How to people convert from divx to DVD/VOLUME_TS?

[reality1234]

I´m curious: Which settings to people usually use (with success!) to convert a divx/.avi-file to a DVD folder (VIDEO_TS etc.)?

[major]

1/ Open AVI
2/ Select "DVD" quick preset
3/ Encode.

[reality1234]

Does this mean a preset like "DVD lo-bitrate" WON´T work? Because I just tried it, and after about two hours of encoding the damn thing failed on me when it was muxing:

Encoding started on Wed Aug 11 19:06:58 CEST 2004
cannot connect to jack server
cannot connect to default JACK server
Input #0, yuv4mpegpipe, from 'pipe:':
Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
Stream #0.0: Video: rawvideo, yuv420p, 720x576, 25.00 fps
Output #0, rawvideo, to '/Volumes/Data/filmer/m.mpv':
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg2video, 720x576, 25.00 fps, q=2-15, 2300 kb/s
Stream mapping:
Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
bench: utime=1781.080s
video:1562338kB audio:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.000000%
Input #0, avi, from '/Volumes/Data/filmer/movie.avi':
Duration: 01:33:08.0, bitrate: 1046 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, 576x304, 25.00 fps
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 48000 Hz, stereo, 115 kb/s
Output #0, mp2, to '/Volumes/Data/filmer/m.mp2':
Stream #0.0: Audio: mp2, 48000 Hz, stereo, 224 kb/s
Stream mapping:
Stream #0.1 -> #0.0
video:0kB audio:152798kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.000000%
**ERROR: [mplex] Too many frame drops -exiting


I´ve been trying this thing all day, and I have yet to see a "VIDEO_TS" folder turn up on my Mac. *Sigh*

Are there any other .mpg to VIDEO_TS that actually works? I tried some other stuff today, but it seems the sound fails after a few minutes. Nothing that works reliably. Any hints?

[major]

DVD lo-bitrate will also work. Though, rename your file to "movie.avi" and enable the "Decode with Quicktime" option in the Options tab.

[csdesigns]

Well, you should be able to use the Tools tab of ffmpegX to author a correct Video TS folder. If you have a complete and error-free .mpv or .m2v and .mp2, then you can add both tracks in the tools panel. Then select "Author as DVD (VIDEO_TS)" from the left and click the "Author" button.

If that doesn't work for some reason, you can also try an app called BitVice Helper from Innobits. Also, Toast 6 will automatically accept your MPEG-2 files and build the disc for you. Just select the Video tab in Toast, then DVD-Video button, then make sure you have PAL selected, then drop the .mpv or .m2v. Toast may ask you to associate which audio file you want to use. Once that is done, click the burn button or choose to save a disc image. Toast should only multiplex the audio and video into a .VOB and you're done. If Toast takes a while and has to re-encode, then there is likely something wrong with your initial MPEG-2 encoding.

http://www.innobits.se/pubdown/BitViceHelper.sit

[reality1234]

DVD lo-bitrate will also work. Though, rename your file to "movie.avi" and enable the "Decode with Quicktime" option in the Options tab.

"Decode with Quicktime" was in fact enabled.

[major]

Try to disable it then, any difference?

[reality1234]

Try to disable it then, any difference?

I´ve tried with a couple of different .avi´s, and, no, it doesn´t make any difference. I always get this message when the VIDEO_TS-process is about to start:

Encoding started on Fri Aug 13 21:26:03 CEST 2004
Input #0, avi, from '/Volumes/Data/filmer/secretary_(2002).digitalvx.sharereactor.avi':
Duration: 01:51:06.1, bitrate: 874 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, 512x288, 23.98 fps
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 48000 Hz, stereo, 147 kb/s
Output #0, vob, to '/Volumes/Data/filmer/secretary':
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg2video, 720x400, 29.97 fps, q=2-15, 2300 kb/s
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp2, 48000 Hz, stereo, 224 kb/s
Stream mapping:
Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
Stream #0.1 -> #0.1
[mpeg4 @ 0x2ea1f8]looks like this file was encoded with (divx4/(old)xvid/opendivx) -> forcing low_delay flag
[mpeg4 @ 0x2ea1f8]Error, header damaged or not MPEG4 header (qscale=0)
[mpeg4 @ 0x2ea1f8]header damaged
Error while decoding stream #0.0
[mpeg4 @ 0x2ea1f8]Error, header damaged or not MPEG4 header (qscale=0)
[mpeg4 @ 0x2ea1f8]header damaged
Error while decoding stream #0.0
[mpeg4 @ 0x2ea1f8]Error, header damaged or not MPEG4 header (qscale=0)
[mpeg4 @ 0x2ea1f8]header damaged
Error while decoding stream #0.0
bench: utime=3340.760s
video:1185506kB audio:182275kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 29.825964%
INFO: dvdauthor creating VTS
STAT: Picking VTS 01
STAT: Processing /Volumes/Data/filmer/secretary...
(make sure your system header is 18 bytes!)
(make sure your system header is 18 bytes!)
(make sure your system header is 18 bytes!)
(make sure your system header is 18 bytes!)

(...)

(make sure your system header is 18 bytes!)
(make sure your system header is 18 bytes!)
STAT: VOBU 0 at 0MB, 1 PGCS, 0:00:00
INFO: Generating VTS with the following video attributes:
INFO: TV standard: ntsc
INFO: Aspect ratio: 4:3
INFO: Resolution: 720x480
INFO: Audio ch 0 format: mp2/2ch, 20bps


So, I´ve found the easiest way to do this is to just encode into MPEG2/.mpg, then demux it using bbDEMUX, then extract the MP2-audio with ffmpegx, and then put the audio+video together into a disk image using Minx Transcoder or a similar application.

ffmpegx doesn´t seem to handle .avi to DVD too well at the moment, so the solution above will work for now.

(also, using Quicktime to encode seems to take about twice the time as not using Quicktime (with the ffmpeg-encoder)...so the above process will use less time in any case).

[major]

This is a ffmpeg muxing issue, to be fixed in future versions. Demuxing it and using the Mux as.. tool should be enough to fix.

[reality1234]

FYI, I tried using the "MPEG 2 (.MPG) (mpeg2enc" version of DVD-encoding, with "decode using Quicktime" checked, and then things did in fact work!

So, something is fishy with the ffmpegx-codec, it seems, but it works OK with mpeg2enc.

btw, why do things take so long with the latter codec? I think it took about 2 hours and 25 minutes from starting encode to the finalization of the VIDEO_TS-folder - and on a Dual G5 2GHz...

[reality1234]

This is a ffmpeg muxing issue, to be fixed in future versions. Demuxing it and using the Mux as.. tool should be enough to fix.

I just tried "Author" on a .mpg-file with the resolution 720x300, and it seems Author reformats the resolution to something like 720x576(?).

Is this correct?

[major]

720x300 is not a valid size for DVD authoring. Use 720x576 or 720x480.

[reality1234]

720x300 is not a valid size for DVD authoring. Use 720x576 or 720x480.

...but what should I do when the input .avi-file is 640x272 (in other words 2.35:1)?

Automatically rescaling this to 720x480 will only make it look bad.

(thanks for all your help)

[major]

You have to add black bars ("Letterbox" automatic option with mpeg2enc engine and "Decode with Quicktime", or "Letterbox" manual values with ffmpeg engine).