New tool: MVPRecode

[lseats]

I didn't even think about trying giving it the folder name. I've never played with Mencoder before. I was giving it the first vob file (VTS_01_1.VOB) and the others were VTS_01_2.VOB etc. and it only did the first file. I was getting an error at the end of the encoding, so perhaps it was trying to open the next file and failing for some reason. I'll play with it some more and let you know what I find out.

I'm editing the post to update. I tried using the folder name and it works great. I think my problem before was that I had copied just the vob files to another folder without the IFO files -- silly me!

I have another problem, but I'll put that in another message since it is not related to multiple file processing.

Hmmm, it already does that (in a number of cicrumstances) when:

1. All the VOB's (together with the IFO's) are in one dirctory; just give it the name of (either to top-level or the VIDEO_TS) directory and it'll treat the dir as a DVD (just plain standard mencoder stuff)...

2. If a file name ends with a number (before the extension), it'll add one to the number and see if that file exists... If it does, it'll instruct mencoder to play all the files with the same number scheme, but it'll still produce one result file (concatenating all the seperate files). It'll do the same with subtitle-files (if present)...

[lseats]

Any suggestions on getting clean audio encoding? I'm getting very nice video, but the audio seems to have a reverb type effect.

[Ton]

Well, the biggest flaw in menoceder (and ffmpeg) is it's handling of Dolby surround Audio... Usually the volume that it produces is just too low. That's why I've had this tool auto-detect the audio format and boost the volume when surround-sound is detected.

In some cases (I've had some files myself) the original audio volume is already very high. In that case boosting the audio gives sort of a "over-distorted" clipping sort of sound.

If that's what you have, try the "-noboost" parameter.

If that's not it... try to see what the original audio is like, and you could also try some of the other mencoder switches for audio-handlng (you can just update the in the XML-file).

Cheers,

[lseats]

Well, the biggest flaw in menoceder (and ffmpeg) is it's handling of Dolby surround Audio... Usually the volume that it produces is just too low. That's why I've had this tool auto-detect the audio format and boost the volume when surround-sound is detected.

In some cases (I've had some files myself) the original audio volume is already very high. In that case boosting the audio gives sort of a "over-distorted" clipping sort of sound.

If that's what you have, try the "-noboost" parameter.

If that's not it... try to see what the original audio is like, and you could also try some of the other mencoder switches for audio-handlng (you can just update the in the XML-file).

Cheers,

The noboost switch helped but the sound is still pretty distorted. If I play the original it sounds fine. I'll look up the audio switches for Mencoder and see what I can do.

I did get an error at the end of the encoding. Here is the session and the error if you want to take a look at it:

Code:

Excecuting command:
c:\sw\mencoder.exe -oac lavc -ovc lavc -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd -ofps 30000
/1001 -vf scale=640:427,expand=640:480,softskip,harddup -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg2vi
deo:lmin=2.1:lmax=42.0:vqmin=2:vqmax=18:vmax_b_frames=0:vqdiff=3:vme=4:mbd=2:vbi
trate=6800:vratetol=13000:vrc_maxrate=9800:vrc_buf_size=1835:vpass=1:vi_qfactor=
1.00:vi_qoffset=0.00:vqblur=0.0:vqcomp=0.5:vfdct=6:idct=1:mv0:ildctcmp=2:predia=
6:dia=6:trell:cbp:preme=2:nr=0:dc=10:vqmin=2:vqmax=31:vmax_b_frames=2:keyint=16:
mbcmp=0:preme=2:precmp=0:cmp=0:subcmp=0:mbd=1:vb_qfactor=1.00:vb_qoffset=0.00:vi
_qfactor=1.00:mbqmin=2:mbqmax=31:lmin=2.1:lmax=31:vqdiff=3:vhq:acodec=mp2:abitra
te=192 -priority belownormal dvd:// -dvd-device "D:\R-Taken-e1" -v -o "D:\R-Take
n-e1.mpg"

5234.7s 129033f ( 0.0%) 12.7Error: Object reference not set to an instance of an
object. System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance
of an object.
   at MVPRecoder.MainClass.reCode()
   at MVPRecoder.MainClass.Main(String[] args)
   at MVPRecoder.MainClass.reCode()
   at MVPRecoder.MainClass.Main(String[] args)

[Ton]

Yes, I've seen that one before.... It comes from me trying to decide if mencoder exited correctly (by watching some of the stdout/stderr output from mencoder).

