SVCD to DVD Complient MPEG 2 Stream Problem

[plates]

I have recently aquired a 4 CD SVCD movie (I'm sure some of you know which one I mean) - and basically I want to cook it to DVD-R. Now, the problem is its in a non-dvd complient 480x480 SVCD format. So first I demultiplexed the video, then attempted to falsify the header information using DVD-Patcher, this didn't work, no DVD Burning program will accept it (I've tried Ulead, SpruceUP and SpruceUp DVD Maestro). I get 'invalid resolution' errors. Problem is, I passed it through TMPEGenc, outputting as CBR 2500kbit file with a DVD Compliant resolution of 352x576, the resulting file was horrible in quality compared to the original, but not only that, it still would not be accepted in any DVD Authoring program. This is vexing me somewhat, as I've read as many guides as I can lay my eyes on, and as far as I can gather, it *should* work. Any help appericated.

[plates]

Another thing, what exactly does "File Format Mismatch" error mean?

Thanks :)

[g0dZpr0fi7]

Did you change the audio sample rate from 44 khz to 48 khz?
Resize your clip 480x480 (ntsc) to 352x480 (ntsc) not 352x576 (pal).

[CHyRO]

Mmm I got a similar 4 SVCD film can't remember where from

So far I De-multiplexed the video and re-ecoded the audio to 48Khz used DVD Patcher ver 1.02 to patch the video file to 352 x 480. Loaded the files into spruceUp no problem except when using the simulation the film did not show full screen ie. only half the screen so I repatched it with repatcher to 480x480 which of course is not DVD complient resolution. I have not tried to burn as I don't have a DVD burner quite yet. It seems to work in the simulation or cource it may all f*^% up at the burn point. So all this should work in practice will yet you know when the DVD burner arrives in 2 Weeks.

[[monkey]]

I have been trying to do the exact same thing (same movie too!), except I figue that if I'm going to go this, I should do it properly - there is no point having some half-arsed SVCD-on-DVD bodge job.

I guess that if you re-join the 4 files and then pass the resultant file through TMPGEnc with the DVD (NTSC) template, except changing the bitrate to fit the 4.7gb DVD-R, you should end up with a compliant DVD stream for writing, and adding menus, chapters etc should be a breeze.

I'll tell you what it looks like when it's done encoding ;)

[sean madison]

i just reencoded it into 2 cds instead of 4.
NO quality LOSS!!

I kept it as SVCD usin SVCD-X

It looks unbelievable.
90 min on 1 cd, 80 min on the other.

[vitualis]

YOU ARE BEING WARNED

You are coming dangerously close to stepping over the line.

Regards.

[jubilex]

I'm working on the same issue. DVD burner should be here tomorrow to test results. Hopefully these methods of "fooling" the authoring progs and players will actually work, because I have not been able to re-encode to DVD compliant resolution without noticeable quality loss, and frankly, with this movie and this quality I'd rather switch 4 times than lose anything.

Best results I've had so far were setting resolution in TMPGenc to 352x480, then clipping the image 64 pixels top and bottom. This reduces the frame to 352 without having to be re-sized, so there's that much less chance for quality loss. It also "frees up" more bitrate for the image rather than the black bars which currently take up more than 40% of the frame (though I imagine not much bitrate would be used on those in any case). Make sure to set aspect ratio to 16:9 for it to play back correctly.

Bah, if only there were a way to clip the frame without re-compressing the video. Seems like it should be possible, but apparently it isn't.

[Plunki]

I too am working on this exact same problem.
i used the tutorial featured here:
http://www.vcdhelper.com/vcddvdr.htm

The problem arises in step 3 using the DVDPatcher.
The *.m2v file plays fine (with elecard mpeg2 player) before i run it through dvdpatcher.

--== steps for using dvdpatcher ==--
1. Open the demultiplexed avseq01.m2v
2. Change the bitrate to the same as the SVCD.
3. If the source size is 480x480 change to 352x480 and if 480x576 change to 352x576.
4. Select First header only.
--== -------- ==--
After i do these steps in dvdpatcher only half of the movie can be seen, the rest is pushed out of viewable range to the right.

If anyone knows how to solve this it would be VERY helpfull!

by the way, i was then able to put this patched file on a dvd and it worked in my dvd player, but half of it was still pushed to the right.

[pest]

i think i figured out the problem with the dvd patcher
when you patch you are only supposed to do the first header only not the entire file but for some reson i cant seem to turn off the entire file button is this what is killin everybody? or has someone been able to turn off the entire file buton?

[jubilex]

Same problem here. I've tried all three versions of DVDPatcher -- one doesn't let you customize resolution, one only lets you customize width, and the other doesn't let you select only the first header. Don't know how whoever did the How To got it to work. Tried it on Win2k and Win98.

[Plunki]

I have tried all 3 DVDPatcher versions as well (on win ME)
same problems...

we need a program that does the same thing but actually WORKS!
hehe

[CHyRO]

Patcher 102.a works but after patching to 352X480 repatch to 480 x480. Simulation works but not burnt it as the burner has not arrived. Should work in practice. Also could not turn of entire file button

[jubilex]

Neither patching to 352x480 nor patching to 352 and then back to 480 worked for me. Both worked in simulation, though both had large block artifacts intermittently, the kind you get when the disc is scratched. Burned, both resulted in a still, fucked up frame on Apex 1500. The disc played back fine with PowerDVD, but still with the blocks that showed up in the simulation.

I guess I need to resign myself to swapping discs

[jubilex]

Sorry, spoke too soon. I re-opened DVDPatcher and loaded my .m2v back up, and for some reason it still showed as 352x480. Patched it yet again, and this time the 480x480 stuck. Simulated fine, and most importantly, played back perfectly in Apex1500 (though with no sound -- I'm making mini-DVDs until my DVD-RWs show up tomorrow, since I don't want to throw $3 away every five seconds, and I haven't gotten audio on any mini-DVD, even perfectly compliant ones).

Looks like it works. Thanks, Chyro! What made you think of patching it back to 480x480, anyway? Seems like that would just undo the original patch and put you back where you started.

[Plunki]

ok i treid that, when i patched it back to 480X480 my dvd burning software (spruceup) won't accept it.

i was looking for programs that did the same thing as DVDPatcher and i found these:
http://www.geocities.com/eby_vdo/
http://www.offeryn.de/avestensione.htm

i couldn't get them to work, but maybe you guys will have better luck.
good luck, and i hope we find a solution soon, i really want to burn this to DVD!

[TheDoyman]

By the way guys, you all seems to be able to play with that movie with TMPGEnc while I am unable to do it (yes, I have the same movie). When I want to load it, it says: unsupported format. What can I do to be able to lower the bitrate to be able to play it in my standalone dvd???

[jubilex]

The secret is to patch it to 352 and load it into Spruce. Spruce creates its index file or whatever. Then patch it back to 480. Spruce doesn't bother re-scanning the file, so it loads in fine, but since the headers are now 480, it plays back correctly. The idea is to trick the authoring prog into loading the file; after that it's smooth sailing.

If, that is, it were possible to join the goddamn mpegs into one file so it would play back seamlessly! See my question in Editing Forum. For some reason it doesn't work no matter what I do.

[pest]

ok after 24hours i fixed the movie to go onto a dvd i did this with flask and changed the entire movie to 352x480 it plays perfect allready burnt to dvdrw to check now all i have to do is convert the sound and add it to it for some reason tmpge freezes when trying to convert the sound is there any other way i can convert a mp2 file to 48 besides tmpge?

[Plunki]

jubilex i patched it to 352 by 480 with DVDPatcher, then i loaded it into spruce. when i tried to patch it BACK to 480 by 480 DVDPatcher said that it COULDN'T open the file! How did you get it to work!?!??!

Thanks in advance!

[pest]

after you patch it to 352x480 and load it to spruce save it then close the program the repatch it to 480x480 then open spruce and load the file you saved and it works now all we have to do is get the sound into it

[pest]

after you patch it to 352x480 and load it to spruce save it then close the program the repatch it to 480x480 then open spruce and load the file you saved and it works now all we have to do is get the sound into it

[Plunki]

ok thanks alot, when you load the m2v file right after it automaticaly loads the mpa file (make sure they are in same directory with same name)

i burned the dvd succesfully and it played ALMOST flawlessly from my computer (any button i clicked on the main dvd menu would cause a crash, but navigating to the various chapters through the dvd program worked fine, and the video was amazing)
but it did not work at all in my dvd-rw compatible player (i've used lots of other burnt dvd's on it)

soo i'm reburning it incase it was a bad burn..

good luck all.

[KaBoNG]

Hmmm, I wonder if another problem is that DVDPatcher 1.02a has a sticky radio button on the Patch Entire File option on the bottom left hand side of the GUI. The tut says to patch only the First Header. You can select that button but the Entire File button stay stuck ON. So, are we patching the enitre file or only the first header when we do this?

