TMPGEnc multiple movie problems.

[jamie316]

Hi I am new here, although I have (some) experience with converting.
I would really appreciate it if anyone could help out here. The scenario:

I have a bunch of small 200-250MB divx avi's, I would like to convert them to dvd and watch on my standalone player using TMPGEnc.

First Question
After I have done the audio bit with Virtual Dub, I run the wizard (in TMPGEnc), choose the source video and audio files and run through the various options. At the end it typically says that the 200mb file will take up 70-100% of my 4.7GB DVD. If I lower this to say 30% the movie converts, but the player does not see beyond roughly a minute or two, why is this? I know divx is highly compressed, but can I really only fit 1 200MB 1 hour video on 1 DVD!?

Second Question
I ran through some of the other posts and found out about joining two vids together as one when encoding by renaming vid1, vid2 e.t.c. How does this way manage to fit both on one DVD and not the other mentioned above? Also this way makes the video pretty unsmooth, with frames being dropped. Is there a way to fix that?

Again any help is greaty appreciated, thanks.

Jamie

[bugster]

The size of an mpeg file (as produced by tmpgenc) depends on two things only. These are the total playing time and the bitrate used to encode it. It is the bitrate you are effectivley changing when selecting the disk %.

I would suggest cancelling the wizard and loading a template. Then you can adjust the various parameters to suit your needs more exactly. If any setting is 'locked' simply click on the text next to it and select unlock.

To work out the best bit rate to fit your movies on a DVD sue a bitrate calculator here . Enter the total playing time of all your clips added together.

Hope this helps.

[mmasw]

The size of an mpeg file (as produced by tmpgenc)
I would suggest cancelling the wizard and loading a template. Then you can adjust the various parameters to suit your needs more exactly.

Bugster is right about this. however there is a small amendment to his advice (he likes it when I clarify his notions)

when you load/ create a template, make sure you 'mimic' the GOP Stucture setting of the wizard....especially maintaining 18 or fewer maximum frames in a GOP. Otherwise an authoring program such as TMPGEnc may not accept the video as valid.

[bugster]

The size of an mpeg file (as produced by tmpgenc)
I would suggest cancelling the wizard and loading a template. Then you can adjust the various parameters to suit your needs more exactly.

Bugster is right about this. however there is a small amendment to his advice (he likes it when I clarify his notions)

when you load/ create a template, make sure you 'mimic' the GOP Stucture setting of the wizard....especially maintaining 18 or fewer maximum frames in a GOP. Otherwise an authoring program such as TMPGEnc may not accept the video as valid.

If you load one of the DVD templates that TmPgenc is supplied with, the GOP settings will be correct for DVD.

[mmasw]

[quote="mmasw"]

TOtherwise an authoring program such as TMPGEnc may not accept the video as valid.

...and to clarify myself....I meant an authoring program such as TMPGEnc DVD Author

[mmasw]

If you load one of the DVD templates that TmPgenc is supplied with, the GOP settings will be correct for DVD.

agreed...how about this then: once you start unlocking and editing templates, don't touch the GOP Structure page

not that that ever happened to me of course

[Gazorgan]

I think the original posters problems stems from converting low res AVI to full D1 Resolution.

Typical resoutions you should use are(all MPEG2):
(for NTSC)
352x240 Progressive (avi's 320x240 ish)
352x480 Interlaced (known as 1/2 D1) (avi's 400x300 ish)

I don't reccomend 720x480 for any avi unless it's at least 640x480 and a high bitrate.

MPEG2 can be 29.97 fps, or 23.97 fps with 3:2 pulldown set. Most AVI's will be 29.97 fps, except for DVD rips.

[jamie316]

Thanks guys, I will try some of the things mentioned.