Problem converting 560x288 divx to DVD format

[donkey_puncher]

I'm making a DVD video of all my home movies captured from VHS that are in 720x480 mpeg2 format. I want to add the "universal studios intro" at the beginning of the movies to make it look like its an actual movie (strictly for fun). I found a short divx version of the intro on the web that is 560x288 divx. When I play the file in standalone mode it looks great. But when I encode it to mpeg2 via TMPGEnc it stretches it and makes the video look terrible. How can I retain the aspect ratio of the divx file? I'd be happy if I could just add black bars to the top and bottom of the video in order to maintain the correct ratio. But I am unware of how I can accomplish that. Anyone have some info?

Or maybe you guys know of a place I can download intros that already in DVD format.

PS
I've included a pic of what I'm trying to describe. The top pic is the 720x480 distorted capture, while the bottom pic is the 560x288 actual divx file capture. I want to maintain the ratio from the bottom pic while making it DVD compliant.

[donkey_puncher]

Well here is an update. I played around in TMPGEnc and figured out how to maintain the correct aspect ratio

The problem now is that the resultant video is kind of herky-jerky. It's not nearly as smooth as the divx video. I'm using 2-pass VBR encoding with a min 3000, max 8000, and average 6000. I'm got a fairly powerful computer (Athlon 3200+, 1GB DDR ram, Radeon 9800) and I don't have any other progs running in the background. It's only a 30 second clip so it doesn't take long to render. What can I do to smooth things out?

[bugster]

Whats the framerate of the divx and what framerate are you encoding it to?

[donkey_puncher]

I just checked the framerate of the divx file with GSpot and it says 23.97. I'm encoding in DVD NTSC which I guess is 29.97?

What should I do now? CAn this be fixed? I didn't think to look at the framerate so obvisouly that is the problem. I just don't know how to handle it now.

[bugster]

In TmpGenc, under settings->Video, set Encode Mode to "3:2 pulldown when playback" and set Frame Rate to "23.976fps (internally 29.976fps).

[donkey_puncher]

Good god this stuff is frustrating.

I did what you said and it worked. The mpeg file plays nice and smooth now. But.....................

When I use Ulead Video Studio 7 to put this clip into my project things get funky. I can click on the clip in Ulead and it plays fine. But when I include it into a project and reder the project, that portion of the project is stuttering. The rest of the project is smooth. After comparing the clips they are all 720x480 NTSC DVD, Field B,Variable bit rate (Max. 8000 kbps) 29.97fps. They all seem to be consistant in file type. They all play great when I play them alone, but when they are rendered together I get the problems. Comments?

[bugster]

I can click on the clip in Ulead and it plays fine. But when I include it into a project and reder the project, that portion of the project is stuttering. Comments?

It looks to me as if you are re-encoding the clip in VideoStudio by doing this, and it looks like this may be where the problem arises (maybe Ulead, when rendering, incorrectly ignores the 3:2 pulldown flags and so tries to render a 23.97fps video as 29.97, this would result in jerky playback as you describe, just a guess really).

I have never used VS7, so don't know what is possible but consider these options.

1) Do not add the intro clip to VS7, just render the main movie to mpeg. Add the TmpGenc encoded clip at the authoring stage.

2) If 1 above is not possible in VS7, use VS7 to output your main movie as DVD compliant mpeg, then use a different DVD authoring app to tie it all together (DVD-Lab springs to mind)

3) Use virtualdub to re-encode the divx intro to 29.97fps, then use that within VS7

Hopefully one of these will solve your problems.

[bugster]

I can click on the clip in Ulead and it plays fine. But when I include it into a project and reder the project, that portion of the project is stuttering. Comments?

It looks to me as if you are re-encoding the clip in VideoStudio by doing this, and it looks like this may be where the problem arises (maybe Ulead, when rendering, incorrectly ignores the 3:2 pulldown flags and so tries to render a 23.97fps video as 29.97, this would result in jerky playback as you describe, just a guess really).

