Help converting XVid file to SVCD or CVD

[LSchafroth]

I have a movie that is 640x240 wide screen. It's in two AVI files 700+ mb each.

I would like to convert them to SVCD or CVD. Can I create a file by reducing the 640 to 480, then add black bars to increase the 240 to 480 etc?

I do not have a widescreen TV.

I have TMPGEnc Plus, 2.510, CCE BAsic, Video Vega 4.0 at my disposal.

Can someone step me through the whole process?
I don't care if it takes 3 CD's.

LS

[DJRumpy]

You've got a long way to go

To encode the video to SVCD, or CVD, you simply resize it to the proper vertical resolution for that format, and add letterboxing appropriate to the aspect ratio of your source (have your eyes glazed over yet?). The vertical resolution is the key. The horizontal will always be the full width available (480 for SVCD, or 352 for CVD).

Seriously, aspect ratio's are one of the more difficult aspects (no pun intended ) of encoding. Since your video is 640x240, it means your AVI has an aspect ratio of 2.666 which is a non-valid aspect ratio for TV video.
1.333 (4:3 aspect ratio)
1.85 (16:9 aspect ratio - you'll also find 1.77 decimal from time to time)
2.35 (16:9 animorphic widescreen aspect ratio)

Either someone butchered your video by resizing it incorrectly, or they clipped too much off the top or bottom to reduce the size of the encoded file. For this example, We'll have to assume it's a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, or that you've reported the vertical resolution incorrectly.

The thing to remember here, is that MPEG uses aspect ratio flags, and doesn't have to adhere to resolution to define it's aspect ratio. What this means, is that you can squash your video any which way, and then the aspect ratio is used to stretch it back out to it's proper proportions.

For SVCD, and an 2.35:1 aspect ratio, you should resize your AVI to 480x272, and add letterboxing to fill in the rest. Since CVD uses the same Vertical resolution, CVD would be the same thing vertically ( 352x272 and add letterboxing ).

For a movie with a 1.85:1 or 1.77:1 aspect ratio, you would resize your AVI to 480x360 for SVCD, or 352x360 for CVD, and add letterboxing to finish out the vertical resolution.

If you ever forget, just remember that a 4:3 movie (decimal 1.333 or 4/3=1.333) is fullscreen 480x480 for SVCD (or 352x480 cvd). If your movie is the next aspect ratio up (1.85), then you simply divide 480/1.333 = 360 Vertical. To get the next aspect ratio of 2.35, you divide 360, again by 1.333. This gives you 270. When I encode, I always try to keep my vertical in multiples of 4, so I change this to 272. You can use 270 vertical if you like. It won't hurt anything. 8)

[LSchafroth]

Media player was reporting the size wrong. It is 640x272. It's also 23fps.

I also noticed that when I load the Unlock for TMPGEnc it says invalid stream type. There is no way to unlock the templates.

It aoppears I will have to convert the files a piece at a time. The VCD format I tried just for the heck of it wanted to create a 3Gb file!

LS

[DJRumpy]

That resolution makes much more sense. Your movie is 2.35:1. You get the 'Invalid' error as soon as you select the unlock template, or when you then try loading your XviD after loading the unlock template?

[LSchafroth]

I get the error after I have loaded the AVI file, then I try to load the unlock.

Do I need to load the unlock before I load any video files?

Lannie

[LSchafroth]

I was able to get the Unlock to work in TMPGEnc 2.510....

It crashes at 25%.

Video Vegas crashes trying to load the AVI.

Pinnacle Studio 8.4 crashes trying to detect scenes in video.

SPP Basic gets to 100% and stays there forever.

Now VirtualDub will not Frameserve. TMPGEnc says invalid stream or unable to open source file.

I'm about ready to give up on editing!!!

LS

[Cecilio]

man im sleepy. i got your answer though. here it is do this: look apparently the movie is XVID encoded. TMPGEnc and alot of other programs dont support XVID so do this. when you have the XVID codec you probably have this installed AVIC Four CC Changer now open up the movie and change the both XVID headers to DIVX. this takes no less than a second and now you wont get any crashes. heres how it should look.



ok now for audio the audio is probably AC3 Encoded. so you mgiht also get crashes with this try encoding the audio to WAVE Using Gold WAVE but do some sample clips before using gold wave just to make sure the movie is in SYNC

[DJRumpy]

You probably don't have the necessary codecs installed, or there is a problem with the installed codecs. You can use the FourCC changer, but I would suggest you verify that you have everything installed that you need. Use GSpot from the Tools section to verify that the codec is installed, and operating properly. I'm guessing your probably modified the source file, rather than a copy, but keep it in mind next time you have a problem.

[LSchafroth]

My problems were 3 fold!

The XVid file was corrupt. I ran one of the DivX repair utilities and it worked fine. I extracted the audio of each file to a seperate WAV file and TMPGEnc no longer had any issues.

the FourCC Changer worked like a charm.

My DVD player will not handle MPeG2 files and the header trick rresults in choppy video.

I created three XVCD files with a resolution of 352x272 and bit rate of 1400 with Quality setting of 80. The picture looks great. The best VCD I've seen yet!

Thanks for evryones help, it was very much appreciated!!

