problems encoding mpg to divx/xvid

rykoryko new york
edited March 2004 in Internet & Media
Hello All,

For the past year or so i have been archiving tv shows with my Creative DVCR and lots of hdd space. First let me walk you through what I have been doing. After recording shows, I export them to mpg's using the Creative DVCR file exporter. Then, I have been using Vidomi to encode these shows to divx/xvid. The problem i have been having is that the audio and video is slightly out of sync.

After doing some research, I found this little app called AVIFrameRateChanger. Now I have played with it for a while, but i can't find the correct framerate for the divx/xvid files. Any suggestions?

Is there any encoding app that will automatically sync the audio/video? Should I be using something other than Vidomi? Is there anything I can use to repair my 'out of sync' files?

BTW, i have been mostly using divx codec 5.05............

Thanks in advance!

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    Vidomi is actually pretty bad.

    I suggest getting a copy of TMPGEnc. Go to file -> MPEG tools -> Simple demultiplex. Import your file and then run the process.

    Once that's done, you should have a .mp2 file (Audio) and .m2v (Video). Get a new copy of DVD2AVI which supports 2-pass encoding, and open the .m2v file (Maybe the mp2 also).

    Select your encoder via the save AVI 2 pass in the file menu.

    Audio menu:

    Track 1
    Channel format: Dolby digital
    Dolby digital: Decode
    MPEG Audio: Demux
    48 -> 44.1KHz: Ultra High
    MP3 Compress: Use: Mux with AVI.
    MP3 settings: VBR 128 - 224KB/s, quality 0

    That should synch it properly at 23.976 FPS (Which is AVI/MPEG NTSC standard in the U.S.)

    That should work. Be sure to crop the black NTSC bars around your video via the video menu.

    If THAT doesn't work (No audio), a program called BeSweet GUI will allow you to transcode the mp2 to an mp3 via a simple interface. And then once you've worked the audio over you can mux it with your video via a program called AVIMux.
  • rykoryko new york
    edited March 2004
    Wow. That's a lot to do to each file.

    I liked Vidomi b/c it is easy to set up batch processing and it's like 1 click to encode. I have a ton of files---over 200gb so it would take forever to do that to each file. If that is what needs to be done... ok but that's for mpg's.

    Is there anything i can do with my all-ready encoded out of sync divx files?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    That's what you should do for new encodes.

    Unfortunately synching audio on existing encodes requires a copy of virtual dub, many hours of free time, and <a href="http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/audio-synch.htm&quot; target="_blank">this tutorial</a>
  • DexterDexter Vancouver, BC Canada
    edited March 2004
    Thrax wrote:
    That should synch it properly at 23.976 FPS (Which is AVI/MPEG NTSC standard in the U.S.)

    NTSC is always 29.97 FPS, or 59.94 field per second, which is drop-frame mode. 30 FPS is non-drop frame mode.

    23.976 is film speed, not NTSC.

    23.976 (or 24 for non-drop) is used for lower file size AVI / MPEG by people doing non-broadcast quality work. It is considered better than most desktop AVI or MPEG, which is usually done at 15 FPS, but it is not NTSC quality. To be NTSC, it has to be 29.97 or 30 frames.

    Dexter...
  • rykoryko new york
    edited March 2004
    Thanks for the info!----this is way more complicated than i want it to be. I don't think I have nearly enough time to deal with this problem.

    Are there any nice and easy encoding apps out there that will do a good job of synching audio/video? I don't want to babysit each file through 2-3 differnt apps. I just want to load like 20 encode jobs in one app before i go to work and have them spit out by the time I get home...

    There has got to be 1 app that can do this correctly..............right?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    I'm going to call you on that dexter.

    29.97 FPS is indeed an NTSC specification, and was in fact the first specification outlined by the consortium that produced it. However 23.976 FPS has since been ratified as an acceptable FPS value for film and other non-broadcast applications (As you have stated).

    But even then, original DVD discs came in the 23.976 FPS format and were later moved to 29.97 after 1-2 years.

    The 23.976 internal to 29.97 FPS external via 3:2 pulldown on playback has become an acceptable NTSC provision.

    That said, I was correct in my statement that 23.976 is NTSC.
  • DexterDexter Vancouver, BC Canada
    edited March 2004
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC_standard

    NTSC is, by definition, 29.97 or 30 fps. Anything less is not NTSC. It may have NTSC size parameters, but it is not NTSC, which is a BROADCAST standard. 23.976 is a desktop / film use rate which comforms to the NTSC resolution parameters, but varies the frame rate for a non-broadcast playback purpose. Yes, original DVD's used 23.976, but that is because they encoded them straight from film without using 3:2 pulldown. The result, on an NTSC screen, is a poorer image because the frame rate causes noticable flickering on the screen.

    I'm not saying that he shouldn't use 23.976, as that has become a standard for desktop use, starting way back with VCD's and MPG-1, and is now widely used by the Divx crowd to reduce file sizes slightly. However, it is a desktop standard, and it is wrong to say that it is NTSC, even though many people use it. Kind of like the word "ain't." It's wrong, but people say it. Saying that NTSC is 23.976 frames is wrong. It is not true NTSC.

    Dexter...
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