Expert on CCE: Why did this happen?

[homerpez]

I encoded an mpeg-1 VBR movie, 3-pass, with an AVG bitrate of 880, and 104 min total time. Any btrate calculator comes up with this number.

I run it through CCE, and the video file comes out about 100MB SMALLER than it should be (it ought to be around 590 MB, it's only 488MB!).

OK. The film was encoded in its entirety, looks fairly good except a small amt. of blocks. It's all there, as near as I can tell.

I was able to multiplex with the audio in bbmpeg, but the end result was still 100MB smaller!

And, I was also able to successfully make a VCD image in VCDIMAGER. Still 100MB to small.

Then I go to play it in any software player, and the movie crashes the player (whatever one I use) after about 30-60 sec. of continuous playback! Also, the timescale if off (either reads 50 minutes, or 99 min, depends)... so obviously something is wrong with the file!

What did I do wrong?



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: homerpez on 2001-08-01 14:59:22 ]</font>

[homerpez]

...hello? Please? (Not having good luck lately...)

[Darkbird]

Most commercial pkgs encode mpeg1 as CBR, not VBR. This may be why a certain player has problems. Admittedly, this is just a guess.

Did you restart the CCE encode at any time ? You should delete any prior VAF file before changing settings and re-encoding. The VAF file contains information carried from one pass to the next.

[homerpez]

The problem is well before I get it to an actual VCD... the prep I'm doing to encode the thing is ALREADY where the problems lie...

Basically CCE is making it corrupt somehow, and it comes out 100MB less than the projected file size (though it's all encoded, though there is plenty of garbled info). Playing it on PowerDVD crashes the player!

Obviously it's packing incorrectly, something is being misread, or mislabled. Or Corrupted. SOMETHING.

This is with a fresh .vaf file (I deleted everything from the last attempt), so that can't be the problem.

Can someone go over the right settings with me to do this right?... Post yours so I can see if mine match?...

[Truman]

homerpez, this is just a guess, but since your problem seems to be a kind of magig, you have to try everything. When you set your encode settings in CCE, choose "PS" instead of "ES" once. Go to "other settings">video> system.
Which packet size do you find there?
The packed size is noticed in the .ecl project file even when you encode video only (ES). So I guess, an old packed size setting could be a problem.
Then switch back to "ES"
On the video tab you should have checked "add sequence end code" only (If you stay with mpeg1). I assume you do all resize in advance (with Avisynth?).
The GOP structure and quality settings do not effect the filesize.
Finally I hope this helps.