The sticky radio button is fixed in 1.03a but you can't select 352x480 in custom size. bah!

[asifanwar]

I have successfully done what you are all talking about - I have a true NTSC DVD widescreen movie with 5.1 encoded Dolby Digital sound playing perfectly. It took me about 10 days of testing but I FINALLY got it. Here is how:

1. take 4 separate MPEGs and use TMPGEnc 'simple de-multiplex' to create 4 separate M2V and MP2 files. Throw away the M2V files (trust me!)
2. take the 4 MP2 files and use 'Twins File Merger' to create one huge MP2 file (the trial version will only do two files at a time) = full movie sound.
3. throw away the 4 separate MP2s
4. use TMPGEnc to 'Merge' all four original MPEGs together (but the sound will be out of sync).
5. Use 'simple demultiplex' again on the huge MPEG to get the whole movie, and a big audio file. Throw away the MP2 it creates - you will be using the one that TwinsFileMerger created.

Now you have a big huge M2V video file, and a big huge MP2 file and they are both in sync.

Now load the M2V file into TMPGEnc and RE-ENCODE it: use 1:1 aspect ratio (it already has blackbars, and anything else makes it all weird looking). Use 720x480 for NTSC. I tried it at 29.97 as well as 23.97 with 3:2 pulldown and they both looked identical. I used 2-pass VBR with Min2900, Ave3000, Max3100. DC=10, motion search=highest. It took about 10 hours on my machine, but I was left with a TRUE NTSC DVD video file that looked identical to the original in terms of quality (total size about 3.7Gb)

Look at the EXACT length of the video and write it down (use the Source Range to find it). Convert the MP2 to WAV (I used SoundForge, but WinAmp will do, although will drop the rate from 224 to 192).

If you look at the length of the audio, it is LONGER than the video! This caused HUGE sync problems until I noticed it. Using CoolEdit, I CUT OFF THE END of the audio based on the length of the video (you would never have heard it anyway, cos the movie would have finished).

THEN I used CoolEdit to 'convert sample type' which will change it from 44.1kHz to 48kHz without altering the pitch or tempo, so you never notice.

Now, the WAV file was about 2.1Gb which was too big, so I used SoftEncode to create a six channel AC3 Dolby track of about 400Mb, but you can convert to MP2 using TMPGenc if you like.

Take BOTH the video and the audio, and drop them into SpruceUp and it is happy. I spent about 2 days making menus and things and finally burned the disc.

Turned the lights off and sat back to watch my creation - almost soiled myself cos it was so good!

This all sound complicated and it IT a bit of work, but I think it is worth it to get a high quality SVCD to DVD-R. I have put my system details below.

This is only the second DVD-R I have burned so I am still learning as I go! Hope this help somebody (or else it was a huge waste of time!)

AA

Dual AthlonXP 1600, 512Mb DDR, 40Gb, WindowsXP Pro, Pioneer A03, Pioneer DV-444 stand-alone. Tested onto DVD-RW and finally burned to generic DVD-R.

[bigkahunaps2]

Plunki/Pest , can you please help me? I have followed your directions to the point of where I need to WRITE the dvd-r. But after the project is SAVED, I get this error: "The remaining disc write operations will be aborted". I have a blank disc in there but everytime, I get that error. Any ideas? Thanx !

[bigkahunaps2]

YEA!!!!!!!! Finally got it working. I ended up opening SpruceUp (with the new 480x480 file) and saved it as an .IMG file. Then used Prassi, and burned. Works perfect on my Apex AD-1500 !!

[mat82284]

asifanwar when i try to load the M2V file into TMPGEnc and RE-ENCODE it i get an error saying its not supported so i tryed DVDpatcher (VDPatcher v1.04) and just made it look like it was dont the way you said but am not wanting to burn yet dont want to waste 1 dvd so i want to know what to do to fix that problem or should DVDpatcher (VDPatcher v1.04) work any sugestions maybe a fix for TMPGEnc????? thanks.

[mat82284]

i also for got i downloaded cooledit if its the one you got i got it from (???.cooledit.com) and cant get it to trim the end of the silence thats there that you said i see it to a lot of extra blank sound not needed. if thats the tool can you explain how to use it

[ourkid]

u can use goldwave for cutting and converting if you cant get anything else.
This site has instructions how to do both with goldwave