First VCD questions

[porterhr]

Hi All,
I'm trying to burn a VCD for the first time.
I've transferred my family's old 8mm reels into Premiere 6.0 and created a movie on the Timeline about 1hr 20 minutes long.
I've visited lots of forums (this one too of course), and read opinions about all kinds of software, and this is what I have right now:

A project created in Adobe Premiere 6.0 (which means audio at 48Khz)
TMPGEnc version 2.01.30.116 (I've read v12a might work better, but I didn't see it on the TMPGEnc website as a choice.)
Avisynth (now I can't find it in the PC to tell me what version I have, but I assume it's latest since I just got it last week)
Roxio EZCD 5.0 (Yes, many recommend Nero, and I 've got demo version on a zip disk, but for the moment I'll try EZCD cuz my head is swimming)

Here's areas I sure could use help in.


Avisynth:

To tell the truth, I remember reading that I'd probably need this for some reason for TMPGEnc (something about AVS vs. AVI?) and now I can't find the post(s) that explained why.
Please remind me of why, and where I can read an explanation. I read the part under Avisynth v0.3 at the Avisynth website that explained what Avisynth is, but truthfully it's Greek to me. I just want it to do it's thing invisibly if possible.
Also, the Avisynth website, under application support for TMPGEnc, mentioned something about a simple AVS import filter, but it was listed under TMPGEnc 0.11e. I assume since I'm using a diff version I don't need this?


I went to the Avisynth website and followed the directions to use the Avisynth Premiere export plugin:
Steps 1 - 3 no problem (BTW my heart soars when a screen referenced actually says exactly what the directions state it will - in step 3.)
Step 4 tho says copy to clipboard, paste into a new text doc, and save with .AVS extension. This is what's throwing me. I'm wondering where I get the new text doc with a .AVS extension, because when I go to NotePad (or was it Wordpad?) and paste it, Notepad keeps adding a .doc extension after my .AVS extension. How do I save this command in a text doc as a .AVS? Is Word a place that will work for this? Or is it a simple matter of renaming it once it's there. I did rename it by deleting the '.DOC', but since I have the following questions, I don't yet know if that does it.

So I guess my questions are:
Avisynth:
1. do I really need Avisynth when using Premiere 6.0/TMPGEnc/Roxio 5.0 (or maybe Nero)?
2. If I do need it, after I solve how to give my movie export an .avs extension, exactly what do I do then? Just use TMPGEnc and magic happens behind the scenes?
I don't see any other instructions.

TMPGEnc:

Here's what I don't get: If TMPGEnc encodes AVI to MPG, how do I get my Premiere movie from the timeline to one big .avi file? (or is this related to Avisynth Q above?) Is my Timeline represented somewhere as a one avi? My goal of course is to put my Timeline movie onto VCD. What am I not getting here? I'm sure it's something simple.

Audio:
When I did take a simple .avi file (not my entire Premiere Timeline, just one clip), and ran it through TMGPEnc just for fun, and tried to select the same clip under audio, I got an error msg that said it could not open or is unsupported. I assumed that my .avi clip contains both video AND audio, because in Premiere's timeline I always see the same clip's name appear in the audio and video tracks. I know when I capture Premiere separates into avi and wav, but on the timeline I just see avi in both places, except when I import music, that's always wav.
I also tried to import into TMPGEnc audio music, a CD song converted to wav by audiograbber. TMPGEnc said it wasn't supported. Does this relate to the 48K vs. 44.1K?
I guess I'm just not understanding what I need to do make my audio right for VCD. Do I have to do something to convert my audio from Premiere's 48Khz to the 44.1Khz I read is required? Seems I read that TMPGEnc does that for me automatically. I apologize if that's in here somewhere. I've read so many forums/posts that this is one that I've lost.

Roxio EZCD 5.0:
To skirt around the above problems just so I could try to make a tiny VCD, I did take a simple .avi file (not my entire Premiere Timeline, just one clip), and ran it through TMGPEnc, without audio, and it seemed to work. I ended up with a .mpg file. But, when I opened Roxio and got to the screen where I add the .mpg, I click on add, find the file and choose it, but it doesn't go into Roxio. This one is a mystery to me. Seems I also read that just because TMPGEnc made an mpg file, doesn't mean its compliant (is that the right word?). could this be my problem?

Sorry for lumping all this stuff together. I know I should tackle problems in a linear fashion, but since these all appeared in same session, I thought maybe they were tied together in some way.

I feel like a I know a LOT more now than I did two weeks ago, but it seems I'm just not getting some basic understandings here.

Well, for some reason family expects me to leave the PC and join the festivities. Go figure.

Happy Holidays to all you helpful people. How anyone ever learned this stuff before forums came along is beyond me.

Thanks,
Hal

[wee haggis]

Something I'm not clear on,is what format you saved the video to in Premiere?
If its AVI,then TMPGE and EZ CD would be all you need.