I have never used VS7, so don't know what is possible but consider these options.

1) Do not add the intro clip to VS7, just render the main movie to mpeg. Add the TmpGenc encoded clip at the authoring stage.

2) If 1 above is not possible in VS7, use VS7 to output your main movie as DVD compliant mpeg, then use a different DVD authoring app to tie it all together (DVD-Lab springs to mind)

3) Use virtualdub to re-encode the divx intro to 29.97fps, then use that within VS7

Hopefully one of these will solve your problems.

[bugster]

I can click on the clip in Ulead and it plays fine. But when I include it into a project and reder the project, that portion of the project is stuttering. Comments?

It looks to me as if you are re-encoding the clip in VideoStudio by doing this, and it looks like this may be where the problem arises (maybe Ulead, when rendering, incorrectly ignores the 3:2 pulldown flags and so tries to render a 23.97fps video as 29.97, this would result in jerky playback as you describe, just a guess really).

I have never used VS7, so don't know what is possible but consider these options.

1) Do not add the intro clip to VS7, just render the main movie to mpeg. Add the TmpGenc encoded clip at the authoring stage.

2) If 1 above is not possible in VS7, use VS7 to output your main movie as DVD compliant mpeg, then use a different DVD authoring app to tie it all together (DVD-Lab springs to mind)

3) Use virtualdub to re-encode the divx intro to 29.97fps, then use that within VS7

Hopefully one of these will solve your problems.

[lacywest]

How about ... importing the "Universal" clip into InterVideo WinDVD Creator 2.

Dont use DVD author formating.

But ... instead export it out as a Mpg-2 DVD compliant video file.

Your audio choices are LPCM, Mpeg, and AC-3.

TMPGEnc DVD Author will be happy to use it.

But if it is included in the menu ... I havn't gotten the AC-3 audio to work so I render it out with either mpeg audio or LPCM audio if I want to hear the audio in my menus.

I do this when I'm making menus showing preview scenes from the movie.

Womble Mpg-VCR works great for cutting out scenes or removing scenes ... most accurate/precise program I've found for editing mpg videos. AC-3 audio poses no problem.

[bugster]

I can click on the clip in Ulead and it plays fine. But when I include it into a project and reder the project, that portion of the project is stuttering. Comments?

It looks to me as if you are re-encoding the clip in VideoStudio by doing this, and it looks like this may be where the problem arises (maybe Ulead, when rendering, incorrectly ignores the 3:2 pulldown flags and so tries to render a 23.97fps video as 29.97, this would result in jerky playback as you describe, just a guess really).

I have never used VS7, so don't know what is possible but consider these options.

1) Do not add the intro clip to VS7, just render the main movie to mpeg. Add the TmpGenc encoded clip at the authoring stage.

2) If 1 above is not possible in VS7, use VS7 to output your main movie as DVD compliant mpeg, then use a different DVD authoring app to tie it all together (DVD-Lab springs to mind)

3) Use virtualdub to re-encode the divx intro to 29.97fps, then use that within VS7

Hopefully one of these will solve your problems.

[donkey_puncher]

Bugster I'm going to try your option 3 first, but I'm gonna have to familiarize myself with vdub a little more. I really haven't played around with it much.

I don't have WinDVD creator so thats out of the question. Beside, the last time I installed an Intervideo Product, (WinDVD) it hijacked my codecs and I was not able to stream mpg's from the internet. After spending 2+ months trying to get that issue resolved I just reformatted my harddrive. I've got a hate-hate relationship with intervideo. When I emailed them to ask them how to resolve it, their response was, "This is a known issue and we are working to fix it". I can't wait forever

Anyway, thanks for the tips. I'll lket you know if it works.

[donkey_puncher]

Hey Bugster, hod exactly do I do that?

