Another Feature *REQUESTED/SUGGESTED* and not demanded :)

[LorDHadeS]

I am posting this to get some user feedback. I email dvd2svcd (by the way, what is your name?) about this and have gotten no reply, which is fine by me. I would rather him spend his time doing more coding than answering my dumb emails. :) So, if you guys liek my idea/request reply and add ne tweaks/problems or what not to it if need be (dont write about coding problems because i'm (1)not a coder, but have done some before and know how hard it is, (2)confident that dvd2svcd can do it ( dvd2svcd, dvd2svcd if he cant do it know one can! :) ), (3) submitting an idea.)

I think what would make your program so much better ( if thats possible) would be to add a mpg/CD file splitter to it. I don't knwo the correct termage for this idea, but i basically mean: an (or external) movie viewer (like in FlasK) to view the movie and select a good point to break the files into the correct number of CDs. You would need to set the settings of DVD2SVCD first so it could calculate the movie length and whatnot. the viewer would have a timeline and then a maximum/minimum highlighted position/range in the correct spot of where the file splitting would normally occur. The minimum would really be the maximum length of the 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) CDs and the maximum range position would be the maximum of the 1st (or 2nd or 3rd) CD. Example: (excuse my cheesy text graphics)

(ignore the periods, this darn board condeses the spaces, so the image wont appear right without the periods, squinting might help...)

.......................................(Range)
|------------------------------------|
............CD1..................|-----------------------------------|
..................................min...........max...............CD2

This would be a very useful feature especially for those of you that have had some crucial dialogue or a kick ass fight scene "messed up" (not the right term, and i aint diss'n dvd2svcd, but you know what i mean) because of the changing of cds (I did notice that there is so relapse on the next cd to make up for this, but a viewer would still be better). It would be very cool if you were able to scroll a little positoning bar and put it at a less "crucial" scene or in a scene transition.

Again, just a request/suggestion from a humble servant :) Keep up the good work dvd2svcd.

Hades:devil:

[markrb]

These things have been on the todo list for some time, but they are difficult to do so have been pushed back for things thought to be more important. If you read the text file included with the bundle the preview point has been there for many builds.

Mark

[Harp]

Now, that you mention it, LordHades...

This is the ONLY thing left that I personally miss in DVD2SVCD (really!). I know that they are on the To-do-list, I just wanted to give this idea my support.

So here it is...


SUPPORT


;-)

Cheers,
Harp

[dvd2svcd]

I support it too.

[LorDHadeS]

yay! so we can look forward to it then... goodie. thnx d2s, u rock man!

Hades:devil:

[dvd2svcd]

Sure someday, but it is complicated and not easy to make user friendly.

I assume you would like a preview to select where you want the frames to be cut. Assuming this, the following problems arises:

1. I don't have any way to preview vob files. I could use DVD2AVI for the preview, but unfortunately it is not frame precise in the preview as it uses LBA's and not Frames. So to make a preview, I would have to:
a) rip the DVD,
b) create the dvd2avi project file
c) make the avs file
d) Show the preview letting the user selecting the frame cuts
e) Pipe the vob files through internal routines again saving only the frames the user selected
f) Starting the normal DVD2SVCD conversion using thevob files from pkt e.

You see the above is hardly user friendly.


2. I could try making a MPEG2Decoder like dvd2avi, but make it frameaccurate, that would mean that you could preview the movie before the conversion starts, however, making this will take a long time.


3. However if users of dvd2svcd would be satisfied to live without preview when selecting the frames, I could easily incorporate that.


dvd2svcd

[DDogg]

3. However if users of dvd2svcd would be satisfied to live without preview when selecting the frames, I could easily incorporate that.

Can you expand a little on this? What tool would the advanced user use to arrive at the frame numbers needed. I am assuming these would be manually input to D2S?

[dvd2svcd]

@DDogg: That essentially is the problem with the last, there is none :( You see, the frame (or seconds) that is perhaps found in WinDVD will not be accurate. As you know, dvd2svcd only uses the data from the Movie IFO file, and I fear that WinDVD's or PowerDVD's time doesn't always match those. However, if they do, you can calculate the frames (seconds * fps = FrameNo). I might experiment a bit with WinDVD and see how it matches up to dvd2svcd's internal frame count.

[Harp]

Hi!

I know this has been proposed before (but I do not recall your answer and could not find anything to this in the search area...so sorry for asking again).

Why not cut at the end of a chapter? Would be the most user-friendly option because the user does not have to do anything...

Cheers,
Harp

[dvd2svcd]

That is already possible in DVD2SVCD, however, a chapter change often happens in the middle of a scene too in my experience.