[PhArAoH]

Let's say you have three 30 min. AVI's on your computer which you want to join and add various effects and transitions to it.
You add these files to your project/timeline and once you're happy with the editing part of the job you then save the project.
You can save the timeline as an MPG1 (vcd compliant) file from Premiere in two ways.

1. Export the video in the timneline to DV AVI which will take a lot of space (about 14GB for one hour video). You do this by clicking on File --> Export timeline --> Movie --> Settings-->Select Microsoft DV AVI from the File type list. Click on Load Button to select the template you want then OK, name the output file and click on Save button.

Then, you encode the saved AVI to MPG 1 with an offline software encoder. I for example use TMPGEnc. The encoding process for this method is faster than for method 2 but keep in mind that exporting the timeline to DV AVI also takes a while. That's all there is to it. The encoded MPG 1 file can then be burned to a CD with a CD burner (I use Nero).

2. Let's say that you want to encode your video to MPG 1 straight from the Premiere timeline. That's when Avisynth comes into play. What it basically doesn it serves video frames from Premiere Timeline to TMPGenc encoder bypassing the need to save to DV AVI first, therefore saving you precious hard disk space. This process takes a bit longer but it has no effect on the quality of the MPG1 file. To use Avisynth with TMPGenc you must have avisynth.dll installed on your windows\system directory and CM-Avisynth.cm on your Premiere\Plugin directory.

Then download VFAPI plug-in from TMPGEnc website and put all three files to TMPgenc directory. Doubleclcik on TMPGEncVFP_Install.bat and off you go.

To frameserve to TMPGenc from Premier timeline do the following:

File --> Export timeline --> Movie --> Settings-->Select Link to Avisynth from the File type list. Click on Advanced Settings box and the plugin options window will appear. Make sure that Create AVS file and Random Access options are enabled, name the output file to anything you like as no file will be created and click on Save button. Instead a dummy file named part0.avs will be created on the root directory of your drive (c:/). Use this file as video and audio source in TMPGenc. When you browse for the source file ensure that you select All Files(*.*) from the Files of Type box.

I have done my best to help you. I am very tired at the moment so If something is not clear, give me a shout.

[porterhr]

Hi All,
Thanks for responses, but still got trouble.

Wee Hagis: Yes, Premiere files being saved as .avi.
Pharoah: I loaded all the files for Avisynth and TMPGEnc to the appropriate places to do frameserving by Avisynth to TMPGEnc. But, when I go into Premiere down to Setting>Select Link to Avisynth, the box for Advanced Settings is gray and cannot be checked, so I am unable to verify that Create AVS file or Random Access are checked.

When I try to follow your directions (which are a little different from those given at Avisynth website for Premiere export plugin), first I get the uncheckable box mentioned above, and second, when I name it, it leads me straight to the little pop-up window stating "Now serving. To connect from Avisynth using the following command......", I then feel I should do as it says on Avisynth site, ie., save whatever is in the little window (IPCSource"my title&quot, not automatically as .avs nor automatically to my C:\, but I must go through the saving in text file bit where I must add the AVS extension. This wouldn't matter I suppose, except that then when I go to TMPGEnc and try to import that text file with the avs, TMPGEnc pulls in nothing but the contents of that file. I end up seeing nothing but the command IPCSource"my title", not my video. I think I'm doing something wrong at this step, but it looks like I'm following their (and yours to the max possible) directions to the letter. I hope this is something simple and stupid on my part. Question is, what?

It seems I'm just not doing something correctly to give TMPGEnc the pointer from Avisynth.

I WAS successful in using your method 1 for a small avi sample clip, ie, exporting as DV AVI, but when I tried to do it for a full timeline, PC froze. I think you are right, it'll take a LOT of storage, and I'm down to 30GB on an 870GB RAID array. I've heard that when you get to below 50% it's not so reliable. So, I'd really like to get this Avisynth frameserving to work for me.

Further assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks again,
Hal

[PhArAoH]

If you have a "Now serving. To connect from Avisynth using the following command......" window poping out on your screen then Premiere (Avisynth plugin) is doing its job just fine. So, i believe that you have a problem with TMPGenc settings. FYI, I use Avisynth 1.0 beta31 and never had problems with it therefore never found it nesessary to upgrade. I don't even know if my version of Avisynth is the most up to date one. I have a .zip stored somewhere with all the files that i am using, so if you want to use the same version of Avisynth.dll and plugin as mine then let me know and I will email it to you.

In case you haven't tried it yet, the following might help:

Start TMPGenc,
Go to Options --> Environmental settings --> VFAPI plugin --> Right click on Directshow Multimedia Filereader --> click on Higher Proprity until the item (Directshow Multimedia Filereader) moves to the top of the list.

Good luck.