MPEG-2 (SVCD) --> MPEG-1 (VCD)

[Locutus]

I didn't see this posted before (yes I did search) so if it was posted before forgive me guys..

I have some files in MPEG-2 (Ready for SVCD) that I like to convert to MEPG-1 (ready for VCD).

I've been trying to use ffmpegX, with no luck. I either end up with a video that is so out of sync with audio it's not even funny. Or I end up with a movie with no sound. (sometimes I don't even get a movie file. I just get an error that it can't read the source file).

Quicktime is able to play the orignal files no problem, it can't export them because it says they contain no audio (One time it told me there was not video.)

What am I doing wrong? Any suggestions on what I should set ffmpegX to, or should I be using something eles all together.

Oh why would I want to go to MPEG-2 to MPEG-1? I don't have a superdrive/DVD-R and would like to put them on a disk, source is only 45mins so no problems there..

Thanks!

-Locutus

[ZeroSix]

ffmpeg will do this for you.

Open the source in quicktime and hit command+i to get info on the file. This will giev you a frame rate, which you should note. It will be either 23.98, 25, or 29.97. If it is off by a few decimals, then the framerate is whatever is closest.

Open ffmpeg, and select your source .mpg file and designate a target output file.

Use the Fast Mpeg-1 Preset. Change the framerate to either 23.98, 29.97, or 25, depending on what the source is. By using Fast MPEG-1, [ffmpeg and not mpeg2enc] you can adjust the frame rate to ANYTHING you want, but you will want to use one of the three mentioned.

Under audio, change it to 44kHz, from the default 48kHz.

Under Options, don't split it into to chunks, as your source is only 45 min, but DO author as a VCD [bin/cue]

Click encode and once finished, locate the .bin file, open Toast, select VCD under Toast and drag your .bin file over.

Using Fast MPEG-1, this should not be time consuming for you.

Let me know if this works for you.

-Ø

[Locutus]

Okay, I must be doing something terriable wrong here. I have done every thing like you said. I get a bin file, however here is the problem now.

If I extract the movie out of the bin file, I get a MPG-1 file, great! When I play the file on my Mac it plays fine. A few glitchs there and there, but livable. Now the problem, if I burn the movie to the disk either using the bin file or the extracted movie file, the movie and sound get out of sysnc. It doesn't happen right away, it slowly starts to drift, to the point it's really not watchable.

What am I doing wrong?

-Locutus

ffmpeg will do this for you.

Open the source in quicktime and hit command+i to get info on the file. This will giev you a frame rate, which you should note. It will be either 23.98, 25, or 29.97. If it is off by a few decimals, then the framerate is whatever is closest.

Open ffmpeg, and select your source .mpg file and designate a target output file.

Use the Fast Mpeg-1 Preset. Change the framerate to either 23.98, 29.97, or 25, depending on what the source is. By using Fast MPEG-1, [ffmpeg and not mpeg2enc] you can adjust the frame rate to ANYTHING you want, but you will want to use one of the three mentioned.

Under audio, change it to 44kHz, from the default 48kHz.

Under Options, don't split it into to chunks, as your source is only 45 min, but DO author as a VCD [bin/cue]

Click encode and once finished, locate the .bin file, open Toast, select VCD under Toast and drag your .bin file over.

Using Fast MPEG-1, this should not be time consuming for you.

Let me know if this works for you.

-Ø

[ZeroSix]

Very strange. Can you provide to me the exact terminal output when doing the conversion? Furthermore, it is unnecessary to extract the mpeg file out of the .bin file if you are using toast to burn.

Could you provide maybe a screenshot or two?

If you would like to do this over AIM, my name is zerosix[AT]mac.com

I dont want to immediately dismiss this idea, but your player just may not like the mpeg file. Every player handles these things differently --

For example, I can burn a 15fps VCD ccreated using the ffmpeg engine and it plays on my panasonic q just fine without sync issues. But when played on another DVD player, it reads the video as being 29.97 fps, thus making it dangerously out of sync.

There are other ways of doing this without it being so simple. One of course being Mediapipe [which will use mpeg2enc] and the other using mencoder or Quicktime. I'll explain the Mencoder and Quicktime procedure.

Mencoder:

in the terminal type:

mencoder -oac pcm -ovc lavc /path/to/your/svcd.mpg -o /path/to/your/output/file.avi

This will give you a .avi file that can be opened in quicktime and then exported to toast VCD.


Quicktime:

demux the original mpeg-2 file for a resulting .m2v and .mp2 file. Let me know if your file is AC-3.

Open the M2v file in a mpeg 2 decoder such as mpeg2decx, found here: http://homepage1.nifty.com/~toku/software_en.html

Export it to quicktime using a motion JPEG codec with about 80 quality. The resulting file may be very large, so be careful. Make sure that your frame rates are the same and your aspect ratio.

Then open iTunes. Create a new playlist and drag your .mp2 file to that, select it and convert it to .MP3 or .aif or .wav. This doenst matter what format you use, just as long as it is not MP2. Locate the resulting file, usually in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes/Music/Unknown Artist/Unknown Album and open it in Quicktime along with the quicktime video file you got out of mpeg2decx. Select all of the audio and copy it. Go the the video file in quicktime and select all and tell it to "ADD". Test to see if it is in sync. If not, undo, and select ADD SCALED instead. Then, go to FILE --> EXPORT --> and select Toast Video CD. The toast Export is very slow, so you might want to use a copy of quicktime.app if you have other things to do using quicktime.

This resulting file should play on any dvd player and computer without any compatibility issues.

OR if yo uhave mencoder you can skip all that crap.

Using the toast vcd export is a 100% surefire way to get the job done, but it is painfully slow, and there are open source apps, such as mediapipe, and ff that will do this for you much faster.

Feel free to IM me if yo uneed help.

[ZeroSix]

Oh yeah and Mediapipe --

If your sound is in .mp2 format then it needs no conversion.

demux your Svcd file and then open the .m2v file in Mediapipe.

Add these:

File Browser
File Streamer
scaler [change to 352x240]
color conversion
mpeg encoder [generate arguements and make sure it is VCD compliant with a matching frame rate]

Launch CLI.

When it is done, mux the .mpv file you got from Mediapipe with the original .mp2 file you got when you demuxed the svcd.

Hope this helps.

[Thargok]

Run the extracted MPEG-1 muxed file through VCD Imager. You can use a program that is based off the engine...or complie it yourself.

If you have 10.1 pre-compiled versions work, but I have no success with these in 10.2

[Locutus]

I just wanted to say in case any one eles was having the same problems as I was. Here is what I did thanks for ZeroSix's help. javascript:emoticon('')

I converted the file to AVI by doing:

mencoder -oac pcm -ovc lavc /path/to/your/svcd.mpg -o /path/to/your/output/file.avi

Then brought the AVI into quicktime and used the TOAST VCD Export. It makes a MPG1 file great for TOAST burning, and it works great on my DVD player.

Again thanks! javascript:emoticon('')

-Locutus

Very strange. Can you provide to me the exact terminal output when doing the conversion? Furthermore, it is unnecessary to extract the mpeg file out of the .bin file if you are using toast to burn.

Could you provide maybe a screenshot or two?

If you would like to do this over AIM, my name is zerosix[AT]mac.com

I dont want to immediately dismiss this idea, but your player just may not like the mpeg file. Every player handles these things differently --

For example, I can burn a 15fps VCD ccreated using the ffmpeg engine and it plays on my panasonic q just fine without sync issues. But when played on another DVD player, it reads the video as being 29.97 fps, thus making it dangerously out of sync.

There are other ways of doing this without it being so simple. One of course being Mediapipe [which will use mpeg2enc] and the other using mencoder or Quicktime. I'll explain the Mencoder and Quicktime procedure.

Mencoder:

in the terminal type:

mencoder -oac pcm -ovc lavc /path/to/your/svcd.mpg -o /path/to/your/output/file.avi

This will give you a .avi file that can be opened in quicktime and then exported to toast VCD.


Quicktime:

demux the original mpeg-2 file for a resulting .m2v and .mp2 file. Let me know if your file is AC-3.

Open the M2v file in a mpeg 2 decoder such as mpeg2decx, found here: http://homepage1.nifty.com/~toku/software_en.html

Export it to quicktime using a motion JPEG codec with about 80 quality. The resulting file may be very large, so be careful. Make sure that your frame rates are the same and your aspect ratio.

Then open iTunes. Create a new playlist and drag your .mp2 file to that, select it and convert it to .MP3 or .aif or .wav. This doenst matter what format you use, just as long as it is not MP2. Locate the resulting file, usually in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes/Music/Unknown Artist/Unknown Album and open it in Quicktime along with the quicktime video file you got out of mpeg2decx. Select all of the audio and copy it. Go the the video file in quicktime and select all and tell it to "ADD". Test to see if it is in sync. If not, undo, and select ADD SCALED instead. Then, go to FILE --> EXPORT --> and select Toast Video CD. The toast Export is very slow, so you might want to use a copy of quicktime.app if you have other things to do using quicktime.

This resulting file should play on any dvd player and computer without any compatibility issues.

OR if yo uhave mencoder you can skip all that crap.

Using the toast vcd export is a 100% surefire way to get the job done, but it is painfully slow, and there are open source apps, such as mediapipe, and ff that will do this for you much faster.

Feel free to IM me if yo uneed help.