Extremely annoying, tmpeg!

[davidian]

Hey.. this is not really a question, but anyway. I started converting Cast Away, DVD-SVCD.. using Tmpegenc, CQ 2472 kbps 60% quality.

I really wanted it to fit on 2 cd's because 3 sucks. Anyway, I've got a P3-450 so it takes VERY long time to encode, it took over 30 hours.

Now to the fun part. It didn't fit on 2 cd's, the file was ~70 mb too big, 35 mb / cd too much ..

Hehe, that was pretty annoying so I lowered the audio bitrate from 224 to 160 kbps and also lowered the video bitrate .. I hope it'll be enough. I just have to wait .. 30 hours more now.

[Kdiddy]

Why dont you use the bitrate calculator located at???.hmmm

http://www.vcdhelp.com/calc

that way you get you bitrate settings just right, and time to encode depends on processor & what your otions are...my Tbird 800 takes about 8-10 hours per movie..."highest quality" & "noise reduction" settings adds SIGNIFICANT amounts of time.

[davidian]

First, how can that calculator work if you use VBR? Depending on what sort of movie it is, it can't be too reliable? A movie with a lot of action or a drama with hardly no action .. yeah you know it.

Besides, isn't that calculator made for VBR, and not CQ?

/Johan

[Kdiddy]

Did you read it carefully, it says "calculated AVERAGE bitrate"...plus you said you used 2462 bps?? right..also, if you use CQ (which I wouldnt if I were you) you can set your max and min to what bitrate calculator tells you too..IE, if you need an average of 2000...then set your max to 2100 & min 1900 (with padding), and you will maintain that average range...this is why I wouldnt use CQ, I would use 2 pass VBR where you can set you average exactly....action/no action has no effect on rasing a bitrate...IE, if the range is 'tween 1500-2000, high action will NOT mean it will encode close to 2000.....all VBR does is let the encoder allocate more bits WHEN NEEDED to the more complex scenes, thus the lower scenes will receive less bits in order to maintain the average....it will do the same thing to a low action movie, the more detail scenes will be allocated more bits WHEN NEEDED....in nutshell use the calculator, or download a more complexed one in DVtools, or go on guessing...

[bazwaldo]

Hi davidian,

Did you realise that you can un-merge the video and audio redo the audio on it's own and then merge the new audio to the original video file? It's much quicker than redoing everything.
It's part of the "tools" tab in TMPEGenc.

[Vejita-sama]

The bitrate calculators only work if you use CBR or multipass VBR (for TMPGenc that would be 2pass VBR). No one really knows what CQ_VBR is. But if you use the calculators number for the ave it 'might/should' work???

D/load Sefy's templates and read the section on movie length. He uses CQ_VBR. But really if you use CQ_VBR it's more a guess than a science

[davidian]

According to my experiences with tmpeg, CQ (not CQ_VBR) gives me best quality. End. So that's what I'll use.

[Kdiddy]

I can tell you that 2pass VBR will always produce better than CQ, not even question on that...but since you want to stick with CQ, then you will continue to enjoy guessing at your bitrate, but then dont blame that on "extremely annoying, tmpeg"....that falls under the "operator error" category....especially since in another run of post you state that you getting "macroblocks" when using CQ, LOL, so much for best quality huh?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kdiddy on 2001-09-08 01:22:14 ]</font>

[davidian]

That's odd. Then why does tmpeg give me SVCD files with CQ that has way better quality than 2-pass VBR at less bitrate? Just a question.

[nfl2k2]

Well, it shouldn't look better. If you use the bitrate calc and fill everything in under 2pass, the svcd quality is better than CQ (which is what I used to use until found out about 2pass). the only bad thing about doing 2 passes with tmpgenc is it takes forever. I did 45 min of half a movie w/ 1gighz 128ram and it still took 15 hours.

[Kdiddy]

nfl2h2: You can create a TMPG project file, make a fake .avi file with VFAPI, and serve it to CCE encoder...this method FOR ME, gives me "dvd like" quality from TMPG with the speed of CCE.

[davidian]

Kdiddy, if you make Tmpeg frameserv, what settings do you use then? Do you enter the average bitrate in both tmpeg and CCE, I mean.. the same bitrate? Never heard of this method before, sounds interesting!