In vdub I load the video and under "frame rate control" I go to source rate adjustment and select the second option of changing to 29.97 frames per second. What ends up happening is that the video goes from 24 seconds long to ~18 seconds. And the audio is not synchronized.

I then tried it again and used the "frame rate conversion" and selected "convert to 29.97fps. Tee resultant video is kind of choppy. I did mess with any of the other settings like decimate by 2, etc. What am I doing wrong?

Just for the heck of it I took the first conversion I did (the one that is now 18 seconds) and took it to tmpegEnc and encoded to mpeg2. I added it to my project in VS7 and the project was smooth. The only problem was that the clip is too short for the audio now. SO obvisouly I need to do something else in vdub.

[bugster]

I then tried it again and used the "frame rate conversion" and selected "convert to 29.97fps.

Thats what I would have done. 23.97 to 29.97 is normally smooth (maybe not 100% perfetct but smooth enough to not really notice.

Maybe if you used TmpGenc to encode the 23.97 clip to a 29.97 mpeg (without pulldown, but framerate conversion like in vdub) it will be smooth. Dunno, just grasping at straws now.

(had a few problems posting earlier, maybe you noticed! )

[donkey_puncher]

Hey bugster I sent you a PM.

[bugster]

Ok, I downloaded that clip and played around a bit. I may have found a solution, but its a bit convoluted.

What I did was this.

Take the avi and encode to mpeg-2 with Tmpgenc. Set Tmpgenc to encode with 3:2 pulldown as described earlier. I know VS7 doesnt seem to like this, thats why we have the next stage. Also, make sure you set the bitrate high and the motion search precision high to maintain as much quality as possible as we are going to encode again and this is usually a bad idea.

So open the new mpeg in DVD2AVI. Then select file, save project and save a universal_intro.d2v file. This acts as a frameserver to TmpGenc so you can open the .d2v file in TmpGenc as video source (DVD2AVI will have de-muxed the audio to a sperate file anyway, so leave that at the moment).

Now encode again from this .d2v file, video only, setting the frame rate in TmpGenc to 29.97fps. You should end up with universal2_intro2.m2v with a true 29.97fps frame rate and playing smoothly. Mux in the audio and you are away.

This seemed to work for me, so give it a try.

Oh, and don't forget to set the correct aspect ratio in TmpGenc (16:9) when you do the encodes (as I did).

There may be simpler ways of achieveing what you want, but this is what I have come up with. If this final mpeg plays smooth for you , then you just have to hope VS7 is happy with it too.

[donkey_puncher]

You know I'm beginning to think that video studio is the entire problem with this clip. I followed your directions and the clip still plays funky in VS 7. But just for the heck of it I tried playing it in WMP9 and it plays fine. I went back and played some of the prior clips I created and they all play better in WMP9 than they do in VS7. The odd thing is some of the other DVD compliant videos I have play fine in VS7. I'm not sure what the deal is with Ulead. I thought about switching to Pinnacle Studio 8, but I really can't afford it. What else can I try editting in that might do a better job than Ulead?

Thanks again.

[bugster]

What else can I try editting in that might do a better job than Ulead?

Thanks again.

That depends on what you are trying to do. For simple cuts and splices you can't beat virtualdub, its free. For anything more complex I use Adobe Premiere, but its pricey and quite complex. I am afraid I have little knowledge of other editing apps so can't really help. Tak a browse through the tools section or post a new message asking this questions (just don't ask for what is 'best', ask for reccomednations within a price range and explain your problems with VS7)


As I stated in an earlier post, it sems to me the problem occurs when VS7 re-renders the clip in question (don't trust previews either). So perhaps you could do this:-

Create your main movie in VS7 (as that seems to work OK) and render to mpeg. Then take the mpeg of the intro you created earlier and join in to the main movie with TmpGenc's mpeg tools, merge and cut. This may work, or may not, as TmpGenc is not perfect. Another tool that allows joining mpegs and is well regarded by many around here (though I have not used it myself) is Womble Mpeg.