divx or xvid -> Mpeg2 no encoder produces good results

[Mitchjs]

I concluding its impossible to encode a .avi to mpg2 and have it be good, and im not talking visually

here is my scenario:

A avi file with no sound in it, its at 23.976 and 608 x 272
it is encoded in XviD

I load it into tmpgenc, set up all the goodies: i encode at 23.976, 720 x 480 (keeping aspect ratio), CQ

a few hours later i get a m2v

then i run pulldown.exe

play it in powerdvd, it looks fantastic, but not smooth... heres the pattern, plays smooth for about 3 seconds, then a few jerks, then smooth again, then jerks, then smooth... about every 3-4 seconds... totally unacceptable..

cce produces a fine looking picture but has same jerkyness

i play it in stand alone player, its has same.

clearly its not tmpgenc, since cce does the same
its not playback of powerdvd, since it does it in my standalone dvd

oh, by the way the avi plays is perfect!!!!!

whats left, some how how tmpeg gets the stream, the directshow filter? but the avi plays great...

i have tried many different setting, they ALL exibit this problem

here is another piece of info, i encoded a short part of the movie as a test... it was perfect! no jerky ness... why cant i get the whole movie smooth

its like during playback the movie slows up for a sec...

remember no audio here...

HELP

mitch

[Qeef]

I`m having exactly the same problems!!!! And nobody seems to know the answer...I`ve tried everything I know and spend hours and hours of fixing this.....but no luck....

Maybe someday there will be a smart person on this forum who knows the answer.....I can`t help you...
I wish somebody outthere could tell us how to encode XViD to SVCD on a proper way....
Sorry I`m not the one who can give you the answer....
When you figger it out before I do...let me know...

Qeef.

[0 kewl]

Most XviD AVIs come with AC3 for sound (unknown tag 2000 in Virtual Dub). If that is the case, deal with your audio as per this guide. Otherwise just extract your audio the usual way. Then load your audio and video into TMPGEnc using this guide or frameserving.


Regards.

[Qeef]

allready tried that...no luck...but thnx for replying....Qeef.

[sterno]

I've seen this problem with a couple DivX clips. After doing some checking, I concluded that in my case the real question wasn't "why are the MPEGs bad?", it was "how can these DivX clips play correctly?" When I opened them in VirtualDub I found that the spots where MPEG playback was bad were places where the original files appeared to have duplicate frames, dropped frames, or blurred/blended frames (sort of like a telecine or interpolated frame). It looked like the playback of the DivX clips should have stuttered in exactly the same places, but for whatever reason it didn't.

Not that this actually helps you any with producing a good MPEG.

[Donny661]

The first XviD I did had the same problem of jerkiness. I'd open it in VirtualDub and did file information and it told me it was 29.976fps, but I would open it in TMPG and it would change my framerate to 30fps and when I opened the source range filter options at the top it had 30fps.

The only way I could fix this was to frameserve. I ended up frameserving with AviSynth for my final encode but I also tried VirtualDub's frameserver and that worked too. After that I had no jerkiness.

The XviD I have just got done doing would open in TMPG with the right framerate but when I tried to encode, it would crash. So I ended up frameserving with that too. My conlusion, XviD and TMPG don't mix. I think it might be something to do with XviD's DirectShow filter because they have been having problems with that and the only way I can open an XviD itself is to up the priority of DirectShow filter in environmental settings.

[Mitchjs]

I GOT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


every one pay attention here!


during my test (remember no audio)

CCE and TMPGENC produced the same crappy mpegs, infact, the movie shutters at the exact same spot!

determined that i might get this to work.. i have spent countless hours encoding... viewing ... and searching the web... everyone has this problem, no one has the solution

but i figured it out!


