Encoding mpg files?

[Shaff]

What is the best and fastest way for encoding mpeg-1 files into divx4 files? most programs cater only to dvd ripping+encoding, or am i wrong?

[^ogro^]

Originally posted by Shaff
What is the best and fastest way for encoding mpeg-1 files into divx4 files? most programs cater only to dvd ripping+encoding, or am i wrong?

Use virtualdub, www.virtualdub.org

[ProfDrMorph]

I would also suggest VirtualDub. Use "Fast Recompress" for video if you don't want to use filters to speed up the processing by skipping the useless YUV->RGB and RGB->YUV conversions which you only need for filters.

[dragonlz]

@ProfDrMorph
Wait a minute, aren't MPEG1 files in RGB color space?

[ProfDrMorph]

nope tried it with several music videos.

btw: even the good ol' JPEG uses YUV colorspace.

[Shaff]

Problem is, whenever i try to encode this mpg file, it gives me some sort of audio error: MPEG-1 audio error, not enough data to decode frame... when i try to extract audio from the mpg file it also gives me a similar error. any idea what's the problem?

[ProfDrMorph]

maybe this MPEG file is broken. Try extracting the audio with GraphEdit. Just open the program, choose File | Render Media File and open your MPEG file. Then delete all boxes that appear that process the video and every box behind the audio decoder. Then press CTRL+F to add new filters. Go to DirectShow filtes and add WaveDest and FileWriter( if FileWriter doesn't work for you try the Dump filter ). Connect the output from the audio decoder to WavDest and WavDest to FileWriter. Press GraphEdit's play button and wait until it's finished ( when the play button isn't gray anymore ). Then open the MPEG file in VDub and chose WAV as audio source and open the .wav file from GraphEdit.

[Shaff]

Thanks! It works like a charm now. would never have figured that out myself :)
However, i do still have kind of a question. when i tried to compress the audio, i came upon a situation where it would encode to about 30mb then freeze there. this occured for a few quality settings, but other quality settings worked fine. is this a problem with codecs?

[ProfDrMorph]

hmmm which codec, which settings? I can't remember about any freeze problems at the moment.

[kender]

I had a problem while encoding some kenshin OAV's (mpeg/vcd). It froze on frame 9995, is that about 30mb for you?

my solution?

Save audio as .wav and use lame/lamgui.
Encode video in virtualdub with "no audio".
Join with nandub.

[ProfDrMorph]

Save audio as .wav and use lame/lamgui.
Encode video in virtualdub with "no audio".
Join with nandub.
That's the way I always do it ;). Except a minor difference: Nandub writes wrong WAV headers. The DirectShow AVI splitter still works with Nandub AVIs but for example AviFile ( VirtualDub uses it ) can't read those AVIs correctly. So I use WaveMP3 to add WAV headers to my MP3 file and then I mux AVI and WAV with VirtualDub.