I'm new, so the obvious question
 

Hi everyone,

I can tell that this KVCD stuff is good but why don't you advanced and experienced guys come up with a single application-program, that would create KVCDs directly in a single step? One that would turn AVI, DIVX, DV,.. or at least a few of these directly into a KVCD. Possibly it would be possible to load the scripts in,..

Is that possible? Is anyone working on it?

That would really be neat and KVCD would grow like crazy.

Best regards
Mike

Check out ToK, it´s pretty close!

Hi,

Well, my first crack at it and I can't get any audio, :(

Here is my situation, when I selected the audio source and I go into Settings, I go into audio edit and press play I get no audio. I also encoded it twice as to what the idiot's guide said,

When I play the original video file it plays fine with the audio.

I dropped that file into Gspot, and the original format of the audio is MPEG-3

The video file is XVID format

Please help as I am an adimitted idiot!

actually i think its Chris Farley off one of his SNL skits.

you have to encode it to another format so you can cram 120 mins on a 80 minute cd?

sheesh thats a lot of effort!!

how many hours are we talking?

No need to de-mux
 

Re-encoding a 2ch AVI, the first thing you should check to see is the audio coding used. Meaning whether it's 5.1ch or simply 2ch audio. You can use Gspot to verify codecs used.

Step 1. Download the templates.

You can download them from http://www.kvcd.net/ website or download the bundle of recommended templates from http://www.weethet.nl/downloads/kvcd_templates.rar.

Step 2. Place the templates with TMPGEnc.

You will need to copy the templates to the \Template folder found with TMPGEnc. Commonly TMPGEnc is installed in C:\Program Files\Pegasys Inc\TMPGEnc Plus 2.5.

Note: if you downloaded the bundle, you will need to use WinRar (v3 or higher) to extract the files first!

Step 3. Start TMPGEnc and use the Wizard (CTRL+W)

The templates should now appear in the list of the Wizard.

OK, in the wizard screen we can choose our target format. Make sure you do select the proper one(KVCD-CQ-352x240-_NTSCFilm or if its 2hrs or more KVCD-ULBR-352x240-_NTSCFilm). Try to avoid transcoding NTSC to PAL(always transcode before re-encoding to KVCD) and viceversa as this usually causes problems with playback! Most DVD players support KVCD and KSVCD.

At the Video field click the "Browse..." button, and choose the AVI you want to convert. Close the dialog (after selection) by clicking "OK".

Verify at the Audio field that it shows the same filename now (usually does). In case there is no filename here, the click "Browse..." for this option and SELECT THE SAME AVI FILE as you choose for Video.

Click "Next >" again.

Click "other settings" button then the "advanced" tab and in the "video arrange method" choose "full screen [keep aspect ratio] and uncheck "inverse telecine" and then ok.

Note: Do NOT copy the other settings, like "Video type", "Field order", TMPGEnc will automatically enter data into these fields!

Click "Next >" again.

In the next window, we select the "Output file:", the filename of the transcoded movie. Either enter it manually or click "Browse...".

NOTE! Remove the checkmark at "Start encoding immediately".

Finally click "OK".

Make sure you check "System (Video+Audio)" !!!!!!

Please run through this checklist before we can start:

Video Source
Is the proper AVI filename entered here?


Audio Source
Do you see the same AVI filename as seen in Video Source?

Output file name
Do you see the proper filename here too?

Stream Type
Check if "System (Video+Audio)" checked (although you cannot change it with some formats - for example SVCD)

Output format
In the lower part of the window you will see a line with format, resolution, type of video bitrate (VBR/CBR), videobitrate and audio format with bitrate. You might want to verify them.

This is simple: Click the "Start" button and wait hours ... (Usually 1 hour of video takes between 1 and 2 hours transcoding - depending on your PC!).

Simply burn with your favorite software, in some cases you may need to turn off compliancy.

I'm estimating that you have a 1.7GhZ processor.

Pixelated movie in standalone player, but fine in WMP
 

Not sure if anyone still reads this forum but if anyone is out there, I would be really grateful for some help with this problem I got...

I created a KVCD with the method above, no probs. Played the KVCD (which I wrote to a CD-RW) and played it in WMP. It played perfectly, sound was great, video of high quality. BUT, when I plopped the CD in my Sony DVP NS300 DVD player, it played the disc but the movie is heavily pixelated from the beginning. The odd couple of seconds hear and there play fine, but for the most part the movie is just a garbled mess. Sound is fine apart from some blips and pops.

What have I done wrong? I burned as a non compliant/non standard VCD in Nero. Is this a known problem with my player (can't find anything on the web about it) and does this mean that KVCD isn't for me?

For reference, I burnt a couple of short mpeg music videos to the very same CD-RW and burnt this as a compliant disc. It played perfectly in my sony dvd player. Does this mean I can't use non compliant KVCD's?

