HERE's HOW TO FIT 120mins movie on one cd in SVCD FORMAT!!!!

[Sick-Boy]

Hi all!

I have now been reading 8 pages and i still don't get it. And yes i'm a newbie to this.
I have Enemy At The Gates in Avi. The size is 701. mb. When i convert it to S-MPEG it takes 30 hours and the size is 7 GB.
I hope someone will please tell me what i have to do(what programs to use etc.) or direct me to a tutorial. I tried using the tutorial on vcdhelp.com for altering AVI to ASF, but nothing happens.
PLEASE HELP!!

Sick-Boy

[baker]

i think that there is only one way to get 120mins of video on one cd and u guys haven't figured it out yet,, its called CCE. I am telling u i got an mpeg-1 120min video onto a cd. The quailty wasn't dvd but it was good. good enough for cartoons or a small dvd player or laptop.

baker

[Trailryder]

Kwag,
I reconverted my AVI last night. Just to refresh:
I had done it with your template plus block softening at 35. It came out to 590mb. But the vertical aspect when played on my tv was way to short.

I figured at 590mb I had some room to play with as far as getting it on 1 disc, so I deviated from your template by changing the video arrange method to "full screen" instead of "full screen keep aspect ratio". A test mpeg showed this to fill my tv screen completely.

Then I bumped up the quality from 70 to 80.

After converting the AVI with these settings, it came out to be 1.37 gig.

Question: Which one of these 2 modifications to the template do you think had the biggest influence on the file size?

I have split the mpeg with TMPGenc. With editing and all, the best I can get is 700mb for the first half and 706mb for the 2nd half. That's not gonna work is it? I can't get 706mb on a 700mb/80 min. disc, right?

Guess I'm gonna have to play with the settings some more and convert the AVI again so I can at least get it on 2 discs?

Thanks for the help.

[Joe018]

or you could buy some 730 meg media. i've seen it out there. Never bought any though.

This has been a lot to read all at one shot. I'd like to try but im a bit confused on the process. It seems to be spread out over a variety of posts.

So If someone could configm if i've got this right

I would create an ASF file per the guide on vcdhelp.com pertaining to making asf files.

I would then simply encode using the provided templates and burn as a svcd in nero?

simple as that?


-J

[kwag]

Kwag,
I reconverted my AVI last night. Just to refresh:
I had done it with your template plus block softening at 35. It came out to 590mb. But the vertical aspect when played on my tv was way to short.

I figured at 590mb I had some room to play with as far as getting it on 1 disc, so I deviated from your template by changing the video arrange method to "full screen" instead of "full screen keep aspect ratio". A test mpeg showed this to fill my tv screen completely.

Then I bumped up the quality from 70 to 80.

After converting the AVI with these settings, it came out to be 1.37 gig.

Question: Which one of these 2 modifications to the template do you think had the biggest influence on the file size?

I have split the mpeg with TMPGenc. With editing and all, the best I can get is 700mb for the first half and 706mb for the 2nd half. That's not gonna work is it? I can't get 706mb on a 700mb/80 min. disc, right?

Guess I'm gonna have to play with the settings some more and convert the AVI again so I can at least get it on 2 discs?

Thanks for the help.

Your aspect came out wrong because it depends on your input source. This is something that I should have explained before. You have to play with the input source parameters in TMPEG depending on your program that you use to feed TMPEG ( DVD2AVI, XMPEG, etc. ).

Keep your CQ level on 70 and adjust the input aspect until you get the correct output. Just use the preview on TMPEG to be sure you've got the correct output aspect ratio.

As a rule of thumb, I am now using a CQ of 70 if the movie is a full screen, and a CQ of 80 it it's a wide screen.

There is really no way to tell what the finished size will be. It all depends on the type of movie on the activity/noise figure, etc..

kwag

[Trailryder]

Hmmm, I'll give that a try , thanks Kwag. But I'm not using a program to feed the AVI to TMPEG. I'm taking it right off my hard drive.

[bilbogod]

Baker: Kwags template got 150mins onto a cd for me, not 120 and it looked better than the standard vcd template in TMPGenc. My source was DVD not ASF and I cant help wondering why anyone will choose to go this route when they can just convert from dvd directly.
To the guy who said the results didn't look that great on a 47inch t.v, you have to ask the question why even try?? :Thats a bit like putting a Ford engine into a Ferrari.

[baker]

well I never really read the whole 9 pgs as i was in a rush but suspect that anything you do using low bitrates would look beter in cce.

