GUIDE: All-purpose movie encoding in 5 easy steps.

wolfRX · 05-04-05, 10:18 PM

Hi!
Reading the sticky guide made me think that I should try to explain the whole process in much simpler terms, ‘cos all you need is 3 programs (SmartReaper, DVD2AVI and VirtualDub) and 2 codecs ( DivX or Xvid and LAME MP3 codec). With that combination a movie would be Divx encoded with MP3 sound, region free (!). If you wanna do it in Xvid, the procedure would be ABSOLUTLY THE SAME, only thing you need is XVid codec installed. ALL PROGRAMMS ARE FREE.
So here we go:

1) Install DivX and LAME_ACM_Codec , if you haven’t done it yet.

Install SmartRipper 2.41 You can install it anywhere. I created “DVD” folder. The initial screen is in German, (click on “Entpacken”), but don’t worry –the program has an English interface.

2) Insert DVD and let it start playing automatically for a sec or two (or click on "play"). Close the player and double click on “SmartRipper.exe” Don’t mind “no ASPI-Adapter available” bug and click OK. For a short period of time you’ll see this window

and then this

The program automatically selects the first part of the show (Angle 1). As you can see the program also identifies all information about the movie – duration, resolution, size, etc. All you need to do is set the target folder (in my case it’s C:\DVD) and click on “Start”. Depending on the speed of your dvd player, the CPU and some characteristics :- ) of the DVD this would take 15- 40 min for the whole, say, 90min movie. Usually it starts slow, but then the speed might go as high as 12-16x. Anyway, let it do its magic and you’ll have a bunch of *.vob files. Or, if you like, you can have ONE big .vob file (look in the setting) It doesn’t really matter one or a few. In the end of the process you’ll see this:

Close the program
3) Just copy the whole folder DVD2AVI anywhere you want and start it.Click “File” – “Open” – select the first vob file and click OPEN

The program will jump to the last one ( we gonna do the whole movie, remember? :-) - just click OK..

Now first thing is to edit out all unneeded stuff, `cos it’ll eat up our valuable space. Say I wanna cut the beginning (long-long introduction) and the end of the movie (5 min list of the names of 2nd assistant managers and electricians). So, click on [ in the place you want it start and ] in the place you want it end. These two < and > move a movie by one frame back or forth, so that you can calibrate it precisely. What is gonna be produced will be marked blue:

Now important stuff: Audio
Audio will be set by default. (Track #1, Channel format - Autoselect, etc). Just set “Audio” – “MPEG Audio” – “Demux” (Instead of “Demux all trucks”)
Video :
Lets start from the end and get rid of these black widescreen stripes. Go to a bright scene of the movie and then “Video”- “Clip and Resize” and set “Precise Bicubic (MMX)” and Video Aspect on “Free”. Then move “Top” and “Bottom” to get rid of the black stripes. In the same matter you can move the “Left” and “Right” so that instead of wide screen width (720 px in my case) you’ll get 640. So now I have 640x288 In some extreme wide screen instances ( say, 720x280) cutting the black stripes would result in distorted image graphics. All you gotta do is set the “Height” manually I’ll explain it a bit later.
In order to better utilize your CPU resources (especially important for PDA performance) and the quality of a movie:
a) make sure that the length and width are both divisible by 16 EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO cut a bit more than you originally intended to (for example, width 704 and height 560 or 512 X 288).
b)NEVER change the original framerate.

That was the hardest part
Now just check the following in the "Video" menu:
iDCT Algorithm -> 32-bit
Field operation -> Forced (if it was encoded, or NONE if it wasn't)
Color Space -> RGB 24-bit
YUV RGB -> PC scale (That's my personal preference. If you wanna use your DVD palyer to play it on a big screen TV, then choose "TV scale")

4) Now click on "FIle" -> "Save AVI" -> type a name -> click "Save" First, you'll see "Video Compression" menu. Choose "Div X", then click "Configure". Check "SLOW", then click on
"Bitrate calculator". Choose duration (Don't forget that you've already edited some stuff out!) , choose the desired size of the final movie. Obviously, I did it for 2 Cds
Click "Accept" You may need to round "AVERAGE BITRATE" to an even number

THEN CLICK "ok" IN THE FIRST ("Video Compression")menu.You'll see the "Statistic Window" with approhimate job reamining time at the bottom. That time basically depends on your CPU and may take 30-90 min for a 90 minute movie. In the end you'll have 2 files: *.01 - your video, 2nd file is a WAV (uncompressed) sound for your movie:

5) The final step - mixing audio and video. Usually, with 1.1Ghz processor it takes 10 -20 min.
The video is already done in step 4, so now we need to MP3 the sound. Download VirtualDub and unpack the whole folder anywhere you want and double click on "VirtualDub". Then go "File"->"Open Video File" -> clcik on your file -> click "Open". Go to "Video" and click on "Direct Stream Copy". That's it!

