Problem creating a high quality VCD

[kelman4]

I'm not so thrilled with what Toast does with it's VCD encoding. I'm trying to create a VCD at a bitrate higher than 1150kbps. I used to do it with TMPGEnc and some of my VCDs looked like SVCDs. Now I'm trying the same thing with ffmpegX and it's not working.

Computer stats:




These are the binairies I'm using:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/mplayerosx/ffmpegXbinaries20060307.zip
http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net/MacOS/mpeg2enc.intel

Since I'm on an iBook, should I switch to this one http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net/MacOS/mpeg2enc


I selected "VCD ffmpeg" for output format.

Settings:




2 files 700MB + 600MB were created instead of the 1 700MB file.


Here's my log

Encoding started on Fri Sep 29 12:26:56 CDT 2006
movtoy4m
Copyright 2002-2006 Johan Lindström
All rights reserved..
Input #0, yuv4mpegpipe, from 'pipe:':
  Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
  Stream #0.0: Video: rawvideo, yuv420p, 352x288, 25.00 fps
Output #0, rawvideo, to '/Users/macuser/Movies/Football/La Liga - Barcelona v Valencia - 24 Sep 2006 - First Half.avi.ff.mpv':
  Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg1video, 352x288, 25.00 fps, q=2-20, 1411 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
[mpeg1video @ 0x381324]warning, cliping 1 dct coefficents to -255..255
bench: utime=497.778s
video:607785kB audio:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.000000%
FFmpeg version CVS, Copyright (c) 2000-2004 Fabrice Bellard
Mac OSX universal build for ffmpegX
  libavutil version: 49.0.0
  libavcodec version: 51.9.0
  libavformat version: 50.4.0
Input #0, avi, from '/Users/macuser/Movies/Football/La Liga - Barcelona v Valencia - 24 Sep 2006 - First Half.avi':
  Duration: 00:58:48.7, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1284 kb/s
  Stream #0.0, 25.00 fps(r): Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 576x432
  Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 48000 Hz, stereo, 112 kb/s
  Stream #0.2: Audio: mp3, 48000 Hz, stereo, 112 kb/s
Output #0, mp2, to '/Users/macuser/Movies/Football/La Liga - Barcelona v Valencia - 24 Sep 2006 - First Half.avi.ff.mp2':
  Stream #0.0: Audio: mp2, 44100 Hz, stereo, 224 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0.1 -> #0.0 [sync #0.0]
video:0kB audio:96489kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.000000%
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `/Users/macuser/Movies/Football/La.xml'
**ERROR: could not stat() file `/Users/macuser/Movies/Football/La': No such file or directory
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Liga.xml'
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Liga': No such file or directory
error while parsing command line - try --help
**ERROR: error while parsing command line - try --help
rm: illegal option -- .
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
       unlink file
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Barcelona.xml'
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Barcelona': No such file or directory
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `v.xml'
**ERROR: could not stat() file `v': No such file or directory
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Valencia.xml'
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Valencia': No such file or directory
error while parsing command line - try --help
**ERROR: error while parsing command line - try --help
rm: illegal option -- .
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
       unlink file
**ERROR: could not stat() file `24': No such file or directory
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Sep': No such file or directory
**ERROR: could not stat() file `2006': No such file or directory
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `24.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Sep.xml'
error while parsing command line - try --help
**ERROR: error while parsing command line - try --help
rm: illegal option -- .
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
       unlink file
**ERROR: could not stat() file `First': No such file or directory
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Half.avi': No such file or directory
**ERROR: could not stat() file `/Users/macuser/Movies/Football/La': No such file or directory
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `2006.xml'
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Liga': No such file or directory
error while parsing command line - try --help
**ERROR: error while parsing command line - try --help
rm: illegal option -- .
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
       unlink file
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Barcelona': No such file or directory
First.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Half.avi.xml'
**ERROR: could not stat() file `v': No such file or directory
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Valencia': No such file or directory
error while parsing command line - try --help
**ERROR: error while parsing command line - try --help
rm: illegal option -- .
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
       unlink file
  see http://www.hvrlab.org/~hvr/vcdimager/ for more information
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `/Users/macuser/Movies/Football/La.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Liga.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Barcelona.xml'
**ERROR: could not stat() file `24': No such file or directory
~hvr/vcdimager/ for more information
