Best method to Convert DVD MPEG to lower bitrate?

[Peka]

I've got an MPEG2 which was originally encoded as CBR at 9800. I would like to reduce the filesize by encoding at a lower bitrate.

What are peoples opinions on the best way to do this. TMPGEnc wouldn't complete the encode unless I split the file into 2 750MB files. Then, the quality was ok but it looked like a bunch of frames had been dropped.....

Thanks!

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Peka + Drugs =

[DJRumpy]

I'm guessing your hitting a limit on your file system. Win 9x/ME will sometimes cause this. You should consider frameserving your file directly back to your encoder (TMPGenc in this case). You will still have a maximum file size of 4GB if your using Fat32 partitions.

The file itself should not have dropped frames simply from re-encoding. Can you describe what your seeing in more detail?

[Peka]

I've got NTFS partitions, so it's not a filesize issue. There's over 22GB free on that partition and the original file is 1.5GB.

The pictures looks like it's in slow motion, except that the elapsed time is the same as what it should be. eg. a 5sec clip has a bunch of frames missing but still goes for 5 secs.

Thanks

[DJRumpy]

Why did you say that TMPGenc required you to split the file then? Or was this something you got from the wizard? If your on NTFS, just frameserve the MPEG to whatever format your going for.

Is this file intended to go back onto CD/DVD, or is it going to stay on your PC?

If your going back onto CD, and you have a registered version of TMPGenc, you can simply drop the MPEG back into TMPGenc, and use a template. It will downgrade the bitrate during the re-encode. If your movie is large enough, it may include a 3rd disk. I haven't run across any that required 4 yet.

If your planning on keeping this on your PC, then convert it to DivX. If you don't have the toolset installed, you can still use VirtualDub to create a DivX file. Just accept the defaults, and aim for somewhere around 700-800 kbps, and you should end up with a good quality AVI, that will be somewhere around 1-2 GB in size.

[Peka]

DJRumpy,

If I tried to re-encode the original file (1.5GB), TMPGEnc would either fail at 50%, or when it finished the final output was only half the video.

I'm making a DVD of a number of tournaments, and I want to fit more events on by reducing the filesize of this particular file. It was encoded by the CCE plugin for Premiere with default settings, which was CBR 9800kbps. I used the TMPGEnc template for a PAL DVD with a lower bitrate and got the results I described earlier.


Thanks,

Peka + Drugs =

[DJRumpy]

Uhoh. Sounds like your MPEG is corrupt . There are a couple of ways you can attempt to fix it.

Quick and Dirty:
VCDGear - MPEG to MPEG option. Select FIX ERRORS, but make sure you turn OFF SPLIT under options, or you'll end up with 20 little mpegs

Look in the TOOLS section. I know there are a few other quick scan/fix tools there

Longer but better:
Open the MPEG with DVD2AVI, and either save it as a project file (if you know how to frameserve), or save it as an AVI. This file should encode in TMPGenc without issues. You can also have DVD2AVI demux your audio out of the MPEG, so you can simply multiplex it back in later on

In either case, there's a good change your going to have sync issues, if the errors in your MPEG are large enough.

[Peka]

Hmm thanks. I'll play with it and see how I go.