150mins to a cd is going to look very very very crap no matter what you do. i reccommend a res of 352x240 with a framerate of 25fps to lower file size.


I did d/l kwags templet but didn't see anything special. What am I missing?

Thanks dildogod for giving me an answer as everyone usually ignores me!

baker

[kwag]

Hi Baker:

It's not really low bitrate. First of all, part of the quality and filesize, is the job of the new TMPEG 2.53. What I did is modified the GOP sequence and also the VBV buffer ( I forgot to explain that in prior posts ) to 48 instead of 40, as defined in TMPEG. And that's another long story!.

What happens is that it maintains an average bitrate somewhere around 800 to 900Kbps. If you read one of my prior posts, I explained that the quality/bitrate is not linear. Please go back for a moment and read that post.

So on slow moving scenes, it really doesn't make a difference if you are using 900Kbps or 2,000Kbps at the resolution we're using here. Only when action demands bitrate, then it will be bumped up to a max of 2,300Kbps as defined in the template.

This quality and filesizes were not achievable with early versions of TMPEG ( <2.02 ).

As far as CCE, well, I think the new TMPEG just beated the crap out of it!.
Just my opinion, ( After several tests )

kwag

[trooper116]

First i would like to thank kwag for his template. I tested it on a dvd rip of shrek. It looked great on the pc but when i tried to burn it and play it on my stand alone all i could see was green bars across the screen. My dvd player is a tredex player. By the way, the drive in the tredex is a raite drive which is used in many apex players. What could be causing the green bars and how oculd i fix it?

[wee haggis]

I just broke my record for size of video on one CD.
Now...I know a lot of folk are gonna make the comment.."yeah...but its crappy quality"..
Well,,suprisingly it is no different than many other templates I ve tried recently.
I am(by the way) referring to Kwag's template.
I started with a 702mb DivX and ended up with a 762mb VCD....2hrs and 43 mins!!!
It really is pretty good....(certainly not DVd or even Svcd),,,but I did an experiment and burned an identical CD (actually it had to go onto 2 cd's)using one of the standard templates.. ,the quality difference is negligible and the file ended up 200mb smaller!

[kwag]

Hi trooper116:

Sorry that it didn't work for you.

I guess your DVD player doesn't like the variable bitrate. Or the 352x480 resolution.

Most probably the VBR.

You did burn your mpeg as Non-Standard VCD, and not SVCD, right?.

kwag

[y2flyy]

THIS POST is for the tons of email IM getting on how to do this and that
alot of ppl are asking about the tutorial and/or how to convert to asf
the problem with the tutorial is its hard to write one for newbies when the older versions of windows media encoder (which is very important) is so hard to find. And where i downloaded it from it is now unavailable. I dont know if this thread is the reason why alot of sites are taking it off. One site even said that microsoft has contacted them to remove it due to copyright or something . And Ive sent as many as I can to ppl who emailed me saying they needed it. But I can only do so much. Thats why I havent been able to finish and post the tutorial. And to ppl who have the older version of windows media encoder and are asking how to convert to asf. PLEase use vcdhelp and read the thread its impossible to help everyone in detail. EVERYTHING you need to know is in this thread and/or on vcdhelp.com. Now if you do not want to wait until we can find a certain site to get the older version of windows media encoder and/or you're having MAJOR trouble doing this process in SVCD.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you try KWAG's template
IT works great!!!! considing its a vcd
I have not had any major problems using his template
and if i had any problems he corrected it
Im using his method more often than mines is b/c i hate waiting 2hrs to encode to svcd
and encoding to vcd takes only about 45mins at most
(I have a dual processor)
and it has amazing quality for a vcd
the bitrate goes into the 2000kbs range and comes out in a smaller output size
I would say it looks BETTER than a vcd but not as good as an SVCD
LIke i said if you're have MAJOR trouble using my svcd process
Try KWAg's temp until I can give a better tutorial
you might like his better anyway
but either way it works once you have tried and know what you're doing
Thanks
Y2Flyy
any questions, comments continue to reply or email
and thanks again to kwag for his template and help that he has given to so many
we need more like ya bro

[cybermage26]

Bilbogod, we need to get some samples of what your Farscape turned out like hey :P

[alekov]

Someone please help me... :D
I dl kwag's samples and burned them onto
cdr using vcdeasy 1.7 and the quality was really surprising,
however, my aduio kept cutting off every 2 seconds or so...
on the second sample (geri's movie) it was much better,
but still cutting off...
Anyone else experienced this before? Is it that my Apex 1500 DVD player can't take it or is it the burning method? And in any case, can I modify this template in some way to where it works with apex 1500?
Even if it takes a little more space, I don't care. :lol:

Also I use smart ripper, dvd2avi, and tmpeg...
should I start using xmpeg, is it faster, and where do I get it from?

Thanks a lot in advance for any help,
alekov@prodigy.net

[cybermage26]

I would try switching under the audio stream section thingo yeah, from "Joint-Stereo" to just simple "Stereo" ..
its in the audio settings.
Give it a go.

[cybermage26]

Also Im not really noticing much filesize difference when doing these movies using Kwags template, havent done a full movie, just like 1 min samples... im not finding it to be small really..?

[kwag]

Someone please help me...
I dl kwag's samples and burned them onto
cdr using vcdeasy 1.7 and the quality was really surprising,
however, my aduio kept cutting off every 2 seconds or so...
on the second sample (geri's movie) it was much better,
but still cutting off...
Anyone else experienced this before? Is it that my Apex 1500 DVD player can't take it or is it the burning method? And in any case, can I modify this template in some way to where it works with apex 1500?
Even if it takes a little more space, I don't care.

Also I use smart ripper, dvd2avi, and tmpeg...
should I start using xmpeg, is it faster, and where do I get it from?

Thanks a lot in advance for any help,
alekov@prodigy.net

Hi Alekov:

The Apex is a little picky with either resolution or variable bit rate on xVCD's.

Try to do a small clip with the template but change the resolution to 352x240. If that works, great!, if it still jumps the audio, then it's the variable bit rate and there's nothing you can do about it. The Apex AD-600A has the same problem.

kwag

[bilbogod]

Cyberimage26:- I have opened one of those Yahoo Briefcase accounts that I saw Kwag using. This gives you approx 25Mb of free space. I will upload a sample tomorrow if I can when I get to use the Universities computers (I am not on broadband, and hence I keep getting a timeout).
For other people who say they have compatibility issues, you will obviously have to experiment with the resolution. I had to bring mine down to 288 instaed of 480, but the overall result still looks better than my old vcds and thats with a 2/3 smaller filesize.
On a side note what is the difference anyone between regular stereo, joint and dual channel ??
Thanx
p.s As for any audio probs I've always been encoding this seperately and then remux'ng afterwards. You can do all sorts of fun things with it this way....
p.p.s Filesize for my Farscape conversion was an average 5.2 Mb per min. I've seen very few samples that looked that great under 7 before.

[thegig]

alekov, the APEX does not like the framerate, It really doesn't care much about the size either, but it doesn't look too bad.

[MITSUI_1]

Intersting observation on the Apex 1500.

I've reencoded the 4 LOTR SVCDs to 2 VCDs. It was a long and painful process because I trimmed off the distracting "this movie belongs to" message on the bottom, cliped the sides to maintain aspect ratio, RE-ADDED the couple of translations of elvish that got clipped when I got rid of the "scroller".

Anyway, although the APEX 1500 generally hates VBR I was thinking at the time of buying a Pioneer and so I thought I'd try to do the CQ_VBR anyway. Well, what I found is that with the right settings (and a tiny tweak of brightness (-4), contrast (+20) and gamma (-3) in TMPGenc 2.02, I got 90 minutes onto each VCD with pretty darn good quality using CQ_VBR min 320, max 1460 and 160bps sound. Encoded to 29.97 fps even though the source was 24fps. This sacrifices a little smoothness, because there is an exact duplicate frame in every group of five, but also didn't take up much extra encoding space (since the "dupe" frames just got encoded as P or B frames that, because they are exactly the same as the previous frame, took almost zero space each.

But that's not the point. The VCDs, even though they are VBR, play on the Apex 1500 perfectly. It seems that the only time the Apex has trouble is if the bitrate swings go over a certain level. At least I think that's the deal. I've since encoded my VHS of Aladdin (also 90 minutes) onto a single VCD using the same method and it worked out playable as well. Haven't gotten TMPGenc 2.53 yet, so not ready to try KWAG's template just yet. But I'll let you know as soon as I do!

Recently tried to do a 2-pass VBR of Indiana Jones using avg 1674 and it skips all over the place . I'm still trying to figure out what's going on with the quirks of this player.

Just my experiences.

[MITSUI_1]

BTW,

KWAG... I think it is about high time you compile all of the information in this thread (particularly as to compatiblity), write a complete "how-to" zip it all up and get the templates to Baldrick for posting on the VCDHELP page.

