Ignorant question on Cinemacraft Encoder

[homerpez]

Can it open .d2v project files? It says it only does AVI/Quicktime (therefore making it useless to me), but I think I saw somewhere (on a screenshot) that it was using a project file... maybe hallucinating...

Anyone know about this? Or should I just stick with TMPGEnc? I was hoping to try out multipass VBR instead of just the 2-pass...

[stanwebber]

use vfapiconv to covert the .d2v project to a .avi reference file and open it in the encoder of your choice

[homerpez]

Well... this might actually turn out to be useless to me (since I now discover that you can't miltipass MPEG-1's with CCE, just MPEG-2, and I can NEVER figure out how to re-encode interlaced video!)... but thanks...

I'd like to try it, if only for curiosity's sake...

[Truman]

CCE v2.50 do MPEG-1 VBR multipass.
DVD2AVI-> VFAPI -> VIrtualDub (for resizing, deinterlacing or many other usefull filters)->CCE 2.50
The faster way (currently without subtitles) is dvd2avi-> Avisynth(MPEG2DEC plugin)->CCE2.50. Avisynth can use most of the Vdub filters.
CCE is known as the best available MPEG-2 encoder. Why don't you want MPEG-2?

[El_Mero_Zooter]

truman,
is there a guide kickin around for the conversion u mentioned:
dvd2avi-> Avisynth(MPEG2DEC plugin)->CCE2.50
ive been trying to get it to work, but dvd2avi would create a project file that will open up in tmpgenc.
Thanx
ZtR

[Truman]

@ EL_MERO_ZOOTER, yes try that
http://www.doom9.org/mpg/d2a-mpeg2dec.htm
It is a really great method, it will make you happy, believe me.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Truman on 2001-07-13 13:04:44 ]</font>

[El_Mero_Zooter]

kewl, thanx bud---dy,,
im on it right now..

[homerpez]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-07-13 01:10:23, Truman wrote:
CCE v2.50 do MPEG-1 VBR multipass.
DVD2AVI-> VFAPI -> VIrtualDub (for resizing, deinterlacing or many other usefull filters)->CCE 2.50
The faster way (currently without subtitles) is dvd2avi-> Avisynth(MPEG2DEC plugin)->CCE2.50. Avisynth can use most of the Vdub filters.
CCE is known as the best available MPEG-2 encoder. Why don't you want MPEG-2?
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

MPEG-2 = SVCD = INTERLACED 29.97 = I CAN'T GET IT RIGHT. It's "forced" FILM all the way for me! I also tried a d2v project file (video only) converted to fake AVI, and it opened in CCE, but did not encode. Looks like that doesn't work either. Then not to have a really good multiplexer in existance (BBMPEG is confusing!), I'm at square one.

TMPGEnc it is, then.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: homerpez on 2001-07-13 19:23:53 ]</font>

[Sully]

try this, it might be of some help.
http://www.vcdhelp.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=47809&forum=3

[homerpez]

Sully, I wish it was...

I installed AVISYNTH aagin, and typed this into the avs file:

LoadPlugin("D:\winnt\system\AVISYNTH.DLL")
AVISource("D:\video\vobs\meaning\meaning of life_d2v-vfapi.avi").BicubicResize(640,480,352,240)
WAVsource("D:\video\vobs\meaning\meaning of life AC3 T01 2_0ch 192Kbps 44.1KHz.wav")
audiodub(video,audio)

Then I loaded it into CCE, and recieved this error message:

"Frame size 760x56 not supported. Supported frame size is up to 720x576."

I think I'm really missing something here. What's the correct way to resize the video?

BTW: I should add that when I convert the d2v project file to avi, I now get that to work directly (It will load and start encoding in CCE). But the problem is you can't resize it! So, I have to get the "avs" project file to resize it for me, or it's all over.

Then the daunting task of multiplexing, but I'll wait to ask bout that one...

[homerpez]

I just found out this tidbit, I'll find out in several hours if it's resizing properly and all that, but this has allowed me to at least encode using the avs file as a reference. Thanks, vidguy...

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>If you've put the avisynth dll into the windows/system (or windows/system32 - I'm never sure which, so I put it in both), then everything should be cool.

However, I've found that quite often CCE crashes when you drag an AVS file to it.

Here's an interesting way around the crash. First, drag a "real" avi to CCE - then save the project file. Then open the project file in a text editor and change all occurences of the file name.

Last step: change the number of frames in the video (down at the bottom of the text file) to the number of frames in the video.

Then open the project (*.ecl) file in CCE - it doesn't crash.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

[homerpez]

OK, so I'm impatient.

I found under file properties (CCE) where you can select how many frames you want to encode. I also went ahead and checked "add audio from another file" to encode that at the same time (just 1500 frames worth).

It's not working. The audio didn't encode, and the video file has info in it (5 megs) but does not play or read.

Therefore, I can't possibly multiplex...

[Sully]

Did you add that period after AVISource in your script too?

AVISource("D:\video\vobs\meaning\meaning of life_d2v-vfapi.avi&quot>>.<<BicubicResize(640,480,352,240)

If you're doing a DVD rip why don't you do the audio & video seperatly? CCE's audio encoding is not very good at all. TooLame gives MUCH better results.

If you mux the files with bbMPEG after encoding it only takes about 10mins. or so. It definatly worth the effort.

[Sully]

Almost forgot...

Are you trying to do multi-pass? If you are, the first pass just creates an info file (.vaf) which CCE use's for the "real" passes.

[homerpez]

I'll try it, I do realize that the first pass is for info only... I'm guessing that for each pass thereafter it improves picture quality and redestributes bitrate, theoretically better than TMPGEnc which only has 2-pass...

But even so... is it really good enough to justify a switch from TMPGEnc?

What's bugging me now is this... TMPGEnc works easily, and consistently. The video is usually very good, and the audio OK (better yet if I use Toolame plugin and multiplex it later)...

CCE may or may not be better, it's picky about what it wants to accept, and bad at audio, few features, BUT... I have a nagging feeling that near-DVD quality is possible with it... since DVD itself only has an AVG bitrate of 1000-1500 per sec for the video! Amazing, I'm still in shock over that, and wondering why I can't get that quality output!!!! Maybe this multipass thing (at 4 passes) is the answer?

But maybe not...

[El_Mero_Zooter]

truman, sull,
thanx again guyz for the help on cce, im ready to try the mpeg2dec plugin with the following script. I'd kinda like to try using the dvd2avi audio first, (or should i not bother and use the toolame.exe plugin with tmpgenc). An all-in-one app/script/tool or process would be nice but i'd like to downsample the audio to say 112 to fit da svcd onto two cd'z and was wondering what would be better to use.

test_1.avs
--------------
LoadPlugin("C:\MPEG2DEC\MPEG2DEC.DLL&quot
video=mpeg2source("d:\MYFILENAME.d2v&quot
audio=wavsource("d:\MYFILENAME_audio.wav&quot
audiodub(video,audio)
BicubicResize(480,360)
AddBorders(0,60,0,60)
--------------
Anyone with any suggestionz , fire away.

Thanx again in advance.
Zooter

[Truman]

@ Zooter, that script is OK, if you really want the audio from CCE.
If you use CCE audio, you should it downsample (48->44,1kHz high or ultrahigh) in dvd2avi.
I prefer toolame for audio and multiplex with TMPG after encoding.

[Sully]

homerprez - I think CCE has better quality than TMPGEnc. Of course that's my opinion & I'm sure there's many other who disagree. I do base my opinion on two things though. My eyes - I like what I see coming from CCE more than I do TMPGEnc. Second is plain fact - CCE handles the bit "disperssion" much more acurately than TMPGEnc. Which means it's encoding a more "perfect" copy of the source without having to add a buch of filters to basically "tweak" the end results (TMPGEnc).

El_Mero_Zooter - No matter what you want to ENCODE your audio with, you still need to process it through DVD2AVI. TooLame is just an audio encoder, it doesn't "rip" the audio from the .vob files.

[homerpez]

Sully, I think I have you going on another thread too! but here's my question on this one...

What settings do you use for CCE? Like, "Sharp vs. Flat" setting, "Disable Auto I-Frame", etc.? I'm curious, I have a test running at home now, and if it goes wrong I might try your settings and fix it...

Thanks...

[El_Mero_Zooter]

Tru,
i wouldnt mind trying out the audio from cce (or even doing a Flask-editing->avisynth->cce) just for comparison's sake.
But as you suggested , and im seeing more folkz rave about toolame, i may end up going that way, after all.
I did some testing , vob-trailers to svcd, going from avi to svcd and vob to svcd directly and cce seems to really be a better tool to use for svcd.
Thanx again for your assistance, and to all that pitched in.

ZtR

[El_Mero_Zooter]

Sull,
thanx, i hadnt come to the realization that it doesnt rip it, yet, im sure it woulda hit me though.
Thanx again. I have a print out of your guide (from another thread)and im running it as soon as im done formulating my script for avisynth/mpeg2dec to cce.

Have you done any cce-encoding from a captured source?
Most of the test ive done are from vob'z. But im doing some cam & vhs capping and want to encode to svcd using cce.
Just wondering if it would perform relatively the same or if it could/should be tweaked some.

¡ Graciaz again bro!

ZtR

[Sully]

El_Mero_Zooter - Sorry, just done DVD rips so far. Although from other stuff I've read it all depends on your scource as to how the end result will be (quality wise).

The best thing to do would use the search with capture & your models of capture card & camcoder.

homerprez - For the bitrates I use what FitCD suggests (here in tools) & cut off about 10-25 bits just "to make sure". I usually use multi-pass, but set it to do 1 pass (instead of 3 - default). That way the .vaf file gets written (holds info to help CCE when actually encoding) made, but I don't have to wait quite as long till it's finished encoding. Kind of a compromise between quality & speed.

