tmpgEnc and SVCD

[lonnic]

I encoded a DIVX file into SVCD (mpeg2 format) using TmpgEnc 2.50. The resulting file played with my pc's dvd software and looked great but was too long. When I went to TmpgEnc to divide it, I got 2 address errors. The first was at 73f91d04 against 73f91d04 - which I have seen before and does not appear to cause trouble. The other was address 030c3535 against 00000001. When I closed the second message out, the editing cursor was positioned at the end of the file. In fact, there did not seem to be a valid file at all. I also tried vcd cutter and it also failed (couldn't generate file). Can anyone help me with this or give some advice on where to look.

Thanks much
lonnic

[hybrid]

DivX 2 SVCD is gay don't do that, waste of time and it still will look like a DivX even worse.

[adam]

TMPGenc is a horrible mpeg2 cutter and I don't think Vcdcutter even supports mpeg2. Just use bbmpeg, it is the only decent mpeg2 cutter available.

[lonnic]

I appreciated the suggestion. I downloaded bbmpeg and tried it to no avail. If I tried project, I got a cannot read error. If I tried the add, I got the message "could not get time per frame". I also cannot find where you can cut an mgp file. Do you have suggestions on how to use bbmpeg?

Thanks.
lonnic

[adam]

http://www.vcdhelp.com/bbmpegedit.htm

Just follow that guide. You have to demultiplex your audio and video first.

[lonnic]

I will give it a go. thanks again.
lonnic

[lonnic]

I followed the directions and demuxed my mpeg2 file. Then I opened bbmpeg, chose start encoding, settings and input/output files. The minute I clicked openVs, bbmpeg died. I tried several times - both video and audio with the same results. I tried unzipping bbmpeg again with no improvement. I redownloaded it and reunzipped it - same result. I am running windows xp. Can that be a problem? I am really getting discouraged. Please help if you can.
lonnic :(

[SupaCoopa]

I have the exact problem with bbMPEG under Windows XP. Haven't found out any solution yet, so when I want to cut MPEG-2 I use Womble MPEG2VCR which is a better SVCD cutter anyway. No need to demux, frame-precise cutting and projected file size report. It's a commercial program though.

[NeWcS]

This should be added to the top of the BBMpeg guide page seeing how ive seen this proablem talked about a number of times.

As soon as you open up bbmpeg, on the top left of the program hit the 'LOAD' button, when the next window pops up just hit cancle.

Thats it, its a bug with BB and XP

[lonnic]

Believe it or not, I finally hit upon the load button to give bbmpeg a target and it did work - sort of. The resulting files were cut appropriately but the resulting encoding was awful. The file was jerky and audio/video sync got progressively worse as the file played. bbmpeg kept saying to decrease the bit rate and that the resulting file might not play correctly - it did not.
I suppose I can fiddle with the settings, but that was not what I had in mind. I like what I have and just want to cut it. I will look into the Womble mpeg2vcr, but would appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks much all.
lonnic

[LTT]

I just want to post a reply to the person that says DIVX to SVCD is gay. I have encoded DIVX DVD rips to Mpeg 2 and burned them to SVCD and the quality was incredible. WAY better than VCD. The problem is YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

I consider myself new to all this, since I've only bought a DVD player that would play burned disks about a month ago, and have only been using TMPGEnc for about 3 weeks now. And yet I have figured out how to make great looking SVCDs from VCD. Perhaps it's my background in Computer Science/Software Development that helped me out, or perhaps it's just the fact that I'm not a complete idiot, but I was able to get great results from TMPGEnc.

As soon as I master a few more aspects of the movie making process, such as creating chapters, etc... then I am going to write a good document on all this that hopefully this site will host one day. I started out by using the guides on this site, and never got anything but garbage as output, so I ended up figuring it out on my own.

If anybody wants to know how I'm getting beautiful MPEG2 from DIVX the answer is actually pretty simple:

1.) Filters. Read up on them. Experiment with them. The more you use them and tweak them, the better your picture quality will be.

2.) Crank up all the settings in TMPGEnc to the highest quality.

3.) It's going to take forever to encode, (takes me about 48 hours for 1.5 hours of movie) so get over it. The more time and effort you put into it the better the results, just like anything else in life.

4.) All these people trying to fit SVCD on one or two disks, should just be using VCD, cause they CAN'T be getting very good quality. Get used to the idea that it's going to take 3 or 4 disks for a movie, and stop trying to cram it onto less. Find a place to buy cheap CDs. I catch specials at BestBuy about once a month were I can get CDs for about five cents a piece.

[mr_seth_enslow]

Why would anyone waste 4 perfectly good CDRs on a movie when you could fit it on 1 or 2 discs with decent quality?

I followed the guides on this site and had my first VCD created within a few short hours. I'm now well on my way to putting most movies on a single XVCD. Looks good enough to me.

[lonnic]

Mostly I am just experimenting with what gives the best quality to time/cd ratio. I still would like to know how to successfully cut a svcd maintaining the original quality of the original svcd.
thanks.
lonnic

[LTT]

As to why anybody would want to "waste" 4 perfectly good CDs, QUALITY.
Sure, VCD is great for most movies. 99% of my movies are VCD. But for those few movies that you really like, and want a really good copy of, I don't mind "wasting" a couple of 5 cent CDs at all. Still a hell of a lot cheaper than DVD.