i'd really be grateful if someone can help me because these are my family's memories that are at risk!!!
My Canon digital photos camera (powershot s80) produces a very clean hi-res 1024x768 movie in 15fps, Mjpeg format. Files are huge but the quality is sublime on PC. I'd like to watch them on my standalone dvd player on TV screen but my player doesn't read hi-res (HD) and also it doesn't recognize Mjpeg, nor PCM audio (which is the original audio out of my camera).
So i decided to convert them all to DivX with mp3 audio...
And here comes my problem. I have many questions but the big one is why do i get big macroblocs whatever bitrate (i even tried 4Mbps DivX or 7Mbps XviD!) i apply ?
I tried a commercial video converter (AVS) with very simple and straightforward GUI, doing two pass at 2000Kbps with a mono mp3 at 192Kbps. I resize with the DivX Pro 5.2 codec to 640x480. The result is a very degraded video (relative to the original mjpeg) no matter on PC or on my dvd player (which now at least can read them).
Then i tried VirtualDub to get a slighly better result with the same parameters but still with easily distinguishable macroblocs. The other problem with VirtualDub is the audio. It just can't find any mp3 or Lame mp3 driver. I searched on Internet and on doom9 for solutions. I installed LAME ACM, no way. Vdub doesn't propose me any bitrate unless i check "show all" at right and then it says compression not possible! So with virtual dub i can only get a DivX with the original PCM audio which is unreadable on my dvd player.
Even if i want to find a solution to my Vdub problem (because it is a very good freeware) my biggest concern is the quality and how to remove all these macroblocs ??? It seems like i'm missing a very big issue on DivX conversion but i searched throughout various sites and guides (digital/Divx digest, doom9, digitalFAQ, Nicky pages, etc.) and i found no big parameters that i could miss producing such a degraded video quality. They all explain different programs utilization without really focusing on codec's parameters.
I just don't understand how some guys can rip&convert DVDs to DivX with amazing quality!!! Maybe because the original is mpeg2 not mjpeg (does it matter ?), or maybe because it's not hi definition format ? Should i apply filters ? which one ?
Hi nalooti,
Forget about DivX for the moment, I know this is the DivX forum but you want to transfer this stuff to your standalone DVD player right?
Then you want to author a compliant DVD (which is MPEG2 format).
We can help you make good DivX/XviD copies, which are much smaller (CD-sized not DVD-sized) but they will not help you to playback on the standalone DVD!
I personally would use NeroVision Express to encode to DVD, and if you did a 2-pass conversion at SP (2 hours) bitrate, you would have no quality degradation at all :^)
Typically your audio would be encoded in DVD-standard AC3 2.0 @ 192 kbs.
All DVD players should recognize both PCM audio @ 44.1KHz (Redbook CD) or 48KHz (DVD audio), perhaps there is something unique or proprietary in your camera audio format. Whatever - if you have a PCM file, it is a WAV in computer-speak, LoL ;^) WAV files are considered full-size, as opposed to AC3, MP3, OGG etc. which are compressed.
Hope this helps,
Regards
Forgot to ask, in what format are the large files you are getting from the camera (what filename)?
The 15 fps is interesting to see, fortunately easy to double to 30 fps (NTSC). Or are you PAL?
After you burn some nice DVDs, we can still help you make small DivX files for storage or emailing, if you wish.
L8R
The reason i want to convert to DivX is that my dvd player can read DivX files and also mpeg2(DVD) files are too big.
However i'm willing to give a try to Nero recode2. Just few questions about that.
Can Nero encode in h264 ASP ? If yes since this format is DivX compatible (they're same actually), Nero can also do the job for me; am i right?
One thing could be a problem with Nero: if Nero encode in mp4 container in which case my dvd player couldn't read them. My player is Divx/mpeg4 compatible but with .avi containers.
Regarding audio i forgot to say that my original PCM is at 11024 HZ. Then i could understand it is unreadable by my player since as you said players support 44.1 or 48 Khz. I'll try to upscale and let you know.
Regarding the original format as i said in title it's in Mjpeg format, 15fps. I'm PAL but don't need to convert it to 25 fps. My player can read DivX at 15fps.
thanks for your suggestions. I'm waiting for more :)
