avi- mv2 and mp2 then merge or avi-mpeg2 then merge?

Hello all,

I searched the forum and found out how to convert avi's to dvd compatible video. Now i just wanted some advise as to which route is best. I have multiple anime episodes in avi and want to make a dvd. I want to be able to create a menu to select which episode i want to watch. so the way i see it is to either merge all the avi's together then encode them to mv2 (video) and mp2 (audio) using TMPGEnc then do the dvd authorizing. The other way is to convert each indiviual episode to mpeg2 using TMPGEnc (usefull for cutting out intros) then merging all the mpeg2 files together then authorize then burn. I guess this boils down as to what is best, keeping the audio and video together for merging or seperating the audio and video. for the mv2 and mp2 case i'd have to join the mv2 files and teh mp2 files then create teh .vob files and such. Any suggestions as to the best procedure?

 

What are you using to author?
I would encode each episode separately, to m2v/mp2, then author in DVDLab.

 

The authorization software is still to be determined. I just wanted to know what would be the best procedure. So in DVDLab i can add multiple m2v/mp2 files to create a dvd?
EDIT: further, do you know if a software to that i can use to view mv2 files to make sure they work ok? i have used TMPGEnc on one avi file to obtain mv2 and mp2. I tried listening to the mp2 file hear nothing :S

 

Winamp will play mp2.
virtualdubmod will play m2v.
Yes, DVDLab requires demuxed (m2v.mp2) streams to author, and you'll make a menu to choose which episode to watch, or just watch them all in order from one button. (Use the playlist function).

 

thanks rebootjim,

i was able to view my test mv2 file in virtualdubmod and it looks good! I played the mp2 file with Winamp and WMP and i dont hear anything...maybe the sound was not encoded properly? i am able to watch the original avi file, with good sound. could this because i dont have the right decoder for the sound? if so is there a decoder for AAC sound?

Thanks

 

I was able to extract the audio using AVIMUX-GUI but it comes out in .aac format. do you suggest i convert to mp2 using some conversion software then do authorizing? or leave it as .aac?

 

You'll need an .aac codec to hear it. Just click on the hilighted aac link in your (or this) post.
I would transcode it to mp2 or AC3 (dvd standard) in ffmpeggui.

 

i used FFDshow audio decoder for the aac audio. I can play the .aac file with winamp just fine. I look at ffmpeggui, but it does not support .aac input files. any other suggestions?

 

Try extracting it with virtualdubmod.
Open the file, select streams, stream list.
Select the audio. Click Save WAV.
You can now comvert that .wav to .ac3 or .mp2 for authoring to dvd.

 

the wav i extract from virtualdubmod is compressed, since it 23Mb for a 23 min video file. so when i try to play this extracted wav file in winamp it reports an error that no codec was available to play the file. I'm trying to use graphEdit to convert the aac file and i'll post here if i can get it working. Aside from that program i dont know what else to use.
Thank you

 

Try this then.
Open it in vdubmod, select streams, stream list, select the audio, then click demux.
Did you try transcoding the .wav to .mp2 or .ac3 in ffmpeggui?

 

ok i have finally solved the problem

so the whole problem was with the sound, so i first demuxed the AAC audio using AVIMUX-GUI. Then using aacDecDrop i converted the 2 channel AAC audio to a wav file. aacDecDrop can be found here

http://www.rarewares.org/aac.html
(you need Intel 8.1 libmmd.dll to run aacDecDrop also in the above website)

then using TMPGEnc i convert the wav to mp2(i'm assuming mp2 is not as good as AC3) so there! now i just have to test the video and audio together using DVDLab as you suggested...does this software accept ac3 audio?

as per your suggestion, i tried ffmpeggui but it did not accept .aac audio files so i could not use it. do you think its better to use ffmpeggui to convert form wav to mp2?

Thank you for all your help. I will try now to encode each episode and author using DVD-lab. AAC audio is so hard to deal with, it took me a long time to figure this out

Oh, i almost forgot, i got the idea of using aacDecDrop from here
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=666226#post666226

 

Tmpgenc may be a good video encoder, but it's audio encoding abilities suck.
I would use ffmpeggui to transcode the .wav to .ac3 or .mp2, then author (.mp2 is easier to deal with).
DVDLab will take either format of audio, with no trouble.
DVDLab total beginners guide: http://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=220092

 

thanks for all the help rebootjim. much appreciated. I'll let you know how it goes.