Xvid to mpeg2 (ultimately DVD)

[ultrazero]

I'm trying to convert a few Xvid AVIs to mpeg2 to later burn to a DVD. I did a bit a searching on this forum and came up with this thread:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1171487&highlight=xvid#1171487

I thought I was following Major's instructions and setting up ffmpegx the proper way but I'm turning out an MPV video file and a Wav sound file for the movie. QT pro with the mpeg2 codec is having a problem with the resulting mpv.

How do I get it so it'll output a single mpeg2 file so I can burn to DVD? I'll probably have to demux it at the end but that's not a big deal. I have minimal space at the moment. I use bbdemux for that.

I want to make sure I uncheck "keep elementary streams" right?

Will this be able to work with ffmpegx? Is it even possible?

thanks.

[major]

To obtain the .mpg file you should simply select the "DVD ffmpeg" preset (disable "Decode with Quicktime"). No elementary streams should be created at all.

[ultrazero]

Thanks Major. I tried this again and did get a single mpeg2 file. Only this time there is no audio and the video is choppy.

For audio there is just a clicking sound throughout.

The original AVI (Xvid/Mp3) is about 345mb while the outputted mpeg2 was 1gb. That sounds about correct right? I selected Passthrough for the audio. This is what I should have done?

[ykz]

The original AVI (Xvid/Mp3) is about 345mb while the outputted mpeg2 was 1gb. That sounds about correct right? I selected Passthrough for the audio. This is what I should have done?

mp3 isn't really liked in DVD, probably it's safer to change the audio settings to mp2, 48kHz, 224 kbps (as the source is mp3)

[ultrazero]

I still cannot get this to work. I tried the suggestion above and chose mp2 for audio. I also made sure the "keep elemetary streams" was unchecked so I could get a single file. This time however I still got two files. And again the video was really choppy. What am I doing wrong.

Has anyone had any success using ffmpegx to convert an Xvid/mp3 AVI file into a burnable mpeg2 file??? Do I need to "treat" the avi first before I do anything? divx doctor? Is it possible on a mac?

[major]

Possibly your player is picky about the stream bitrate. Use the "DVD mpeg2enc" encoding format in that case. Also make sure that there are no spaces or special characters in your paths and disk name.

[ultrazero]

I think I've got it. I followed the DivX (Xvid) to SVCD 'how to' here.. http://homepage.mac.com/major4/divx_svcd.html.

That produces a bunch of files: A few .img files, an M2v and Mp2 file, an MPG file and a few randoms one. The MPG file is a muxed mpeg2. Which is what I want for a DVD.

Is this correct? I am unable to test it right now because I don't have a DVD burner. Is an SVCD mpeg2 the same as a DVD mpeg2?

thanks

[major]

No, a SVCD is not a DVD. It is a format intended for burning on CDR disks. Check https://www.videohelp.com/svcd for information about SVCD and https://www.videohelp.com/dvd for information about DVD.

[NightwolfFUS]

Has anyone had any success using ffmpegx to convert an Xvid/mp3 AVI file into a burnable mpeg2 file??? Do I need to "treat" the avi first before I do anything? divx doctor? Is it possible on a mac?

Yes, I've been successful at converting my Xvid/mp3 AVI files into a burnable format on a Mac running OS 10.3. I didn't have to do anything to the avi. All I basically did was drag it to the input box, selected "DVD ffmpeg" for the output file, selected "mux as DVD," and it automatically set itself to encode to AC3 audio.

[ultrazero]

Thanks, NightwolfFUS. That looks like it did the trick, except for one thing.

I finally got my dvd burner over the weekend and tried to burn these but I have been unsuccessful. Keeping in mind that I'm a newbie when it comes to this stuff, I was under the impression that the DVD presets in ffmpegx would make the mpeg2s burn-ready.

The xvids I am trying to convert are in 23.97 NTSC film. I've been trying to burn these in Sizzle but had been unsucessful so I brought the files to a friend's place who has DVDSP. (thinking it was a problem with Sizzle) When I tried to import the mpv/ac3, DVDSP gives me an error message saying incorrect frame rate.

So my question would be, Can I convert the 23.97 to 29.97 in ffmpegx? there is a pulldown menu in the video section that lets me choose 29.97, but will there be audio sync problems?

Or am I totally off-track? thanks.

[ultrazero]

Well I've found the answer to my own question (which of course has lead to me to other questions).

In order to import 23.97 into dvdsp you need to add 3:2 pulldown flags to an m2v file so dvdsp (and presumably dvd players) can decode the file properly. And surprise, surprise, you can do this using ffmpegx. In the video tools section, there is a button to add the pulldown.

I'll just let my friend do this in dvdsp, i'm not dealing with framerates, etc. in Sizzle.