MJPEG -> MPEG1 movies

[Smiff]

Er hi again

A quickish q.

What's the best way for me to turn a 1.5 hour film stored as 4 2GB .avi files (PRFile5.avi, PRFile5a.avi, PRFile5b.avi, PRFile5c.avi) into a 1 or 2 part MPEG1/VideoCD movie?

file properties:
Video: 352 x 288, 24 Bits, 25 Frames/Sec, 1348 KB/Sec, RRIcm
Audio: PCM,44,100 Hz, 16 Bit, Stereo

I have tried a few AVI>MPEG encoders but none seem to be able to combine multiple-part AVIs (?) So I guess I need to join them in Premier BUT there is still the 4GB file limit on FAT32 drives (right? or is it 2GB). So, er, I need to turn the 4 AVIs into 2 AVIs in Premiere before converting them into MPEGS with a seperate encoder? or a plugin of some kind? is that right? I don't know if that works 'cos Premiere crashes on me(please see my other thread). Another problem - I don't have enough drive space to make a copy of the film as MJPEG (8GB of AVIs on a 13GB drive) so the editing needs to work directly on the source files, if you follow. Probably not possible?

Ow. My brain hurts =]

Thanks,

Smiff

[fluggo99]

Perfectly possible, but MediaStudio Pro would actually be the best for the job-- it's cheaper, too. It has an MPEG-1/2 encoder built in, with presets for VCD. You would construct the video together on the timeline, then save directly to MPEG-1.

A 1.5 hour film won't reach the 4GB Windows limitation-- or 2GB, for that matter-- but it won't fit on a VCD, either. One solution here would be that, once you've constructed the video in MSP, you would select for preview the first part of the video, and ask MSP to save only the preview part.

Like I said in your other thread, the video itself is likely to be the cause of your crashes, so switching to MSP won't solve that. But if you're certain that your video isn't to blame, MSP has a record for being more stable with Matrox hardware.

You might want to wait a few days to see if anyone else has a less expensive solution-- purchasing MSP for such a simple job seems a little wasteful to me.

[Flying dutchman]

VirtualDub in frame server mode would solve this for you; you could then convert the lot into one big mpg file using Ligos or Panasonic encoder. It takes some time to learn to work with Virtualdub though.

[Pytkin]

Solution is easy .. Use bbMpeg .. U can add more segments of AVI and bbMPEG will compress it to one MPEG ..

[Smiff]

Thanks alot guys - so there's alot of different ways to do this! Time for me to get downloading

One thing though - anyone know what's going to give me the best quality? And would the old MSP5 (that I got with the card) do the job?

The MPEG encoders say not to use any compression on the source - are they mad?! Is that even possible my RRG? 4:1 MJPEG seems to be the closest I can get (?)

So bbMpeg can combone split parts - but can Ligos or Panasonic? I can't see the option on the demo version of LSX. Hmm. Or can they work as plugins, linked to MSP/Premiere somehow? Or is that a seperate product?

Too many qs?

I'll go try this bbMPEG thing first 'cos its free You're right fluggo99, I'm not buying something just for this! Actaully it seems such a simply job that loads of people would want to do that I'm surprised there isn't a 'standard' easy way of doing it, you know?

Bizarre.
Anyway,

Cheers everyone, MURCers rule!

[Merv Wilson]

Smiff, I've had great success with transferring about an hour's worth of best quality (6.6:1 compression) MJPEG AVI files to CD using the excellent codecs that come with MSPro v6.0. The MPEG codecs use the Ligos algorithms which reduce the PAL 704x576 to 352x288 & are fine for showing on a computer monitor. Make sure you use the field-option 'Frame-based' when converting the AVI files to MPEG-1. In MSPro 6.0, use the PAL VCD template. Yes, keep the audio at 44Khz 16-bit (mono or stereo). All the files playback quite happily using Windows Media Player or the Matrox PC-Remote Player.

I have found this a neat way with which to store/archive footage shot on my camcorder - especially so when you can produce an attractive cover for the CD jewel case as well as the CD disk itself. The above applies to CD-R disks. I have had some problems when using CD-RW disks when recording MPEG-1 files - I know not why! but some rewriteable disks refuse to acknowledge that there are movie files on the recorded disk.

Other than that, I also record my stuff on S-VHS.

Merv Wilson.

PS: I have a Matrox Marvel G-200 card.