TMPGEnc DVD Author: creating DVD from MPEG-1 slow, why?

[Thomas Okken]

Hi all,

I'm new to DVD burning, and I'm currently evaluating Nero and TMPGEnc DVD Author. I like the latter because it lets me create DVDs with MPEG-1 streams on them, which means I can get about 50% more on a DVD than using MPEG-2 (approx 7.5 hours on a 1-layer DVD, as opposed to just over 5 hours using MPEG-2 at the same resolution).

I have a question about it, though. The other day, I was trying to create a DVD from the following MPEG-1 file:

Source file: MPEG-1, 352x288 25 fps (4:3) PAL, 1150 kbps
Audio input format: MPEG-1 Audio Layer-2, 44100 Hz Stereo, 224 kbps

The source file is 3:49:19 long, 2398358704 bytes.
Captured using Hauppauge WinTV Go 2 & its standard MPEG-1 VCD encoder.

Output settings are identical to input, except audio sampling frequency of 48000 Hz.

Using TMPGEnc DVD Author 1.6, creating DVD with one track, no menu. This takes almost 2 1/2 hours (just mastering, no burning), and I had to increase my Windows page file to more than 2 GB (up from 1 GB;
the machine has 384 MB physical).

Questions: why does mastering the DVD take so long, since it would appear that the only conversion that needs to be performed is for the audio sample rate? And, why does it need so much memory? With the page file originally set to a maximum of 1152 megabytes, conversion failed after 44 minutes with an out-of-memory error. With 2 gig of pagefile, it just about scraped through. (What'll happen if I ever try to completely fill a 2-layer DVD? That would be almost 4 times as much data...)

I guess it's not a major problem -- I can add more physical RAM which would probably help some, and I have tons of disk space so I can increase the page file as much as needed, but I'm just curious why the process is such a memory and CPU hog in the first place. Is there DVD mastering software that will convert VCD-type MPEG-1 streams more quickly and using less memory?

Thanks in advance for any insights,

- Thomas

[yoda313]

Thats odd its usually very fast the few times I've authored a vcd-dvd.

Did you make motion menus??? If so that will greatly increase your encoding time regardless of source specs.

[jimmalenko]

I daresay a 750MHz processor probably isn't helping your cause speed-wise. Other things that can affect speed are if your source and/or destination are on the same drive as your OS. You shouldn't need to add more RAM, nor should you have needed to increase your pagefile size AFAIK. Something funky is going on.

[Thomas Okken]

I'm not creating any menus, not even chapters. All my video data (both the stuff I grab using the WinTV card and the output from TMPGEnc etc.) is on a separate drive from the OS, although I just realized I do have a paging file on the data drive, which probably doesn't help. I'll change it so it only uses the C: drive for paging.

Then again, it could be that the application is simply leaking memory. It eats memory like crazy, but if it were actually *using* that memory for something useful, I'd expect the drive to get thrashed, and it isn't.

I'm still wondering why the app has to work so hard to begin with. I guess it's decoding and then re-encoding the video stream, but that seems stupid, given that the input and output video settings are identical -- all it actually *needs* to do is re-encode the audio stream.

[jimmalenko]

TMPGEnc DVD Author does not re-encode video. at all. ever. It may re-encode audio with or without the assistance of the AC3 plugin if your sample rate is not 48KHz, but that's about it.

[steveryan]

Why don't you capture the audio at 48000Hz then TDA won't have to convert for you?

[yoda313]

Why don't you capture the audio at 48000Hz then TDA won't have to convert for you?

Because it was captured vcd video which is a standard 44.1khz.

[Thomas Okken]

I tried creating another DVD, again from VCD-compliant MPEG-1 streams created by the Hauppauge software. This time I ran TDA on my laptop, which has 512 MB RAM and a 1.4 GHz Celeron.

The good news is that I noticed no extravagant memory usage this time, which makes me suspect that it may have been some other process going nuts and eating up memory during the previous test on my desktop machine.

The somewhat less good news is that it still took 72 minutes to convert 280 minutes of video. If, as jimmalenko states, TDA does not recode the video stream, then that means that the audio recoding is slower than I expected -- but then again, in the past I have noticed huge speed differences between different vendors' mp3 encoders as well, so I guess TDA's audio encoder is just not the fastest. I can live with that -- in all other respects, it seems like a nice program; I guess it's time to send in my registration fee!

Re: steveryan's point of recording the audio at 48000 Hz: excellent idea; I just hope I can configure the encoders that come with the video grabber to do that. The MPEG-1 VCD encoder has no configurable settings, but maybe I can tweak the AVI encoder to do the job.

Thanks to all for your help!

- Thomas

[BobK]

Re: steveryan's point of recording the audio at 48000 Hz: excellent idea; I just hope I can configure the encoders that come with the video grabber to do that. The MPEG-1 VCD encoder has no configurable settings, but maybe I can tweak the AVI encoder to do the job.
- Thomas

If not, you could still use a video editor to convert the audio to 48000, then use that audio in TDA. That's what I did the few times I made a DVD using VCD files.

[Thomas Okken]

[...] You could still use a video editor to convert the audio to 48000, then use that audio in TDA. That's what I did the few times I made a DVD using VCD files.

Could you recommend a tool for the audio conversion?

[johns0]

Goldwave.

[BobK]

[...] You could still use a video editor to convert the audio to 48000, then use that audio in TDA. That's what I did the few times I made a DVD using VCD files.

Could you recommend a tool for the audio conversion?

I use Goldwave. Some of the free audio editors like Audiocity will probably work too, but I haven't used them.

[Thomas Okken]

OK, thanks! I'll try those, next time I have a big VCD stream to convert.

[aguillon]

Thomas,

Obviously your problem lies with the audio being 44hz. VCD format is NOT DVD compliant as is. While the video resolution is fine, the audio rate has to be 48hz.

Here s my personal solution (I use it to make DVDs of TV shows for instance - can squeeze more than 7hrs on one DVD that way):

I created a custom template in TMPGEnc called DVD of VCDs, using the original VCD template, unlocked. It codes the video at VCD resolution (352x288, 25fps PAL for me) and audio as MP2 48hz 128kbps.

If my original avi files contain ac3 sound, I actually preserve it and import the sound directly into my DVD mastering software (I use DVD Lab Pro for menus and making chapter points). If the audio is Mp3 CBR or VBR (as is often the case), I demux it (using Virtual Dub) and convert to WAV using Belight. I then feed the original avi files + the new WAV files into TMPGEnc to produce the final video/audio individual streams. Not as difficult as it sounds.

Cheers