MKVToolNix problem

[RosyIvory]

Hi, I'm new here and I need help...

I use MKVToolNix v4.4.0 to extract *.h264 vids then use tubehunter media center to convert them to WMV (PS: I found out that this is the best way to maintain the good quality as possible because if I used a direct way to convert the vids the quality always turns bad - or at least the programs I used weren't that good though I tried lots of them. And I need good quality cuz I make vids on SonyVegas)

Back to the problem... The first couple times I used the program the vids were good and nothing is wrong with them. but now each extracted video is shaky, VERY VERY pixelated, it's almost gray and it looks like the vid is in slow motion.. two frames forward and one frame backward. I wish I can show you a sample vid to demonstrate better, but I'm not able.

Thanks in advance

[poisondeathray]

Do you mean mkvextract? it has nothing to do with this, it just "unpackages" the audio & video streams. The error lies elsewhere

why would you convert them to wmv if you want "good quality as possible" ? or is your end format goal wmv ?

are you doing this so you can import them into vegas?

[RosyIvory]

Yes this is the one I use. I know it's just extracting the file but the files I'm extracting are fine and there's nothing wrong with them.

As for converting them to wmv, that's because Vegas does not accept mkv files or avi files. and wmv is the best I could find.

[poisondeathray]

wrap them (package them) into transport stream .m2ts using tsmuxer - no quality loss, no time wasted re-encoding

WMV is lossy, so even if you wanted to transcode, use something lossless like lagarith, huffyuv, ut video codec

[RosyIvory]

Sorry, these might be stupid questions but I don't understand what tsmuxer is used for, is it an alternative for mkvmerge? It doesn't support avi. And about lagarith, huffyuv, ut video codec, are these like other extensions?

[poisondeathray]

There is a difference between codecs & containers . Think of a container like a box that holds video & audio plus other things like subtitles and metadata

vegas doesn't support mkv container, but it might support the actual video & audio inside

rewrapping is just "repackaging" the audio & video into a new "box". This is much faster than re-encoding, which may cause quality loss unless you use a lossless format

tsmuxer is used for transport stream container, mkvmerge is used for mkv container. Vegas does support transport streams

lagarith, huffyuv and ut are video codecs, you need to re-encode in order to use them. They use AVI container. They are lossless, but it still takes more time than just re-wrapping

wmv is lossy, so everytime you re-encode using wmv, there is generation loss and it accumulates each round.

[RosyIvory]

I installed tsmuxer and it works great so far, the quality is, if I might say even better, with the same small size and Vegas actually recognize the vids; but the problem now is in vegas: when I click to import a vid and this browsing window pop up, and the cursor just stands on the .m2ts vid - I don't even click on the vid, Vegas crashes (every time I tried). Sometimes I get this ..




Also on lagarith, huffyuv and ut, I installed them but I can't see any change. What am i supposed to do with them?

[poisondeathray]

you can't get better quality that the original. It's just that you're used to seeing lower quality wmv

with lagarith etc... you to re-encode them . eg. use vdub with mkv plugin , or avidemux and encode with huffyuv. When using lossles codecs, the filesize will increase - probably 5-10x as large , but this is just for importing purposes - so you need lots of hdd space

I don't think vegas 7 supports h.264 , that might be why you get that error

[RosyIvory]

I managed to give avidemux a try, although it was hard: non of my vids was simply imported; There was always a pop up window asking for some adjustment. Any way, I think that what truly settled this is the output size. You were right, it was waaayy too big and my hdd space can't afford that. I'm working with like 5 seasons of tv episodes.

So I was thinking is there a way to compress avi into m2ts as in h.264 to mkv

[poisondeathray]

I think part of your problem is you're using outdated software. vegas7 is quite old now and won't accept h264 natively. The best option is to use the original quality, but I don't think you can do that (unless you're willing to use the huge lossless intermediates). So you might have to accept some quality loss if you're not willing for huge intermediate files

Older versions of vegas should accept anything that you can play in AVI container

If you're willing to accept quality loss, use a lossy format, like mjpeg in AVI. The more quality loss, the lower the file size (lower bitrate). Choose whatever filesize or quality you are willing to accept. (The lower the quantizer, the higher the quality, the bigger the filesize)

The nightly builds of avidemux shouild be able to import and compress all types of files
http://avidemux.org/nightly/win32/

When you get warning messages about b-frames etc..., say "yes" to everything .

[RosyIvory]

I thought wrong before that mkv beside being a container format is a kind of compressor, that's why I asked about a compressing container, but I know now it's just a container.

I think since most of my files are h264, which it's a very good quality in small size vids, the smartest thing to do is to update my Vegas instead of messing every thing up. and all I need would be muxing them.

So, what version that accepts h264 would you recommend? I don't know about the other versions, what are their advantages and disadvantages?

[poisondeathray]

I think 8 started h.264 support. I would get 10 if you can

Note: it won't accept all types of h.264 natively. There are many different kinds of h.264. It's a very very broad specification

Sometimes you still need to transcode or frameserve in

[RosyIvory]

I say Movie Studio HD Platinum. What do you say?

Most of my files comes from the same source, so I don't think there will be much of a problem.
I read about transcoding and frameserving, not much but I get the idea. And in case something happens, well, I'm a member now here, right!! ; )

[poisondeathray]

I would say try before you buy; they all have free trials

I think the interface is pretty much the same as vegas pro , but there are some limitations on export options, a few other areas

Re-wrapping is always preferable and the least damaging, and the fastest compared to transcoding

[RosyIvory]

Sorry for the late reply, I had some computer problems.

I'm trying now Movie Studio HD Platinum. I didn't make my decision about it yet because I didn't test it properly due to the problems I had. After that I'll post back.

On the limitations on export options you mentioned, do you mean the no. of supported formats or the no. of tracks or what?

Speaking of Re-wrapping, is there another codec like h.264, I mean with such quality and small size?