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `v.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Valencia.xml'
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Sep': No such file or directory
**ERROR: could not stat() file `2006': No such file or directory
error while parsing command line - try --help
**ERROR: error while parsing command line - try --help
rm: illegal option -- .
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
       unlink file
**ERROR: could not stat() file `First': No such file or directory
  this is the UNSTABLE development branch!
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `24.xml'
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Half.avi.ff-1.mpg': No such file or directory
**ERROR: could not stat() file `/Users/macuser/Movies/Football/La': No such file or directory
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Liga': No such file or directory
xml description created successfully as `Sep.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `2006.xml'
error while parsing command line - try --help
**ERROR: error while parsing command line - try --help
rm: illegal option -- .
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
       unlink file
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Barcelona': No such file or directory
**ERROR: could not stat() file `v': No such file or directory
ou know what you are doing
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `First.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Half.avi.ff-1.mpg.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `/Users/macuser/Movies/Football/La.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Liga.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Barcelona.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `v.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Valencia.xml'
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Valencia': No such file or directory
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `24.xml'
error while parsing command line - try --help
**ERROR: error while parsing command line - try --help
rm: illegal option -- .
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
       unlink file
**ERROR: could not stat() file `24': No such file or directory
hvrlab.org/~hvr/vcdimager/ for more information
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Sep.xml'
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Sep': No such file or directory
**ERROR: could not stat() file `2006': No such file or directory
error while parsing command line - try --help
**ERROR: error while parsing command line - try --help
rm: illegal option -- .
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
       unlink file
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `2006.xml'
**ERROR: could not stat() file `First': No such file or directory
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Half.avi.ff-2.mpg': No such file or directory
**ERROR: could not stat() file `/Users/macuser/Movies/Football/La': No such file or directory
w.hvrlab.org/~hvr/vcdimager/ for more information
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `First.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Half.avi.ff-2.mpg.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `/Users/macuser/Movies/Football/La.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Liga.xml'
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Liga': No such file or directory
error while parsing command line - try --help
**ERROR: error while parsing command line - try --help
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Barcelona.xml'
rm: illegal option -- .
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
       unlink file
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Barcelona': No such file or directory
**ERROR: could not stat() file `v': No such file or directory
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Valencia': No such file or directory
error while parsing command line - try --help
**ERROR: error while parsing command line - try --help
rm: illegal option -- .
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
       unlink file
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `v.xml'
 file or directory
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Sep': No such file or directory
**ERROR: could not stat() file `2006': No such file or directory
error while parsing command line - try --help
**ERROR: error while parsing command line - try --help
rm: illegal option -- .
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
       unlink file
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Second': No such file or directory
vrlab.org/~hvr/vcdimager/ for more information
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Valencia.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `24.xml'
**ERROR: could not stat() file `Half.avi': No such file or directory
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Sep.xml'
**ERROR: input mpeg stream has been deemed invalid -- aborting
er) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `2006.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Second.xml'
**ERROR: input mpeg stream has been deemed invalid -- aborting
  use only if you know what you are doing
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `Half.avi.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `/Users/macuser/Movies/Football/La.Liga.Betis.vs.Real.Madrid.23-9-06.avi.xml'
(Super) VideoCD xml description created successfully as `/Users/macuser/Movies/Football/La.Liga.Betis.vs.Real.Madrid.23-9-06.avi.xml'
Encoding completed on Fri Sep 29 13:42:31 CDT 2006

