Converting MPEG2 to DV AVI

[Enak]

I need to convert the M2V video and MPEG2 (interleaved) video that I have into DV AVI.

Is there a specific app to do this or a tool matrox provide?

Thanks

[Dr Mordrid]

The STOIK Video Converter can transcode from *.avi, *.mpg, *.mpeg, *.dat or *.wmv to numerous *.avi or *.wmv profiles. For *.m2v you just rename the file with an *.mpg extension to make STOIK take it.

My AthlonXP 2400+ system does the renamed DVD compliant *.m2v to DV transcode at about 22 fps. BTW: it's also free

http://www.stoik.com/products/morphman/mm30_svc.htm

Now...you may need to have an MPEG-2 decoder installed (not sure on this), which would entail installing a DVD player if you don't already have one, but I doubt it. I don't have any systems without an MPEG-2 decoder so I can't tell.

Dr. Mordrid

[Enak]

Looks to be working great at the moment... just have to see what quality is like...

Getting 33fps on my P4 @ 3.2GHz.

I haven't tried the M2V files yet (doing an interleaved MPEG) but assume all settings are the same.

Also is there an app out there that will trim an MPEG file?

Thanks Dr Mordrid

[Dr Mordrid]

The TMPGEnc MPEG encoder has a section called "MPEG Tools" where you can set in/out points & many other operations. In addtion the encoders Adanced menu has a wide range of delacers you can apply;

http://spazioinwind.libero.it/lvi/video_editing.htm

along with a bunch of other filters and option. It can even apply these filters to source files and export them as an*.avi or image sequence instead of MPEG's.

The trial version lets you use MPEG-2 for a month, but then disables it until it's purchased because of licensing issues.

http://www.pegasys-inc.com/e_main.html

It can also be frameserved from Premiere's timeline using VideoTools VideoServer plugin. I often frameserve TMPGEnc from Premiere with my RT.X100 instead of using its built-in MC encoder because of the advanced feature set.

Dr. Mordrid

[Enak]

STOIK kept crashing need the end of my files... so I've dug out FlaskMPEG which amoungst other things seems to be more correct on the aspect ratio of the original video file so the AVI output is not stretched, but instead has letterboxes.

It's not as quick as STOIK, but the output is better quality and I can alter the input video file in/out points.

Thanks

[Flying dutchman]

I would recommend DVD2AVI (which is also free) for converting any flavour of MPEG to AVI. You can also let it frameserve to tMpeg.

[Enak]

Hopefully you are talking about this:

http://arbor.ee.ntu.edu.tw/~jackei/dvd2avi/

I'll try it out

[Enak]

It seems much like flask, just without many of the options...

I'll keep it to hand though.

[Flying dutchman]

Yes, that's it. There are different flavors of DVD2AVI around (I believe it's open source); some will allow you to select a video and audio compression codec when creating an AVI file, and some will only save uncompressed video and audio which is not very practical. But all versions allow you to frameserve through an API called "VFAPI", I believe that was designed by the same chap (Hori) who wrote tMpeg encoder but I may be wrong here.

When frameserving, DVD2AVI creates an audio file and a tiny *.D2V file which tMpeg can open directly. Some other programs also support this standard, and there is even a tool around that converts the D2v file into a tiny AVI file which almost every application can open. This way you can frameserve MPEG files directly from DVD2AVI to VirtualDub, Premiere etc and all these applications will think they're dealing with AVI files...

For the latest versions of DVD2AVI and VFAPI, checkout the downloads section of : http://www.doom9.org



Check out the following links for more info about VFAPI if you happen to know how to read Japanese...

http://www.yks.ne.jp/~hori/VFAPI.html

http://www.yks.ne.jp/~hori/VFAPICodec.html

http://www.remus.dti.ne.jp/~ksuzuki/vfserver/

FLASK accomplishes similar feats but I find it horribly unstable. You can frameserve Flask,too, through an Avisynth plugin.

[Enak]

I'm using Flask version .6 and it is yet to crash.

Most importantly it picks up the correct pixel aspect ratio when dealing with MPEG file captured from my digital tv tuner.

[Flying dutchman]

I experienced the aforementioned instabilities in version 0.594 while frameserving through the Avisynth plugin, not when creating AVI files directly out of Flask. I also found one disadvantage of Flask that it automatically stretches the YUV luminance levels (16..235) to RGB (0..255) so if you use it to make VCD/SVCD/DVD files (for example with the bbmpeg plugin) they look rather overexposed on a DVD player; for AVI files, however, this can be seen as an advantage. DVD2AVI leaves you the choice of processing in YUV colorspace or RGB. It's a matter of taste, really.


So you want to make DV avi's from interlaced Mpegs? Does Flask get the field order right? And is that type-1 (directshow) or type-2 (vfw) avi's you're making?

[Enak]

Pass on the field order... the output avi (DV format) looks better than the original i took using the x.100's analogue input via by digital tv box. Probably because my wintv nova-t records direct to MPEG2 (so there is no analogue stage involved).
I guess the AVI's are what whatever the matrox's codec puts them as... So I would guess Type-1.

At the moment I am just transfering some stuff I recorded off the TV into DV format so I can edit and output using the Matrox Media encoder from premier.

In the future I would hope to capture to M2V MPEG2 and as I need it convert to DV AVI. I mainly want to do this as the video I have on my PC is from my mates camcorder, so without investing in a Digital8 deck I have to borrow his camcorder to capture it off... Unfortunately this also means that it is impossible to copy the tapes so the only backup we have is my PC.

[Flying dutchman]

If you use DVD2AVI and the VFAPI, you should be able to frameserve your Mpegs directly to a video editing program like Premiere without having to convert them first.

BTW, there are utilities around that will convert the streaming mpeg-2 format of DVB cards into "plain" mpeg-2 format without re-compression and the inherent loss of quality.

[Enak]

How do you set upfor frameserving? e.g. what do i do?

[Flying dutchman]

Start DVD2AVI.
Open the Mpeg file (BTW, it works for VOB files too).
Select all the settings you want for video and audio.
"Save project".
Now close DVD2AVI completely.


Start the VFApi program.
Press "add job".
Select the job you just saved.
Press "convert".
It now creates a pseudo AVI file.
Then close the VFAPI program.


Now all you have to do is to open the AVI file in your video editing program (such as VirtualDub). The frame server is automatically started and runs in the background.