unable to frameserver from virtualdub to mainconcept encoder

[sodium]

i have just tried Mainconcept MPEG encoder because TMPGENC lastly give me errors in my computer. It works great, quick and good quality. The only bad thing is that it have no "keep aspect ratio" option. All my encodes result in 4:3 aspect ratio. Bad thing.
i tried virtualdub to add black bordes to avi file and frameserver directly to mainconcept with no results. It open the .vdr file succesfully, but the captured image is GREEN, all green. No problem with sound, but image not works at all.
Maybe i am doing something wrong? Hints?
Thanks!

[sodium]

i have tried to frameserve to TMPGENC with virtualdub and with avisynth script files and it workd perfectly. Maybe Mainconcept dont accept frameserver script files. Yes? No?

[previn]

You really don't need to bother frameserving, if you go into the advanced options you can select the aspect ratio in there

[sodium]

i have tried the four modes, Square pixels, 4:3, 16:9 and 2.21:1 , made a small clip from 16.9 avi, burn the 4 clips in nero into a svcd. played in a dvd player in my main TV and the 4 clips run in fullscreen mode. i think this setting have no effect in manner MC encode the video. it encode the video always in fullscreen, independently of aspect ratio of source file.
I suppose adding black bars at full and bottom with virtualdub or avisynth will keep aspect ratio. If you can encode a 16:9 avi to svcd with MC and play fine in your DVD at home keeping the correct aspect ratio , post your settings exactly please.

[greengate69]

I have the same problem with the demo version (green screen). According to the Mainconcept forum (mainconcept.com) it should accept virtualdub frameserver files (.vdr). However, I have only been able to get it to work if I run the vdr through vfapi converter first, which is time consuming. I have also managed to get it to work by running an avisynth script through vfapi converter. Be useful to know if there is any settings required to get the program to accept the .vdr files directly.

[previn]

You are right about the green screen using virtualdub. I've just tried avisynth and it worked absolutely perfectly though, perhaps you need an updated version??
Are you getting the green screen with avisynth aswell or is something else happening?
p.s. didn't need vfapi, just straight from avs file into mainconcept

[sodium]

i have donwload the lastest version of avisynth, 2.07 i think.
write a small script only to try if MC can handle the avs file. for example:
AVISource("d:\divx\the_skulls_2.avi") save as example.avs
run MC, open video, select example.avs file. view preview window, and voila! green screen
what seems strange to me is that MC read correctly the info of source file in VIDEO INPUT INFO, but can´t display it correctly.

[previn]

very strange, I tried a diffferent avi later and whatever I do I get the same green screen. Although the first film I tried loads perfectly every time.
There has to be a bug in MC i think as I the tried the avs file that wouldn't work in CCE instead and it worked perfectly then.

[sodium]

well i have a lot of divx movies waiting to be watching in my standalone dvd player. go back to tmpgenc. i will give MC an oportunity in the next update. 3 or 4 days watching green screens is very bad for my eyes!

[previn]

Could be the green screen is if divx file is rgb format.
Avisynth uses "converttoyuy2" command line which should solve it.
Not sure if you can do this in Virtualdub though

[SaSi]

i have tried the four modes, Square pixels, 4:3, 16:9 and 2.21:1 , made a small clip from 16.9 avi, burn the 4 clips in nero into a svcd. played in a dvd player in my main TV and the 4 clips run in fullscreen mode. i think this setting have no effect in manner MC encode the video. it encode the video always in fullscreen, independently of aspect ratio of source file.
I suppose adding black bars at full and bottom with virtualdub or avisynth will keep aspect ratio. If you can encode a 16:9 avi to svcd with MC and play fine in your DVD at home keeping the correct aspect ratio , post your settings exactly please.

Have had exactly the same problems with Mainconcept. Always 4:3. Until I realized the "bug" was on the DVD player. It was configured for a wide TV and any 16:9 movie was played in full screen (as it should). As soon as I configured it for the 4:3 TV (that I have), all made sense. Both CCE and Mainconcept don't need to "resize" the frame.

And, by the way, the same setting must be made in the authoring application. If it asks (where it asks), set it for a 16:9 format. Some home authoring programs don't give you the option but others do. If you don't use one of those, then you're stuck into manually compensating. However, what happens if (when) you get a wide TV?

[sodium]

the problem with the green screen was gone! i have update the xvid codec and now the video files are ok. no more green screen while frameserving.

to sasi:
the trick with the dvd player don´t work in mine. set to 4:3 tv or 16:9 tv plays the video always fullscreen. but now i can frameserve to add black borders. problem resolved. but if MC in futures updates add the option "keep aspect ratio" like tmpgenc, all would be more easy.

[AngusMacGyver]

I had the same problem, but i solved it by changing the matrix coefficients to FCC.

[Mr Grumpy]

I had the same problem, but i solved it by changing the matrix coefficients to FCC.

Whoah Thank you sir - this has worked for me too.

I just completed the following:
- 102 minute DivX (with no audio in the AVI - long story )
- frameserved & resized using VDub (without VFAPI)
- audio from a WAV
- VBR 1950 (500-2454)
- Output to .mpg
- file splitting to 2 files at 795MB

... in just under 2 hours

(CCE took a shade over 4 hours for 3 pass VBR +VAF for the same thing and I processed the audio and muxed it separately).

Quality is definitely up to CCE standards - I'm impressed.