Now go "Audio" and click on "Full Processing Mode". Then open Audio again and click on "Wav Audio" -> new menu pops up -> choose your WAV file-> click "Open".

Go "Audio"->"Interleaving" and do like this:

Now go to "Audio" -> "Volume" and kick it up a notch, so that your sound would be loud and clear. I usually do 200-400%

The final part-MP3 encoding. "Audio" -> "Compression" -> "lame MP3" -> 128 kbps.

Why 128? Remember in step 4 the calculator we used did the calculation for 128 - Step 5 - so that movie would fit the predetermined size - 1400Mb.
Go "File" -> "Save as AVI" -> type a name-> click "save" and you'll see the final menu:

Well, that's it. Enjoy!

05-04-05, 10:30 PM

An ok guide. I am glad that somebody finally made one using vdub. Although I don't see a screenshot of it. That is all I ever use to record tv on my pc, and encode movies.

I find it easier to use dvdshrink, and virtualdub mpeg2 by ffchandler. Rip the dvd in 1 single 4 or 8gb vob file----> import the vob directly into vdub mpeg2 and encode. This is basically what you did but this way all you need is 2 programs. And I believe it would take less time.

The most practical way for most people that are on this site, is just to use pocketdivx encoder.

wolfRX · 05-05-05, 01:10 AM

Originally Posted by tancerman

And I believe it would take less time.

I did that, and the overall process time was much longer, 'cos in your case you do 2 jobs (video and audio encoding) simultaneously and my processor, for instance, kinda old for that type of work.

Originally Posted by tancerman

The most practical way for most people that are on this site, is just to use pocketdivx encoder.

Practical? May be, but I've seen a lot of home made videos (lets call them this way) with ridiculous video quality. A completely distorted picture with enormous widescreen effect ( sorta double widescreen) so it looks like a peephole show - very, very :icon_lame

FlyACL · 05-05-05, 08:27 AM

Thanks for the nice work! I have been more then happy with FairUse, but it is nice to have well explained options. Good Job~

ApeMan · 05-21-05, 05:15 PM

For the Clip & Resize step, shouldn't I set the size to 320x240 for playing the video on my Axim (X30)?

It's my 1st time doing this, and you didn't mention that part, so that's why I'm asking...

Thanks.

ApeMan · 05-21-05, 05:34 PM

Originally Posted by ApeMan

For the Clip & Resize step, shouldn't I set the size to 320x240 for playing the video on my Axim (X30)?

It's my 1st time doing this, and you didn't mention that part, so that's why I'm asking...

Thanks.

Oops, I tried that and the video now looks "squished". Should I have done something differently instead?

wolfRX · 05-22-05, 02:49 AM

Originally Posted by ApeMan

For the Clip & Resize step, shouldn't I set the size to 320x240 for playing the video on my Axim (X30)?

Good question. I don't think u have to resize it to 320x240. I assume u gonna use Betaplayer, right? Well, according to this table various PPCs with the same 624Mhz CPU can play the heaviest clip (XQ) almost perfectly fine - benchmarks differ from 110% to 130%. So, u know, just to make sure that we're not mistaken - download that XQ clip, benchmark it and if you get something like 110-120% then make a movie as if u would do so for watching it on your PC or DVD player for that matter. Moreover, if you look at the XQ's properties, you would notice that the total media stream is about 320kbps (127 audio+ 197video=324 total). The vast majority of home made movies fall into the 220 -300 range :)

ONE REALLY IMPORTANT THING I FORGOT TO MENTION THOUGH. In order to better utilize your CPU resources (especially important for PDA performance) and the quality of a movie:
a) make sure that the length and width are both divisible by 16 EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO cut a bit more than you originally intended to (for example, width 704 and height 560 or 512 X 288).
b)NEVER change the original framerate.

If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask :cheers: