Convert DVD to 1GB MPEG-2

[BoysBoysBoys]

Hello,

I am taking a very long flight and I would like to convert some DVDs to fit at least one movie per gigabyte on my flash drive. I chose MPEG-2 because I think it will give me the most battery life on the plane.

I downloaded Avisynth, DGDecode, and HCEnc.

I haven't used these programs very much. Could someone give me direction about how to achieve this?

Thanks

[BoysBoysBoys]

Ok, so I got AnyDVD working with DVD Decrypter. I opened up DGDecode and made a .d2v file and demuxed the audio. I am on the Avisynth part and I am a bit lost. Is there some well known tool for autocropping and setting avisynth filters and such?

[Guest]

Just crop it manually using Crop(). What filters do you think you need? Your question is very vague.

[BoysBoysBoys]

I'm sorry for being vauge. I have only used megui to do everything for me, but I am trying to do everything myself.

I would crop it manually, but how do I get a preview, so that I know I cropped it properly?

My video is interlaced. I saw the comb stuff when I opened the video in DGDecode. I think I am supposed to use decomb filter, and I read the guide on how to use it, but I don't understand when I am supposed to use certain settings like gthresh and chroma. The guide said something about mouth errors, but never explained what they are. I'm confused.

[Inspector.Gadget]

You can use the crop function right in DGIndex with preview and then not do crop in Avisynth, or you can figure out the values there and use them with Crop() in Avisynth. For combing, you need to figure out whether your video is true interlaced, soft telecined, hard telecined, or a hybrid. Open up your D2V with a text editor and look at the last line; if it's 95% or greater FILM, then I personally would redo the D2V with "Force Film" and not worry about it in Avisynth. For lesser film numbers or VIDEO content, you should step through it in (for example) VirtualDub or the MeGUI AVS Script Creator and look for a 3P:2I pattern that would indicate hard telecining or combing on every moving part of each picture that would indicate true interlacing.

Many people use TFM().TDecimate() for hard telecined content (adding options as appropriate); for true interlacing, I'd just use YADIF() here without bobbing because any additional sharpness will only further hurt compressability when you're packing a DVD into a 1-Gig MPEG-2 file.

[BoysBoysBoys]

It says 100% VIDEO. I opened it up in VirtualDub and I didn't see a pattern to the interlacing. Some frames were fine, and then I would see the messed up lines for five straight frames.

Does it make a difference that I am working with a animated video?

I have decided to use FieldDeinterlace() because it seemed that it was a pure interlaced video and when I opened it in VDub it looked good. Is this the right choice?

[BoysBoysBoys]

Sorry for multiple questions, but what should I use to mux the audio and video together?

[Guest]

Can you post a sample of your original source material? You can cut a piece of the M2TS using DGSplit and then upload it to mediafire.com and post the link here.

Probably a simple deinterlace using FieldDeinterlace() will not give you optimum results for the source, but to know the right treatment we need to see a source sample.

You can mux with Imago Muxer, for example.

[BoysBoysBoys]

I don't have a m2ts file. I have vobs a d2v and avs.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Then you can use DGIndex to trim a small portion of your source and do a "save project and demux video" to get a small M2V file :)

~MiSfit

[Guest]

I don't have a m2ts file. I have vobs a d2v and avs. OK, then use DGSplit on the VOB or do as Blue suggested.

[BoysBoysBoys]

Sorry I have never used DGSplit before, I didn't know it worked with .VOB.

http://www.mediafire.com/?v0m0z4m0zz0

[Guest]

You have a field-blended standards conversion on your hands. You need specialized tools for unblending fields, such as Srestore. A simple deinterlace may be good enough for watching on a plane.

[BoysBoysBoys]

So, I did a bit of reading and I went back and looked at the original source.

I noticed that the combed frames did not matchup with either the previous or following frame. Is that how you concluded that it was field-blended? I'm just trying to understand how to recognize these problems.

[BoysBoysBoys]

Interesting, after I did the simple deinterlace I see how the ghosting matches up with the previous frame. Now to get rid of the ghosting...

[Sharc]

You may also want to try DVD-Rebuilder (there is a free version available) to shrink your DVDs.
You could select the target size to 1 GB, but I think the quality of a 2 hours movie on 1GB using mpeg-2 won't be too exciting - at least if you want to keep the original DVD resolution.

[Guest]

I noticed that the combed frames did not matchup with either the previous or following frame. Is that how you concluded that it was field-blended? I'm just trying to understand how to recognize these problems. I separated the fields and stepped through them. You can see that some fields are blends of two pictures.

Have a look here for a description of my methodology (first two questions):

http://neuron2.net/faq.html

[nevragain]

You may also want to try DVD-Rebuilder (there is a free version available) to shrink your DVDs.
You could select the target size to 1 GB, but I think the quality of a 2 hours movie on 1GB using mpeg-2 won't be too exciting - at least if you want to keep the original DVD resolution.

DVD-Rebuilder has a half D1 mode you could use that to get better quality.