TMPEGEnc Problem / Looking for Alternatives

[NiteFlame]

Hello,

I've a problem I don't understand and perhaps some of You had to deal with this earlier.

Using TMPEG for converting AVI's to (S)VCD worked very well for me in the future. But now, I've received a bunch of AVI's from a friend and when converting these, TMPEG closes unexpectedly without error messages or something else. The log file doesn't say anything about errors, it only misses the stats at the end. It seems to me that this normally happens at the end of an AVI file because the movie is converted well, but if there are more files queuing in the batch, they aren't processed. When I start TMPEG after it closed itself, there doesn't appear a batch result (neither for the processed nor for the queuing files).
Anyone ever heared about this?

Well, are there any alternatives to TMPEGEnc? Any information would be very appreciated.

Thanks in Advance!

Regards,
NiteFlame

[banjazzer]

Occasionally I find a DivX which when converted halts at 99% or thereabouts with an error. This is always at the end of the credits, and I find the mpg encodes perfectly, so I just ignore it. I blame the DivX, not TMPGEnc. Obviously, if you are using batch-mode this can cause problems. Why don't you try running multiple instances of TMPGEnc, each with one job allocated? I doubt you will find anything as versatile as TMPGEnc! Tell your friend to encode his DivX properly! 8)

[NiteFlame]

ok, this is very close to what I have thought. As it never appeared with my own dvd rips or when frame serving to tmpegenc, I think the source material might be crap.
thank You anyway!

Regards,
Niteflame

[Martin Green]

I just had the same problem and found that it was caused by the DivX 3 codec. Using the VirtualDub "Scan video stream for errors" on the original file showed numerous unreadable frames and VirtualDub crashed outright part way through the file. I used VirtualDub to force the FourCC code to "divx" so it would use the DivX 5.01 codec instead (do this by checking the "Popup extended open options" checkbox when opening the file, then using both video "Force" edits). I set audio and video to direct stream copy, then saved out to a new AVI file. The only difference between versions is the old file reported that it needed the DivX 3 codec and the new one requested DivX 5. Reloaded the new file into VirtualDub and scan of video stream detected zero errors. Fed new file to TMPGEnc and had no problems after that.

HTH - Martin.

[NiteFlame]

I've tried Your method after installing the divx 5.0.1 and it worked so far, but after opening and browsing through the avi file, I only saw black frames. After saving, the audio track seemed to be ok, but I didn't see anything. Do You have a clou what's wrong here? Thanks for helping!

I've uninstalled the 5.0.1 and used the 4.12 for a test, but the same effect appeared.

Regards,
NiteFlame

[Martin Green]

Well, I'm not sure. Make certain you set the FourCC code to "divx" (preferred) or "DIVX", not mixed case. Does the new file play OK in media player? This would indicate that DivX 5 is handling the video OK but the tool you are browsing with is not.

Can you see video OK on the original file? I wasn't sure which version you were talking about in your last post. You might want to use AVIInfo to peek at the header info in the old and new versions.

Let me know how you make out.

Martin.

[NiteFlame]

The FourCC value is set correctly, when I open the new file, it says DivX 5.01 or DivX 4.12, depending on the installed codec.
I don't see the movie either in media player or in virtualdub or tmpeg.
I've tried this on an other machine and had the same result, so it might not depend on my installation.

Regards,
NiteFlame

[Martin Green]

Does the original movie play OK? What codec is reported for the original file?

Martin.

[NiteFlame]

yes, the original plays back properly. VDub reports "Divx :-) MPEG 4 Low Motion".

[Martin Green]

VirtualDub doesn't differentiate between DivX versions. It always reports the compression type as "DivX ". Use an AVI info tool instead, such as "Quick AVI Info" to tell you what the original FourCC code was (I'm guessing it was "div3".

I'm running out of ideas though. It worked for me, but of course that's no guarantee it will for you.

Martin.

[NiteFlame]

I've used AviInfo to check the original AVI's codec and it says div3 what IMO should mean 3.22.
Well, You did more than I could expect. Maybe I'll find it out after several retries, it is really annoying when the batch encoding doesn't work properly.

Regards,
NiteFlame

[Martin Green]

Yep, the div3 FourCC code refers to the original DivX 3.xx, which was an illegal hack of the MS MPEG4 codec with MP3 audio tossed in. The DivX 5 codec is backward compatible with DivX 3 and 4, it runs better on less powerful hardware, and it is way less buggy. Too bad we don't seem to able able to get it to read your file properly.

One other thing you might try. Completely uninstall all DivX codecs you have on your system, then reinstall 5.01 from scratch. Hopefully this will allow the DivX 5 codec to register itself as the handler for all DivX streams you play, and to process your original file without having to mess with the FourCC code.

Otherwise, I'm fresh out of ideas. I'd really like to know if you get this figured out.


CIAO - Martin.

[NiteFlame]

I've had this idea, too, but was just too tired to do it yesterday. I've removed the DivX3.xx what wasn't that easy because to remove it from the Video Codec dialog didn't really work, so I deleted the divx3*.* from the System32 directory.After this really no divx material was viewed in the media player, so I installed the DivX 5.01. When opening a file in VirtualDub the File / Information dialog showed DivX 5.01 as the codec and the picture was good. Also the media player played the movie properly.
Now I've built a batch with 6 items and will see if it worked out well when I come home from work. I'll let You know what happened.

Regards,
NiteFlame

[NiteFlame]

OK, so now I am totally confused. I've tried three steps:

- After deleting the Divx 3.xx codec from my system, I've opened a div3 file with Virtualdub (without the extended open dialog) and saw that it will be processed with DivX 5.0.1, so I decided not to re-save it and went wrong because the batch in tmpeg was interrupted as before

- I've opened a div3 file and re-saved it with "direct stream copy", but after this, avi info reported the div3 codec for the new file. I didn't try to process this with tmpeg.

- I opened a div3 file with the extended open dialog in virtualdub and changed the fourcc fields to "divx". After saving the file, avi info reported divx instead of div3, but the screen was black again, only the audio was proper.

Well, perhaps it shouldn't be that I can fix this bug. I think we have tried everything possible.
What seems strange to me is that the divx :-) mpeg 4 codec (low and fast motion) can't be deleted from the "video codecs" dialog in WinXP. When I delete them, they appear again when the dialog is opened again.

So, I thin to give up because I don't understand that much about codecs and the way they work. Thank You anyway!

Regards,
NiteFlame