Problem fninishing encode from DVD to SVCD

[scrotus]

Got a quick question.

Got a dvd rip that i am trying to encode to 2 disc svcd with AC3. I used dvd2svcd with the RoBa plugin to rip the AC3 audio and encode the movie. I have a 1.4 gig avi which is the encoded video. bbMpeg, is freaking out now though.

It is looking for an mp2 file. I have looked in all my program directories and cannot find it. It's looking for Encoded_audio_1.mp2. There wasn't a step where there was an mp2 created. There was only the AC3 decode part. So I only have the 180 meg AC3 file.

I did use TMPGplus MPeg tools to do a Simple Multiplex and it worked. BUt, come to find out, there is some weirdness with the AC3 file at the beginning. So, I'm gonna have to trim the beginning of the AC3 file. Also, there is a portiion i need to trim on the beginnning of the avi also.

I know how to trim the AVI VirtualDub, so that's easy. But how do I trim the AC3? Do I need to convert the AC3 into wav first? And once that's done, stuff both back into TMPG as wav or do I need to re-encode the wav to AC3 again? I think that's what I need to do, but not quite sure.

Also, it took 21 hours to encode the svcd file so I don't want to repeat that step if possible.

Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.

[SimonH]

Whoah !!!

You're sure your trying to create an SVCD ?

1) The video should have been output as a .mpv or .m2v file, not an AVI.

2) SVCD's don't support AC3 audio, they support MP2 audio only. ie. the file that BBMPEG is looking for.

If you have a .mpv or .m2v file, then that's your video, and you won't have to do that part again (phew!), it's just a case of encoding the MP2 audio from the AC3 file with BeSweet - not that daunting - and muxing them together with BBMPEG.

I can help talk you through that last part if you like. If you don't have the Video in MPEG2 format however, you might as well start from scratch.

I haven't used DVD2SVCD for quite a while - but I think you may have selected the wrong settings for your requirements.

[scrotus]

sorry, yes, I have a 1.4 gig .mpv file and 180 meg .AC3 file. I never got the mp2 file.

Ok, Im making the mp2 file now with besweet.

BTW, is there a way to edit the mp2 file at all? LIke if I want to cut out some of the beginning of the file, can I use a proggie that will do an MP2? Or do I need to convert to wave to edit it, then back to mp2?

[SimonH]

OK - sounds like your on the right track.

Just make sure the MP2 file is within the SVCD Specs.

At this stage, I'd mux the MPV and MP2 file together (once BeSweet's done the MP2 ), check that audio and video synch is OK. If it is, then load it into TMPGEnc's MPEG Tools, and do your cutting there.

Editing the audio separately could be messy, especially if you don't have a synch problem at the moment, as you are likely to create one. I'd only mess with the audio separately if I was trying to cure a synch issue.

If you are, then I'd get a WAV file from the AC3 (using BeSweet again) edit that in GoldWave or the like, then encode your edited WAV to MP2.

[scrotus]

Simon,

Thanks for the tips. I went ahead and converted to MP2 for later. I found DVDx however and am trying it out. Looks like it's may work for me and coding should take less than 5 hours. I'll report back with the results.

From my samples though, it looks good. So, I may not need to do all that other work. I wasnt really looking forward to cropping that audio.

[scrotus]

Just to let you all know, DVDx did a fine job for the encode to SVCD. I started with the IFOs/Vobs from a DVD rip and then used DVDx to encode to svcd. I ended up with 3 full discs, though I only wanted 2. Pic qual is really good and sound is excellent.

Though it doesn't have too many features, it does work and for newbies, really easy to work with.

[SimonH]

I'm glad it all worked out for you.
IMHO DVDx might be easy, but the results from DVD2SVCD will be far superior, even on 2 CD's probably.
I know you didn't have much luck this time, but I'd pursue it in the future, and maybe you could even learn how to perform some of the steps DVD2SVCD takes to get a better understanding.

In the end though - whatever works best for you.

Best of luck

Simon

[scrotus]

Simon,

Yeah, I had hoped that DVD2SCVD would have worked better. I will continue to try it or maybe Gordian Knot. I am hoping however, that Dr. Divx works for most of my sources. I can play divx files on my standalone, so I'd take that, In this case, Dr Divx didn't like the source files. Thanks again.