Low Quality Audio Problems using TMPGEnc 2.59

[harveyos]

ive tried other versions of TMPGEnc but its also the same.

My problem is this:

- I rip the DVD to my harddrive using Smartripper

- I create a project file with DVD2AVI and it also decodes the audio to a wav file

- I then set everything up in TMPGEnc, i get superb looking video quality but no matter what bitrate I use the audio comes out sounding bad, high frequency sounds like cymbals or raised voices sound very low-fi (if you know what i mean), basically the whole of the audio sounds very low-bitrate even when i put on the maximum bitrate available.

I realise the limitations of the MPEG2 Audio Compression technique but Ive heard numerous VCDs that had much better sounding audio that what Im presently getting.

Does anyone have a reasonable explanation and solution for this?

Or possibly a program that can make a good quality MPEG2 Audio file that I can mux with the video (although this is less desirable, its just one more thing to work out)

[sterno]

Download and configure toolame (MP2 encoder) and ssrc (sample rate converter) as external audio tools for tmpgenc. Usually bad audio is caused by tmpgenc's built-in sample rate converter doing a poor job.

Alternatively, newer versions of tmpgenc have a "high quality" audio setting, which supposedly does just fine.

Both can be enabled through the environmental settings dialog.

[txpharoah]

TMPGenc is a great video encoder. But it's audio encoder is horrid. I encode my audio in SoundForge.

[harveyos]

ok i downloaded Toolame and it sounds pretty damn great.
Also in Envoironmental settings i enabled High quality sampling frequency convertor.

It takes a little bit longer to encode, and there is anyway to get rid of that creating temporal wave file thing?

because i use DVD2AVI to convert it theres a wave file already there.

[Hardcoreruss]

Download Eazy Vcd from the tools menu and it will do the lot for you.

[harveyos]

ok ill donwload Easy VCD

but also one more thing, toolame works well for me, but i tried encoding several files, a few worked good and on one or two the audio was out of sync. how can i fix this?

[EddyH]

maybe you set it accidentally to do vbr encoding? um.
in what way, you mean it was a second or two early or late all the way through? if it's a ripped WAV you have, cutting that extra second off the start (usually there's a patch of silence..) or adding it in can fix.
if it slowly drifts out of sync, now, that's a bigger problem

Just a question of my own rather than an answer, has anyone seen the GNU open source encoder (as used by Syntrillium) pop up in any newer guises recently? I've long used it for it's fairly good fidelity at xvcd bitrates and high frequency response (banishing those "lo-fi" blues)... but doing some higher rate encodes with it recently, trying to do VCD-standard 224-seperate stereo, it seems stuck in joint stereo mode. Some odd stereo effects like it was getting bit overflow, nasty swooshing and squishes, and if i do a "vocal cut" (L/R compare) it comes out looking not very much different from joint stereo mode, sometimes worse because the "side" channel may not be getting so many bits any more. Doesn't happen if i make two separate 112kbit mono tracks

Rats, just when you think you've got something all sewn up... at least it still does well from 56k mono thru 192k joint stereo.

(I mean, even if toolame were to break the 15-16khz barrier, upto 18khz mayhap, that'd do.. currently doing a rip of crouching tiger, all those swordfights make it a very "bright" soundtrack and the extra few frequency bands really add to it)


Ahem... eh... excuse the threadjack

[harveyos]

maybe you set it accidentally to do vbr encoding? um.
in what way, you mean it was a second or two early or late all the way through? if it's a ripped WAV you have, cutting that extra second off the start (usually there's a patch of silence..) or adding it in can fix.

hmm actually it was just that one one DVD RIP, weird....it just wouldnt get in sync but other dvds are fine and my problem seems to be fixed, a bit of extra encoding time but the audio is great quality.

Is MP2 encoded at say 224 comparabale to MP3 at high bitrates?

Whats a good bitrate to set for MP2?
I generally use maximum video bitrates so the movie will span over 2 discs with a high bitrate and the lower the bitrate the audio the more data i can assign to video.

[sterno]

Is MP2 encoded at say 224 comparabale to MP3 at high bitrates?

Whats a good bitrate to set for MP2?

MP2 at 224k is probably comparable to MP3 at somewhere between 160k and 192k. Quality is very subjective, though.

I usually encode the audio at 224k. The lowest bitrate I consider acceptable is 160k, some people use 128k but that sounds only slightly better than a telephone to me. In general, I don't consider the tiny amount of space freed by lowering the audio bitrate to be worthwhile. Usually it doesn't allow enough of an increase in video bitrate to get a visible increase in quality, while the loss of audio quality is very noticable.

[harveyos]

yeah your probably right.
i usually encode 60 mins a cd at 1500k for video adn 224k for audio. i spose you could work it more exactly but i cant be bothered.

if the movie is 45 minutes a disc you can get like 2100k for video, something like that.

[EddyH]

224k is generally very good quality audio, they may have overspecified it even - compensating for naff encoder refinement and low CPU / FPU power in the early 90s probably.
You even get fairly decent results with TMPGEnc at that rate most the time, TooLame should be great with it, and when it's not doing evil things to the stereo the GNU one is hard to tell apart from a CD (much like a 192k mp3). There's not -much- to put between mp2 and mp3 anyhow, but the difference is there.

128k can do quite well if it's joint stereo, and you limit the treble to about 14 or 15khz (like a 96-112k mp3), which most people wont notice a problem with, especially in films. (Though TMPGEnc at that rate will probably run out of steam quite quickly).

Hmm, in some comparitive tests, TMPGEncs built in encoder may see subjectively a bit poor because it goes the other way to GNU - the stereo image is almost "perfect", better even than the average VBR Lame mp3... too good, not compressed enough, quite a waste of bits forcing the overall quality down in order to stay within the set rate.. now, if only there was something halfway between the two encoders (Lame..? maybe)