AVI ---> ASF ---> Mpeg2 --->(s)VCD ---> Fit alot more on CD

[Manego1]

Have you ever been in a situation where you have to fit a movie on ONE CD but you cant because your movies are too damn big. Well, I found out a way where you could change your .AVI file to .ASF to get the exact same quality and sound, and then convert the .ASF file to mpeg2 (sVCD) to get an even smaller file than the .AVI input. its amazing. I do that with all my videos now. Now you go. Go and explore, and you will find out the true meaning of Converting.

Here's how you do it :
use Sonic Foundry to convert the .avi to .asf. Dont be surprised if the output of the .asf file is larger than the input of the .avi file.
Then use TmpgEnc and load King Viper's Template (sVCD) ( you could get it from this site). Im not too sure about the aspect Ratio 1:1. You could try that or change it to 4:3, explore.
Encode it.
You will get an .mpg (svcd) file that is even smaller than the input file, and now you could Fit 120 min movies on 1 CD. Sounds like fraud huh, but. . . try it out, you will be surprised on the results as I was.

[Manego1]

Main idea brought to you by :::::: Y2Flyy

[Manego1]

Please give me your results.

[condone]

By doing that you are loosing massive amounts of quality, especially with the encode to ASF. If you don't see it you must need glasses. Even with high bitrates the SVCD would look nowhere as good as the AVI you started with. AAn AVI->MPEG2 (SVCD) looks bad enough, but converting the compressed AVI into a more highly compressed ASF and decompressing that to MPEG2 (SVCD) just ruins it.

Whatever floats your boat, go ahead with it, but i'm just saying i wouldn't bother with it. Seems easier to just download or make your own SVCD.

[siaododo]

Isn't this topic been covered already in another post?

[Manego1]

Yes, just wanted more people to see it i guess. And for Condone, I convert the .asf the exact same quality as the .avi file with Sonic Foundry; the output is the only thing that matters, and its pretty much the same if you convert from .avi or if you convert from .asf. You need to try it for yourself instead of assuming its not as good.

[condone]

i've worked with ASF and yes it can be a good format, but by definition, if you convert one file into another file it WILL LOSE QUALITY (that's not a debatable issue, it's common sense, whether it be DivX->DivX reencode with the same bitrate, or DivX->ASF with the same bitrate). it may not be obvious (though it should be) but it DOES lose quality. as i said, if you want to deal with it, you can.

[monarc_2000]

hey manego how did u get sonic foundry to convert avi to asf?..i've got sonic foundry videofactory 2.0 but it can only convert to wmv or quicktime..there doesnt seem to be any

[Manego1]

I didnt get the Video Factory 2.0, i dl'ed the Windows Media On-Demand Producer which i guess is the makers of Sonic Foundry

[Manego1]

is *by the makers of Sonic Foundry

[condone]

i think Sonic Foundry is a software maker www.sonicfoundry.com . they have many good products including ACID, Sound Forge, Video Factory etc. they used to make a great ASF/RM encoder called "Stream Anywhere" but i guess they discontinued it. it was a great program for encoding to broadcast media b/c it had great templates and allowed you to make your own, i remember making one for 1Mbps (1024kbps) MPEG-4 video/ 128kbps MP3 audio and it looked great, pretty much looked like a VCD. but in order for ASF to look good, u must use highbitrates, anything above 1Mb should do.

[monarc_2000]

ok i tried windows media on-demand and i got it to successfully convert my divx to asf but now i can't load it into tmpgenc (says format is unsupported) and i can't seek through the asf either...i used a rate of 1 mbps...is that the right setting to use?

[Manego1]

ok, it seems you will have to try the Old Windows Media Encoder 4.1 to encode the .avi to .asf . . not the new one since that doesnt support .asf. I had a similar problem, I could load it into TmpgEnc, but i couldnt encode it since it would freeze for some weird reason. Another reason it might not work is because you dont have the right codecs installed.

[monarc_2000]

i have the old windows media encoder and i can't even get that to work on any of my divx files..i followed the tutorial thats on this site to convert divx to asf and the only thing i get is a 697kb asf file that doesnt work

[Manego1]

what are your settings, and what codecs are you using?

[monarc_2000]

i used the default template for 1mbps...these are the codecs used below:

Audio Codec: DivX Audio
Audio Format: 64 kbps, 44 kHz, stereo for DivX
Video Codec: MS-MPEG4 V3
Frames/Second: 30 fps
Video Image: 320x240
Video Quality: 0%
Seconds/IFrame: 2

the asf plays perfectly..i just can't seek through it to any point i want and tmpgenc wont even open it.

[monarc_2000]

those are my settins for windows media on-demand

[Manego1]

what version of Tmpgenc do u have?

[monarc_2000]

i tried 2.00 and 2.53....neither worked

[Manego1]

hmm. .

[Truman]

Isn't this topic been covered already in another post?

yes. --> http://forum.vcdhelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=83507

[vitualis]

There is absolutely no point in going to ASF before MPEG encoding. You can fit more on the CD because you have lost detail by going to an intermediate lossy compression step.

If this is all you want, you could just simply apply a blurring filter instead and save yourself a lot of time.

Regards.

[Manego1]

interesting........ but sorry, no quality loss here.

[vitualis]

I can assure you that there is... You can't get something from nothing.

Regards.

[Manego1]

could be, maybe not really noticable though

[vitualis]

Perhaps, but the issue is that going first to ASF or any other lossy compression format is a waste of time. You can achieve the same effect with a blurring/softening filter.

Regards.

[Faceman101]

it really is pointless. asf will blur and lose colour. why would you want to do that? it's like taking a DVD, converting to DIVX, then VCD. why bother with the inbetween step and lose quality?

[Chuckey]

HI Guys,
I'm managing to fit quick a few moivies on 1 CD using the SeVCD & SxVCD templates qality is reasonable too and not all the hassel posted here. of course the moe u compress the less you get !

Has anyone tried the 90 min CDR's?

Chuckey :roll:

[Manego1]

Good God FaceMan, why do u assume too much. . . you need to try it out for yourself and you will find out the quality is just about right.

[nutty_hamster]

Manego1: just cuz it looks good doesn't mean shit. DivX looks great, but the data it contains is highly compressed and massively lossy compared to the DVD, hence it's small filesize. Just because YOU do not see the quality loss does not mean it doesn't exist. It's there, math, science, common sense & logic, and everything else that goes into the making of computers and such says it exists.