I have an AVI that is 665,055 MBs, 1:29:14 long. I want to be able to watch it on a VCD. I understand that I first have to convert it to MPEG. When I do this, though, the filesize blows up to above 2 Gigs, which is obviously too large to burn to a CD. Is there any way I can cut the MPEG into a few parts to burn onto a CD? I have VirtualDub, which is designed to do this, but the program doesn’t have markers where to break the file so that each section would be able to fit on one CD.
Oh yeah, and I use Nero to convert AVIs to MPEG and burn VCDs.
Well, first of all, don’t use Nero as a video encoder. It makes a fantastic burning app, but the good folks at Ahead Software really should just stick with what they know, because their encoded MPEGs look like pixelated crap.
Another example of this is the copy of Nero Express that came with the last CD burner I bought. It had checkbox you could click to normalize the volume before burning an audio CD. Only problem? The “normalized” CDs sound terribly abnormal. I’ve gotten results ten times better than that with a freeware, command-line normalizer that weighs in at a puny 73KB.
Also, 89 minutes and 2 gigs? That’s not a VCD where I come from. Looks like Nero made you an CBR SVCD. You could have shaved hundreds of megs off the size and still maintained quality by using VBR (only an issue with SVCDs - VCD specs don’t support VBR).
So, which do you want to make? A VCD or a SVCD? You have to consider the quality of the video first. The old adage “garbage in, garbage out” definitely applies here. SVCD may or may not be overkill in your case.
Anyway, a program called TMPGenc is probably your best bet. It’ll cost you a few bucks if you want to make MPEG-2 (SVCD, DVD) videos with it, but its MPEG-1 (VCD) functions are entirely freeware, and it is generally regarded as producing the highest-quality MPEG-1 streams possible. Plus it will let you slice your video any way you like it. Here is a nice guide with screenshots on how to convert AVIs to MPEGs with TMPGenc. Really, you’ll get better results, and you’ll probably get them faster than if you use the Nero encoder.
Here is a guide to splitting and joining MPEGs with TMPGenc.
Your VirtualDub problems stem from the fact that Vdub isn’t made for MPEG video at all. Its primary uses are capturing, editing, encoding, and frameserving AVI streams. It has a MPEG-1 import filter, but you really can’t do much with the video once you have it open. Vdub won’t let you save it as MPEG.
You can, however, cut AVI files quite easily with it. The start and end markers are the buttons on the bottom of the screen directly to the left of the frame counter.
Thanks for the help. I’m trying your advice now.
neutron star, several questions. I have some old VCR tapes which I’d like to transfer to MPG computer files but it is proving an uphill battle.
First I got ADS USB Instant DVD which is supposed to generate MPEG directly but when I tried to install the drivers it just crashed my computer and really messed it up. I had a hard time getting it back to working and even now it is more unstable than it was. So, anyway, I have given up on this.
I have tried using my (crappy) Pinnacle TV card and it works crappily. I can get AVI with their proprietary codec but often, in longer clips, the audio is not in sync with the video (?!). I have downloaded TMPGenc as per your advice to convert AVI to MPG. The original AVI is 320x240 but the conversion will not allow this and will generate 352x288 with black edges around the 320x240 picture. Why is this?
So, the situation is that I have pretty much given up for now on this project. It seems using the TV card does not work well. What would be the best way to go about this?
Use Virtualdub to convert to DivX. Much better compression. Freeware program.
You might want to check this one. I haven’t used it but it’s a freebie.
http://www.flaskmpeg.net/
Go to http://www.dvdrhelp.com/convert for step-by-step conversion guides.
Use My Flix to cut the video file into different parts to fit on multiple CDs.
I’ve never used a Pinnacle card myself, but are you sure you’re limited to proprietary codecs? Have you tried using VirtualDub to capture (or FreeVCR or iuVCR if your card uses WDM drivers)?
TMPGenc is trying to restrict you to VCD specifications (352x240 NTSC or 352x288 PAL). You can try to convert your video with a different resolution. Your DVD player may or may not play it. This is a non-compliant VCD, often referred to as an XVCD, though that’s not an official designation.
To unlock the resolution restraints, do the following:
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If you’re using the Wizard, close it. Now click the button marked “Load” in the bottom right-hand corner of TMPGenc.
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Browse to your TMPGenc directory, then to the subfolder “Template,” then another level down to “Extra.” Open the template called unlock.mcf.
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Now you can change the resolution via the Settings button (right next to the Load button).
