Pixelated Conversions in TMPGenc

[Afterlife]

Im converting 24min episodes of a show. In total I will have 4 discs, 7,7,6,6.

So I am converting from a divx to mpeg2 in tmpgenc.

My settings are:
Video Tab:
Stream: Mpeg2
Size: 720x480
Display: 4:3
Rate Control: 2pass VBR
Bitrate: Avg 2700, min 2000, max 8000
VBV: 224
Encode mode: 3:2 pull down when playback
DC compression: 9
Motion Precision: HQ

Advanced tab:
source type: non-interlace progressive
source: 1:1 VGA
Video arange: Full screen keep aspect

GOP tab:
1,7,1,1,18

Now with these settings it takes 4hrs an episode, quality seems good no pixelation. Problem is it takes too damn long. I have over 400 files to convert and dont have 66 days of straight encoding lying around.

So I changed the Motion precision to estimate and now I seem to get blocky scenes, or pixels. This isnt good either, especially when if I did this in WinAVI it would be done in 20 mins w/o pixels.

So how can I speeden this up while retaining quality and no blocks?

Thanks![/quote]

[ZippyP.]

Personally I would use 352X480 resolution which would also allow you to go to CBR at 2700 Kbps. Should be twice as fast and less blocky.

[Afterlife]

352x480? Didnt know DVDs could do this resolution.

if I did 352x480 wouldnt I have to resize the file or will TMPGenc do this normally? And why would I want CBR 2700 vs a VBR?

The avis are cartoons FYI.

Thanks

[ZippyP.]

352x480? Didnt know DVDs could do this resolution.

Technical info.

will TMPGenc do this normally?

Yes. You just need to adjust the resolution settings in TMPGEnc.

And why would I want CBR 2700 vs a VBR?

You said speed is an issue and 2-pass takes twice as long. 2-pass VBR is good when your bitrate is getting low or if you are trying to get as much as possible on a disk. Sound familiar? 2700 is low for full DVD resolution, even when you use 2-pass VBR, but it is acceptable for 1/2 DVD. It should be just fine for your cartoons. Try a short sample and see if it works for you.

[Afterlife]

Thanks for the information.

Could you elaborate more on Half DVD, whats the difference between it and full besides the obvious resoltion?

Also because the res is so low as im trying to cram 7 24 mins series onto a dvd should Is stick with 2pVBR for best quality or will CBR2700 look the same?

Thanks appreciate the help immensly

[ZippyP.]

1/2 DVD will not be as sharp, that's the basic difference. Higher resolutions require higher bitrate in order to avoid blockiness, so at lower bitrates it's better to drop the resolution to compensate.

2700 CBR should be fine for 1/2 DVD resolution, you might get better quality with 2-pass but I wouldn't bother.

[Afterlife]

Thanks,

Do you know of any resources, tutorials etc where I can learn more about this? Conversion and authoring is something I like a lot and wouldnt mind getting to know a lot more.

Thanks!

[ZippyP.]

Do you know of any resources, tutorials etc where I can learn more about this?

jimmalenko has some good guides and he's usually around here if you need to ask some questions.

avi to dvd: http://members.dodo.net.au/~jimmalenko/AVI2DVD.htm

guides list: http://members.dodo.com.au/~jimmalenko/index2.html

[DRP]

Im converting 24min episodes of a show. In total I will have 4 discs, 7,7,6,6.

So I am converting from a divx to mpeg2 in tmpgenc.

My settings are:
Video Tab:
Stream: Mpeg2
Size: 720x480

This resolution is way too large for only ~2700 average bitrate. This is why you're getting pixelation. You're running out of bits for such a large resolution. Use SVCD resolution instead and author as DVD-SVCD instead.

Encode mode: 3:2 pull down when playback

Convert to PAL instead. Not only will the image not be jumpy anymore, but you'll be able to lift the bitrate slightly higher as well due to 4% faster running speed.

DC compression: 9

Use 8 instead at these bitrates. Don't even dream of going to 9 until you're > 4000kbps at least.

Motion Precision: HQ

Use Motion Estimate (Fast) instead

[ZippyP.]

Use SVCD resolution instead and author as DVD-SVCD instead.

SVCD on DVD is a non-standard resolution that many (most?) dvd players will not display. 1/2 DVD will work on all players.

Convert to PAL instead.

Big mistake in ntsc-land, most systems will not display it.

