MPG -> AVI ------ how?

[aLact]

i need some help with converting huge mpg files to rather small avi files. can someone please teach me how to do that?

[crumja]

Load it up in virtualdub and read one of the encoding guides in these forums.

[Flash_Squirrel]

I'll move this thread into the Tech forum, since you don't have a playback problem, do you?

I'm sure someone will give you a precise answer, so I'll just avoid to post something unintellegible.

[ShadowX114]

As crumja said, use VirtualDub

Follow this guide:

1-Open VirtualDub (DUH)
2- open the mpg file
3- go to the "video" tab and make sure "Full processing mode" is chosen
4- again, in the "video" tab , click on "Compression"
5- When the new window shows up, choose the 3rd one from the list: DIVX pro 5.0.5 Codec and then press OK
6- go to "audio" tab and check the "Full processing mode"
7- again in the "audio" tab, click on "Compression", when the new windows shows up, choose -> MPEG Layer-3
8- after you choose MPEG Layer-3, a new list will shows up on the right. Choose the 3rd one and press OK
9- go again into "audio" tab and click on "Conversion", under Sampling Rate, check on 22050Hz , also check on "High Quality" and then press OK
10- go under "File" and choose "Save as AVI" or simply press F7
11- choose where u want to save it and then it should convert it.

[aLact]

i tried to convert using virtualdub, but i only made the file four times bigger than the mpg file. the file i want to convert is around 300MB 20min mpg file, i want it to be at least halv the size if it's possible.

[Flash_Squirrel]

Originally Posted by ShadowX114

DIVX pro 5.0.5 Codec and then press OK

Use the XviD beta 3.

You will have to set a properly compression for it to ... compress the file by 150mb.

[aLact]

thanks i'll try that codec out, just one more question. this mpg file i have, have dual-audio is there anyway to use only one of them? maybe it will save me some MB as well

[aLact]

i tested using xvid to convert, it came out rather choppy quality low fps i suspect.

[Cruzz]

Originally Posted by ShadowX114

As crumja said, use VirtualDub

Follow this guide:

1-Open VirtualDub (DUH)
2- open the mpg file
3- go to the "video" tab and make sure "Full processing mode" is chosen
4- again, in the "video" tab , click on "Compression"
5- When the new window shows up, choose the 3rd one from the list: DIVX pro 5.0.5 Codec and then press OK
6- go to "audio" tab and check the "Full processing mode"
7- again in the "audio" tab, click on "Compression", when the new windows shows up, choose -> MPEG Layer-3
8- after you choose MPEG Layer-3, a new list will shows up on the right. Choose the 3rd one and press OK
9- go again into "audio" tab and click on "Conversion", under Sampling Rate, check on 22050Hz , also check on "High Quality" and then press OK
10- go under "File" and choose "Save as AVI" or simply press F7
11- choose where u want to save it and then it should convert it.

3 - Full processing mode is pointless unless you want to use vdub filters which are also pointless unless you can't use avisynth. Fast recompress is the best.
5 - It won't be the third one on everybody's list, and most people won't even have it installed. Besides, xvid is a better choice both quality and performance wise
6-8 - Virtualdub audio processing sucks
9 - 22050Hz? Are you out of your mind?

I recommend you go to Doom9 and read some of the guides they have, those should give you some idea on what to do.

As for the settings, well...

Download AviSynth
Download VirtualDubMod
Download BeSweet (only if you want to re-encode the audio)

Get some filters from here: http://www.avisynth.org/warpenterprises/
Namely Fluxsmooth and Mpeg2dec3 (fixed)
Sharptools (SSXSharpen()) can be found here
The required DLLs (aWarpSharp, Warpsharp and Masktools) for Sharptools are up over here: http://mf.creations.nl/avs/

Open up notepad or some other text editor and type something like this in it:

Loadplugin("C:\Progra~1\AviSynth\plugins\aWarpShar p.dll")
Loadplugin("C:\Progra~1\AviSynth\plugins\MaskTools .dll")
Loadplugin("C:\Progra~1\AviSynth\plugins\WarpSharp .dll")
Loadplugin("C:\Progra~1\AviSynth\plugins\FluxSmoot h.dll")
Loadplugin("C:\Progra~1\AviSynth\plugins\MPEG2Dec3 .dll")
Import("C:\Progra~1\AviSynth\plugins\SharpTools-v0.3.avs")
MPEG2Source("your file here")
FluxSmooth()
SSXSharpen()

And save the file as an .avs. Naturally you should change the paths to match your system.

