Converting from MKV to DVD

[carlmart]

Apparently I have unlearnt everything I knew on how to go from an mkv file to a pristine DVD copy.

Nowadays I do not use DVD anymore, as MKV fles are much superior. But on some cases I have to rely on them, for one reason or another.

From the many programs I used, the best was through Avisynth, with HCEnc Gui as the conversion tool. So please do not suggest such programs as AVStoDVD or ConvertXtoDVD for this job, because they are very good, but not as good as. On my experience at least

The problem, as I said, is that lost my edge and I can't make this conversion start, certainly because I'm doing something wrong.

I have this 1080p file which I wrote into an script file, and seems to work fine when I load it into AvsP. But the encoding stops right away in HCEnc. This is the script:

FFMpegSource2("h:\file.mkv")
spline36resize(720,368)
addborders(0,56,0,56)

Can someone tell me what's wrong with this?

[carlmart]

OK. A slight change.

This time I tried loading the file with directshowSource on the script, and things seem to work.

It's encoding now.

If this is how it should be, can someone explain to me why?

[poisondeathray]

What version are you using? Some of the older hcenc versions had problems with ffms2 . It's ok in 0.26

[AlanHK]

I have this 1080p file which I wrote into an script file, and seems to work fine when I load it into AvsP. But the encoding stops right away in HCEnc. This is the script:

FFMpegSource2("h:\file.mkv")
spline36resize(720,368)
addborders(0,56,0,56)

Can someone tell me what's wrong with this?

I've used similar scripts for years, no problem with HCenc .24 or .25

Check the specs in AvsP:
R-click on the preview and see the frame rate: is it 24000/1001?
If not, you can correct a small difference by using

FFmpegSource2("file.mkv",atrack=-1,fpsnum=24000,fpsden=1001)

or if it's 24 fps use
AssumeFPS("ntsc_film", sync_audio=true)

-- and of course, if it's 25 fps, encode as PAL, 720x576

[carlmart]

In fact, I think the HCEnc that failed was 0.23.

But as I said, things went fine with directshowSource, and I ended up with a nice converted file. Is there any advantage/disadvantage in using it instead of FFmpegSource2?

Next time I will try the mods AlanHK suggests.

Thanks!

[AlanHK]

See http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/DirectShowSource

DirectshowSource is not frame-accurate for seeking. If you do anything in the script that depends on frame numbers, e.g. Trims, you can get glitches and rogue frames.

If you're just scaling it, it's probably okay.

Also, DSS depends on your Windows system codecs. So changing those will change how it works.

I only use it when absolutely nothing else works.