Probs re-encoding VC-1 codec....

[runLoganrun]

Hi all,

I am having a heck of a time re-encoding anything with source having VC-1 Codec, this includes conversions for my Droid, or for files to be viewed in media center, latter mainly being TV episodes on blu-ray, being compressed for more reasonable storage size.
DROID- Nothing works with VC-1 codec, I have tried app after app and none of them do it right. For Droid, for example, the spec is baseline profile @L3, I believe, and that is what these encoders put out normally, with mpeg, or AVC, cuz they're designed to work for specific devices, BUT with VC-1, if it works at all, I always get Standard, or Main profile, @~L1.x, which will not play on phone, no matter what app I'm using. The apps don't encode them right. I've tried to encode Harry Potter VI about 15 times, or who knows, nothing works.
TV- Just now I attempted breaking up Battlestar Galactica Season 1 into individual clips (.m2ts) getting rid of extra stuff, using tsmuxer, with intent to then compress to ~1.0GB file. File won't even play, have shark's win7 codec pack installed, and can play .m2ts with WMP no prob normally, VLC Player started but crashed after 30 sec, and this is without any compression even. Tried ripping directly with xilisoft bd ripper, but it came out at like 3x speed, and had audio probs.

Is anyone having same prob with VC-1 codec, and how did you solve, what app are you using, for phone, or just ripped BD files, to .avi or .mkv, or whatever?

thanks, rlr

[johns0]

Uninstall the codecs packs and then install ffdshow,haali media splitter and java,then try uncropmkv or multiavchd after you install.

[runLoganrun]

Uninstall the codecs packs and then install ffdshow,haali media splitter and java,then try uncropmkv or multiavchd after you install.

what about the other goodies that come with shark007's pack (that's the only one I install), aside from this I've seldom had a problem and it allows playback with so many things, both in WMP and WMC? It contains haali though (or matroska, i forget which one is default) I suppose that's what allows mkv playback for wmp. I have to do a reinstall of OS today due to a F up with vlite (mine, not the software's), so perfect time to try your suggestion, will check it out though.

One question though- don't you have to install other things as well, what about for FLAC, or h264, etc, or are those in fffdshow? and I like the thumbnail visibility it allows, particularly in WMC.

thanks a lot,
rlr

[johns0]

All you need is ffdshow and haali media splitter for most files including flac and h264.

[runLoganrun]

All you need is ffdshow and haali media splitter for most files including flac and h264.

idk man, avchd is for making discs in various formats, and uncrop mkv- i set to resize to 960x540, and the uncrop to box stays at 1080x720, set to 3000kbps, trying to get ~1GB file out of my bsg episode which is in .m2ts, not mkv, and tried it anyway despite the unchanging uncrop to box, and in a millisecond it was done leaving me with a ghost file with 0kb, not sure how this is going to help me. I saw section though on vc-1 encoders, I'll look through there....

recap- looking to re-encode vc-1 to a) mkv(or hd avi) for playback on system, almost all hd tv programming I've downloaded is in mkv, they seem to work great, so that would be good. And b) smaller files for Droid. I have a great encoder for that purpose that I got on XDA, but it won't swing vc-1 for some reason, none of the commercial ones seem too, unless the codec pack I was using was jamming me up, idk. maybe try them again now.

thanks a lot,
rlr

[runLoganrun]

ok, I get uncrop mkv, sort of, as far as the uncrop field, they should just put aspect ratio, but anyway it wouldn't work on my .m2ts file, under stream tab vc-1 doesn't show up, although it does in right hand window? And, again, does not work, i put in queue, then hit start, and in a nanosecond it says done, with only producing "shadow file" containing nothing. I re-encoded this file with Super, to mkv, and that worked so file is fine. Only prob there though is quality, and at "normal" priority it pretty much made my computer useless otherwise (E8400@4G), and quality was kinda lame, I have vids that I've downloaded which are very compact for high def, 1.0G for 45min program, 2,000kbps, and they are WAY better looking than the clip I encoded with super at twice the bitrate, I looked but saw no option for 2 or more pass encoding, so the only thing I've found to work makes sub-par vids. I'm not making discs of anything, so don't see purpose of multiavchd, for me at least, thank you though. for part b) I did find a commercial program that seems to correctly re-encode vc-1 blu-ray to .mp4, it has right profile, just haven't checked to see if will work on Droid, but should, so that's all set.

BUT- I would like to get high quality mkv's out of some of my tv, serial, BDs, in h264/ac3, or other suggestion, but audio should be multichannel capable. I have AVS converter which "appears" to be able to encode to blu-ray, but only in stereo!! with everything else in full bd format, and settings not adjustable (for blu-ray). I suppose I could demux vc-1 stream to an .m2ts container, keeping audio seperate, so I could get into h264, but then I'd have to do same for audio, and use mkvmerge, but I don't want like a 10 step process to encode a video

is there any way to get thumbnails to work again for mkv files, w/o using win7 codec pack?

[luigi2000]

Windows 7 supports AVCHD, but not support for VC-1, DTS or HD audio. So you have to disable Media Foundation and use the DirectShow pipeline instead in WMP12/7MC, with proper filters.

Were your encode attempts ever successful in Windows 7? If yes, then ignore this reply.

1. Uninstall sharks Win7 codecs.
2. Verify that VC-1 encoded .m2ts files will not play in WMP12.
3. Perform this process to allow WMP12 to show VC-1 encoded video with directx instead of media foundation.

Buona fortuna.

[runLoganrun]

Windows 7 supports AVCHD, but not support for VC-1, DTS or HD audio. So you have to disable Media Foundation and use the DirectShow pipeline instead in WMP12/7MC, with proper filters.

Were your encode attempts ever successful in Windows 7? If yes, then ignore this reply.

1. Uninstall sharks Win7 codecs.
2. Verify that VC-1 encoded .m2ts files will not play in WMP12.
3. Perform this process to allow WMP12 to show VC-1 encoded video with directx instead of media foundation.

Buona fortuna.

Thanks!
I had just re-formatted Win7, and did not install shark's win7 codec pack (no offense shark), I did install FFDshow, and Haali splitter as per previous poster's suggestion. Although I can play BD rips in native file structure which contain VC-1 codec, now when I remux one of the files to obtain .m2ts files, it will not play, or when I do manage to re-encode something to h264 it comes out wrong, like the bitrate I've selected is halved, in one example trying to convert to mp4 using x link to mp4, which was btw the most succesful attempt of it's kind. Thought for that I'd just try doubling bitrate to hopefully get desired file size and quality, or video won't play right, as in a pita conversion I did using avs converter just for video, as it's lame and doesn't do multichannel audio, and eac3to to convert dts to ac3, then mkvmerge to get my .mkv. It started out fine, then just froze. I saw a promising program on here- HD convert to x, but apparently it too has win7 issues, although I install Haali right to the program it never recognizes it, and when i try to analyze the file, as you do with that program, it won't read it, just throws an error.

This whole process started when I was converting some bd rips for my Droid, and found that some wouldn't work, and found that all were VC-1 based. Then when I tried to demux out the individual episode files from a BSG bd file to compress to a similar format to those that I've downloaded, found that didn't work so great either, starting with the demuxed .m2ts files which were totally unplayable, as a matter of fact though I did get one file to work using Super encoder, but the quality was not good, I was shooting for a 1GB per episode file, trying to mimick others I have, and even though I used a higher bitrate, and subsequent larger file, the 2,000kbps files I already had on disc, in 720p are much superior, I figure that has a lot to do with the encoder though, which only does single pass, afaik.

so, don't necessarily just need to be able to view vc-1, for the most part it's not problem, but need to convert, and typically h264 is what is used, not sure if this will help but will check anyway, and at least can view .m2ts files that aren't converted at all. I read that automkv will do the conversion right, so gonna look into that now....

thanks again,
rlr

edit- on 2nd though, idk, it says I need WME9 & WME9SDK, don't know what that is, and that I'd need wmp11, don't think is made for win7.

surely there must me be an easier way to do this....

[fritzi93]

It's probable that certain versions of ffdshow are problematic on Vista/W7 x64 operating systems. On the BDRB bug report thread, for instance, jdobbs recommends *not* using x64 builds of ffdshow, and using only versions tested and known to work properly. ffdshow v. 3133 is the latest version recommended by jdobbs, as of the 12th of last month. Installing v. 3133 may solve the problem, at the least you can install it and eliminate that possibility.

Good luck.