Converting MPEG2 into H264

[Tony G]

I recently found out about H264 and I have a previous HD-MPEG2 file to convert into H264, apparently you can retain better quality for a smaller file size and I noticed converting HD-MPEG2 to XviD saw a loss of sharpness in the image.

So I got a H264 codec and tried fiddling around with it in VirtualDub. The problem is the source audio in the MPEG2 is 10MB so i thought I'll just keep that so I select 'direct stream copy' for audio.

The audio at the end of the file ends up being 30 something MB file. Why's it doing this? And the MP3 compression in VirtualDub only goes up to 56k

It's not just that, is there any program that will allow me better control over the size of the final product?

[live4ever]

MeGUI.

[jagabo]

If the source is MPEG audio then VirtualDubMPEG2 will decode it to PCM. You can either recompress the audio, or demux it into an MP2 file and then mux the audio back into the final AVI. I usually use TMPGEnc to demux the audio into an MP2 file and then encode with VirtualDubMod to remux the MP2 audio.

[celtic_druid]

I would highly suggest that you don't encode AVC/H.264 via VirtualDub. Try MeGUI as suggested which uses x264 cli. AVC via VfW is just a bad idea.

[Tony G]

I'm downloading MeGUI, thank you.

[Tony G]

Okay, I unzip the program and whenever I try to open the .exe I get an error that the program failed to initialize properly. =/

[celtic_druid]

Requires .NET 2 runtime.

[Tony G]

And how do I get this? Thanks.

[jagabo]

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15...displaylang=en

[redwudz]

You can get .net 2.0 from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856EACB-4362-4B0D-8EDD-AAB15...displaylang=en

EDIT: Or use jagabo's link.

[Tony G]

Okay, I have the program running and the program paths is the next problem. I've put the path in to DGIndex and the x264 encoder. I go to create it and its done after only a few seconds, I go to see its only created a d2v file and no video file.

What program am I missing?

[celtic_druid]

Try the autoupdate feature and also look at the log.

[Tony G]

The log doesn't seem to say anything was wrong with encoding. I still only get a d2v file.

What programs DO I NEED in order to encode this file into a x264 file?

[Safesurfer]

See http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=112496

Need to create a .avs AviSynth script.

[Baldrick]

or try StaxRip.

[Tony G]

I'll try StaxRip now, MeGUI isn't doing the job right.