help trying to convert a avi

[trunksu]

I have always done this for converting avi to vcd. first extract the audio with virtualdub and then use tmpengc to convert it to vcd. today i wanted to try to convert my avi to a dvd for the first time. the movies that i am trying to convert to a dvd have 3 avi. i was planning to convert all 3 avi to vcd and use tmpengc author to convert it to a dvd. as usual i try to extract the audio from the avi. it didn't work and gave me a message which i couldn't read b/c it instantly popup and disappear. then i search the forum and tried avi2wav. i am kind of hesitant to use it b/c the file size is so small. the whole wav file was 200mb while compared to virtualdub which was always around the same size of the avi or more 700mb+. am i doing it right? thanks.

[teegee420]

Even though avi2wav creates a .wav file, it only extracts the actual compressed audio. It doesn't decompress to PCM wav. That's why the file size is so small. While avi2wav was extracting the audio it should have listed the compression type. Is it ac3? If it is I would recommend trying Virtualdub again but you will need to install the AC3 ACM Decompressor first.

[trunksu]

i got this message

[aguillon]

A couple of remarks

1- Why do you convert to VCD and then back to DVD? This makes absolutely no sense since you are adding extra steps and losing quality in both sound and video along the way ...

2- Your avi file - I would suggest having a look at it with gspot to ascertain what the audio format is. Then and only then you can decide how to deal with it. For problematic audio files (Ogg, Ac3) my strategy was always to export the audio, treat it separately if needed and feed it back to TMPGENC.

[ZippyP.]

Why do you convert to VCD and then back to DVD?

Only one conversion (to VCD) was done, then authored to DVD with TMPGEnc DVD Author. The only quality loss is due to the crappy VCD format. :P

My 2 cents...I like Goldwave for extracting wav files as it handles most formats. You do need to have the codecs installed however.

[trunksu]

yea that exactly what i was planning to do. i was going to convert it a vcd and then use tmp dvd author to convert it to a dvd. the only thing that i am worrying about is that this movie have 3 parts. I am unsure if it will fit on to that 1 dvd.

here the file

[ZippyP.]

Your audio is AC3, you can use it as-is to make your DVD, converting the video only, or you can use Goldwave (sorry mis-spelled it before) to convert it to wav and then TMPGEnc to convert to it MP2.

I recommend leaving it alone, here's a guide on how to handle AC3 audio for DVD's.

As for size of your VCD's, you can use a bitrate calculator, look in the Tools section.

[trunksu]

hi thanks for the tutorial. i am followin the tutorial but there one thing i am kind of confuse at. i have 3 avi which = 1 whole movie. originally i was planning to join them. virtualdub joining method was kind of weird b/c the file size exceed 12gig. I just stop it when it past 12gig. in the tutorial it listed another method. just to confirm if my steps are right i am going to list it down.

add up all the runtime from each avi and get the final bitrate. do i use that bitrate for each avi encoding or just in dvd author?

[aguillon]

Simple mistake - you had the video in Full Processing Mode...

So when you go to Save to Avi, your little friend tries to save an uncompressed video (i.e. the 12 gig)..

Switch Video (and audio for that matter) to Direct Stream Copy and you ll be fine

[ZippyP.]

...add up all the runtime from each avi and get the final bitrate. do i use that bitrate for each avi encoding or just in dvd author?

You set the bitrate when encoding, authoring only creates the DVD structure necessary for burning. Add up the run time to calculate the rate and plug that into your encoder for each file.

[trunksu]

thanks ZippyP.

[yantz]

sorry if i sounded like a fool but i'm a super ultra newbie in dvd . but i successfully burned a dvd from 2 or 3 avi part using nero oem. i just add the avi into the wizard, nero then transcode, and burned??!! so far i've tried dvd ripped avi, and the resultant dvd burned quality is very, very good, because the avi quality is very good. the whole process normally took 5+ hrs

yantz

[ZippyP.]

i successfully burned a dvd from 2 or 3 avi part using nero oem. i just add the avi into the wizard, nero then transcode, and burned??!!

Yes nero can be very easy, especially for newbs. The quality is crappy though, so if you want to try for something better go for TMPGEnc.