Help with AVI/ASF files with TMPEGEnc/VirtualDub

[dreamer_cast]

Hey guys, new here, just starting out this movie thing.....anyway, I'm having a problem with a version of LOTR that when I try to use TMPEGEnc, it usually just freezes after a while, or says that it's gonna take 30 hours to finish.....I have tried to open up the video in VirtualDub, it puts a message block saying its reconstruction the index for ASF, then spits out a error saying "Couldn't locate decompressor for format 'WMV2' unknown".....I've installed codecs packs, and have also tried GraphEdit, but have no idea what I'm doing in there. I also have a part of Oceans Eleven that does exactly the same thing in both apps....

Any help or feedback would be appreciated on this, TIA

Just so you know, I'm using TMPGEnc ver 2.50, VirtualDub 1.3c on a p3 900, 256MB Ram

[baz00ie]

Hey mon, your ASF files are most likely "wmv1" and "wmv2" format. go to my website to find out how to convert those type of files. It's a very simple process - a three step method. go here:

http://www.angelfire.com/film/baz00ie/

good luck
baz

[dreamer_cast]

Thanks for the reply.....i tried installing that Intel codec, but it gave me an error when it was installing, and didn't complete, I have the other stuff though, I'm using Windows 2000 if that makes a difference.

[dreamer_cast]

Also, I noticed that it asks for a WMF file, and mine is in AVI format, so what then? Truthfully, a lot of replys I have read dealt with the same type of thing, the program asks for a specific type of file, and the file you have in in another format, such as when I tried using Graphedit to get the audio out of the video; VCDHELP.COM said to open up the file and extract the audio, but Graphedit only asks for audio file types.....

Thanks again

[buzzinhornets]

How to convert ASF/WMV files to AVI.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OK, first let me say that this method is a bit of a pain in the butt, is not user friendly, and does require that you have the registered version of at least one program. Having said that, this method will allow you to make a flawless( as much as possible ) conversion from an asf/wmv directly to avi even if the file is encoded with the WMV1 or WMV2 codec.

First we'll start with what you'll need.

1)GraphEdit : get it here http://www.dvd-digest.net/downloads/files/encode/graphedit.zip
2)Imedia AVI_renderer : http://www.divx-digest.com/software/mpeg2avi_imedia.html
3)AsfTools : www.geocities.com/myasftools/
4)A video to work with, for this example I'll use the movie trailer of Black Hawk Down. I used StreamBoxVCR and downloaded it from here mms://agency2wm.fplive.net/agency/2/2/film/blackhawkdown/trailer_2/bhd_trailer2_300k.asf
5)Registered version of MotionPerfect : http://www.motionperfect.com/

OR YOU COULD GET THEM AT THIS YAHOO GROUP (and any necessary patches) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/buzzinhornetz2002_2/files

First we're going to need to get some essential information from the asf file. Namely, the frame rate and the number of frames in the file. Open your downloaded file in asftools and click on the Advanced button. Click on the "Convert to AVI" tab, make sure timing method is set to Minimum extra frames, and click on Convert. When the conversion is finished, note the "frame rate" which can be read at the field: "Frame/Sec".
and number of frames in asf/wmv file which is: (Total frames shown in message window) minus (number of frames added for sync. also shown in message window)
Our example has 4491 frames and runs at 29.966fps. You can now delete the avi file.

Before we go any further, you will need to have a registered version Motion Perfect installed, and you will need to install the AVI_renderer filter. You should have downloaded a file called i-media_mpeg2avi.zip, in this zip is a file called AVI_Renderer.ax, extract it to the directory of your choice, just rember where you extracted it to. Now click on Start->Run, in the box type in regsvr32 and then the path to AVI_Renderer.ax in quotes. So, if you extracted it to c:\filters, you should type in : regsvr32 "c:\filters\AVI_Renderer.ax" . Click OK and you should get a message that the filter registation succeded.

Now we are ready to build our filter graph and start out conversion. Open GraphEdit, click on File->Render Media File, and select your downloaded asf file ( bhd_trailer2_300k.asf in our example ). Once the file is loaded, you will see the filter graph that GraphEdit created. Delete both the Video Renderer, and Default Directsound Device filters. Next, click on Graph->Insert Filters, when the window comes up, expand the DirectShow Filters category. Add a Mediamend ( you will not see this if you do not have motion perfect installed ) filter and an I-Media AVI Renderer filter. In the dialog that appears choose custom for frame rate. To get a frame rate of 29.966fps set the rate to 29966 and the scale to 1000. Click OK then choose an output file name. Now Right-click on the Mediamend filter and select properties, set playback time to 1, set frame rate to 29.966 and set interpolation mode to 0. Now connect the output of Windows Media Video Decoder to the Mediamend filter. Connect the Mediamend filter to the video input of the AVI_Renderer. Connect the Windows Media Audio Decoder to the Audio input of the AVI_Renderer. Check the Show frames box on the AVI_Renderer window. Finally press the play button on the toolbar. A dialog will appear letting you choose the codec you want to use. Your AVI should now be encoding. Once you see in the AVI_Renderer status box that your video is done encoding close graphedit.

You're done. Yeah. You should now be able to play your new avi file.

Just a couple of final word here: When VirtualDub 2 is released, this will probably all be a mute point in that VirtualDub 2 will be DirectShow based and should therefore be able to open and convert asf/wmv files natively. Also I should point out that there are probably several other methods for doing this with GraphEdit. This is just my method. It works for me.

by CHICKEN SCROTUM
edited by BUZZINHORNETS

[baz00ie]

Sorry Dude,... The link that had the NT version of the codec has been removed. (d'oh)

OK I've placed a copy of the NT version of the codec on my website, that should work with Windows 2000.

http://www.angelfire.com/film/baz00ie/

Also, WME 7.1 will load in AVI ASF WMV BMP MP3 and all that stuff. and remember - ASF and WMV files must have a video and audio stream or this kind of conversion won't work.

good luck
baz

[dreamer_cast]

thanks for your help man, I really appreciate it.....to tell ya the truth I gave up on those videos I was trying before. I downloaded them from morpheus, so I guess that was the real problem.....I grabbed LOTR from Newsgroups, and it went through no problem. I guess Morpheus isn't the greatest source for movies files that you want to convert. but thanks anyway!

[ssdss]

buzzinhornets,
I tried your intructions but they did not work for me. There is no windows media decoder to attach the mediamend filter. It is the divx mpeg one that appears by default in graphedit. When I deleted the divx and put the windows media decoder the program gave an error that said they were not compatible. What am I doing wrong