Newbie Help AVI to VCD

[pfctid]

Hello all many thanks in anticipation for your help.

I have read 1,000's of posts and tried a lot of routes to achieve my aim and to date mixed success.

So have a number of queries that I would appreciate a view on!

1. How can I determine the origin of the source file (AVI) i.e PAL etc.? There is a programme callled G-SPOT but this appears to be exclusively a Windows based programme.

1.(a) Re: The above - or can I just select "Unspecified" in the frame rate on the VIDEO options for FFmpegx ?

2. Using FFMPEGX - appears to create 2 files - Video and Sound after the lengthy encoding process - when exporting these to TOAST Version 6 - why does TOAST start to encode again? Surely if they are encoded files this is unecessary.

3. Using a post from this forum by WIZEMAN - some very user friendly instructions for FFMPEGX which I followed to the letter however when it comes to CHAPTER 3 - MPEG 1/4 I get completely lost it asks me to click buttons and select options I simply don't have i.e HIGH QUALITY option - for the record my FFMPEGX has VIDEO, AUDIO, FILTERS, OPTIONS and TOOLS but no MPEG 1/4.


4. My early attempts have produced a) VCD - that DVD players reads but no Video or Sound just recognition that there is a 43 minute file. b) VCD that plays good video but the sound sounds like it was recorded in a bath tub! Presumably this is relatively easy to fix changing mp2 file bitrate etc? and a VCD that worked brilliantly although this was from a MPEG source file.

5. Dowloading AVI files - some I can play automatically in Q player (PRO) however some I have to use VLC - why is this?

6. Am I taking the best route - FFMPEGX then TOAST?

7. Should I give up as have seem some posts saying that MAC OS X simply can't do this?

Hope this makes some sense and thanks again in advance.

Richard.

[major]

1. How can I determine the origin of the source file (AVI) i.e PAL etc.? There is a programme callled G-SPOT but this appears to be exclusively a Windows based programme..

Read the framerate in the information line above the Open.. field. PAL is 25 fps. NTSC is 29.97 or 23.976.

1.(a) Re: The above - or can I just select "Unspecified" in the frame rate on the VIDEO options for FFmpegx ?

ffmpegX will select automatically the right framerate depending on the source file, so you don't have to select anything specific.

2. Using FFMPEGX - appears to create 2 files - Video and Sound after the lengthy encoding process - when exporting these to TOAST Version 6 - why does TOAST start to encode again? Surely if they are encoded files this is unecessary.

ffmpegX will create .bin/.cue or .img files. You should burn these ones, not the m2v or mpg files, or Toast will start an useless re-encoding.

3. Using a post from this forum by WIZEMAN - some very user friendly instructions for FFMPEGX which I followed to the letter however when it comes to CHAPTER 3 - MPEG 1/4 I get completely lost it asks me to click buttons and select options I simply don't have i.e HIGH QUALITY option - for the record my FFMPEGX has VIDEO, AUDIO, FILTERS, OPTIONS and TOOLS but no MPEG 1/4.

These instructions refer to an old version of ffmpegX. You should now follow the online manual here http://homepage.mac.com/major4

4. My early attempts have produced a) VCD - that DVD players reads but no Video or Sound just recognition that there is a 43 minute file. b) VCD that plays good video but the sound sounds like it was recorded in a bath tub! Presumably this is relatively easy to fix changing mp2 file bitrate etc? and a VCD that worked brilliantly although this was from a MPEG source file.

I can't help here unless you email me precise details about your settings and what you did to obtain those files. My email is major4@mac.com. Be sure to follow the guides published in the online manual.

5. Dowloading AVI files - some I can play automatically in Q player (PRO) however some I have to use VLC - why is this?

Be sure to install latest codecs from divx.com AND 3ivx.com.

6. Am I taking the best route - FFMPEGX then TOAST?

It's a good route. There is no "best" route.

7. Should I give up as have seem some posts saying that MAC OS X simply can't do this?

Don't give up unless you're desperate and could suffer health problems. In such case, destroy your Macintosh 8)

[pfctid]

Ok have played with the programme and almost there!

Have managed to produce 2 workable bin/cue files that are both visually and sound fine! However the resulting MPEG has an approximate 28 second delay on the sound (quality perfect) this happens from both MEPG file created by FFMPEGX and also when I attempt to create using Toast through the bin/cue copy function.

I can't see the word for the trees! How do I realign the audio onto the visual?

Thanks.

Richard.

[Newbie2]

I was having a similar problem. Using VLC to check the intermediates, I determined that the issue came in the post processing phase (ffmpegx made the 3 SVCD movies fine but creation of the bin/cue created the problem). So now I have successfully done this process: 1. avi or mov into ffmpegx 2. select SVCD option on bottom 3. In tools menu, unclick the "author as SVCD" 4. click encode 5. use sizzle to burn VCDs then from the mpeg2s that are generated.