Batch convert HuffyUV and DV to "something" for smaller archive - HELP

[magillagorilla]

Hey all,
The last time I visited the forum I was untangling the mystery of capturing VHS and miniDV. Now that I have spent the last 6 months capturing all those precious family moments to my satisfaction using HuffyUV and DV I have a big 750GB archive. I intend to keep the lossless versions for future use as an archive but I would like to reduce all the clips for portability. I want to share video with family and keep lossy backups off-site.

Now here's the long question. I want to batch convert all my clips and I'm not sure what application or codec will be the best pick.

The content is interlaced which looks OK, as we know, on a TV. I know de-interlaceing is destructive and distorts temporal resolution but it looks better on progressive displays. My goal is to perserve perceptive quality at the most effecient bit-rate for viewing not for editing.

I am open to any mainstream codec like MPEG2, MPEG4, MOV, WMV, DIVX, XVID.........................

I'm not a big fan of spending months on the road to self discovery and would like some opinion on this.

The video quality of the source is poor to medium VHS (some SLP footage). Batch converting and "for free" is a must. Thanks for any help.

[jagabo]

If you convert to interlaced 720x480 MPEG 2 with DVD compatible settings you'll be able to shrink your 30 GB/hr HuffYUV and 13 GB/hr DV to 2 to 4 GB/hr with good quality. Even less if you go with 352x480 frame size (you won't have significant loss of real resolution because VHS tapes don't have 720 pixels of resolution horizontally anyway). Most computer players will deinterlace that on the fly and all set-top DVD players and TVs will display it correctly. You can probably set up a batch process that will use AviSynth to open/filter the files and HcEnc to encode them.

[magillagorilla]

I was leaning towards MPEG2. Interlace is native to MPEG2 which is good in the retention of temporal resolution. I did cap at 720x480, because I'm anal and wanted to get the whole frame. Reducing to 352x480 is not a bad idea. I have no idea how to use AviSynth, not that I'm incapible of learning. Is it possible to use HcEnc without it? Though a comb filter would be nice and maybe some contrast tweeking.

How would a reduced 352x480 frame later translate to DVD (which is a very minor concern)?

I messed with Handbrake and coded some 1min samples to MP4 using the "Standard" setting and got a 30MB file. That seemed kinda big. Also it looks like the application was using drop-frame to deinterlace, which looked bad. The overall preservation of the original was good but the file size is too big for what I'm after. Also from what I understand MP4 does not play nice with interlace.

[jagabo]

The basics of AviSynth aren't too hard do learn. A simple script will look like:

AviSource("filename.avi")
CNR2() #chroma noise reducer
BilinearResize(352,480)

HcEnc will require a AVS script to feed it. I've never used the CLI version directly but it looks like it takes all it's instructions from an INI file. There are several GUI front ends for it too.

352x480 is a valid resolution for 4:3 DVD. So your files will be ready to author to DVD.

If you're looking at h.264 encoding for computer only playback you're best of deinterlacing. Yadif in AviSynth is probably a good compromise. TempGaussMC is the best but very slow. You can keep the temporal smoothness by using those in double frame rate mode (30i to 60p). Playback on slower computers may be a problem though.

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/322333-Lines-on-my-rendered-videos?p=1996549&viewfu...=1#post1996549

[txporter]

Hcenc can use the ini file or can be used without it. It is really a pretty straight forward CLI. Hank includes a pdf in the distribution that shows the command line arguments at the end. (download here)

Once you have your avs file built (like jagabo mentioned above), you can run something as simple as this to encode your files:

Path\to\hcenc_025.exe -i video.avs -o video.m2v -b 6000 -maxbitrate 9000 -interlaced -tff -smp -noini -2pass -profile best

There are, of course, quite a few options and it is handy to use the ini file in conjunction with command line.

I don't have a copy of my hcenc batch files here, but I try to throw one up here from memory:

FOR %%A IN (*.avi) DO (
  ECHO AviSource("%%A"^)
  ECHO CNR2(^)
  ECHO BilinearResize(352,480^)
)> %%~nA.avs

setlocal
set hcenc="PathTo\hcenc_025.exe"
set mplex="PathTo\mplex.exe"

mkdir output

FOR %%A IN (*.avi) DO (

%hcenc% -i %%~nA.avs -o "%%~dpA\output\%%~nA.m2v" -b 6000 -maxbitrate 9000 -interlaced -tff -smp -noini -2pass -profile best

)

This will create the avs script for each avi file in the directory you run the batch file from. It will create an output directory and encode each of the files using hcenc with the included string and drop the output m2v files in the output directory. You can use a program called mplex to mux the file with the audio. Not sure what type of audio you have, but you might be able to use eac3to to demux the audio from your avi file and then use mplex to mux them together.

