How to use TMPGEnc to create VCD assets for the Philips Vide

[RFontenot]

The VCD templates supplied with TMPGEnc do NOT create MPEG-1 files that are compliant with the VCD 2.0 White Book specification. However TMPGEnc can create video and audio streams that can be used as inputs to a VCD 2.0 compliant multiplexer like VCDMUX.

The steps to creating VCD 2.0 compliant video and audio streams with TMPGEnc are:

1. Start a new project.
2. Select your video source.
3. The audio source is selected automatically if your video source has audio.
4. Select "Video Only" as the output stream type.
5. Press "Configure"
6. The following settings under the Video tab are critical for VCD compliance:
- a. Stream type: MPEG-1
- b. Size: 352x240 (NTSC)
- c. Aspect ratio: 29.97 fps
- d. Rate control mode: Constant bit rate (CBR)
- e. Bitrate: 1150000 bit/sec
- f. VBV buffer size: 40
7. The output file will have the extension .m1v. If you are using VCDMUX, change the filename to a DOS 8.3 name with a .mpv extension.
8. Press "Encode" to encode the video file.
9. When the video file has finished encoding, select "Audio Only" as the output stream type.
10. Press "Configure"
11. The following settings under the Audio tab are critical for VCD compliance:
- a. Stream type: MPEG-1 Audio Layer II
- b. Sampling Frequency: 44100
- c. Channel mode: Stereo
- d. Bit rate: 224
12. The output file will have the extension .mp2. If you are using VCDMUX, change the filename to a DOS 8.3 name with a .mpa extension.
13. Press "Encode" to encode the audio file.
14. When the audio file has finished encoding, start VCDMUX.
15. From the menu, select Functions -> Auto Mux.
16. Select Browse and find the video stream. If you did not use the .mpv extension, list all files.
17. If your audio stream has the .mpa extension and it's in the same directory as the video stream, it will be automatically added. Otherwise repeat the step above to find your audio stream.
18. Press "OK" to multiplex the video and audio streams. The multiplex file will have a .mmd extension.
19. Start the Philips Video CD 2.0 Toolkit program.
20. Add the .mmd VCD file as you would any other asset file.

This process creates a NTSC VCD file. Unfortunately, I can't verify PAL VCD files, but it should work with PAL settings. The other configuration settings can be left at their default settings. Most can be changed without impacting compliance, but this isn't guaranteed.

RF

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: RFontenot on 2001-07-14 13:15:31 ]</font>

[patrickm]

i tried several different ways to come up with compliant assets before i read this thread (as some i already have encoded and would prefer not to recapture or re-encode). but have you ever come across the errors in VCDMUX:
(Audio) .... read past end of file
it then says it's completed but Toolkit won't take it. it happens only with audio+video system streams, since when you choose only the audio it just says
"last X audio units cut off"
i tried cutting the file so that the a/v lengths matched, but still nothing.

i think the only property i might not have right was the VBV, but is that the cause of this problem? how does it error out when VBV is wrong?

thanks a lot for the guides too. i wasn't aware my ATI captures were that close to compliant. based on everything else ATI's done VCD-wise, i figured they were just barely compliant at all.

[patrickm]

also, just to clarify, did you use "System Audio Only" or just "Audio only" (and likewise for video)

[GrAnD]

Just found the video stream suppouse to be a little bit shorter than audio one. And Philips VCD toolkit will take it. If the video stream longer than audio one tollkit will
give you an error " read past end of file ".
Also you can use Tsunami VCD template, but you have to load "unlock" template to unlock settings, and encode your streams separate. If you encode these streams separate, the audio stream will be a little bit longer than video one. If you doing this into a mpeg stream and demultiplex it after encoding - audio stream will be a little bit (few milliseconds) shorter than video one. And Philips VCD tollkit will not take it. Looks like it is a bug in the Tsunami multiplexer.

[RFontenot]

Video Only and Audio Only. I could never get any of the System output types to work.