Seems there's a problem with having spaces in the filename.
What's with other files in the folder being invoked?

Thanks in advance.

[major]

Yes, remove spaces from your filename and try again.

[kelman4]

I used the older binary and removed the spaces from my filename. The video turned out to still be too big for 1 cd. I decided to encode the video and audio separately and then mux them. ffmpegX won't mux them and I have no idea why. It says too many frame drops.


Here's the log:

INFO: [mplex] mplex version 1.9.0 (2.2.7 $Date: 2006/02/01 22:23:01 $)
   INFO: [mplex] File /Users/macuser/Movies/Football/Barca1.m1v looks like an MPEG Video stream.
   INFO: [mplex] File /Users/macuser/Movies/Football/Barca1.avi.ff.english.mp2 looks like an MPEG Audio stream.
   INFO: [mplex] Video stream 0: profile 1 selected - ignoring non-standard options!
   INFO: [mplex] Found 1 audio streams and 1 video streams
   INFO: [mplex] Selecting VCD output profile
   INFO: [mplex] Multiplexing video program stream!
   INFO: [mplex] Scanning for header info: Video stream e0 (/Users/macuser/Movies/Football/Barca1.m1v) 
   INFO: [mplex] VIDEO STREAM: e0
   INFO: [mplex] Frame width     : 352
   INFO: [mplex] Frame height    : 288
   INFO: [mplex] Aspect ratio    : 1:0.9375 (4:3 PAL/SECAM for 720x578/352x288 images)
   INFO: [mplex] Picture rate    : 25.000 frames/sec
   INFO: [mplex] Bit rate        : 1300000 bits/sec
   INFO: [mplex] Vbv buffer size : 45056 bytes
   INFO: [mplex] CSPF            : 1
   INFO: [mplex] Scanning for header info: Audio stream c0 (/Users/macuser/Movies/Football/Barca1.avi.ff.english.mp2)
   INFO: [mplex] MPEG AUDIO STREAM: c0
   INFO: [mplex] Audio version  : 1.0
   INFO: [mplex] Layer          :        2
   INFO: [mplex] CRC checksums  :       no
   INFO: [mplex] Bit rate       :    28672 bytes/sec (224 kbit/sec)
   INFO: [mplex] Frequency      :     48000 Hz
   INFO: [mplex] Mode           :        0 stereo
   INFO: [mplex] Mode extension :        0
   INFO: [mplex] Copyright bit  :        0 no copyright
   INFO: [mplex] Original/Copy  :        1 original
   INFO: [mplex] Emphasis       :        0 none
   INFO: [mplex] SYSTEMS/PROGRAM stream:
   INFO: [mplex] rough-guess multiplexed stream data rate    : 1561944
   INFO: [mplex] target data-rate specified               : 1411200
++ WARN: [mplex] Target data rate lower than computed requirement!
++ WARN: [mplex] N.b. a 20% or so discrepancy in variable bit-rate
++ WARN: [mplex] streams is common and harmless provided no time-outs will occur
   INFO: [mplex] Run-in delay = 14400 Video delay = 14400 Audio delay = 18000
   INFO: [mplex] New sequence commences...
   INFO: [mplex] Video e0: buf=      0 frame=000000 sector=00000000
   INFO: [mplex] Audio c0: buf=      0 frame=000000 sector=00000000
++ WARN: [mplex] Stream e0: data will arrive too late sent(SCR)=182400 required(DTS)=182400
++ WARN: [mplex] Video e0: buf=  12029 frame=000037 sector=00000102
++ WARN: [mplex] Audio c0: buf=   2046 frame=000061 sector=00000018
++ WARN: [mplex] Stream e0: data will arrive too late sent(SCR)=542400 required(DTS)=506400
++ WARN: [mplex] Video e0: buf=   2305 frame=000126 sector=00000358
++ WARN: [mplex] Audio c0: buf=      0 frame=000210 sector=00000062
++ WARN: [mplex] Stream e0: data will arrive too late sent(SCR)=902400 required(DTS)=830400
++ WARN: [mplex] Video e0: buf=   2305 frame=000216 sector=00000614
++ WARN: [mplex] Audio c0: buf=      0 frame=000359 sector=00000106
++ WARN: [mplex] Stream e0: data will arrive too late sent(SCR)=1262400 required(DTS)=1154400
++ WARN: [mplex] Video e0: buf=   2301 frame=000307 sector=00000869
++ WARN: [mplex] Audio c0: buf=      0 frame=000512 sector=00000151
++ WARN: [mplex] Stream e0: data will arrive too late sent(SCR)=1622400 required(DTS)=1478400
++ WARN: [mplex] Video e0: buf=   2305 frame=000396 sector=00001125
++ WARN: [mplex] Audio c0: buf=      0 frame=000661 sector=00000195
++ WARN: [mplex] Stream e0: data will arrive too late sent(SCR)=1982400 required(DTS)=1806000
++ WARN: [mplex] Video e0: buf=   2301 frame=000488 sector=00001381
++ WARN: [mplex] Audio c0: buf=      0 frame=000810 sector=00000239
++ WARN: [mplex] Stream c0: data will arrive too late sent(SCR)=2342400 required(DTS)=2127840
++ WARN: [mplex] Video e0: buf=      0 frame=000577 sector=00001636
++ WARN: [mplex] Audio c0: buf=   2279 frame=000963 sector=00000284
++ WARN: [mplex] Stream c0: data will arrive too late sent(SCR)=2702400 required(DTS)=2458320
++ WARN: [mplex] Video e0: buf=      0 frame=000669 sector=00001891
++ WARN: [mplex] Audio c0: buf=   2279 frame=001115 sector=00000329
++ WARN: [mplex] Stream e0: data will arrive too late sent(SCR)=3062400 required(DTS)=2785200
++ WARN: [mplex] Video e0: buf=   2305 frame=000759 sector=00002147
++ WARN: [mplex] Audio c0: buf=      0 frame=001264 sector=00000373
++ WARN: [mplex] Stream e0: data will arrive too late sent(SCR)=3422400 required(DTS)=3112800
++ WARN: [mplex] Video e0: buf=   2301 frame=000851 sector=00002402
++ WARN: [mplex] Audio c0: buf=      0 frame=001417 sector=00000418
++ WARN: [mplex] Stream c0: data will arrive too late sent(SCR)=3782400 required(DTS)=3438960
++ WARN: [mplex] Video e0: buf=      0 frame=000941 sector=00002657
++ WARN: [mplex] Audio c0: buf=   2279 frame=001570 sector=00000463
**ERROR: [mplex] Too many frame drops -exiting