You will need to determine what bitrate you really want to use (6000 might be much more than you need) and whether it is bottom-field-first or top (bff/tff). HCenc also has a nice 1pass VBR mode if you don't really care to hit an exact bitrate that will speed up the encoding time.

You can look at a program called HCguibatch that a user here wrote that can automate a lot of this. I haven't used it very much as I preferred to create my own batch files, but it is a place to start.

[magillagorilla]

OK, I got HCBatch to make my script and HCGui to process the script. The video encodes AVI>MPEG2 but the audio is gone and the aspect ratio changes from the original 4:3 to 16:9. What am I missing?

[txporter]

HCenc only deals with video. You will need to mux the audio back with the video using something like mplex. The aspect ratio can be set in the gui. Sounds like you had it set for 16:9 rather than 4:3.

[magillagorilla]

Seems odd that HCGbatch offers audio setting options. Also I have switched the aspect ratio on HCbatch to both ratios and HC always outputs 16:9.

What plugin do I use to MPLEX the audio back in to the file? Is there a dumber free batch tool I can use to convert my archive to MPEG2?

[txporter]

I think you are referring to freebird's gui HCbatchgui. You can ask in his support thread or look at his user guide. HCgui is actually a gui included by the HCenc author. Hcenc/HCgui do not deal with audio at all and freebird just built a gui that uses HCenc plus uses other software to deal with audio.

mplex is not a plugin, but a stand alone piece of software that is used for command line muxing. The newest version of mplex can be downloaded here. After you unzip/untar it, it is in the /bin directory. Here is a website that shows the command line arguments you can use with mplex.

Is it possible that whatever software you are using to view the video is forcing 16:9 aspect ratio?

[magillagorilla]

"Is it possible that whatever software you are using to view the video is forcing 16:9 aspect ratio? "

I'm using WMP. I have others, I just use WMP because I know the family members who will use the files will use this. It shows the original HuffyUV AVI in 4:3 but the transcoded MPEG2 files in 16:9.

Is there no app like Handbrake for MPEG2? I'm not upposed to learning and I do understand the MUX/REMUX process but when I use something as simple as Handbrake it's hard to imagine no one made something this simple for MPEG2.

I'll check the support thread for HCbatchgui thanks for the tip.

OK, this HCbatchgui looks like the ticket. Time to RTFM!

[txporter]

You can also take a look at AVStoDVD. The author, MrC, is great at supporting his app. You might be able to use that create mpg files rather than writing to disk. I have only looked at it very sparingly, but it seems to be a well-written piece of software. It might at least help you with general avs script creation, etc. Not sure how useful it will be for batching files though.

You can try using XVID4PSP for batch conversion of your files to mpeg2 as well. It uses ffmpeg, or which there are a lot of frontends for as well. Maybe some others can come along and offer some suggestions for you. I have been mainly using command line programs for the last year or so.

[magillagorilla]

Trying to fugure out HCBatch

I get:
D:\batchtest>"C:\Program Files\HCbatchGUI\mplex.exe" -f 8 -o "D:\batchtest\_TEST.mpg" "D:\batchtest\_TEST.m2v" "D:\batchtest\_TEST.ac3"
The system cannot find the path specified.
If you applied it DGpulldown will now start.
Your files are now processed
You now have video and audio files ready to be authored in your favorite dvd authoring program
If you applied it DGpulldown will now start.

It is true that none of those files are in that path. I don't know why its looking for them.

[magillagorilla]

Hello all,
I am still trying to find a batch encoding solution. I am not dead set on MPEG2. Any other suggestions out there?

[filmboss80]

Your original post spoke of "portability." MPEG2 is the format you need for distribution on DVD. Xvid will get the files even smaller, and if you use a good bitrate, the video will still look really nice. Some newer brands of DVD players (like just about all Philips players) will play Xvid, but not all brands (especially older units) will play it. If you want universal compatibility, you will have to stay with MPEG2-based DVDs.