[DRP]

Use SVCD resolution instead and author as DVD-SVCD instead.

SVCD on DVD is a non-standard resolution that many (most?) dvd players will not display. 1/2 DVD will work on all players.

It's worth a quick and simple test to see though. In my experience, most DVD players these days do in fact play it without bother because they use the same generic MPEG decoder chips which are installed in a range of other video related hardware like cameras, projectors, etc. In fact the cheaper your DVD player the more likely it is to support non-standard formats. Some DVD players even play 528x480/576 resolution as well and that doesn't comply with VCD, CVD, SVCD or DVD.

Convert to PAL instead.

Big mistake in ntsc-land, most systems will not display it.

Really? How odd. Everywhere else you but off the shelf TVs, videos etc and they are automatically switching. They just play whatever you send them in whatever standard it happens to be. The same manufacturers must go out of their way to disable that functionality for USA models.

[Afterlife]

Ok so I converted the files, about 3/7 of them are fine, and the rest still are pixelated.

I want to keep the DVD as standard as possible so no DVD-SVCD thanks, and I'd also like to keep to NTSC.

As DRP said I will test changing the DC compression from 9 to 8, can anyone explain DC compression? I googled it but cant really find an answer. Id like to understand what all the settings do and the effect they have.

Motion Precision I set to HQ, because at the 1/2 DVD and CBR it only takes about an hour. From what I understand Motion Precision is how detailed it reads each frame, HQ takes longer as it reads more detailed, and Motion precission I think reads only on very active scenes.

Are there any other settings I shoudl be changing?

[DRP]

Please read this page: http://dvd-hq.info/Compression.html#Top

[DRP]

Ok so I converted the files, about 3/7 of them are fine, and the rest still are pixelated.

Don't forget that you can't improve on the original. If you are converting downloaded AVI files and there are already macroblocks in them, then TMPGEnc sees those macroblocks as part of the intended picture and will try to replicate them in the MPEG.

This is typical particularly on plain colour backgrounds over shoulders and the like. It is very apparent on AVI encoded by the very old but still surprisingly common DivX v3 codec.

[Afterlife]

Ok so reading that guide, just a few questions DRP.

1. My sources are OpenDivx v4, 879Kbps, 23.976fps, 640*480(4:3)

Now what fps should I use in TMPGenc? I'm going to assume keep it at 23.976, or should I change this to 29.97?

2. I read elsehwere that for Encode mode if the source is 23.976 it should be 3:2 pulldown when playback, but that guide says thats only for FILM?

3. In Advanced for Video source type, the type is animation, his guide says non-interlace for non-interlaced aniamtion, how would I determine this?

Thanks!

[DRP]

Ok so reading that guide, just a few questions DRP.

1. My sources are OpenDivx v4, 879Kbps, 23.976fps, 640*480(4:3)

Now what fps should I use in TMPGenc? I'm going to assume keep it at 23.976, or should I change this to 29.97?

If you didn't make those AVI files (ie. you downloaded them) then you don't know if they were deinterlaced when they were made or not. If they were deinterlaced then you don't know what pattern was used in the deinterlacing. This is important because to go back to 29.97 again you must reverse the process used to make the AVI in the first place, and since you don't know what that process was, you can't do this with 100% accuracy. The result will be that playback will become very slightly jumpy or jittery on occasion while watching it in NTSC form (ie. either 23.976 pulled down by the DVD player during playback or in full 29.97 form pulled down by TMPGEnc during encoding). There's nothing you can do about this. It sucks, but that's par for the NTSC course I'm afraid. Live with it.

From an encoding POV, if you insist on staying with NTSC then 23.976 with a pulldown flag will produce the best quality because you aren't wasting bits encoding duplicate frames which are created from other surrounding unique frames. Your DVD player will automatically create the extra required frames to get it up to 29.97fps on the fly while you play it. DVD players are designed to this. It's all perfectly normal.

2. I read elsehwere that for Encode mode if the source is 23.976 it should be 3:2 pulldown when playback, but that guide says thats only for FILM?

That's right. Stuff recorded on film like movies, the better tv shows, documentaries etc. are recorded at 24fps. To then show that on broadcast TV, a telecine is done to get it up to 29.97, but that can be undone again if needed. The alternative is stuff recorded on video with handheld video cameras. Pr0n and the cheaper TV shows are usually recorded straight to video primarily because it's much cheaper to do so. Since the vast majority of these kinds of shows are filmed in the USA they use NTSC video cameras. An NTSC video camera records using 29.97 completely unique fps so it can simply be broadcast straight away as is with no other intermediate process required. You can't undo this kind of recording to get back down to 23.976 without throwing away unique frames. This leads to jerkiness & stuttering in playback because there are literally 6 unique frames missing each second.

3. In Advanced for Video source type, the type is animation, his guide says non-interlace for non-interlaced aniamtion, how would I determine this?

I don't know. I never play with that setting at all and I've never needed to. TMPGEnc autodetects what you send it and from my experience it never gets it wrong.

[Afterlife]

So basically the only setting to change was the DC Compression from 9 to 8, and I seriously doubt this will make a noticeble difference.

The original sources from what I can see going frame for frame in VDUBMOD, seems lightly pixelated, not to the degree that the encoded files are.

What I think might be the problem is that as I'm using half D1 the resolution is smaller so the pixelation from the original whichis higher gets amplified, meaning the pixels become more visible and noticable.

[Afterlife]

Ok so ive been converting all week to try and get it so I can get 26 episodes across 4 dvds in a 7/7/6/6 fashion, but I cant find any settings that will get rid of the pixelation.

Here is an example of what im talking about.
70.24.197.20/dvd.php

The original does not have this.

Also another pattern im noticing is that the pixelated frames are I frames 90% of the time. Why is it just I frames that are coming out this way?

[DRP]

Resize using a Lanczos3 filter in VDub and then frameserve that into TMPGEnc. That will reduce or hide the pixelation to a great degree I've found from experience. TMPGEnc uses a very primative Bilinear resizing algorithm for the sake of speed but the quality isn't terribly good.

[Afterlife]

ok, at the risk of sounding really noobish...

i have no idea what you said or even how to do that lol but ill look into it.

[junkmalle]

http://70.24.197.20/dvd.php

That is not "pixelation", it's encoding or decoding errors. There is something seriously wrong with your software or computer.

[DRP]

http://70.24.197.20/dvd.php

That is not "pixelation", it's encoding or decoding errors. There is something seriously wrong with your software or computer.

Umm yeah... what he said. You have major issues there. That's considerably worse than what anyone would call "pixelation". That's way beyond mere pixelation. You have much bigger issues to resolve before you need to start worrying about TMPGEnc settings.

[Afterlife]

lol, using TMPGenc and my PC is fine.

only on I frames is it doing that mind you

[Afterlife]

Ok noticed one thing, all encodes afterwards when opened in DVD-Lab pro their first frame or start of the episode on a black screen it says

"BFRAME DECODER LAG"

and some say
"WARNING NOTHING TO OUTPUT"
"BFRAME DECODER LAG"

could this be causing the issues?

[Afterlife]

bump

still needing assistance with this if anyone can help

[guns1inger]

I would start by

1. Checking for errors in the source files using virtualdubmod

2. Upgrade the codecs for the source to the latest versions

3. Using avisynth to resize and frameserve to tmpgenc

[Afterlife]

Ok so I uninstalled all my codecs and reinstalled them.
Now the Decoder B Frame warning is gone.

Ran original source file thru TMPGenc error detection:
0 frames masked, 0 frames bad, 0 frames good but undecodeable.

So with the new codecs I encoded again, same settings same result.

Can someone please explain to me what resizing and frameserving will acomplish, as ive never had to do it before. Also if anyone can help me use avisynth to do this I would be very grateful.

[Afterlife]

[quote="Afterlife"]Ok so I uninstalled all my codecs and reinstalled them.
Now the Decoder B Frame warning is gone.

Ran original source file thru TMPGenc error detection:
0 frames masked, 0 frames bad, 0 frames good but undecodeable.

So with the new codecs I encoded again, same settings same result.

AviScript for resizing and frameserving to tmpgenc says this:
AviSource("C:\FMA02.avi").LanczosResize(352,480)

Will see how this turns out...

Thanks!

[Afterlife]

Ok this seems to have done the job. Opened it up in VDM and scanned thru where the crazy pixelation was earlier and now its fine.

Now can someone explain why it wasnt working and why resizing and frameserving did work?

[Afterlife]

Also are there any other things I can do to it besides resizing to increase the quality without increasing the tmpgenc time to encode.

Also is this the best resizer? Lanczos3???

Thanks!