For avg. use FitCD's suggestion, min. about 200 below the avg. (ie: avg. 1900 = min. 1700) & 2400-2500 for max. With the max. bitrate, again that's just "to make sure", in case CCE happens to shoot a little higher than it's suppossed to the .mpg stays within specs.

Under settings I set the quality to 10 instead of 25. If it's a DVD rip uncheck the anti-noise filter. The rest depends on your source. About the only thing you MIGHT need to change under VIDEO is field order or progressive frames.

[homerpez]

I'll try that... the one thing that was bothering me was the "Quality" setting, since it's arbitrary with every program and you never know what it's going to do...

I'll try it with quality=10, no filtering (one I'm doing now has filtering, I'll leave it off next time)...

Is there any problem with having MIN bitrate be 0? I haven't run across any problem at all on my Apex player, or my PC. Since what I'm making will be for either of these two units, I figure no problems? (I always now use 0 MIN, 2500 MAX, and whatever AVG needed to fit on a CD)...

On progressive frames, I assume that DVD2AVI does this for me? Since I'll mostly do DVD rips with it (until I learn to do frame ranges for audio with CCE or a multiplexer), it's already at FILM rate 23.967, so it should just encode an MPEG-1 with that framerate?... right?...

(Pardon the ignorant questions... I'm still running the encoding at home, so I can't see the end results until much later today...)

[Sully]

You can set the min. bitrate at whatever you want. It's just with CCE using multi-pass you don't need to do it. It's different with TMPGEnc, it's the only way you "win" back the bits it's over using in other areas. In other words, if you set a high min. the "low action" scenes will still look good too.

DVD2AVI will process the film in it's original form, whether that's progressive or interlaced. If you use the preview (F5 for play, ESC for stop) function it'll show which format the film has. If it's progressive check-mark that box in CCE. If it's interlaced leave the box unchecked.

(There are no stupid questions... only stupid answers)

[homerpez]

What I mean is... when you use DVD2AVI, and set it to go "Forced FILM", and the film type is at least 95% film, I thought it is now effectively PROGRESSIVE, since when you run the interlaced DVD at that rate, it goes to the original format (I'm not explaining this well).

Actually I've always called the 23.967 product of DVD2AVI "Progressive" in TMPGEnc, and it works great, since when do you this to a DVD it doens't display the telecined frames (where you see interlace lines). I imagine you'd have to do some checking like that with SVCD's that play at 29.97, but I honestly got so confused with it that I just make regular 23.967 VCD's.

Thanks for yet another CCE tip (on setting a MIN), I'll have to try it out on my next movie

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: homerpez on 2001-07-18 13:22:03 ]</font>

[Sully]

To be honest I don't have any experiance with NTSC. I live in a PAL country.

As far as I know though, you can leave out forced film & use a program called PULLDOWN to do the proper telecining.

For info on that you'll have to use the search here. I have it, but I'm forunate enough (at least till I move back to the States in Sept.) not to need it.

[El_Mero_Zooter]

Sull, (or For those following Sully's Guide)
i followed your guide to the R (not the T cuz it was like three in da morn...--)
and the first time it did encode with cce, but it didnt resize, it kept the size at 720 x 480, or somepin' like that. On the next try i just did one vob to see if tweaking the avisynth script would resize to 480 x 480, but it did load up in cce then stops after two seconds or so, and states that it cannot find the vfapi.avi (though it cuts of the name of the file,to ...vfa~.avi).
I've checked the path to the vfapi.avi on the .avs script and it reads
AVISource(d:\backup\vob\point\pointbreak_test1.d2v )
BicubicResize(480,480)

Could it be a win/dos character limits of 64 or something,
or maybe cuz i forgot to load the plugin and the start of the avs script. VFAPI converter converted the avs fine too.

thanx
ZtR

[homerpez]

Try opening up the CCE project file instead. This is where I found the problem. It detects the wrong resolution, even when the avs script does resize correctly.

Somewhere you'll find something like:

width=720
height=480

just change these values to whatever you resized it to in your avs script. From then on, when you save the CCE project file, this change should remain intact (even when you tweak things like bitrate, etc.) Hope it helps/works!

[Sully]

There was another post somewhere in here about that problem.

If you're running a fixed CCE for the first time you need to kind of trick it into working. The other method posted by VidGuy is basically the same.

Before loading the .avs file load the vfapi.avi file. Make setting changes like you would normally want to & when you go to encode click yes to save settings. For me at least, after that I can then load my .avs file. You don't have to do this everytime, just the first time after installing CCE. In fact you don't need to save the settings at all anymore if you don't want to (CCE always askes before encoding & when closing).

[El_Mero_Zooter]

thanx again sull, homer,
ill try it again tonight with the o.g. vob'z.and start over again, since at least i know that the first time i ran the encode it did encode to a 1.7 gig file but 720x480,
damn, ive done this movie 7 times and its getting close to the perfect svcd.
thanx again guyz, we're all indebted to y'all

Zooter