It looks like the way I've set it up now doesn't work in some cases.... I still have this on my "todo" list, to see if I can figure out what the deal is here.

For now, you can safely ignore it. It just means that my tool wasn't able to determine the mencoder exit status.

[djtaylor]

Just a bit of feedback on 0.2. It works ok now (at least for the one test that I did). No problem with the space after the audio bitrate either. Strange eh?

David.

[lseats]

It looks like Mencoder does not like converting AC3 audio to MP2 on my stystem. The only way I could get good sound when converting ripped DVDs was to use the audio copy option so that Mencoder would just pass the AC3 tracks into the mpg container. I then re-encoded it with another tool (I used MainConcept MPEG Encoder) so the MVP could play the audio.

When I get a chance I'll have to set it up on one of my other comptuers and see if I can get good MP2 audio out of Mencoder directly.

It almost sounds like Mencoder is combining the surround channels with the main audio and creating an echo effect. If I wanted to try disabling the surround channels, how would I do that in the xml file? I saw some reference to channels on the Mplay site, but couldn't quite figure out how to remove the channels.

[lseats]

It looks like Mencoder does not like converting AC3 audio to MP2 on my stystem. The only way I could get good sound when converting ripped DVDs was to use the audio copy option so that Mencoder would just pass the AC3 tracks into the mpg container. I then re-encoded it with another tool (I used MainConcept MPEG Encoder) so the MVP could play the audio.

When I get a chance I'll have to set it up on one of my other comptuers and see if I can get good MP2 audio out of Mencoder directly.

I did a conversion on one of my other computers and it was perfect. I had read that poor sound card drivers could casue audio encoding problems -- does the audio processing actually use the sound card drivers? I guess I'll have to see if I can find better drivers for my onboard audio or put in a sound card and see what happens.

[ggee]

Can I ask a favour. Can the latest copy be added to the wiki? It's just don't know if I have the latest copy.

Thanks,
Greg

Okay, here's the real fixed version (0.2).... Look's like I made a little slip when creating the zip-archive ;-)

Also found out why I hadn't run across it.... Looks like C# uses the computers national settings for converting strings to double values, and that's why it treated my "1.4" as "14"!!! I have now fixed my computer (for now), but I'll look into another convert function....

If this doesn't work, I'll build a version that dumps a whole lot of text to the screen, so we can see what's actually going on....

Again, like I said, I have been able to verify and fix the additional space before the "expand" filter, but haven't found anything on the space at the priotity command...

[sylv]

Hi,

I am trying for a while to play vob files on my MVP without success. I have tried with XDVD without success. Now, I am trying the avenue of transcoding first and your solution seems quite interresting. However, I experience some difficulty. I get the following error message:

C:\RECODE>mvprecoder c:\recode\in\video_ts\VTS_07_1.VOB -o c:\recode\out\video.mpg
MVPRecoder version: 0.2
Analyzing: c:\recode\in\video_ts\VTS_07_1.VOB
- Audio Codec: a52
- Video Codec: mpeg12
Error: Unable to detect FPS! System.Exception: Unable to detect FPS!
at MVPRecoder.MainClass.analyze(String cFile)
at MVPRecoder.MainClass.Main(String[] args)
at MVPRecoder.MainClass.analyze(String cFile)
at MVPRecoder.MainClass.Main(String[] args)

Would someone have any suggestion on the issue? Is that something I have to configure in the xml config file? I have looked and see nothing. By the way, I am in North America on NTSC.

Thanks for the help.

Sylv