Using the filters in AviSynth give rather nice results in my opinion, but SSXSharpen() is a bit slow so you might want to use something else if you don't want to spend too much time encoding. Msharpen should be ok I guess, only used it a few times so I don't have much experience with it. You won't need Sharptools, aWarpSharp, Masktools or WarpSharp if you use it so it's a lot simpler. EDIT: Another choice would be aWarpSharp by itself

After you think you've got everything right, try to open the avs file in a media player. This will let you debug the file, when there's something wrong with the .avs it should print out an error message as a "video". If everything is correct, the video will actually start playing (slowly).

After the avs is okay, open it in VirtualDub. Go to video, select fast recompression, go to compression, select xvid. Pick either single pass or two pass - 1st pass. Two pass encoding is preferred but again it's a question of how much time you're willing to spend encoding, two-pass encoding is roughly two times slower than single pass .

Decent settings would be (I'm assuming you have the newest xvid codec):

For single pass only: set the bitrate to less than half of what it is in the mpeg (to leave space for the audio)
For two-pass - 2nd pass (you'll need to have a stats file from the first pass for the 2nd pass): Set the file size to slightly less than half of the mpeg (for the same reason)

Profile Tab:
Profile level: Unrestricted
Quantization type: H.263 (for better compression and slightly better speed) or MPEG (slightly sharper)
BVOPs: yes
Max consecutive bvops: 2
Quantizier ratio: 1.50
Quantizier offset: 0 (well, I do it like this anyway, not really sure if it's the *best* way to do it)
Packed bitstream: NO
Closed GOV: yes

Zone options
Chroma optimizer: yes

Advanced Options
Use Chroma Motion: yes
VHQ mode: 4 (or 1 if you want speed, doesn't have that much of an effect)
Motion search precision: 6
Maximum i-frame interval: 300
Use cartoon mode: yes
Turbo: yes / no - I can't really see a speed difference while using it but maybe it works with other people
Trellis quantization: yes

In audio, set audio to "no audio". It's easier to mess around with audio in VdubMod

For 2-pass, you'll have to do two encodes. First one with twopass - 1st pass and then another one which will actually result in a file that works (well, you could turn off the dummy 1st pass option if you want a working file from the first pass too but I don't really think it's that useful).

For the audio:

Open the original mpeg file in vdubmod. Select the audio track you want to keep and select save as wav.

EDIT: Use besweet to re-encode the audio if it's too large (ie if it's really a PCM wav file, virtualdubmod will save the audio track as a *.wav file no matter what it might really be), it's quite easy to use with the GUI.

Then open your encode, go to stream list, click add, add the audio track you extracted from the original file. Go to the video tab and select direct stream copy. Save the file.

Naturally this won't result in a great file in all cases but it should give a decent file anyway

Whew, that was a lot of text

[aLact]

thanks for the information, i'll go and try it now

[aLact]

urgh i'm really helpless, how do i pick the audiotrack i want to save in vdubmod?

[Cruzz]

Originally Posted by aLact

urgh i'm really helpless, how do i pick the audiotrack i want to save in vdubmod?

Hmmm, there shouldn't be anything particularly difficult about it, every audio track in the file should be listed in the Stream List which is in the Streams menu.

[aLact]

checked and it seems it's only one track dual audio.
by that i mean in left speaker you can hear one language, and in right speaker you hear another. is there a way to only save audio from one of the speakers?

[Cruzz]

Originally Posted by aLact

checked and it seems it's only one track dual audio.
by that i mean in left speaker you can hear one language, and in right speaker you hear another. is there a way to only save audio from one of the speakers?

Hmmm, I've never had to do something like this so I don't know for sure, but you might want to try BeSplit

A quick look at the documentation would suggest that this command (besplit is a command line application like besweet) might work:

BeSplit -core( -input thethingvdubspitsout.wav -prefix c:\channel -type wav -demux )

This should split the file into seperate channel files named channel0x.wav and place them in C:\

[aLact]

k, i'll try it out next week when i have time. lack of it right now, going away soon.... argh. oh well thanks for the help so far, will be back next week for sure