another d2v file for the second disc and encode both files in TMPGenc. You will now have 2 files each containing half the film ready to be burned onto VCD or whatever format you have chosen.

[MaximumIce]

I think VDub is the necessary tool

As far as being able to search for fades/wipes, you'd be hard pressed to find a program that does that. The movie has to have them first and even then, I don't think there is a program that searches them out.

My suggestion is you find a copy of Vdub that can search for bad frames/freeze frames and log them, without freezing up Vdub. I use Vdub-Mpeg2-AC3 - it seems to work for me without hanging. Then, check the log of the damaged frames, you may be able to find a spot where a fade/wipe was edited poorly and the frame is gibbled. In addition to editing that one spot, you could possibly choose that as a split point - That's all I can think of mate. Good luck

-Andrew

[Vejita-sama]

You seem to be confused about how x(S)VCDs work actually. You say that you have a 900MB movie that you want to put on 2 VCDs. I assume that you mean you have a 900MB video source (DivX) that you want to encode to MPEG1 and spilt onto two VCDs.

If so, remember that the size of the source has ZERO effect on the size of the encoded MPEG. MPEG file size is 100% dependant on the bitrate and runtime. The VCD whitebook standard calls for:

MPEG1 video = 1150kbit/s & audio MPEG1 layer 2 = 224kbit/s

That works out to ~10MB/min. So if your source is 75min long your encoded MPEG file would be 750MB (use a bitrate calculator for x(S)VCDs). Notice that the size of the source video doesn't matter (if affects quaility of encode but not file size).

Cutting MPEGs is always a pain in the a&&. And while you can cut the DivX source prior to encoding, why brother. Since you are using TMPGenc you use it's "source range" function to do this:

1) Load your favorite template

2) For VCD 1min=10MB (or use bitrate calculator) to find runtimexbitrate=full CDR. Once you have this time point, click on settings. Then choose advance, and double click on source range.

3) In source range you can set the start/stop point for the encode (ie. the runtime for the given bitrate to get a full CDR (~790MB).

4) Choose File save project. Then repeat the above steps for the 2nd half of the movie (note you can use source range to make a little over lap of say 2-10secs or pick a good point to switch discs).

5) Save the 2nd project

6) Choose File batch encode. Select both projects, hit run, and go to bed/work/PSX2/etc

Sorry for the long post but I think this is more inline with what you want to do, then trying to spilt a DivX file into. If you actually wanted to spilt a 900MB MPEG1 file onto to CDs skip this...

[wrawlind]

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions. I think VDub with its frame search / scene change functions is my best bet.

Just out of curiousity, MaximumIce, how do you check the log for bad frames in VDub? I tried checking the video stream for errors, left my computer running, and came back to find that the process had finished without a trace. I have VDub version 1.4.13.

Anyway, thanks again.

[MaximumIce]

Hey,
I had the same problem. The original Vdub I downloaded went through all the frames and at the end I got some message popup saying 'bad frames found and logged' -- Yet, no instructions I could find on where this log was.

I downloaded another version - the one I mentioned above tells where the log is. I believe the default is simply c:/ or whatever designation your main harddrive your using falls on. If you open it up, in addition the rest of all the folders listed there, a new icon will have appeared - looking like a little notepad. I should say underneath frames log or bad frames log.

Hope that helps