Help w/ VC1 HD-DVD Conversion

[zootropolis]

I am finally getting around to converting my HD-DVD's into files I can stream to my xbox 360. I've got no problem with h.264 encoded discs following instructions I've found here and elsewhere. I can't seem to get the VC1-encoded discs to work though.

I'm ripping the disc via my xbox 360 hd-dvd player using slysoft anydvd, and following the steps I found here posted by Beastie Boy: http://forum.doom9.org/archive/index.php/t-119785.html

Step 1: works fine. Here's a log of one of my attempts:

command line: eac3to feature_1.evo+feature_2.evo 2: video.vc1 3: audio.wavs
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EVO, 1 video track, 2 audio tracks, 3 subtitle tracks, 1:57:21
1: Joined EVO file
2: VC-1, 1080p24 /1.001 (16:9) with pulldown flags
3: E-AC3, 5.1 channels, 1536kbps, 48khz, dialnorm: -27dB
4: E-AC3, 5.1 channels, 768kbps, 48khz, dialnorm: -27dB
5: Subtitle (DVD)
6: Subtitle (DVD)
7: Subtitle (DVD)
[a03] The Nero decoder doesn't seem to work, will use libav instead.
[v02] Extracting video track number 2...
[a03] Extracting audio track number 3...
[v02] Writing new framerate "24fps /1.001" to bitstream.
[a03] Removing E-AC3 dialog normalization...
[v02] Removing VC-1 pulldown...
[a03] Decoding with libav/ffmpeg...
[a03] Remapping channels...
[a03] Reducing depth from 64 to 24 bits...
[a03] Writing WAVs...
[v02] Creating file "video.vc1"...
[a03] Creating file "audio.R.wav"...
[a03] Creating file "audio.L.wav"...
[a03] Creating file "audio.SL.wav"...
[a03] Creating file "audio.SR.wav"...
[a03] Creating file "audio.C.wav"...
[a03] Creating file "audio.LFE.wav"...
[a03] Clipping detected, a 2nd pass will be necessary. <WARNING>
[a03] Starting 2nd pass...
[a03] Extracting audio track number 3...
[a03] Removing E-AC3 dialog normalization...
[a03] Decoding with libav/ffmpeg...
[a03] Remapping channels...
[a03] Reducing depth from 64 to 24 bits...
[a03] Writing WAVs...
[a03] Creating file "audio.C.wav"...
[a03] Creating file "audio.L.wav"...
[a03] Creating file "audio.R.wav"...
[a03] Creating file "audio.LFE.wav"...
[a03] Creating file "audio.SR.wav"...
[a03] Creating file "audio.SL.wav"...
Video track 2 contains 168818 frames.
eac3to processing took 46 minutes, 53 seconds.
Done.

The resulting video.vc1 file is 17.9 gb in size.

Since eac3to says it's removing the pulldown, I skip the step of running the output through vc1conv.

Next step, converting the file using vc12avi outputs an unusable .avi file that is exactly 4.00 GB in size. The video is
'green-screen' for a few seconds and slowly turns to 'snow' in large square 'blocks' after a few seconds.

I've also tried running the ripped .evo files through evodemux, then running that output through vc1conv, then that output through vc12avi. That results in another .avi file that is exactly 4.00 GB in size that is completely black when played. And if you try to skip forward or back while it's playing, WMP crashes.

The procedure laid out by beastie boy next involves taking the 2GB chunks output by vc12avi and putting them together with virtualdubmod. I'm only getting one 4GB file output by vc12avi though.

I'm using "VC-1 to AVI Multiplexer - Version 1.0 - by DVBPortal
Aug-16-2007" according to the readme file.


If I try to go ahead with the next step, it says "Fail to build directshow filter graph" when I try to input the avi file in Solveig ASF Muxer.

What am I doing wrong? There aren't really any options to configure on vc12avi that I can find. Am I missing some codec pack or something?

I'm running vista32, all updates, with SP1. I have CCCP and Windows Media Encoder 9 installed, which I have successfully used to create 1920x1080 w/5.1 audio wmv's of the h264-encoded HD-DVD's I own, which successfully stream to my xbox 360.

What am I doing wrong? I've been trying this with several discs over the past few weeks and nothing's working. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[HymnToLife]

You could just use an AviSynth script with either DirectShowSource or (if you have a recent nvidia GPU), DGVC1DecNV. I don't know whether Windows Media Encoder supports AviSynth input, but if it doesn't, I guess you could encode it to Lagarith in VDub and then feed that to WME.

[Inspector.Gadget]

You may be able to mux the raw VC-1 to MKV with MKVMerge and then import it via direct stream copy to an ASF container (with WMA audio of your choice) using WMVMuxer. If that results in a vdeo bitrate higher than your network or 360 can support (I'm not sure) and thus you must re-encode, you can use DirectShowSource with AVisynth on either the MKV file or the resulting ASF.

Edit: WME Encoder supports Avisynth input through the "Both file and device.." field for video import, but since WMVMuxer wraps the WM Encoder in (IMO) a much more useful GUI and imports AVS files easily, just use that.

[setarip_old]

@zootropolis

Hi!

Your several references to files exactly 4Gigs in size leads me to believe that you are either running into a limit on .WAV filesize (Which I believe has been overcome with the most recent version of "EAC3to") or you are trying to save to a hard drive that is formatted as FAT32 rather than NTFS...

[zootropolis]

Thanks for the suggestions, I will try those as soon as possible when I get back to my desktop PC. I do have my drive formatted NTFS. Since vc12avi is where everything seems to break down, I did some more looking around and noticed that there is a version 1.0.1 of that program that says it includes:

- Segmented AVI output for files larger than 4GB

which I found here: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=128943

Is it a concidence that my avi files output by version 1.0 are exactly 4gb in size (coming from a file that's originally 18 Gigs) and are unusable?

I originally found vc12avi when I started this project by googling it and found version 1.0 somewhere else.

I'll try the latest version of vc12avi and see what happens and report back...

[dat720]

When i had my 360 i used to convert the vc1 file to a proper xvid stream using mplayer, now i use h264 for video streams as i have a PS3, no more dodgy 360!!!

[laserfan]

Are you sure zootropolis that you aren't having a Decoder problem? Can you play the 17Gb file that is output from eac3to with any player you have on your PC?

[zootropolis]

It was vc12avi version 1.0 that was causing the problem. I downloaded version 1.0.1 and ran the video.vc1 file output by eac3to through it, and it output several 2GB avi files which played perfectly in WMP11. I then stitched all of those together with virtualdubmod and then took that straight into Windows Media Encoder along with the left, right, center etc. wav files from eac3to. I ran a few test encodes, just doing 1 minute or so of random points of the movie so that I could be sure that the audio & video were in sync and the wmv file would playback and stream to the 360, before I ran the encoder on the whole movie.

Works like a champ! I'm encoding the whole thing right now...