When I examined the output files with various MPEG utilities, the ATI capture files created with Next's registry hack always reported as MPEG-1 VCD NTSC files. All I've ever had to do with them was remultiplex them with VCDMUX. I guess I never realized how good I had it.

Files multiplexed by TMPGEnc do not appear as VCD NTSC files. I tried to fixing the TMPGEnc files with MPEGCorrector and VCDGear, but nothing I did seemed to work. I had already come to the conclusion that something was wrong with TMPGEnc's multiplexer when another member posted that he got TMPGEnc to work by encoding the video and audio seperately. I verified his findings and found that he made some configuration recommendations that were not critical. The ones I listed have been confirmed as critical.

RF

[wcb4]

Since VCD Toolkit's documentation seems pretty bad to me, is there any chance of getting a discussion area strictly for VCD2toolkit? It looks like the answer to what a lot of us would like to have...professional looking vcds without having to deal with vcdimager's xml.

[disturbed1]

In order to get the project to build, you have to run the TMPGenc encoded file through Mpeg Sequence Maker, (avail. in the tools section), to put time codes on all GOP's.

VCD TK, doesn't accept audio files encoded by tooLame, PWI, or TMPGenc, but it does accept audio files from CDex. If you used PWI, you also have to run your ES through Mpeg Sequence Maker.

The only error acceptable during muxing is throwing away last #A.U. If it reads past the file, the project won't build, this means your files don't meet specs.

On the PMPRO web site it talks about these errors, but offers using a compliant encoder as an only option. The toolkit sticks to the White Book VCD specs exactly, which TMPGenc doesn't, so you have to fix it.

IMO, the ~120 pages of help documentation is great. They start with simplist instructions, how to drag n drop, to multi leveled chapter making with auto pause points while a different audio track is playing, you can even use ranom stills during the pause points, with auto repeating audio.

[disturbed1]

And as a side note, the White Book VCD spec states that the gop must be in a consitant form of IBBPBBPBBPBBPBB where the distance between I frames is ~.5 seconds.

NTSC 29.97 FPS GOP length of 15 I=1, P=4, B=2
IBBPBBPBBPBBPBB 15 frames

PAL 25 FPS GOP length of 12 I=1, P=3, B=2
IBBPBBPBBPBB 12 frames

NTSC FILM 23.976 same as PAL

I believe alot of people are confusing the NTSC Broadcast MPEG1 max GOP distance of 18 standard with the Whitebook VCD spec ~.5 sec GOP.

SVCD spec only states the GOP "Should be less than 2 seconds between I frames".

[RFontenot]

distrubed1,

No disrepect, but I was able to remux and build most of the time as long as the settings I listed as critical were set. However, I have changed my TMPGEnc settings to match the White Book specs you listed, and I recommend everyone else do so too. It's been my experience that the closer I adhere to the White Book spec, the better everything looks and works.

I haven't been able to find a copy of the White Book spec posted anywhere. You seemed to have a copy, though. Did you have to buy it from Philips or do you know where I can find a copy?

RF

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: RFontenot on 2001-07-17 12:27:04 ]</font>

[disturbed1]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-07-17 12:26:01, RFontenot wrote:
distrubed1,

I haven't been able to find a copy of the White Book spec posted anywhere. You seemed to have a copy, though. Did you have to buy it from Philips or do you know where I can find a copy?

RF

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: RFontenot on 2001-07-17 12:27:04 ]</font>
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Philips doesn't own the spec, just the copyright on the VCD logo and technology. The spec is owned by the International Standards Organization (ISO). It is for sell, I believe around a couple thousand for the book.

If you spend a few hours searching and reading, you'll be able to piece the whole thing together. Don't search for VCD, but for White Book, ISO/IEC 11172 and other standards like that. I'm lucky enough to know someone who still has a few paper copies of older documents when Philips used to publish their weekly CD-I developer reports. Nothing great there, but some usefull info on GOP's and stuff like that.