Based on deductive reasoning...

lets go over the path:

1. AVI (divx or xvid) with no audio
1a. test play in powerdvd looks great no shutter
----> AVI = ok

2. encode in tmpgenc or cce
2a. test play in powerdvd looks great BUT Shutter
----> encode bad

breaking down item #2

A. to encode in tmpgenc i set frame size to 720 x 480.. keep aspect ratio(2)... so fourth and so on...
B. to encode in CCE, open avi in tmpgenc, set frame size to 720 x 480 keep aspect ratio(2).... save project (.tpr) then i used vfapi converter, converted the .tpr to a .avi, opened it in cce and encoded...

ok, now we see a pattern, they both shutter, they both kinda went through tmpgenc

BINGO tmpgenc must be screwing it up...

ok, i took the avi right into cce(ofcourse now i lost my resize and letterbox), encoded a bit, and voila NO SHUTTER

ok... its the resize!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this is the right way to do this guys!

VIRTURALDUB! (one of the best programs out there)

here we go:
1. open avi in virdub
2. use SMART RESIZE FILTER; http://shelob.mordor.net/dgraft/resize.html
(set it to resize to 720 x 480) and tick the letterbox option
I can go into detail on this filter if you'd like but with its preview
anyone can learn what it does
3. Frameserve it! MAKE SURE you name it xxx.VDR
4. LOAD CCE v2.66 (latest) and add the .vdr
5. set your encode settings... and encode away... and you will be happy
with the no shuttering M2V file (or mpv)
6 after its encoded, run pulldown.exe if the frame rate of the avi is
23.976 for us ntsc boys!


some VERY IMPORTANT THINGS.... the standard GOP settings are funky, ill go into that a bit later


actually i got a lot more info to tell... but i dont want to type for ever

maybe ill do a text file

i would like some other people to try what i doing...

do a 5 min section of the avi and see how the mpeg2 playsback

is it smooth?

also im working on another CCE issue with it making the GOP sequence too large 38 frames insted of 36 or less
if anyone else has seen this please post...

i know i rambled on here... hopefully some good comes from it

mitch

[Qeef]

I`m going to try this for sure!!!! Only going to use Tempgenc istead of CCE...but that shouldn`t make a difference.....

I let you know what the results are a.s.a.p
THNX for the input!!!!!!!

[Qeef]

I MEAN CCE !!! I`m not going to use Tempgenc....sorry.....

[BoogieMan]

Nice post Mitchjs, been having problem with this one avi with slight twitch(jerk, jump) whatever you prefer to call it. Been pulling my hair out. Its not terrible just enough every so often to annoy me. Am going to try your method and will post back my results.


BoogieMan

[BoogieMan]

Well Mitchjs, it worked perfect to a point, jerkyness gone when watching on computer only now have a new problem, actually would be the one you eluded too but didnt quite answer, the gop. When i go to author my movie in ulead dvd moviefactory to get the audio and video ts files to burn, it loads the mpeg fine, then when i click on author, it gives me error " The number of video frames in a GOP is not valid for DVD" what should i set gop in CCE to and how?
But thanks again for getting rid of jerkiness.


BoogieMan

[mikey_d8]

I have found that when converting Xvid to SVCD. Here are the steps I use.
1. Split the file into as many disks as you want to have SVCD's. ( I am happy with two)
2. Check the split files to make sure the sound and video still match.
Separate the Video and Audio
3. Use Virtual Dub to convert the video to DivX 4, and save as avi. (note, make sure to check No Audio ) Usually I will save like this... movie name 1 of 2 and then the next one, movie name 2 of 2...and so on.
4. now do the same for the audio and choose to save wave.
5. Now use TMPGEnc to join them together and make your SVCD.

[banjazzer]

This method will mean a reduction in final quality, because you are encoding twice. A better way IMO is to extract the audio and video as wav and avi using Graphedit. Encode to mpeg2 by your favourite method, and then split to 2/3 discs. (Or use the source range setting to split if you are using TMPG).

[TheLarch]

BoogieMan

I am pretty sure that the GOP sturcture must be MAX 15.

TheLarch

[BoogieMan]

Thanks TheLarch, will try that, and thanks to others who helped too. Burning to Dvd though guys. Mitchjs's encoding tips did stop jumpiness, but side note to others when i tried to author in Ulead DVD moviefactory something that prog did, brought it back again (jumpiness), tossed it into DVD Maestro and perfect now.