LS

PS Set back the expensive software packages and let TMPGEnc and Virtualdub do their thing! Frameserving doesn't work...oh well..

[DJRumpy]

Your still having frameseving problems, even after fixing your DivX?

[LSchafroth]

I had to do the resize and everything from TMPGEnc. I didn't have enough disk space to save it as a AVI from VirtualDub and frameserving doesn't work.

It worked one time and now every time I try to use it, TMPGEnc fails to load the file. I don't recall the exact error, and I'm encoding now...so I cannot test.

I also swithed from 352x272 to 352x240 so the image would center properly on different TV sizes.

Thanks!

LS

[DJRumpy]

You can always launch multiple instances of TMPGenc, and VirtualDub to reproduce the error. It shouldn't interfere with your current encode job. I'd be curious as to what the error is. Frameserving would alleviate your space problem.

352x277 isn't a valid resolution anyway. TMPGenc would have resize it to fit, depending on your settings.

[LSchafroth]

I've given up at this point.

I sat down to watch the movie with my wife and it played fine for about 10 minutes. Then it started cluttering with macro blocks, the sound started chirping. If you fast forward the sound goes away. You have to pause thenplay to make the sound come back.

I've tried every format, every resolution and even burned it at 1x.

It appears I will not be able to produce videos from other video formats. The ones I capture from my camera and burn work perfect.

I'm so frustrated at this point, I'm about to delete all teh files and give up video editing!!!! Arghhhh

LS

[DJRumpy]

I would set your DivX back to the original FourCC code it had. TMPGenc supports XviD, contrary to what you may have heard. You can go to OPTIONS | ENVIRONMENTAL SETTINGS, and then the VFAPI tab. Set the DirectShow filter to a high priority (try 2).

You should also ensure your codec is not corrupt by using GSpot to verify the codec is registered properly. I'm betting your problems like with the source file, not with your methods. Especially since you mentioned it was corrupt.

[Don2050]

Follow what DJRumpy said... TMPGEnc does support Xvid and it converts xvid to S/VCD just fine....

Adjust the environmental settings.... I have never needed to change the FourCC code on any xvid encodes....

https://www.videohelp.com/tmpgenc.htm#problems

[LSchafroth]

It doesn't matter if I use Xvid or DivX format. The blocks appear in the video and the sound chirps. It's never the same spot and speratic.

Any clues as to what is causing that? If you watch the video's themselves, they are perfect.

LS

[Cecilio]

It doesn't matter if I use Xvid or DivX format. The blocks appear in the video and the sound chirps. It's never the same spot and speratic.

Any clues as to what is causing that? If you watch the video's themselves, they are perfect.

LS

well hey can you send me like a 30 second video clip of the movie and ill convert it to whatever you want me to and i will send it back to you.

[DJRumpy]

I would still suspect the source file is the problem. An easy workaround for a corrupt source is to frameserve it. That often will get you around problems with it. Use VirtualDub, or AVISynth to frameserve it and see if you get better results.

[LSchafroth]

I have two files. The first one had corruption and the second was fine. They both do it.

VirtualDub was not frameserving because the default name it was serving was about 100 characters then .avi. I changed it to test.avi and boom, TMPGEnc liked it.

OK, the source files are 23fps, 640x272.

Should I run PULLDOWN.EXE on the files first?
Extract sound to WAV with VD, then use TMPGENC?

Should I let VD resize and convert the fps then frameserve?

I just need a XVCD that works!!

LS

[DJRumpy]

You can apply pulldown while encoding in TMPGenc, or you can apply it after your M2V is created. It doesn't matter which way you go.

If your making an MPEG-2 xSVCD, and since your using TMPGenc, and it comes with the capability to add the pulldown flags, I'd suggest you set them there. Under the Advanced tab, set the Encode Mode first to "3:2 Pulldown When Playback". Then set the Frame Rate setting on that same tab to "23.976 fps (internally 29.97 fps)". The mpeg that's generated will appear to be 29.97, and will be compatible with any authoring software.

If your maing an xVCD (MPEG-1), then just leave your output at 23.976 fps. It doesn't need a 29.97 framerate.

I would prefilter (resize, crop, whatever) in VirtualDub and frameserve to TMPGenc. TMPGenc is slow enough as is

[LSchafroth]

I'll be doing xVCD since my player won't play SVCD's even with the Header trick.

I'll do the VD filtering while frameserving. Actually TMPGEnc doesn't seem to take too long. I think I was getting a 60 minute encode done in 19 minutes or so.

I'm running a Athlon XP 1700+ at 2025Mhz so it books right along.

Thanks for everyones help so far. We'll see what I get now that I have VD in the mix.

LS

[LSchafroth]

Using VirtualDub to resize and frameserver results in a video with the sound up to 8 seconds off.

Using TMPGEnc results in aperfect MPG thatplays on the PC. Put it on CD and you get a good video fro about 5 minutes, then it begins to get blocky, choppy..sound starts to chirp.

I've deleted the files and have officially given up!!

LS

[DJRumpy]

Using VirtualDub to resize and frameserver results in a video with the sound up to 8 seconds off.

This indicates a problem with your source file.

Sometimes you just get a bad file, and do end up deleting them. Just remember they won't always be bad.