Hello, this is my first post here I hope someone can help me out. I'm using TMPGenc to convert mp4 to avi and all is good until I got an error 50% through the operation "stream writing error". I figured out that was because lack of disk space which i thought was odd. I went to the unfinished avi and it was 10GB. I'm guessing compression settings arent correct and Im not sure on what settings to select for the output codec setting for the avi. The default codec for output avi is "Uncompressed RGB". Is this the problem? The source is a 300MB, 2 hour mp4 movie. Thanks for helping.
1. RAW RGB means 3bytes per pixel so for 640x480 that's 640x480x3 = 900kB per frame. 25fps = 22MB/sec. 1.3GB/min. 78GB's for 1hour and that doesn't include the PCM audio. 2. I wouldn't recommend TMPGEnc for avi output. It is an MPEG encoder, avi is just a secondary function. 3. To convert mp4 to avi, you don't have to re-encode. Why exactly are you converting to avi?
I want to be able to make vcd out of my mp4 movies so others here at my house can watch them on home dvd player. TMPGenc is the only way that I've been able to find 2 get me half way there by converting to avi. Is there a better way to do this? Thanks.
I mean that you can simply remux the streams from mp4 to avi. If you want a VCD, then just output a VCD compliant mpg from TMPGEnc instead of an avi. VCD = 10MB/min though so you won't be fitting the whole thing as one VCD.
How would I go about remuxing the mp4 to avi? I didn't see an option for that in TMPGEnc. I was able to output to mpg but not without clicking on the encode tab and still 4 hours remaining for it to finish. I read somewhere to convert to avi first. Something to do with CBR(Constant Bit Rate) and being able to adjust the sound video sync? THanks.
TMPGEnc can't do it. Well for mp4 to VCD you have to decode and encode. For mp4-->avi-->VCD you have to decode, encode, decode and then encode so I can't see how it could possibly be faster. VCD is always CBR. So your mp4 doesn't playback in sync?
Yes the mp4 plays in sync. I did successfully convert the mp4 to avi with TMPGEnc but the quality was crap and the sound was out of sync on it. 1500MB which was a good improvement in size but the qualty was bad. I used "Microsoft Windows Media 9" for OUTPUT CODEC SETTING and Uncompressed PCM 24000 Hz 16-bit for Audio output. There are other options to select but I'm not sure what the pros and cons of all the different selectable output codecs are. Should i be using a different codec for output when converting to avi? From avi to vcd I typically use CucuSoft to convert to vcd which takes about an hour to do and it splits it into 680MB tracks. Mp4 im new to and there isnt many support options in programs to do these conversions so easily as others as of yet. For now mp4 > avi > vcd im happy with. ANy suggestions on codec output settings I should use for avi? Thanks
Cucusoft did it but it was artifacted real bad wasn't even watchable. 14,700Hz was the default so i just left it like it was. Not till now did i know i should have made it 44000Hz. I did do some research on codecs and learned how the different ones compared to others and tested a few of them. I used 3ivx codec for the avi resulting file size 980MB. 3ivx seems to be one of the best compression choices for avi what do you think? One more thing, say an mp4 source has a resolution of 320x160, and i want to convert it to have a larger resolution, will the picture quality get better or be worse since the sources original res is smaller ? Thanks
I just attempted to burn my mpg to cd with nero and it told me what you just told me about 44.1KHz audio so nero is reencoding it right now.
Nero should also be able to convert mp4's directly. 3ivX = MPEG-4 video which is presumably what you already have so you are essentially converting to the same thing. 3ivX is definatly not the best MPEG4 codec out there. So no I wouldn't not say that it is one of the best choices and that is just limiting yourself to MPEG4. There are of course other options like VP7. You don't gain anything quality wise by upsizing and since MPEG-1 is lossy and VCD uses a low bitrate the quality will definatly drop.
What are the original specs on the file? If you have trouble looking that up, get AVIcodec from this site. It'll fill you in on which FourCC you are using (which codec). If the file you have is at anything less than 320x240, you should really consider trying to find a different file if available. I would go with the DivX codec for encoding, but I'm speaking for myself. XviD is very good too in quality, but I think DivX v6 has reached its level if it hasn't gotten better than the former. At any rate, I wouldn't even want to put it in MPEG-1 format. It just doesn't cut it when it comes to quality. Would your friends be willing to opt for a DivX Certified or MPEG-4 capable DVD player? Overall, I think it really depends on the media in which you encode. For example, I recently dl'ed a file that was a 795MB MPEG-2 file at 2450kbps (the audio was at 224kbps mp2) and was SVCD resolution (480x480). Well, I just dropped it into VirtualDubMod, changed the audio to 128kbps Lame-MP3, resized to 640x360, cropped, made into 870kbps DivX 6. The result turned out great, and when I checked with AVIcodec, the quality only dropped 2%! That result could be biased, but it looks just as good in my opinion. I did another movie like that @ 1173kbps DivX 5, and it turned out awful, like I said, it really depends on the original file and encoder/decoder you use. Hope that Helped!
There are no fourCC's with mp4. DivX, XviD, Nero Digital, etc. are all treated the same. MPEG-4 video is MPEG-4 video.
Basically yes, the specs define how to store SP/ASP MPEG-4, AVC, aac, ttext, etc. The specs also define what FourCC a splitter should pass, so if you play a mp4 containing AVC then the splitter will pass AVC1 to the decoder or mp4v for MPEG-4. As long as the video follows the specs then it really doesn't matter what encoder was used. Most encoders do however output a userdata string anyway, so you can always check what was used to encode. Much less ugly than the whole MPEG-4 in avi thing. Matroska also has native modes for MPEG4/AVC.
