Xvid's fail everytime in TMPgenc

[Deepdale Duck]

Hi,
I've just started to convert avi movies to PAL VCD's. They (mostly) work a treat, but I can't get any Xvid encodes to work at all!
TMPGenc simply stops working and throws up an error asking me to send a report to Bill Gates! (I'm an XP user).
The films I have bother with are 8 legged freaks, enough, goldmember, frailty(I cant even extract the audio) and reign of fire.
My usual procedure is to extract the audio using vdub (full processing mode - 44100khz) then tmpgenc, load the pal template and spit the file accordingly, after changing the environmental settings as per the guide on xvids.
Has anybody created a successful vcd (pal) of the above films? Is this something to do with me creating the files as PAL?
Can anybody point me in the right direction? Is there anything else I can try to encode these films for vcds?
thanks in advance.

[secretagent]

try installing one of the two xvid codecs

[Deepdale Duck]

one of two? I've installed the xvid codec from the xvid site? What is the other one?

[sopranoswhack]

try:
virtualdub mp3 & video freeze

i got a copy of goldmember myself, and those damn xvid codecs are hard as **** for tmpgenc. believe me i know.

[Donny661]

The only way i've got XviDs to work is frameserving with either virtualdub or avisynth. AviSynth is preferable but if you don't know how to use it virtualdub is a good alternative. It's a shame tmpg doesn't work well with xvids because alot of movies on the net are now being released in that format.

[Deepdale Duck]

Thanks for the framserver tip, I'd almost given up on the damn things..
I've just checked out the guide http://www.vcdhelp.com/virtualdubframeserve.htm
but it seems a little hazy, 'do the video editing', 'choose your favourite codec' - I'm a newbie and I've only used VDub for extracting audio.
Before I have a go are there any pitfalls I shoukd be aware of?
What version of VDub do you recommend for instance?

[megafree]

Ok,
I had a bit of a problem with the xvid's as well but I have a work around that might work for pal as well.

I had to get rid of a bad vid section, about 5 sec's, after 10 hours of work arounds and trial and error in syncing the audio back up I realized I could have done it in 10 min...LOL. I guess the reward is in the learning....

this will depend if TMPGenc will convert a NTSC mpg2 to a PAL mpg2

use virtualdub and extract the audio as a .wav and use TMPGenc to create the NTSC format, using the .wav for the audio (slice and dice as necessary). I had excelent success with this and the quality is awsome. Then if possible use TMPGenc to convert the NTSC mpg2 you just created to PAL format.

It will involve an extra step but if I'm not mistaken it should go well.
give it a shot as I said .... the reward is in the learning

[SrBrunox]

TO ENCODE XviD------You have to go into 'Environmental Settings' and click on the 'VFAPI Plugins' tab and right click on DirectShow Multimedia file Reader, make it higher priority 1. Now you should be able to encode XviD. It worked for me and my LoTR-TTT

[Dutch Coder]

8)
I've said it before....... use Panasonic MPEG encoder to do Xvid, it does the job 99.99% ! "course with the right codecs.......don't forget "ffdshow". As for the Xvids with Ac3, use Cillers Ac3 tool.

As for the the Dutch folks...... ik kan ook een gids in het Nederlands maken...... vraag het maar.

[cthulhu]

TO ENCODE XviD------You have to go into 'Environmental Settings' and click on the 'VFAPI Plugins' tab and right click on DirectShow Multimedia file Reader, make it higher priority 1. Now you should be able to encode XviD. It worked for me and my LoTR-TTT

Look here http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/userguides/119019.php for settings. They work for me everytime.

[Deepdale Duck]

Thanks for the tips.

I've tried changing the vfapi environmental settings, but I've had no luck.
True, when I do alter them per the guide when I browse for the xvid encoded film I get a green screen, but re-encoding the film for PAL VCD never completes (Goldmemeber for instance fails on 76% without fail everytime). I've tried different versions of TMPGEnc and O/S.
If it works for you though, perhaps I have a bad avi file? Many files I've downloaded recently have been poorly ripped, i.e. bad frames thus the sound goes all out of sync.

However, I managed to start my PC frameserving using VDub and TMPGenc, so in 8 hours or so I'll know if I had any success with an XVID encoded flick.

Thanks again.

[Qeef]

THE ANSWER TO ALL YOURE XVID PROBLEMS!!!!!

I`ve been having a lot of problems converting XviD coded movies with TempGenc. But know I solved all my problems!!!!

Use the FourCC changer from your XViD codec!!!!
Load the XViD movie into it and put DivX in both fields. Press apply....
and gone are all your problems!!!! Now encode as usual with TempGenc.

No Thnx!!
Qeef.

[Loco11111]

Best method for me is re-encode the Xvid to DivX 5.02 using VirtualDub.
Resizing it along the way (Boy, do I love the previewfeature). Most of the time decoding the audio to uncompressed PCM at the same time. Put it in TMPG, select the VCD PAL template and presto: 1 PAL mpgfile.Takes me about 3 hours in total and no errors in TMPG.

[Deepdale Duck]

So far I have got 2 out of 3 successes with XVID encoded films using Vdub to frameserve. When I checked the 2 failures the original avi files have bad frames in them where the picture goes all blocky, green and pink for about a minute, then when it settles the sound is out of sync by about 30 seconds!!
At least I have managed to encode an xvid though - so cheers for frameserving tip.

I also tried the fourCC changer utility with the XVID codec, again the file I tried it on was a knackered avi so again it went totally out of sync, however atleast it loaded into TMPGEnc without having to change the environmental variables. So I will definitely give this another go using a 'good' avi.

I'd not thought about re-compressing the xvid file into divx, will I lose any quality doing this? Looking at VDub options do I simply load the video file in then select compression>divx5.02 and off we go? or is there more to it?

Thanks