Thoughts on The FilmMachine

[RickA]

I am surprised not to see more mention of The FilmMachine program by The Mask around here. I stumbled across this nice little program some weeks ago. It seems to do most of the things I was doing manually on an avi PAL to NTSC vid conversion project I was working on. The current version I am trying out is 1.6.0.6 beta. The FilmMachine is labeled as "An easy to use, wizard-like, AVI, MP4, HD-MOV, RMVB and MKV to (S)VCD and DVD conversion utility ."



Some things I really like about it are:

-Handles various input sources.

-Converts between the PAL and NTSC formats.

-Supports CCE (a big plus) also Procoder, Quenc and HCEnc.

-AviSynth scrypt editing.

-DGPulldown to change 25 fps to 29.97 fps after encoding (PAL to NTSC).

-Seems to pretty much follow the workflow process I was doing manually of the Holy Grail method (I am sure there may be easier ways but I learned alot and had fun in the process). - http://forum.videohelp.com/topic261056.html , http://www.eggshellskull.com/pal2ntsc/ , http://neuron2.net/dgpulldown/dgpulldown.html ,
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?threadid=88031 . I did stay with The Holy Grail method for consistency throughout the project but will experiment more with TFM.

-Experimental upmixing of AC3 2.0 to 5.1 - He is working to improve on this. I stupidly struggled with this a few tries before remembering that my avi audio was in mp3 format not AC3. After demuxing out the audio with VirtualDubMod, converting to AC3 with AC3Machine / BeSweet and muxing back together again it worked perfectly. My home stereo does an excellant job of upmixing so from my few test samples it was hard to tell the difference. I stuck with 2.0 to have the extra space for video this time around. Look forward to more testing later.

-Audio volume boost mode. More for AC3 then mp3 from what I have read. Not tried it, used Auto Find Max Gain mode of Ac3Machine instead.

-Can do RoBa OPV. Very nice, will experiment more with it though I do not mind running in normal multi-pass mode. I just discovered RBFarm as well and enjoy having two machines chugging away on the same project. Having CCE running at 10x plus is sweet. :-)

-Subtitle support - not tried it.

-Menu creation / chapter inserts / authoring - not tried either. I like and use TMPGEnc DVD Author.

-Plus others listed on their site: http://members.home.nl/thefilmmachine/ forums:
http://forum.dvdrbase.info/forumdisplay.php?f=207



All in all it looks like a very promising program in developement. I suggest you giving it a try to see what you think.

Cheers,
Rick

Note: No, I am not affiliated with them in any way, shape or form. Trying to be helpfull and pass on what may be a good thing to others. I believe I have posted this in the right place. If not, Mods my apologies.

[wg]

Tried TFM from 1.52-1.6.0.6, I had to many problems with it, jerky playback when chapters were added with TFM when using 700mb files, some low bitrate audio files(Soundtrack) would play back slow & garbled, AC3 filter settings sometimes changing. Go to TFM forum & check for yourself. If it works for you that's great, I much prefer FAVC(And no I'm not affiliated). One other thing TFM does not as yet create a DVD menu.

[RickA]

Sorry to hear you had a rough time with TFM. Glad my experience has not the same. Though I have only just started testing with it. Then again it is growing program and bugs, etc are bound to creep up. Seems a fair deal of what you mention has been addressed in the forums. Yes, I like to read them thoroughly before / when testing new apps.

The main drawback for me on FAVC is lack of CCE support. Nothing wrong with the other encoders, I'm just partial to CCE. I'm glad you found a program that works well for you. I have quite a few I really enjoy but am always on the lookout for new ones.

Cheers

[setarip_old]

@RickA

Hi!am always on the lookout for new onesIn a similar vein, you might want to try "DVD Flick"

[ChickenMan]

... am always on the lookout for new ones.
Also check out DIKO, it uses CCE.

I'm with wg on TFM. Works 60-80% of the time, just to many issues in the other 30 or so %. I still keep coming back to DVD2SVCD as it is just so darn versatile and works 99+% of the time for me.

[RickA]

Thankyou setarip_old and ChickenMan. I have not heard of DVD Flick yet, but I have seen DIKO mentioned before. Will look into them both. :-)

Cheers,
Rick

[Delta2]

Diko, TFM, AVI2DVD, etc..... they are all just the same, If one fails, it is more likely that the others will fail too.

It is damn easy to make a front-end to third-part software, you can make your own to fit all your needs

the only difference is about features or options, speed tweaks, etc.

Most of the problems are due to codec packs and all that garbage, or a slow video player, etc.

I only convert MKV in which I use my own soft for that purpose www.avi2iso.com, as for AVI....nothing is better than a DivX player

[MrC]

It is damn easy to make a front-end to third-part software, you can make your own to fit all your needs


Completely agree! :)

as for AVI....nothing is better than a DivX player

Partially disagree: how often we find AVI with strange letterboxing, or with stretched aspect ratio, or with audio delay or they simply need some tweaking before played? IMO that is one BIG reason why FAVC/DVDForger/TFM/DVDFlick/AVI2ISO/AVStoDVD exist and they are used.

:)

Bye
________
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