[tomlee59]

If you are using non-standard VCD settings, you should mux as xvcd, not vcd.

Btw, I'm not at all convinced that you are getting "high quality" by using a much higher bitrate -- you've set the resolution to the same value as vcd, so a higher bitrate mainly buys you reduced motion artifacts. Although "quality" means different things to different people, using at least some of that higher bitrate to enable increased resolution generally improves perceived quality.

[kelman4]

Thanks tomlee59. ffmpegx muxed the m1v file and the mp2 audio file just fine but Toast didn't recognize it as vcd. What did I do wrong?

- I loaded in the avi,
- selected VCD (mpeg2enc),
- put 550MB in the size box.
- hit the rate button.
- went to audio and unchecked "encode audio"
- then started encoding.

ffmpegx still encoded both audio and video but once i noticed i had the m1v file i stopped the encoding. encoded which audio track i wanted to mp2 then muxed the m1v and the mp2 to xvcd.

so, is m1v not vcd format?

i hesitate to to do a straight vcd encoding because each time, ffmpegx creates 2 huge MPEG1 files with both audio tracks on top of each other.

[tomlee59]

Hmmm... I don't know why you have to interrupt the flow and separately encode the audio. As long as you've checked the correct audio track option in the first place, it should work fine. But in any case, what you are doing should still work, as long as you have encoded your mp2 audio with a sampling rate of 44.1kHz. If it's set at 48kHz, Toast will most likely reject it (I don't know for sure, though, because I've never tried that). The m1v file is just the mpeg1 video stream, so as long as it's muxed with a proper-sample rate mp2 audio track, the result will be an xvcd.

[kelman4]

I sucessfully authored a one of these although it still has some issues i'm trying to work out. I would like to know which of the quantization matrixes produces the best quality?



I'm inclined to say tmpgenc.

[kelman4]

I've been running the VCD encode on tmpegnc for 8 hours and it's at 24% so I don't think I'll be using that one anymore. The quality looks about the same anyway.

[kelman4]

Btw, I'm not at all convinced that you are getting "high quality" by using a much higher bitrate -- you've set the resolution to the same value as vcd, so a higher bitrate mainly buys you reduced motion artifacts. Although "quality" means different things to different people, using at least some of that higher bitrate to enable increased resolution generally improves perceived quality.

I don't think it's possible to create a VCD with a frame that's bigger that 352 width but I could be wrong. I'll try it out and see.

[tomlee59]

If you use the KVCD option, you can specify non-compliant parameters, including different resolutions. However, being non-compliant, you should expect difficulty with playback on devices other than computers. If that's not a constraint for you, go for it!

[kelman4]

I'm getting varied results with different settings.

For some reason I can't get Toast to recognize the VCDs. It always re-encodes them. Even those created with the Standard Profile. I really want to burn the VCD in the Toast VCD window because it has great overscan compensation...for my tv anyways.

When I burn the bin/cue files, either the VCD will have lots of overscan and play just fine or it'll play with many green artifacts or not play at all.

[major]

You simply cannot burn an already authored VCD otherwise than as bin/cue.

[kelman4]

OK, so I've burned a few of these successfully but I'm still having overscan trouble. I enabled set 3:2 but that didn't help.

The way I solved this in TMPGEnc was to make the video smaller inside the frame. Like if the frame is 352x240 then I would make the video 332x220 but inside a 352x240 frame, like this:







but if i change the video size in the video tab in ffmpegX it just gives me a smaller video, instead of shrinking the image within the 352x240 frame. If there is a way for me to shrink the image within the VCD frame, please let me know.

Thanks.