MPEG Mediator: NTSC or film?
 

hello,

First, when you load your VOBs into mediator- since there's no preview option how do you determine whether your movie is NTSC or FILM?

Second, when I try to frameserve I get this message "Avi-synth Plugin and Videoserver plugin require the number of frames to convert"-- do I need to find out how many frames the movie has or can I just say convert 10,000,000 frames?

thanks,
I'm looking forward to using this mysterious program.

Re: two questions
 

He'ya ren :lol:

When you load your VOB's with mediator, go to "File/Properties", and there are the specs. of your movie.

You have to tell mediator how many frames to serve. The easiest way is to use DVDx ( for finding out #of frames only! ). Just run DVDx and open your .ifo. Then select output and then press "Whole". There you have the total number of frames!. Copy&paste that number and feed it to Mediator.

Another way is to convert the total time of your movie to seconds, and multiply that by your frame rate. For example, if the movie is two hours, thats 120 minutes X 60 = 7,200. Then 7,200 seconds * 29.97 FPS = 215784 So the total number of frames is 215784. This would be the case if you're frameserving from Mediator WITHOUT Inverse Telecine. If you're frameserving WITH Inverse Telecine selected, then it would be 7,200 * 23.976 = 172627 frames.


-kwag

hey kwag,

How do I load the .AVS into VDub if it hadn't been created yet? When you have the .VOBs loaded into mediator how do you create the project file to load into FitCD??

Also the file properties don't say anything about ntsc or film and interlaced vs progressive 8O

I'm using Mpeg Mediator 1.2-

sorry about all the questions but I'm SUPER CONFUSED!

thanks a lot,
ren

Hi Ren,
The answer is "Tricks, tricks, tricks" :lol:
Here's what you do:
Open mediator and select all your VOB's.
Select OpenDML AVI output.
Uncheck "Export frames in YV12"Click on "Configure Plugin" and select uncompressed RGB.
Under filters aspect ratio, select 1:1 square pixels
Uncheck Lock aspect ratio
Under Deinterlacing, select OFF

Now hit start conversion, and when the process starts, abort after 10 or 15 frames. That's good enough to create a file so that we can open it with FitCD. That was trick #1 :lol:

Now open your c:\IPServer.AVI with FitD and select what you want. Remember to check "Anamorphic" on input, if your movie is a 16:9 anamorphic movie.

Your .avs file should look something like this, after editing:

LoadPlugin("C:\encoding\MPEG2DEC.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\encoding\decomb.dll")
AviSource("C:\IPCserver.avi")
ConvertToYUY2()
Telecide()
Decimate()
BilinearResize(352,176,0,0,720,480)
#TemporalSmoother(2,2)
AddBorders(0,32,0,32)

Now go back to mediator and under plugins:
Uncheck again Export frames in YV12.
Select Videoserver and select your aviwrapper as usual. Be sure that the output file name is set to C:\IPCServer.AVI in the videoserver. This way, your .avs script is already set to read from this file when you frameserve.
Go ahead and hit start conversion, and after your frameserver is running, run TMPEG and open your .avs file and then your template. Remember to select video only. Encode away!.

News: MPEG Mediator 1.4 will be released on August 1'st.
-kwag

kwag, thanx for the info!

speaking of tricks- Mediator doesn't automatically load the .VOBs like DVD2AVI does- but if you press CTRL+.vob files in DESCENDING order it will add them in the correct order 8O :lol:

-ren

That's a nice one :lol:
See, I learn something new every day 8)
I was "adding" each VOB manually :twisted:

Thanks ren!,
-kwag

Need How to...
 

I don't know, I must be missing something. :oops: Kwag, in your previous post you said you get the # of frames from Vdub. How do you get that without creating the whole .avi in Mediator? I get a huge file for just a few seconds of encoding. I can imagine it using all my drive space if I just let it go. I would like to get the dolby surround on my movies but I need a more complete how to. What I've read so far is pretty fractured. :roll:

Why am I getting the message "AVISource could not locate a decompressor for FourCC WRPR" from Tmpgenc? I'm trying to frameserve the Avisynth file.

Re: Need How to...
 

You're not missing anything, I did :oops: .
I was reading a .avs script that was done with DVD2AVI 8O
I've edited the post with correct information, that I just double checked and verified that it works correctly.
Sorry :oops:


@ Rendalunit
:oops: Read the post again, it''s fixed :oops:


-kwag

I don't understand why in DVD2AVI we used Force Film for "Time Machine" and now we are using Telecide() and Decimate(). Was the movie itself 29.97 all along and we just forced it to 23.97? And what is the reason for ConverttoYUY2()? I thought I understood how this all worked now I'm lost again. By the way, I think I have the encode working now but haven't yet muxed the audio and the video to check the sync.

If you're using the new version of Mediator to process your VOB's, you don't have to use Telecide() or Decimate(), because IVTC is done now by Mediator. You do have to use ConvertToYUY2() so that TMPEG can encode the video.

-kwag

hey Kwag,

I recently ripped a dvd called "Baraka" which is hybrid (ntsc & film) so I don't see how I can accurately tell how many frames it will end up with- So what happens if you just enter more frames than you know the movie has?

I'm going to try "Kate & Leopold" next- but first with DVD2AVI to see if I get the same audio sync problem as everyone else.

Kwag,
I'm getting the solarization problems again in Tmpgenc. This only happens with avisynth and I used to correct it with converttorgb(). Have you come across this?

Not a problem ren. If you enter more frames, you'll just encode a trailing black viideo. You can then view your .m1v with WMP, and mark the end time of the movie, so that when you mux with BBMpeg, you use this time for your end time in the mux.
I did Kate&Leopold 2 times :lol: . One at 352x240 PLUS for one CD, and another one at 704x480 PLUS for 2 CD's. Both using the WAV file extracted with Mediator and encoded with headac3he. Results: PERFECT! audio/video sync and GREAT Dolby Surround sound.

-kwag

SUCCESS!! :D

"kate & Leopold" was in sync when I used Mediator but when I used DVD2AVI it got out of sync somewhere in the middle.

Kwag, I see what you mean about the black trailing video if I over estimate the # of frames- so I think it's best to estimate as close as possible, this could be a problem when calculating the bitrate of the audio to encode when the video size is much bigger than it actually is. I found that it's easier to find the end of the video with VDub rather than WMP because WMP really lags.

GREAT! me too :lol:
I'm using Mediator more and more every day. I'm getting PERFECT audio/video every time, without sync issues. And the Dolby Surround downmix to WAV works like a charm :lol:

-kwag

mediator frame rate mystery
 

Hi Kwag,

Just bought LOTR DVD and decided to backup it up before the kids
had a chance to ruin the master. I decided to try using mediator to
frameserve via avisynth to tmpgenc. Found your post "Tricks, tricks,
tricks". The movie is 158 minutes which, if my math is correct,
158 x 60 = 9480 x 23.97 = 227,235.6 frames. When starting mediator,
I entered this number and opened tmpgenc. I loaded KVCD Plus
352 x 480, and proceeded to encode. I noticed that tmpgenc displayed
the number of frames as 177,526. This seemed strange, but I let
the encode continue to the end. Some 11 hours later, the movie was done
but, the encode was missing the last 30 minutes of the movie. Why
did mediater frames differ from tmpgenc? I believe you mentioned in
other posts the advantages of mediator, but aside from resolving sync
problems (true it is a big problem) what other advantages does process
have over dvd2avi.

Re: mediator frame rate mystery
 

You missed the last 30 minutes because you frameserved based on 23.976. You had to calculate based on 29.97. Mediator will drop (internally) the duplicate frames, but you had to calculate 158 x 60 = 9480 x 29.97

-kwag

Kwag,

The movie is 178 minutes and 12 seconds, so I calculated
incorrectly :oops: . 178 x 60 = 10680 x 23.976 = 256,064.
This worked.

Thankx

Kwag,

Ignor the last post. It should be 178 x 60 = 10680 x 29.97 = 320,080.
:roll: