UGH! Is there any way at all to do an easy conversion out of H264?

[andrew05151]

I know this is probably a common question asked...but I just can't find an easy way to convert an H264 file into any other format! What I want is to convert a movie that is contained in an mkv file with an h264 video / ac3 audio into anything besides this, so that it can eventually be turned into a nice mpeg-2 for dvd burning.

The only method I have found so far that has worked with other h264 files of this nature is alltoavi, using the "no skip" option, makes an avi file with synced audio that I can then load into TMPGenc and get a beautiful mpeg-2...

However, one file that I have has completely gone out of sync, by like 3 minutes. It's 23.976 fps (well, that's what alltoavi says, and vdubmod as well. gspot won't display anything, and super seems to think its 29 for some reason).

Anyway, the .avi that alltoavi has output is ~3 minutes longer than the original (hence the out of synch, I assume). I do not understand why this one file won't work while another two by the same fansub group, encoded in seemingly the same exact way, have been successful.

Does anyone have any ideas on a simple way to get out of h264? I'm only semi-competent; and I don't know how to use avisynth. I also do not intend to purchase software.

Any help is greatly appreciated; thank you in advance to any who respond!

-Andrew

[freebird73717]

Try Ogmcleaver in conjunction with mkvtoolnix to extract the audio and video files separately. There is a checkbox you need to check that says "Convert H264 tracks to AVI files". You can then process your video avi and audio files separately with the encoders of your choice (obviously you like tmpeg for video and I would suggest aften with one of it's gui's for the audio). You may not even need to encode the audio if it is already dvd compliant ac3.

An all in one app like FAVC might be able to do all of this for you but I prefer doing the separate steps myself.

[t0nee1]

Try with FAVC, and eliminate converting to avi first...
Edit:
looks like freebird beat me to the punch...

[andrew05151]

Okay, so I finally got it to work right! Woot.

I had to do it in a way I wasn't expecting...the automated tools just weren't working. I found an avisynth script, well "script." It's only one line.

Directshow(filename,fps,convertfps=true)

Alright, so I could load that into virtualdub (not even the mod). It actually loaded the entire mkv, from there I just re-encoded using xvid. Not only did I get beautiful output, it hardsubbed with true fonts (something that I never get working quite right with textsub).

So, that seems to be the best solution to getting H264 into another format. Just loading that simple one line avisynth script, and bingo.

Now, I still do not understand much about avisynth...can someone explain to me why I can load an otherwise unusable file with virtualdub with the script? vdubmod loads the mkv, but it won't re-encode it properly. alltoavi won't do it properly, ogmcleaver won't do it properly....yet, when loaded via the script it works wonders...

Why is that?

[FulciLives]

Some threads you might want to read:

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic348701.html

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic351932.html

Both of those cover MKV to DVD (among other stuff).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman