A newbies first attempts

[alanparrott]

Whilst being a newbie to this topic I have read many threads and many of the excellent guides. Since my faltering start I have made progress and have achieved some objectives but I am still puzzled as to whether my efforts are typical/good/bad/indifferent or just plain wrong!

As a test I have captured a 2 hour + program from a UK Digital TV Freeview box via its only composite output with VirtualDub (.AVI) and Huffy edited out some ads and then transferred via Frameserver a Direct Stream Copy to TMPEnc which adjusted its bit rate to fit on to DVD and then burned via WinDVD Creator 2.

This all worked fine and I ended up with a DVD that played on a DVD player fine, obviously to squeeze 2 hours to DVD it was, I guess, approx SP rate which was not as good as a separate recording made on my SKy+ box, but I understand that and improvements I could make.

My real concern/surprise was the 7 hours it took to create the MPEG and the the hour to make movie and burn to DVD. Of course I understand I can do this while I sleep but even using my AMD 64/3000 with 1GB memory this is a long time. Now if this what it takes then fine but obviously not something I would wish to use for anything other than important items I would wish to keep. So I guess for less important items I should reduce the quality somehow.

My next step is to fit a PCI Digital TV card and maybe this will improve the quality and reduce the the processing time. My other requirement is to copy from my Sky+ which is in a separate room from my PC via its Svid output to my MSI FX5700 Svid input, of course for this I must move the Sky+ occasionally and still feed it with a sky signal. Although no cost effective at the moment I guess I could buy a DVD recorder and keep it next to my Sky+ and edit on my PC etc, but not sure what this will save/gain.,

I am not sure if I am looking for answers or comments but would like a reality check before I move on.

For anyone who has got this far with my ramblings your help is much appreciated.

[deckard8]

Try The FilmMachine to convert your avi to mpeg/dvd. This should take about an hour to process a 2hr film on a computer with your specs (if you use Cinemacraft with it.

[deckard8]

I forgot to mention do all your editing first with virtualdub and save the avi - direct stream copy - should take about 5 minutes. Then load this saved/edited avi into The FilmMachine.

[alanparrott]

Deckard8 thanks for your input. I am just downloading The FilmMachine and will give it a try. On their website it says it includes Quenc which has some good reviews. So I will try that first.

RE your pont about saving the Direct Stream Copy AVI: I started it but it gave an estimated time of 1.5 hours. Which seems a long way from the 5 mins you suggest. Anything else you can think of?

Cheers

[deckard8]

Apologies there Alan - 5 minutes - Typo! I meant 50 minutes. The method I personally use, which I believe is also the fastest is to encode your avi un-edited, then load the converted mpeg into Womble Mpeg-vcr and do your editing with that - very fast - Now that probably is about 5 minutes!

[alanparrott]

I think your pretty close with the 50. Just giving it a run as at least I will have the edited file to play with!

I have given a quick run with FilmMachine / Quenc but the results are a bit juddery which I put down to not checking the Interlace box but a second try yielded the same problem. I'll have to dig in to the settings a bit, I guess the problem is more likely to be with Quenc.

Thanks for the input.

[sacajaweeda]

I have given a quick run with FilmMachine / Quenc but the results are a bit juddery which I put down to not checking the Interlace box but a second try yielded the same problem. I'll have to dig in to the settings a bit, I guess the problem is more likely to be with Quenc.

Thanks for the input.

I've never used that program so I'm not familiar with it, but if you have a setting you can select the field order, try reversing it. Also, until you get the hang of things and get things looking the way you want them, I suggest you tear off a small sample clip of your source video (direct stream copy in VDub) and use the small clips to try stuff out on, rather than wasting all kinds of time with the longer clips.

MY $.02

[alanparrott]

Thanks, I'll take a look. Yep I am only testing a small clip, but thanks it is easy to overlook these things.

Cheers

[alanparrott]

Is it possible to Frameserve from VirtualDub into The FilmMachine?

I tried but it did not work, but may be my ignorance. It works OK for me in TMPGenc.

Thanks

[jimmalenko]

Is it possible to Frameserve from VirtualDub into The FilmMachine?

I tried but it did not work, but may be my ignorance. It works OK for me in TMPGenc.

Thanks

It might be worth your while taking a look at some AVS scripting with AVISynth. The basic gist of it is that you can edit with VirtualDubMod and "import" your edit points directly into your encoder by way of a script. It is much much quicker than frameserving with VirtualDub to TMPGEnc Plus and there is a fantastic guide written by FulciLives here.

It probably won't make much sense to begin with but I guarantee it will speed things up if you follow the guide letter for letter.

[alanparrott]

Thanks jimmalenko, I'll give it a whirl.

I have taken a quick look can you just explain, the Convolution3D bit or dont I need that? Either way what does it do? The explanation went over my head a bit!

Cheers

[jimmalenko]

Thanks jimmalenko, I'll give it a whirl.

I have taken a quick look can you just explain, the Convolution3D bit or dont I need that? Either way what does it do? The explanation went over my head a bit!

Cheers

The Convolution3D bit is a noise removal filter. It is quicker and more effective than the inbuilt one in TMPGEnc Plus.

[MeDiCo_BrUjO]

Don't forget that processor and RAM are not the only components needed to boost the work on the PC.
A 7200 RPM Hard-disk (as a minimum) is needed to boost the performance. If you can spare a couple hundred bucks on a SCSI HD, It would be even more useful for your encoding jobs.

[alanparrott]

THanks Guys,

I actually have 2x Maxtor SATA 160gb 7200/8 cache drives. (NOT using RAID)

Last night I fed a 2 hour AVI movie through VirtualDUB/AVIsynch/TMPGEnc as suggested just to remove the ads, NO filters and that took 7.5 hours.

So really I am back where I started just Frameserving.

I guess the bottom line is, if that's what it takes then that's what it takes!

I rather liked the FilmMachine method BUT unless you can 'intercept' & Frameserve in to it, it defeats the object.

Thanks again and all comments welcome.

[sacajaweeda]

Last night I fed a 2 hour AVI movie through VirtualDUB/AVIsynch/TMPGEnc as suggested just to remove the ads, NO filters and that took 7.5 hours.

Don't bother using the frameserver in VDub if you're using AviSynth. Just use it (VDubMod) for previewing, finding frame #s for trims, etc, then import all your cuts into your AviSynth script with all your filters & whatnot, then just feed the AVS file straight to your encoder.

[alanparrott]

Don't bother using the frameserver in VDub if you're using AviSynth. Just use it (VDubMod)...

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. That is what I did, I was just comparing it to Frameserving. Timewise I gained nothing.

Thanks