If you can’t get your card to work in any of the programs mentioned, I’d recommend buying a cheap, standard TV card, one based on the BT878 chipset. One can be had for $50 or so - perhaps cheaper if you use ebay or something.
Just make sure you get one with an RCA (little yellow plug) input. Do all capturing through RCA. Never run a coax to the card’s TV tuner. There’s too much EMI inside a computer to get a clear picture. I’ve hooked up RCA and coax to the same card at the same time. There was a very striking difference in video quality. Also for this reason, never buy a card because it’s touted as having stereo sound. That’s just for the tuner that you won’t be using. If you’re capping via RCA, you run the audio wires (red and white) to your sound card. You’ll probably need a Y-shaped, RCA-to-mini-headphone adapter to get the audio into your sound card. One can be had for $5 or so at Radio Shack. I also prefer to use semi-pricey cables with gold-plated connectors, because there’s always some quality loss when capturing and I’d like to minimize it as much as I can, within reason.
If you get things working, I can offer further advice specific to VHS capture.
On preview: Yes, rabbit, Divx does offer better quality than MPEG-1/2 at low bitrates, but with (S)VCD you get DVD player compatability. There are only a few DVD players trickling onto the market that play Divx, and so far, they’re all over $200.
neutron star, thanks for the tip on how to unlock the resolution. I tried it and it works. I do not have a VCD player, I only use the computer, so I prefer to use the native 320x240 format.
>> I’ve never used a Pinnacle card myself, but are you sure you’re limited to proprietary codecs? Have you tried using VirtualDub to capture (or FreeVCR or iuVCR if your card uses WDM drivers)?
I am not certain but I have messed a bit and I am quite discouraged. I know I can record if I input through the antenna input and use the proprietary PCLEPIM1 codec. The video input does not seem to work with the program that comes with the card called PCTV Vision. There is another capture program which comes with the card called VIDCON32 but it crashes my computer. Everything I try seems to mess things up worse so I am a bit weary.
My concern is whether recording with the proprietary PCLEPIM1 codec and then converting to MPG means a loss of quality and if it would be better to record in MPG directly.
Also, what is the cause of the video and sound not staying in sync?
As I say, I already got the Pinnacle card and it is not working well at all, I cannot even get the separate video input to work. I also got the ADS USB Instant DVD which I cannot get to work either. It is very frustrating and I do not want to just keep buying things until I can get something that works.
I’ll contribute my little tip here that I always add to these threads:
If you’re going to be doing this a lot, get two drives. These tools (such as TMPGenc) are manhandling files that are absolutely huge, so you don’t want a single drive thrashing between reads and writes as you process a several-gig file.
Oh, and one more vote for not using Nero for anything other than burning. Every time it tried to get cute and convert something for me, the result was of poor quality.
Sailor, you’re not the only one who suffers from these things. I have been fussing around with various capture mechanisms for the past year or two and I am displeased with all of them. Blew some bux once on a video card that had hardware MPEG support and found its performance poor, so I returned it. Tried the TV card (kind of cool to watch TV on the computer), but again it was unacceptible.
Since my initial goal was to transfer old 8mm video, I finally stopped the hunt after my sister-in-law bought a new Sony digital video camera: the camera plays back analog 8mm tapes, so all I have to do is pop my old tapes into the camera and they transfer to the computer as DV avi’s. Sweet.
Anyway, I feel your pain.
Regarding video and sound being out of sync:
This is caused by the clock on the sound card running at a slightly different rate to the frame rate of whatever you’re capturing. In a long enough capture session, the audio and video streams can get badly out of sync.
One solution is to make the audio the master stream - I do this when capturing to AVI with VirtualVCR. You end up with video that runs at, say, 24.98 frames per sec instead of the correct 25fps (I’m in PAL territory), but you don’t perceive such a tiny difference when viewing the resultant video file.
Another method is to resample the audio during capture so that it is perfectly in sync with the video. VirtualVCR can do this, I believe VirtualDub can too. Takes a bit more CPU, and might affect sound quality.
And the crude solution, used by many capture utilities, is simply to drop a frame when things get out of sync.
That doesn’t really answer my question. Try this guide for capturing with VirtualDub and let me know if you can. The author of the guide uses MJPEG as his capture codec, but I prefer HuffyUV because it produces (IMHO and that of many others) better results, plus it’s free. MJPEG will cost you a few bucks. If you do choose HuffyUV, obviously you’ll have to ignore all of the MJPEG stuff in that guide. For the HuffyUV configuration options, set the YUY2 compression method to “Predict median (best)” and the RGB compression method to “<–Convert to YUY2.” Leave the other options alone. Also, for best quality, you can try capturing in higher resolutions than the author recommends. I do all my capturing at either 720x480 or 704x480 (depending on the resolution of my final MPEG) and resize when encoding.