I just burned your sample from LW3 and played it on a buddies player. Nice nice nice!.

[Joe018]

Just for those having problems finding the right windows media encoder i believe it's a part of windows media tools 4.1 so do a google search using words like media tools encoder asf 4.1. you should find what you need

here are a few places hosting mostly german. i've also posted what claims to be an asf recorder that i havent tried below as well. might just be audio.

http://www.retrojukebox.com/wmtools.exe


http://212.252.113.91/multimedia/wmtools.exe


http://www-pc.uni-regensburg.de/systemsw/TOOLS/wmtools.exe

here is what is supposed to be a asf recorder havent tried it
http://www.soft-ware.net/multimedia/video/tools/p00963.asp

[sean madison]

let me clear something up for everybody here.

This template or guide being talked about seems to be nice, i have not tried it out but i have noticed that it is non standard format, not good for half the population who owns dvd players.

Now, with that said, let me ask everyone this-

How would u feel to use temps or read a guide whatever u want to use to encode with great quality, i'm assuming as good as this persons temps, i dont know, havent tried em, and KEEP IT STANDARD! AND, as a bonus- keep it standard for vcd or svcd?

Sounds too good? well the only catch is it only works on dvd players.

If ur dvd player can only play standard formats but u want more than 80 min of video in great quality for vcd or svcd, i'm ur guy.

The temps and guide were made in january so they been tested by tons of people.

If you want em, i got all the temps already made for svcd, no temps yet for vcd but i do have the guides for vcd and svcd for this method.

For those who have emailed me who is reading this already, i will be replying to ur emails pronto!

[baker]

well Even though I will stick to my svcds as i don't mind 2 cds and the res of 480x576 means that it will look good when converting it to dvd in the future(60 mins to a cd). Even though I have no use for this templet, I think i will mess about with it as i find the comment that" tmpegenc kicks the crap out of cce" to be intreging.

Is anybody here now storing there movies in this format and using it?

I don't think so as it aint really that future proof is it?

baker

[bilbogod]

Well Baker, I'll be posting a sample tomorrow if I can....My definition of acceptable quality is the same as ever..."Would it fool your nextdoor neighbour into thinking that they were watching a regular video". In this case it is a resounding yes. Still you can view it tomorrow and make of it what you will. I seem to remember one person saying a little while back that at 120 mins a vcd would barely be able to support a recogniseable image. LOL..... Egg on your face time tomorrow

[Bud]

bilbogod

Be sure to let us all know how we can get your samples, and if possible your templates, ....many thanks...

[baker]

yes well 352x480 should produce (very) acceptable results. But being a pal user should I use 352x576????? Also I am now trying this format in cce and i hope to have a wee "CCE vs TMPEGENC showdown!!" As i still think tmpegenc cannot beat cce in terms of speed and quailty. If tmpegenc is giving excellent results with this program apart for the odd macroblock here and there i should think cce should produce no macroblocks!!

I hope to have a cce guide for this format up here soon.

baker

[boink]

@kwag

I have also tried you template and it's okay but still I don't get the quality results you and some others are talking about.

Hope you can come with some input to optimize it.

I use it to captured avi-materiel from a satelite reciver via s-video.
Capture resolution: 352x576 - pal: 25 FPS

Some of my hard ware:
Capture card: Pinnacle PCTV rave
DVD standalone player: Pioneer DV444

Soft ware:
Capture: Avi_IO with huffy codec
Frame server: Virtuel dub added deinterlace filter
TMPGEnc v.2.53:
Changed your template to pal.
Size: 352x576
Aspect ratio: 4:3 625 line PAL
Frame rate: 25
Source aspect ratio: (4:3 625 line PAL)
Nero 5.5.6.4 burnt as a non standard VCD for testing.

The problems:
I only get real smal files if the resolution is 352x288 (The gift: 107 min. = 547.000 kb)
There is sync problems about a ½ sec.
The picture quality is just not good enough. If I compare to SeVcd template as I normally use.
VCDEasy v.1.07 will not allow me to ad the mpg files because it says 352x586 is not a valid resolution for PAL encode sequence.
I always burn with VCDEasy because I wont chapters in my VCD. Dont you have any problems with your 352x480 resolution and VCDEasy?


Regards
Boink

[kwag]

Boink. Did you download one of the samples, and burned it for reference?.

Try that so that you can compare to something else. I suggest you download the sample "geri's game'. That's a reference of quality and size as generated by the template and TMPEG 2.53.

kwag