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Old 19th July 2001, 00:42   #1  |  Link
DDogg
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***read this now - Q&A -DVD2SVCD Official Q&A ***

Please make a contribution to show your appreciation and to encourage further development.

NOTE: this thread was completely updated since the release of DVD2SVCD 1.0.6 Build 1. If your version is older than this (why?), you can see the old Q&A thread here. New Q&As always at the bottom of the doc.

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Q&A
This is a "Living Q & A" for DVD2SVCD. It will be updated constantly based upon your questions and other information coming in. Please ask questions as a reply to this post but change the subject line to something appropriate that indicates your question. Post questions *ONLY* after reading the Q&A from top to bottom. Those questions can/will/may be answered by one of many experienced users including the author of the program, aka "dvd2svcd". Those questions and answers will be, from time to time, moved up into the following Q&A Post.

For the record: The author of this program does not encourage or condone the use of DVD2SVCD for anything other than the legitimate backing up of DVDs that are legally purchased.

Current maintainers (as of Jul 8, 2001) of this Q&A are DVD2SVCD**, gerti67*, markrb*, Mozart* & Chainsaw135* (*) have no official affiliation with the author(**), or the program (DVD2SVCD) other than as a volunteer helpers.

If any of you see a post with a good question and answer you think would be a good addition just reply with a link to point to it and we will pick it up. Plz, occasionally take a few seconds and help out with this!

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Please respect the fact that the author likes to write code, not email

Hang Out DOOM9s DVD2SVCD Forum - Anything you need to know about ALL aspects of the video backup scene, and a huge software library and forum, can be found on the DOOM9 web-site

Minimum System Requirements - PIII or Athlon. 128 ram barely functions. 256 ram is enough. 384 is better if you want to use your computer while DVD2SVCD work. Be aware CCE 2.5 is very particular on what processors it supports. Go to the Cinema Craft Website for more information. PIIs are not supported.

Note you will need LOTS of free space on your hard disk drive(s). Ripping a DVD could take anything up to 8GB or so. The conversion process may then need anything from a further 8GB for a two-disk (S)VCD or up to 18GB for a DVD R/RW.

Software
DVD2SVCD Website and Archives
DVD2SVCD Homepage

If you don't get the bundle remember and get the additional software also found on DVD2SVCD's homepage

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From the author:
The only reason that dvd2svcd works as it does and perhaps makes your life a bit easier, is because dvd2svcd is standing on the Shoulders of Giants. Without people like Maven, Jakei, Brent Beyeler, Midas, Naoki Shibata, Hard Code, Wimpy, Hiroyuki Hori, MPEG2Dec author (?), Custom Technology, SubMux author (?), Ben Rudiak-Gould, Edwin Van Eggelen, Avery Lee, Herbert Valerio Riedel, Nautilus, Wizard, Dividee, shh, DSPguru and people like Doom9 and his loyal forum members (doom9.net), DVD2SVCD would be nothing. Thank the above programmers, they're the real brains. Special thanks to Dividee for helping find the subtitle bug.
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Doom9 DVD2SVCD Guide



Q&A:

Q1: What is DVD2SVCD? What exactly is it used for?
A: DVD2SVCD automates the complex multiple steps, and the very latest techniques, to backup DVDs to CDRs for later playing on a standalone DVD player (that supports playing VCD/SVCDs). DVD2SVCD supports all steps from extracting the video information from the DVD, to the final creation of ready to burn to CDR the popular .bin/.cue format files (CDrwin/Fireburer/Nero/others).
Difficult requirements like multiple audio tracks and multiple subtitles are all automated for the less experienced user.
DVD2SVCD even has a NTSC to PAL conversion feature.

Q2: What commercial software is required?
A: As of verion 1.0.7 no commercial tools is necessary. You can use all versions of TMPGenc (including the older versions which are freeware). However, the general opinion is that Cinema Craft Encoder delivers the best quality when converting to SVCD and is recommended to use. The recommended version is Cinema Craft Encoder version 2.50 (2.6x can be used too. Have a look at Q44) and only the English version. The reason that it is best to use the old version is that it's the latest version that supports .AVS script files. The quality of this version is equal to the latter versions. Don`t use any language patch. If there's a Cinemacraft logo in your output file you're using the demo version of CCE SP. While it is fully functional it encodes a logo into the videostream. To get rid of it you have to buy the full version.

Q3: Are all Cinema Craft encoding modes supported?
A: SVCD modes for VBR, VBR multipass and CBR are supported.

Q4: How long does the whole process take?
A: DVD2SVCD uses the latest AviSynthMMX/Mpeg2Dec YUV2 frame serving techniques. This is presently the fastest method available. The CCE step will generally run between 0.30 and 1.60 realtime depending on processor speed. The whole process time length depends of CCE/frameserving settings, number of audio tracks encoded, speed of DVD-ram while ripping and number of subtitles tracks to rip. Normally most users use 3 or 4 passes in CCE settings to get "like DVD" results. So, if using 3 pass, three times your machine's realtime capability, plus audio encoding time, plus DVD extraction plus subtitle extraction, will have you ready to burn your cdrs.
Example: A 2GHz Pentium 4 consistently shows 1.4-1.6 RT. This varies with the aspect ratio of the disk being backed up, but normally, If the movie has 2 hours of time lenght, it completes the 3 pass - which actualy is a vaf_creation+3=4 pass - process in 6 to 5 hours. CBR mode is single pass. It can provide a whole encoding faster than real-time but most agree quality will be slightly less than multipass, unless the bitrate is very high. This is a better option for slower than 800MHz machines. DVD2SVCD can work while you sleep

Q5: Will using DVD2SVCD cure my Fast Forward and seeking problems in my standalone DVD player?
A: Assuming these functions are properly implemented in your standalone player (not all are done correctly) the final CDR should play fine and all, or most, of the features you were having problems with should work correctly. VCDImager (supported in DVD2SVCD) do a good job in following the proper specifications. Many of you using Nero to directly create your SVCDs that have had problems may find your problems have vanished. Example: On DDogg's Apex-703, FForward (2,4,8X), FReverse, slow frame, seeking, repeat AB segment, and time indicator now work perfectly, with no problems, for the first time, thus preventing the aformentioned Apex-703 from being thrown against the wall and dying an untimely death. :-)

Q6: My SVCD won't play right on my PC. Is something wrong with the my encode?
A: Probably not. Always burn a copy and try on your standlone player before becoming concerned. Less experienced users may not have the correct playback filters on their PC. One indicator of the problem is when the audio seems out of sync by a large margin on NTSC backups. Try installing PowerDVD or WinDVD, and then test playback. Special filters are installed with these products that allow NTSC svcds with the pulldown flag set to play correctly using software playback on your PC.

Q7: I don’t want to use your average bitrate calculation, how do I override it to use my own?
A: Just type in the same average bitrate you want to use in both "Max. avg. box" and "Min. avg. box" in the Bitrate Tab. This is not recommended unless you are experienced and have a special need.

Q8: The colors of the subtitles isn’t right, what can I do about that?
A: When the Subtitle preview window is shown you have a column called Palette. Press the button in that column to change the Palette.

Q9: I don’t want any Subtitles in the first stream of my SVCD but I want it to start from stream 2. How can I do that?
A: Also in the subtitle preview window. In the row where the "Subtitle Stream No." is 1 press the Dropdown button and select "Deselect". It is also in that column you can switch or add subtitle streams. It's the button to the right in the "Subtitle Stream No." column. You get this when the subtitle window (preview) pops up.

Q10: I have encoded a PAL movie but the encoded movie is filled with interlaced lines. What can be done about that?
A: Some PAL movies are Telecined (especially in Australia) and there has to be performed a 2:2 pulldown. Just select "SepareFields/SelectEvery(PAL)" in the "deinterlace" pulldown, in Conversion tab. However, mostly you don't have to worry about interlaced movies, as they usually plays perfectly using a standalone player + tv, the interlaced lines will only occur on the pc. However, there is a way to maintain the interlaced footage and get very good quality by unchecking zigzag and progressive in the Encoder Tab under CCE Advanced Settings. And most importantly use an Aspect Ratio of 4:3 (no borders) in the conversion tab.

Q11: The aspect ratio of the encoded video looks wrong. How do I fix that?
A: This should not be happening. DVD2SVCD uses the information from the VOB file to preset the Aspect Ratio, but unfortunately the VOB file is sometimes wrong. You can change to the right Aspect Ratio in the Conversion tab (4:3 or 16:9).
It is highly recommended you verify the Aspect Ratio before beginning the process by reading the specs of the DVD on the jacket or online like Amazon.com. You can also rip and encode a short vob chapter using "rip with internal routines" and choosing the chapter in "time length" dropdown in conversion tab, and openning the bbmpeg_file.mpg with windows media player to verify if it is ok.
Have a look at this thread to know a lot of things about aspect ratio of DVD, SVCD and TV.

Q12: How does your Audio Selection work?
A: In the Audio Tab you can select up to 2 audio streams. If dvd2svcd can’t find Priority Audio 1 it will look for the audio stream you’ve selected in priority 2. Besides that it also selects the AC3 stream which has the most channels to get the best surround quality.

Q13: Why should I use "autodetect azid gain (2 pass)"?
A: One complete prepass is needed to allow an accurate required gain calculation. This is a good use of time and so should always be used. If accurate gain is not important to you, deactivate auto gain and put a number between 5 and 3 in the value box. This will save you the few minutes of the prepass at the cost of dead accurate gain.

Q14: Do I have to use downsampling and convert 48 to 44.1?
A: Not at all. However, downsampling you will have a SVCD compliant audio stream, which may be mandatory if you have a SVCD standalone player.
There is a terrific increase of encoding speed when you don't use downsampling.

These are two real examples:

i) The machine is a PIII 600MHz, 128MB ram. The ratio (movie time length)/(audio encoding time)=MTL/AET=RTaudio is equal to 2.261 without downsampling, and 1.403 with downsampling on. Thus, in this slow machine, there is an increase of 61% of time. If the movie has MTL=120 minutes, it will spend AET=53 minutes without downsampling, and AET=85 minutes with downsampling, for each audio track;

ii) The machine is an Athlon XP 1600+. The movie is Fast and Furious (MTL=107 minutes) with downsampling it took 25min 16 secs (RTaudio=7.262) and without downsampling 14mins 44secs (RTaudio=4.235)...a difference of 10mins 32seconds (71%) longer.

So the recommendation is: Do not downsample, to save anywhere from 10mins to 1hour in processing time.

Q15: "VStrip gets only 4 out of 5 vobs??.."
A: VStrip does it's own cutting at 1024 kb, that means that you cannot compare it to what other rippers do. To check if it has done the job correctly, load the vobfiles into dvd2avi, and move the slider at the bottom to the end and see if it doesn't indeed have it all ripped.

Q16: I have encoded a movie with subtitles, but no subtitles are shown when I play the movie. Why?
A: The subtitles only work on Standalone DVD Players that supports SVCD and/or CVD - aka China Video Disc - Subtitles. As of now there are no Software players that supports SVCD/CVD Subtitles [Update - Media Player Classic now supports CVD and SVCD subs]. An option is to use "permanent subtitles".

Q17: I've created a SVCD with subtitles, but the subtitles do not appear to play correctly in my standalone player.
A: First, verify your standalone player supports subtitles. Download one/all of these following samples:
NTSC with CVD style subtitles. This sample has also a nice Menu, so you can test PBC features also;
PAL with CVD style subtitles;
NTSC with SVCD style subtitles.
They are known to work correctly. Burn to CDR and verify whether they play correctly. If they do play correctly but the output made with DVD2SVCD does not play correctly, please provide further feedback.

Last edited by Nick; 20th July 2004 at 19:48.
 
 

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