Questions about ffmpegX and solving problems

[yosarian]

I recently switched back to a Mac from a PC and now I have to get reacquainted with the various software packages for converting and burning video. I apologize is these questins have been answered already, a search brought back results that didn't address my questions.

I have several avi files I want to convert and burn to a DVD. Many readers here had suggested ffmpegX to other users, so I dl'd and installed it and was able to
go ahead and convert a test avi.

However, I have a few questions

-Audio/Video out of Sync: When I watched the avi, the audio and video are in sync.
After I converted in ffmpegX, they are out of sync. When I did this on my PC, I had to seperate the audio and video and encode the audio seperately and then put them together when creating the mpegs for DVD. What tools would you recommend for encoding audio seperately? And is there a tool I can use to see what the audio and video codecs are for my avi files?

-Batch Encoding: The tool I had for my PC allowed me to pair up several avi's and previous encoded audio streams as a large batch. This allowed me to set up the program to run while I slept and when I awoke, I had several avi's converted and ready to burn rather then doing them one at a tiime. Does ffmpegX do this? If so how and if not, what is a good program that will?

-Creating chapters for DVD: When I encoded my test avi, I selected "DVD ffmpeg", which produced the DVD Audio_TS and Video_TS folders for me for direct burning. What if I wanted to have several avi's, each as its own chapter on my dvd? I saw that ffmpegX also produced a .mpg file, (which I think I could drop into Toast and use to make the DVD, right?) but QT won't open it for me, so I can not watch it. Is there a way to create seperate chapters for a DVD when going the "DVD ffmpeg" route? I would perfer to have the program create the nessecary Video_TS files for me rather then have to go another step. (But if I do, that's fine.)

Thanks! I will probably have many more questions over the next several days.

[Case]

-Audio/Video out of Sync
ffmpegX produces separate video (m2v/mpv) and audio (ac3/mp2/m1a) files, as well as a muxed MPEG file. The elementary streams can be used by other authoring apps as well. The ffmpegX Mux tool also has a sync offset option.

-Batch Encoding
ffmpegX is a GUI that lets ffmpegX Progress handle the encoding. After starting one encode, you can queue the next one.

-Creating chapters for DVD
If you use Toast to create a DVD from several MPEG files, it will set chapter markers every 5 minutes (if no chapter markers were found in the MPEG file), as wel as a new title to skip to for every input file.
Topic 290646 is a nice thread on chapter markers, including on how to do that with the free tool Sizzle.

[yosarian]

-Audio/Video out of Sync
ffmpegX produces separate video (m2v/mpv) and audio (ac3/mp2/m1a) files, as well as a muxed MPEG file. The elementary streams can be used by other authoring apps as well. The ffmpegX Mux tool also has a sync offset option.

-Batch Encoding
ffmpegX is a GUI that lets ffmpegX Progress handle the encoding. After starting one encode, you can queue the next one.

-Creating chapters for DVD
If you use Toast to create a DVD from several MPEG files, it will set chapter markers every 5 minutes (if no chapter markers were found in the MPEG file), as wel as a new title to skip to for every input file.
Topic 290646 is a nice thread on chapter markers, including on how to do that with the free tool Sizzle.

I noticed the ac3 file in my test folder. does the ffmpegX Mux tool allow you to adjust the amount of shift so you can sync it up correctly?

And i couldn't tell the quality of the mpeg file that was made, since QT was acting up for me.

Thanks for the info on chapters, I will check it out and keep playing with it all.

[Case]

I noticed the ac3 file in my test folder. does the ffmpegX Mux tool allow you to adjust the amount of shift so you can sync it up correctly?

You may set the shift in milliseconds, e.g. "500" or "-300". Obviously, this only works if the sync doesn't get worse over time.

And i couldn't tell the quality of the mpeg file that was made, since QT was acting up for me.

QuickTime doesn't play back MPEG-2 video, nor AC3 audio in muxed MPEG files. The first can be solved by installing the $20 QuickTime MPEG-2 playback component, which ffmpegX may also use in some conversions.
Other players, such as VLC and MPlayer may be more suitable for MPEG-2 playback. There's even a version of mplayer in ffmpegX, so you could drop the MPEG file on the ffmpegX window and hit the Play button.