Thanks again to all.


BoogieMan

[KRAUBV]

Hi all,

This how I do it with framerate conversion.

First phase

1. Load the DIVX in Virtualdub
2. Change the frame rate if you like
3. Choose Compresion (DIVX5.02)
4. No audio
5. Save as AVI

Second phase

1. Run TMPGENC
2. Encode the movie in the FrameRate you dowloaded it
3. Choose vidiosize 16x16 for speed

Third phase

1. Run MPEG Tools from TMPGENC
2. Choose Simple Demultiplex
3. Load the encode file from the second phase
4. Press RUN

Fourth phase

1. Load the newly created MP2 file in Bsweet
2. Convert the sound to the new Framerate and save it as WAV

Final Phase

1. Run TMPGENC
2. Load the videofile created with Virtual Dub
3. Load the WAV file created with BSWEET
4. Encode anyway you like

Result

Perfect running picture and NO sound sync problems.

GL HF

[banjazzer]

1. Load the DIVX in Virtualdub
2. Change the frame rate if you like
3. Choose Compresion (DIVX5.02)

Why are you encoding DivX to DivX???

[Jack_G]

Found something strange... I had the same problem when converting divx/xvid movies with tmpg. The original file plays fine/smooth but the converted mpeg-file is jerky/stuttering. Tried frameserving through VirtualDub... same problem. Played around with the priority of the plugins but no luck - I think I tried about everything. Yesterday I decided to try the OLD tmpgenc beta 12 (yes I know it's ancient ), disabled the directshow filter and set the priority of the AVI2 (open DML) file reader to 4, then frameserved from Virtualdub. Amazing.... NO stuttering. I don't know why but it works. Just thought I'd let you know because not everyone is into using CCE, I'm a tmpg-man myself.

Jack

[Jack_G]

Tested it with 12e this morning and that works fine too. I guess that something has changed in the newer versions that produces the stuttering. Well, glad I kept some old versions

So if your encoding from a 23,976 XVID or DivX and get a jerky mpeg try the older versions of Tmpg. (or go for the CCE solution mentioned above).

Jack

[banjazzer]

If you are encoding from an avi which plays smoothly and you get a result which stutters/is jerky I can think of two basic reasons.

1. The encoding framerate does not match the source.
2. There are error(s) in the source.

The most likely reason is the second one. Players can compensate for minor errors, whereas an encoder can choke. Various encoders (and versions of encoders) will handle minor errors differently.

To encode one more time than is necessary is a waste of time, and a waste of quality. Minor errors can be fixed with Virtualdub by scanning the video stream or by loading the video and re-saving using Direct stream copy. Look for KingJohn's guide to bad frames if you want more information.

Recoding is neither desirable nor necessary IMO.

[Jack_G]

I agree banjazzer, re-encoding the file to divx/xvid first is a waste of time and quality and it really doesn'thelp - the resulting mpeg has the same stuttering (I tried). As for the reason for the stuttering. The file I have has NO errors (says Virtualdub) - I have set it to direct stream copy - the framerate is 23,976 so that is what i set it to in tmpg and still I get a stuttering mpeg if I use the latest versions of tmpg (202 and higher). Doing the same with lets say 12e gives me a smooth mpeg so there must be something in the latest tmpg-versions that messes things up.

Jack

[tysons_2001]

i tried frameserving with vdub while using tmpgenc 12h, and i get the error Illegal floating decimal point calculation order, what am i doing wrong?

[tysons_2001]

i cannot get the old tmpgenc method to work
can someone give me more detail on how to do it

[tysons_2001]

I followed Mitchjs's guide but instead used tmpgenc, it worked but only when i used CBR, when i used VBR it goes al jumpy again and the sound goes jumpy with it. any help?

[Daz2001]

I have converted xvid to svcd with no problems just using dvd2svcd and everything plays fine.