Thanks for any help you can provide. I hope this is not a KVCD issue for me, oh well.

Hi mdskinner,

The problem is the "RW" media.
Burn your KVCD movie to a CD-R, and you won't have any problems :)

-kwag

I cannot use CD-R media with my Sony player - doesn't work, already tried, the player doesn't recognise there is a disc in the tray.

I've looked at a few articles on the web, and I have found out (as is the case with many players) that only CD-RW media works (due to it's reflectivity).

As I already said, the media is fine because I already successfully used it to play a couple of compliant music videos on my Sony player.

So either I encoded wrong - possible NTSC/PAL issue (I'm in Europe) or my Sony Player just isn't up to the job?

Cheers anyway.

P.S I'm downloading a test sample from this site to test my player right now.

Get Some good CD-Rs then. Black Surface is supposed to work in ALL Players... You shouldn't have any problems with those!

I'v tried the test image and all 6 test videos play, but like my movie the sound blips and pops and the video is completely pixelated / garbled throughout.

Once thing I thought. My Sony DVP-NS300 can only play PAL > PAL TV or NTSC > NTSC TV NOT NTSC > PAL TV (It has no converter). I also noticed the test VCD is entirely in NTSC, therefore no wonder it is not playing correctly!

Is there a PAL test KVCD I can download anywhere? Another problem is that most of my DivX's are 23.976 fps (i.e NTSC). Converting them seems to introduce a slight pause every second in the video which is really annoying. Does anyone know of a way to d othis smoothly.

Once I can convert them, I can then try PAL VCD's in my player - I feel sure it should play them because like I keep pointing out, I CAN play a couple of PAL music videos with this Philips CD-RW media that I am using at the quality is excellent - the media therefore doesn't seem to be the issue.

That's the problem right there. I also have a Sony NS300, and it's the most picky player I've seen :!:
It only plays some CD-R brands. The cheap ones, the ones that you can almost see thru, are not even recognized by the machine.
Same problem with some DVD-R brands on this machine. Media not recognized.

-kwag

Ok, but like I said, the media isn't a problem for me because it works when I make a compliant VCD on the same media!

Therefore if it's not a NTSC/PAL issue either (as some posts have said) i must be the player, like you say. But not due to media, because I have already demonstrated that my media works fine.

Have other people successfully played KVCD on the NS300 or are the two incompatible? I've read on Doom9 that the following resolutions work: 352x240 (288) and 704x480 (576) so I'm just gonna have to start trying all possible combinations i suppose.

Don't suppose you know of anyway I can burn at less than 4x as I feel this might be causing a problem. Nero only lets me burn at 4x or higher.

Cheers for all the help so far anyway, at least I've learned something over the past couple of days, and it may prompt me to buy a DivX compatible player after all.

That should be ok. Going higher than 8x isn't recommended, 4x is ok.
Divx :?: You will have to do alot of firmware upgrades when you want to keep it working with divx.
I recommend buying a cheap Player (e.g. Cyberhome) which plays nearly everything 8)
Have you made a test with mpeg2 :?: I would try 704x576 and 720x576 with mpeg1 and mpeg2.

My mate already has a Kiss player and it works brilliantly with all his DivXs. Most DivX's I have aren't even DivX 5 so I think I won't have too much problem seeing as new players on sale are DIvX 5 compatible. Plus a few new ones say they will be software upgradeable which helps.

Anyway, about KVCD. I tried 704x576 MPEG-1 and this gave me exactly the same garbled/pixelated result as the lower resolutions.

I have not yet tried creating SVCDs (with or without the header trick) because my Player says it don't play SVCD - but I'll give anything a try. Apart from SVCD, I have tried all other KVCD resolutions and none work unfortunately.

I might stick to multi CD compliant VCD encodes because these work fine on my player.

Edit: The curious thing is that all my KVCD discs play fine in WMP, with sound perfectly in sync and no pixelation, just seems when I plonk the disc in the player it doesn't "like" it.

Are you burning at a lower speed. I usually burn at 16X. If you want to make this really easy, and have an all in one program do all this work for you then use acp. I'm not going to complain as the quality of my KVCD are excellent using this program. DivX, Xvid. etc, all come out great... It incorporates BeSweet, TMPGEne, and Virtualdub. All you have to do is load up the file, make a couple simple adjustments for the video Quality and audio bitrate and thats it!.. I'm looking forward to the next version of acp and even more options hopefully.

Where do you find this feature? and in nero-preferences-expert you can increase the overburn time. Say 80 min cd-r can burn til 82min (82 is just an example) but it warns against doing it and it can damage the recorder. What do you suggest?

File>Preferences>Expert Features. Change maximum CD length to 100 min.
Nero 5/6 Overburn patch



Good Luck

Does this work on Nero 5? The patch says its for version 5.5 & 6

Download the overburn patch and install. If it applies to your current version it will install automaticly. If it doesn't apply to your current version it won't install.

I think you guide is great but I have a question. Why are you extracting the audio? I've never done this and didn't know that people did it when encoding from an avi.

I always do when I want a "clean" job but when I do a TV show for instance, I encode audio directly in tmpgenc.

The reason is only the quality of the result. Internal tmpgenc engine is poor for the audio.

Secondly, tmpgenc do not handle other thing than mp3. And lot of avi have ac3 or ogg audio.

If you insist on encoding the audio in TMPGEnc, use tooLAME as the external encoder.

I really do not like this for convenient purpose that's why I didn't mentioned it ;-)

Or SCMPX :idea:

-kwag

I hope you guys don't mind but I'd like to take a step back here...

Lets say I do a Vdub capture from TV to Huffy. I do my edits, add filters and produce my AVS script.

Next I would:

- extract the audio
- process with some other audio program (tooLAME, SCMPX)
- encode the video with TMPGenc
- re-mux the audio and video backtogether

Will this produce a better quality audio from a (stereo) TV capture?
Will this compress the audio better? (Allowing for better video?)

Edit: This post is a question not a comment. I guess what I am asking is if TV quality audio would be improved by external processing and exactly how to do it.

I did exactly as this guide said but ended up with no sound. :?

I'm a complete newbie when it comes to this, which is probably why I'm using this method, but when I used it for my anime, I put it in my DVD player and some of them had the subtitles cut off, and some had no sound at all. Is there a way that I can use this and not have the subtitles cut off? Because I tried the other harder methods, and they're too confusing for me.. -.-

No. This guide is for very simple, very basic (and not very optimal) avi->kvcd conversion.
Any case that is not in this definition or that is but is too "complicate" can't be done with this guide.

same here, my mp2 file didnt have any audio at all...
here is what I did...

download virtualdubmod @ http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net
run it , VirtualDubMod.exe , file -> open video file
goto streams -> stream list , double click on the audio track
click on "save wav", save it...

open TMPGEnc , cancel out the wizard , goto file -> new project
in audio source put it the .wav file and follow the instructions from the idiots guide :)

good luck

- snype

Thanks for the tip snype. :) I'll give it a try. 8)

audio synch problem
 

I followed the complete idiots guide found above and yet the finished product has an audio synch problem. Simply put, the video lags behind the audio by about 2 secs. I used an mp2 audio and an mv1 video and merged them with TMPGEnc. Anyone know what wrong?

--
As you double post your question, I do the same for my answer :

You are trying to encode an avi where KVCD is designed to do DVD.

Do your first steps with the basics. Then you can go to "KVCD level 2". There are soooooo many tricky things in avis that can make a KVCD conversion to fail that is impossible to enumerate them all here.
--

And I have to add : this guide from Cougar let me a bad taste in the mouth because it give the idea to newbies that making a KVCD is easy and that an idiot can do it. That's generates a lot of desillusions.

I'm sure that even Kwag still fails sometimes on particulary tricky encoding. Trust me : I do fail ! And more often that peoples should imagine by reading my numerous message on the forum.

As I said a little above in this thread, the Cougar's guide is for very basic cases. It must be considered as a possible chance to have quikcly a result.

Forgive me, I do not try to say "you are idiots, we are clever, we do KVCD, you can't". It's just I find sad to spent so much time to explain to a newbie that he is not an idiot, he just took a wrong path.

... my vcr won't read my kvcd's :x

Hell! I just hope you're mistaken in your typing!

:arrow: VCR :?:

VCR+KVCD :arrow: :hammer: But it still won't play back! :D

The hardest is to remove the disc from the vcr after you read them :-))

I want one of those :mrgreen:

hello I have one question I am starting with kvcd ( i used cvcd) and i have problem with adding subtitles to film i now how create kvcd without subtitels but I don't how create kvcd with subtitels could you give me a link to topic with this problem my english is not good so I can't fing it.
I allweys use virtualdub to ad sobtitles to movie then i encoding with tmpgenc but when i use kvcd yemplate ther is no sound i try to ad in audio source mp2 and wav but it not working sory for my question but I can,t find enything in polish language.

First, ther eis a subtitle section in the forum where your question would find a better place.
Secondly, what is the format of your subtitles ? A text file ? A sub file ? Or even a Vob ?

The method will be the same and use the same tool : vobsub.
There is just one line to add to your script, but that lien depend on the format of the file.

audio MUSTN'T be encoded by tmpgenc, that is why the template encode video only.
After you have encoded the video with tmpgenc, and the audio with an other tool (besweet or headache) in mp2, you have to multiplex both streams in order to obtain a mpeg.
For taht you can use tmpgenc (see file menu -> mpeg tool -> simple multiplex) or bbmpeg.