AVI to Widescreen DVD

[dwillms]

Hello,

I'm sure this is a dumb question that has been answered many times over, but I haven't come up with any answers searching. I'm trying to convert some AVI's to DVD, using the doom9 guide. I've got the audio worked out, now I'm just trying to figure out the video.

My source is 640 x 348 XviD, according to GSpot. Instead of making a 4:3 fullscreen DVD, I want to make a 16:9 widescreen DVD. I've been trying to figure out the AviSynth script for this but I can't figure it out, and I've been trying to use FitCD but there are too many options.

If anybody could help me out with this in an easy to understand way, I would really appreciate it. I will either be using QuEnc or TMPGEnc for my encoding.

Thanks in advance,
-Dustin

[Peter1234]

If you use TMPGEnc there is an option on Advanced tab for video arrange method called "Full screen(keep aspect ratio)". That should take care of everything for you. All you need for a script is:

DirectShowSource("divx.avi", fps=25.000)

where you will have to put in correct fps and file name. Use 4:3 aspect ratio on TMPGEnc Video tab. This should give you a letterboxed output. This is not something I do very often, so someone else may be able to give you better instructions.

[Matthew]

When figuring out the formula for this a while back I used Q62 of the DVD2SVCD FAQ:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=21859

You just need to change the vertical resolution from 480 to 720 on the bottom line.

Things can get a little trickier when you need to add borders to the sides instead.

[Amnon82]

Here is a simple AVISYNTH-Script:

AVISource("<Enter here the path of Your AVI>")
#Add the Borders to get 640 x 360 (16:9)
AddBorders(0,6,0,6)
#Resize it to 720x480 for NTSC or 720x576 for PAL
BicubicResize(720,480)

Encode a part of the movie in 16:9 and watch it with MediaPlayer Classic to see if the aspect ratio is right.

[dwillms]

Thanks for the help so far guys. My *next* question is, how do I now take that AVISynth script and use it with TMPGEnc?

I'm finding the step-by-step guide pretty good, except that it also explains how to make an AVISynth script, but then never explains how to use it when it comes to encoding with TMPGEnc.

-Dustin

[scharfis_brain]

720x480 is NOT 16:9 it is actually a bit wider.

640x360 needs to be scaled to 704x480.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Try the free version of DivXtoDVD.... It can convert a wide range of video formats in different containers ;)

[dwillms]

Try the free version of DivXtoDVD.... It can convert a wide range of video formats in different containers

Which would be VSO DivxToDvd, right? My first attempt at this project was with VSO, but I didn't do anything with audio encoding, which I'm sure is why it didn't work.

Thanks again,
-Dustin

[Peter1234]

My *next* question is, how do I now take that AVISynth script and use it with TMPGEnc?

-Dustin

Save the script as a text file with an AVS extention and use that file as the video source in TMPGEnc. You can use Notepad (which comes with Windows) to write the scripts. Then use the AVS extention when you save the file.

[dwillms]

Yes I had made the AVS script file, but I didn't know to just load it as the source file, I thought it was perhaps a plugin.

Thanks for the help! I'm sure I'll have more questions sooner or later,
-Dustin

[SeeMoreDigital]

Which would be VSO DivxToDvd, right? My first attempt at this project was with VSO, but I didn't do anything with audio encoding, which I'm sure is why it didn't work.What happened to the audio?

All my tests have worked.... I've tried with AVI's containing MP3, WAV, AAC, AC3, Vorbis audio etc... all of which were converted to AC3 audio!


Cheers

[dwillms]

What happened to the audio?

I'm not sure, but nothing was encoded into the audio output folder. I've already used the method described in the AVI->DVD guide to encode an AC3 audio file, so I'm not worried about that anymore.

I would honestly prefer to use VSO for encoding, it seems very straightforward and encodes at a good speed. But as I said, my first attempt only resulted in MediaPlayer and RealPlayer both crashing when they tried to play it.

Perhaps I'll try again tonight,
-Dustin

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi Dustin,

The last free version I'm aware of is 0.5.2.99....


Cheers

[dwillms]

I do have version 0.5.2.99, here is a screenshot of the loaded file. During my first attempt I left Standard to 'Automatic', but changed Aspect to 'Force 16:9'.


http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/7093/screenshot9fh.jpg



-Dustin

[dwillms]

Ok, so thanks to everyone who has helped me so far.

I've got VSO to work for me, and finished a few DVD's already. Now there is one giving me a different problem.

With this video, it was split into 2 parts, so I used Nandub to join them and cut off the end credits. The remaining file is around 1.3 GB, and 2h:17m in runtime.

I can complete the encoding with VSO, but at the end I get a message saying "Exception during conversion, output may not be available". And the only files it encoded were 3 VTS files, for a total of 2.5 GB.

Just wondering if anybody might be able to tell me why it's not encoding properly, my only guess is because of using Nandub to join the files, or also because it might be too large of an output to put on 1 DVD.

Thanks again,
-Dustin

[Matthew]

AC3 audio by chance?

Sometimes there is corruption at the join point. My tool (posted in DVD Authoring forum) will deal with this just fine without sync loss, if you let it do the joining. But you do need commercial software.

This might not be the reason but it's likely.

[dwillms]

AC3 audio by chance?

Sometimes there is corruption at the join point. My tool (posted in DVD Authoring forum) will deal with this just fine without sync loss, if you let it do the joining. But you do need commercial software.

This might not be the reason but it's likely.

Matthew,

Thanks for the advice. Both AVI files I joined were encoded in XviD with MP3 audio, and the same specs are shown now with GSpot after I spliced them together. I've never heard anything bad about Ndub/VirtualDub, so I'm not sure why it would have caused a problem.

Watching the video, the audio is synched perfectly all the way through the movie, although I haven't watched the whole thing and tried to find the join point.

So, what is the name of the tool/program you have to join files, and also, do you mean I need commercial software for encoding?

Thanks,
-Dustin

[Matthew]

It's the first thread in DVD Authoring. It's an avi->DVD tool that will join the files for you.

Audio is likely to not be the problem then, I just know from experience that badly split AC3 avis are not uncommon, and during authoring the corruption that results when they are re-joined can be troublesome. They should play just fine in media player, etc though.

So disregard what I said about AC3 audio being the likely culprit in this case.