[Clixo]

then you might whant to try this one : ( the makro is there )http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18629

[equilibrium]

Originally posted by dvd2svcd
That is already possible in DVD2SVCD, however, a chapter change often happens in the middle of a scene too in my experience.

I am aware that there are ways of chapter splitting, as mentioned above by clixomano, but 'DVD2SVD' are you suggesting that there is now a way within the tool to automate this in the latest version.

Because it would be great, personally I am often running the process when I am not around and therefore, no need for manual intervention after hitting 'GO' is ideal.

I don't mind if a chapter change happens in the middle of a scene because they at least usually break the chapter between speach. By not intervening at all in the traditional way the CD break is often in the middle of someone speaking a sentence.

Cheers

[Clixo]

@equilibrium
with my macro you make all the images with one single hit go you just need to prepare everything befoure, and at the end you will get all the tree or more images to burn.

what dvd2svcd i think meant was that you can cut the image at the end of the chapter and after run it again starting from the end of the image you just made, so my method is to make it with more than one session , but in an automated way . just anoother thing if you have the space yoy can have more than one dvd converted with a single hit go ( just finished 6 more dvds ) ok you must have space... 200 gig or more...

[Holomatrix]

@DVD2SVCD
Have you seen how DVDx has a built in chapter viewer and jump to chapter feature and is pretty small? Would that be to hard to add? that way it would be easy to check what chapter you want to split at and encode the first CD chapters then the second. I'm not a programer so don't know how hard it is to add but it would be nice.

[PinkPanther]

Another option is to determine the cut point after the encoding is completed. This could be done as part of d2s or it could be done manually on the user's part. I haven't tried this, but think it could work. Here's the scenario. Say you're encoding a 90 minute movie. d2s is setup to create 2 CDs with 800 Meg each. Drop the 800 down to 790 or so. That means your total encoded multiplexed stream will be ~1580 megs instead of ~1600. That gives you 10 megs to each side of the center in order to make your cut. Then you can go in and manually determine the best cut point in that 20 meg window. Adjust your bbmpeg multiplex/cut point, remux and you end up with say two CDs of say 795 and 785 megs. Might require muxing and then remuxing so you can determine the cut point accurately since the muxed file will have non-linearly spaced audio through it.

If you want to try this manually, run d2s with the 790 (or 780) meg CD size, encode, then manually mux the whole encoded audio and video together. You should have a file around 1580 megs. Find a good cut point in there that is around 800 megs. Then remux/cut to create the final .mpg files with bbmpeg using your new cut-point.

Only problem is finding that 20 meg window in time. I don't
know if there are any tools to easily find this. Do any of the bitrate viewers give current position in both time and bytes?

The mux/cut stage followed by cd image creation doesn't take that long relative to the whole encode process.

Does any of this make sense or sound feasible for cutting where you want? I have had this idea in my head for a few days but haven't had a chance to boot into windows to try it out.

[DDogg]

I got a funny feeling his creative juices are rising to this challenge but I think we need to be careful not to push too hard. You know how he gets bitchy when he is stressed. LOL :D (payback for the "bitch bug")

[mkanar]

Originally posted by Holomatrix
Have you seen how DVDx...

I'm still wondering if

DVDx=>AVIWrapper=>CCE 2.50, 2.62, 2.64, TMPGEnc
(http://www.doom9.org/mpg/dvdx-videoserver.htm)

will work instead of

DVD2AVI=>AVISynth=>(optional VFAPI)=>CCE 2.50, TMPGEnc, and if using VFAPI, CCE 2.62 .64.

As I mentioned at http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18665, I personally am not certain about the DVD2AVI video quality; I'm not saying that it isn't the best, it is just that I don't know...

Slghtly off topic:

I assume that if we wish to 'add' chapters, then our best option is to simply modify the VCDxBuild XML file ourselves and crash recover? (Assuming that DVD2SVCD won't just overwrite the XML file)

Thanks!
MKanar

[jasond]

maybe another feature would be a shut down when finished encoding option.. (to shut down the whole machine) for when I leave it alone while at work,etc
Thanks!

[DDogg]

jasond,

Like the little check thing on the conversion tab that says "Auto-Shutdown"? :) Or, did I misunderstand?

[jasond]

Originally posted by DDogg
jasond,

Like the little check thing on the conversion tab that says "Auto-Shutdown"? :) Or, did I misunderstand?

LOL darn..how could I have missed that little button? ;)

thanks ;)

[kydongau]

Another litle thing, good to have is using the cdtitle or the movie tile for the file name of the final bin/cue files ie. matrix_cd1.cue etc
Cheers,
Kydongau