You could also do research on the decoder boards themselves, C-Cube use to have a fantasic site about standards, too bad they've either taken it down, or moved it.

Since VCD's have become more of a hobby instead of a proffesional product alot of bad/wrong information is floating around, that's why I don't recomend searching for VCD, but instead for the standards, and technology involved.

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-07-17 12:26:01, RFontenot wrote:
distrubed1,
No disrepect, but I was able to remux and build most of the time as long as the settings I listed as critical were set.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

The reason for the GOP setting, and sequence stamping of the GOP is to allow chapter entries. With out these, Tool Kit will say something like couldn't set entry point to hh:mms, had to use hh:mms instead. TMPG doesn't handle this correctly, or at least in Beta 12, 12a, 12h, I haven't seen it handled correctly.

When ever I've used TMPG to demux a program, an error happens every time. Same errors when ever I encode audio with PWI, and when I export file as a wav through TMPG.

Perhaps I just had bad luck with the 3 files I tried, of course after 3, I decided not to use those methods any more. Even if they would/could work, the way I suggested works best for my projects.

No disrespect? None taken


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: disturbed1 on 2001-07-19 11:17:51 ]</font>

[RFontenot]

Some folks get a little touchy when you don't agree with them 100%, other's take it in stride. Glad to see you're the latter.

I did run into the exact error about moving the entrypoint that you described when I used chaptermarks. Proves that it pays to follow the standard, but it's hard when there is so much disinformation about what the true standard is.

If I understand you correctly, are you saying that the "Sequence header output interval" setting for GOP Structure doesn't work properly in TMPGEnc?

As for problem with .wav files, I found a program called SoX that fixed up my .wavs so I could use them. The link to it is in my CD-Audio guide for VCD2TK.

RF

[disturbed1]

I read that, about problems with menus and audio. I'll have to check it out, another app can never hurt

TMPG suffers from the same problem as PWI. After/before, somewhere around there, the encoder should *stamp?* the GOP with a time frame. Which allows decoders to figure out where in the time frame they are. This aids in FF/RW, and time search. There other things done to aid GOP fubars like SCANDATA in the EXT track, but correctly done chapters are almost impossible without a perfect encoded GOP.

Check Vitaulis's post on the new VCDImager demo, he suffered from our same problems trying to create chapters with PWI.

Ulead's MSP has problems with TMPG files, instead of leaving out, or reconfiguring the chapters, it just quits.

To correct this, I just run the mpv file through Mpeg sequence maker, and select stamp all GOPs. I can't say 100% of the time, but so far so good.

To be honost, it wouldn't bother me if you disagreed 100%, I like everyone thoughts and take everyting as a learning experience. I'm just glad to see another person who likes to stick to the specs.

If you want to know a little more about GOP's and other indepth things, try this link http://rcs.ee.washington.edu/CE/notes/sun_mpeg/index.htm some pretty serious stuff.

[RFontenot]

patrickm,

I hadn't run into the problem you described about VCDMUX reading past the end of the file until recently. Here's what happened to me:

I had recorded a 1 hour program with my ATI AIW Radeon using the "Good Quality" setting which is 640x240 MPEG-2 @ 6Mbps. I used TMPGEnc to reencode the video and audio separately to the VCD specs disturbed1 and I posted. I also set "Motion Search Accuracy" to it's highest quality.

It took over 12 hours to encode the video portion. Fortunately, the audio encoded much quicker. I used VCDMUX to multiplex the streams together which resulted in a perfectly VCD 2.0 compliant file that VCD2TK would accept.

However, I wanted to cut out all of the commercials. So I used TMPGEnc Cut/Join tool and created a new commercial-free MPEG-1 video. Unfortunately, the file was no longer VCD compliant. So I demuxed with the basic demux tool and then tried to remux with VCDMUX.

Unfortunately, VCDMUX failed with the same "read past end of file" error you described. I tried demuxing the original commercial-free MPEG-1 file several different ways, with no luck.

What did work for me was to use TMPGEnc to RE-ENCODE the audio from the commercial-free MPEG-1 file, just as I did when I first encoded it from the original MPEG-2 file. I could then use VCDMUX to multiplex the demuxed video file together with the freshly encoded audio file. Finally I had my commercial-free, VCD 2.0 compliant video.

The audio for most of the program is a voiceover, so it is hard for me to tell if the audio and video are perfectly in sync. From what I could tell, it seemed to be. Supposedly there is a way to adjust the A/V syncing in TMPGEnc, but I haven't found out how to yet.

Sorry for the length, but I figure a lot of people want commercial-free videos, and would want the gory details.

RF

[RFontenot]

For ATI owners wondering why I didn't just record the program in real time as a VCD:

Yes I know I can record VCD's with my AIW in real time. This video, however, was recorded when I was playing around with recording MPEG-2 files. The program was all about trains, and hasn't been rebroadcast since I recorded it. My son loves it, but since it was a MPEG-2, he could only watch it on my computer. So for me, it was worth the effort to reencode it as a VCD so he could watch it on my DVD player in the family room.

RF

[patrickm]

does anyone know if bbMPEG's bbMUX (or whatever it's called) is any better than TMPG with the cut/demux and remux part? i'm not especailly interested in a ton of re-encodes either. but i'll try redoing the audio and see if that solves any of my problems.

[aktayal]

Hi,

How can the VCD Toolkit be used to create entry points for a VCD track ?

Thanks,

Anil

[RFontenot]

Look in the help file for info about creating chaptermarks. It's toolkit lingo for entrypoints.

RF

[vitualis]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-07-19 20:18:43, disturbed1 wrote:
...[clip]...Check Vitaulis's post on the new VCDImager demo, he suffered from our same problems trying to create chapters with PWI....[clip]

To correct this, I just run the mpv file through Mpeg sequence maker, and select stamp all GOPs. I can't say 100% of the time, but so far so good.</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Yes, this seems to work for my PWI encoded MPEGs too. After I demux them, I run the elemental video stream through MPEG Sequence Maker and then remux the video and audio with TMGPEnc. This seems to work... in so much as it it accepted perfectly by VCDImager and plays properly on my rather fussy stand-alone VCD player.

FYI, muxing with Xing doesn't work... and I haven't tried it with bbMPEG.

On a side note, TMPGEnc seems to be encoding it's MPEGs in a funny way. Even with the GOP "closed" setting checked and auto-detect scenes turned off (i.e., presumably the GOP length is fixed and regular) someone recently posted that some entrypoints were up to 15 seconds off (should be no more than 0.25 seconds presuming the GOP length is standard). Although I don't know for sure, it would seem to me that TMPGEnc still isn't properly encoding the MPEG-1 stream?? Can anyone with experience on this comment?

Regards.

[disturbed1]

I concur with your findings about TMPG. It would seem as though Hori San doesn't know about the significance a GOP pattern plays in mpeg encoding. Nor does TMPG follow the bit rate settings you put forth. That could be why Xing doesn't work with TMPG files. When ever I use DVD2MPG squeezer, I always mux with Xing. Of course that's using the older PWI plug in.

I would assume that TMPG doesn't put the correct time stamps on the I frames. Which would explain the errors seen with entry points. When ever I author (S)VCD's with entry points, I use mpeg Sequence maker, then mux with bbMpeg. This seems to put the correct time stamps which allow accurate chapter surfing. I haven't tried entry points with a muxed Xing file though.

I have come across so many errors with TMPG that I no longer have it installed. It may produce ok quality for free, but compliancy is far too big of a sacrifice.

I even went as far as emailing Hori San about the errors produced by TMPG. Also posted them to the TMPG BBS, and the feature request form. I don't expect any changes though. After all every version has included a VCD template with wrong parameters which produce out of spec files.

TMPG is also committing the same quantity before quality error most people seem to make. With every *improvement* I have seen speed increases with slight quality degradation.