Just so you know, the vast majority of people who capture prefer to use apps other than the ones that came with their cards. Those programs tend to be buggy, feature-limited, and have a real slapped-together-at-the-last-second look and feel to them.
Well, I’m not sure about the PCLEPIM1 codec. What kind of file sizes does it produce? My HuffUV caps tend to be around 30-35GB per hour before conversion.
But basically, to answer your question, never capture straight to MPEG unless you want really subpar results. If you’re capturing with HuffyUV, the computer doesn’t have as much load on it. It only has to compress the video a little bit while capturing and you’re much less likely to drop frames. If you capture to MPEG, the computer has to do a whole lot of processing to compress the file down to an acceptable size - and it has to do it at the same time it’s capturing, in realtime.
If you capture with HuffyUV, you can encode later. This gives the computer as much time as it wants to think about the MPEG conversion and, while it will take some time, it will yield vastly superior results. How much time? Under optimal conditions (i.e. using no filters for noise reduction, IVTC, etc, which will slow things down, and using an AVIsynth script, an advanced technique), I can encode a 21-minute TV show from 704x480 HuffyUV to a 352x240 compliant VCD in about 30 minutes. Now, if I go adding filters and things to pretty up my picture, that time could shoot up to several hours, so remember that encoding time can vary quite considerably, depending on what you want to do.
What do mean by “separate video input?” RCA? S-Video? As mentioned before, RCA is a little yellow jack. An S-Video jack looks more like a PS/2 port (the jacks you plug your mouse and keyboard into if you’re not using USB for them). Also, what is the exact model of your card?
This is a realtime hardware encoder. The cheaper ones will produce inferior quality compared to a HuffyUV-capped, MPEG-encoded video simply because it’s still doing its calculations on the fly. Now if you invest in a several-thousand dollar hardware encoder, you’ll have a great, if incredibly expensive, solution to your problem. I suspect you don’t want to do that, though.
If you still can, I’d advise you to take that thing back, tell them it just didn’t work, and get your money back.
I’m afraid that’s how it worked out for me. 
I went through four cards before settling on the Winfast TV2000XP. Yeah, it has a stupid name, but it’s a good card. It’s cheap, too. A quick comparison search yielded a low price of $47 from one online merchant.
With other cards, using VFW drivers and capturing in VirtualDub, I would drop frames. Even with my Athlon XP 1800, 1GB DDR, and 7200RPM hard drives, there would always be some frame loss, even though I had my computer completely optimized and didn’t dare go near the damn thing while I was capturing. Now I capture in iuVCR with WDM drivers and can even surf the web while capping without dropping a single frame!
Really, the best advice I can really offer is read, read, read. Read the guides, articles, and forums on dvdrhelp.com and doom9.org. If I had really done my homework before buying, I never would have gone through all those capture cards. You’ll also get better results and faster encode times if you learn some of the more advanced techniques.
neutron star, thanks for the links and advice. I’ll look into using VirtualDub but, frankly, this is only worth so much effort for me (and I’ve already spent more effort than it’s worth) so i will just have to take it slowly as time and inclination permit.
BTW, what would be the easiest way to take a short clip of a DVD and convert it to MPEG-1?
Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s a lot of information and can be intimidating at first, but if you spend a few afternoons reading about it, you’ll end up saving time in the long run. To be honest, I never would have put so much effort into learning this stuff if I hadn’t been more interested in the technology than the actual videos I was capping. 
Configure your DVD-ripping program to rip only the chapter that your short clip is in. Load the VOB file in TMPGenc* and convert to VCD. When done, you can clip out the parts you don’t need by doing the following:
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Go to File–>MPEG Tools, then click on the Merge & Cut tab.
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Click the Add button and browse to select your newly-created MPEG.
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When the filename shows up in TMPGenc, double click on it to get to the editing screen.
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Use the slider (or the boxes at the top where you can enter a time manually) to find your beginning point. Click the “{” button to set the start point. Do the same for the end point with the “}” button, then click OK to get back to the previous screen.
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Change the setting of the dropdown box marked “Type” to “MPEG-1 Video CD.” Type the path and name of your anticipated output file, then click Run.
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- IME, TMPGenc will sometimes let you load VOB files directly; other times it will simply crash. If this happens to you, you’ll have to use the DVD2AVI program to create a project file that TMPGenc can read. See this page for instructions.