TiVo to MPG to AVI

[swkenney]

I am using videoredo to convert a .tivo file to an mpg file..
There is no transcoding, only a container change.
I then use mencoder as fillows:
mencoder myfile.mpg -o "myfile.avi" -oac copy -ovc copy

The resulting file will play with mplayer but vlc, wmp, and others shows no video.
The mpg is 352x480 MPEG2 content.

I want to play these on a DVD player.
Is there better way to do this?

[poisondeathray]

why are you taking the extra step to convert to avi then to dvd format?

or is this for a divx compatible standalone dvd player?

[Relayerman]

Once you have the MPEG-2 from VideoRedo you are good to go. As stated above, if you're looking for ad DivX or XviD conversion (AVI) then try AutoGK. Its simple and painless and makes excellent quality AVIs.

[swkenney]

Once you have the MPEG-2 from VideoRedo you are good to go. As stated above, if you're looking for ad DivX or XviD conversion (AVI) then try AutoGK. Its simple and painless and makes excellent quality AVIs.

I installed AutoGK but there are no excutables. How do you use it?
Is there a GK program I need?

[swkenney]

why are you taking the extra step to convert to avi then to dvd format?

or is this for a divx compatible standalone dvd player?

Yes I have a DIVX compatible player and it wants mpeg4 not mpeg2 content in an avi file.
Mencoder does that also, but it is slower.

Maybe I can use dvd author and it wont change the MPEG2 content and I can fit 12 half hours on a DVD.

Or what other program can I use to make these mpg's play on a player?

[45tripp]

(should move to newbie)

the easiest most compliant thing to do is to simply author
yes you can use dvd author, or any other authoring app of your choice.

you could also just burn the mpeg on to a disk if your dvd player supports mpeg-iso playback.

of course autogk has an executable.
search for it if you must,
re-install if you must.

no need to change to autogk,
if you feel comfortable with mencoder,
and decide to compress to mpeg4.

of course compression is slower than a remux.
an invalid remux.

gl

[swkenney]

I know I sound newbie in this post but I am not. I just easily confuse myself sometimes.

I use command prompt a lot ( 1000 plus commands per day).
I was looking in avisyth folder instead of autogk folder.
I used the following line:
mencoder square.mpg -o %square.avi -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4
to encode a 5 minute clip. It took 43 seconds.
AutoGK took 6 min 53 sec for same file when I asked for same output size.

I will now time authoring. I have 52 half-hour files, and counting, to burn to DVD.

[45tripp]

authoring is still the best/easiest solution

I use command prompt a lot ( 1000 plus commands per day).

in that case mencoder will be easy to batch run through the lot.

not with that command though.
at the very least use something more like:

mencoder in.mpg -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vqscale=4:mbd=2:trell -ffourcc DX50 -o out.avi

still need to address resolution though.
does the standalone respect aspect flags?
or do you need to resize?
and so on.


gl

[swkenney]

The output of that command does not play correctly on my player.
The horizontal looks like it is playing at 358:480 ratio.

I get an error as follows:
The selected video_out device is incompatible with this codec.
Try adding the scale filter, e.g. -vf spp,scale instead of -vf spp.

When I try using -vf scale=4:3 OR -vf spp,scale=4:3 I get the following additional error:
swScaler: 352x480 -> 4x4 is invalid scaling dimension
Couldn't init SwScaler for this setup
FATAL: Cannot initialize video driver.

It turns out that this DVD player will play the mpg from Videoredo correctly.
In the past players that played mpg's would only allow pausing - no FF or REW, but this one even allows search by time, at least with these particular mpg's.

I would still like to know how to use mencoder for other mpg's I might run into.

[45tripp]

try using -force-avi-aspect 1.333 with mencoder when encoding, or stream copy with it,
and see if your player respects the flags

try running them through mpeg4 modifier, there a cli version,
and see if your player respects the flags.

sure fire:
encode to square pixel 4:3
-vf scale=640:480

gl

[swkenney]

-vf scale=640:480 is the only thing that worked.

It is the only one that mediainfo reported as 640x480.
The other commands gave 358x480 an played that way.

But why is it I still get the follwing error:
The selected video_out device is incompatible with this codec.
Try adding the scale filter, e.g. -vf spp,scale instead of -vf spp.

[45tripp]

-vf scale=640:480 is the only thing that worked.

It is the only one that mediainfo reported as 640x480.
The other commands gave 358x480 an played that way.

yes resolution is unaltered, 358x480,
but is stretched on playback according to aspect flags if respected,
just means your player doesn't respect the flags, so always give it square pixel resolutions

But why is it I still get the follwing error:
The selected video_out device is incompatible with this codec.
Try adding the scale filter, e.g. -vf spp,scale instead of -vf spp.

it's unimportant,
just switching through decoders.