Render directly to TMPGEnc Mpeg in MSP 6.0?

[Trinity]

The Ligos built-in encoder in Mediastudio Pro 6.0 produces inferior quality mpegs. I'd like to encode to TMPEnc or Panasonic directly from MSP (ie using Create Video).
Is it possible to configure MSP for external mpeg encoders? It seems pointless to sacrifice a generation by rendering to mjpeg avi, then to mpeg.

I'm after the best possible picture quality other than MJPEG for the purpose of more compact files. I have no restrictions in terms of bitrates, conformance to VCD, playability in DVD decks etc. As long as I can play it out of my Marvel BOB for taping or direct to TV, I'll be happy. The only goal is BEST possible quality and more compact than MJPEG.

Tips? Suggestions?

[Hulk]

As far as I know there is no way to create a video using the TMPEnc codec. It would be great if there was a way.

What is the format of your source video clips?

If they're already MJPEG then make sure you're final output setting are the same as the clips and no re-rendering will be done. Encoding this final video file with TMPEnc would be the same as doing it directly from MS Pro.

If they're huffyuv then output to huffyuv format and again use TMPEnc. Problem occurs if final file is larger than 4GB and you're using Win98. In that case you can output a few files that are smaller and split at approproate points. Use TMPEnc on each, load the MPEG II's into MS Pro, apply transition or whatever and render to MPEG II settings used in TMPEnc and re-rendering should only occur at the transitions. This method will work for any large files TMPEnc can work with.

Can TMPEnc work with dv format files? I don't know. If not then I see the problem. I guess one way would be to output the final project to huffyuv and then use TMPEnc, this should be the same as going directly from dv format to TMPEnc, in theory anyway, since the decompression of dv to huffyuv should be lossless.

Hope this helps.

[Sciascia]

You may want to try the MS MPEG4 codec. Of course you will have to either find one that is hacked or hack it yourself to enable encoding. The file size is small (about 1.10th of MJPEG) and the quality is as good as if not better than MPEG2 in alot of cases. You can also use Virtual dub to recompress it rather than use MSP6. It will be faster and is fairly straight forward. If you need info on the MPEG4 codec, do a search ont this site and you should find a bunch of info.

[Trinity]

1. MSP does not re-render video if the source has the exact same frame rate etc. as the output. The problem is that when I use MSP Video Capture or PC-VCR, the resulting AVIs are not exactly 29.97 fps. Am I doing something wrong or do I have to resort to some other capture program that can lock down the frame rate?

2. Both TMPGEnc and Ligos (MPEG2) produce comb-like edge artifacts when there is motion. I have tried various interlace settings without success. In fact so does rendering to PICVideo MJPEG. Rendering to Matrox MJPEG does not produce these artifacts. Why?

[Hulk]

1. Not sure. Check the properties of the clip when in the MS Pro timeline and duplicate to avoid re-rendering.

2. I could be wrong but I believe the Matrox MJPEG format is not showing interlacing artifacts when played back on a system with Matrox hardware decompression for MJPEG because the deinterlacing is built into the hardware. Same system is coding and decoding. Same thing happens on my AIW. MPEG II capture and playback is perfect when capturing with ATI software. avi_io huffyuv captures encoded to MPEG II must be deinterlaced though, and they don't look as good at the ATI in/out video.

IMO Virtual Dub with smart deinterlace is the best option using frame server mode to feed TMPEnc. That's the best you'll do unless you capture actual progressive scan video.

[Dr Mordrid]

Someone really needs to write an AVISynth interface for MSPro....

That said there is a plugin for Premiere that allows frameserving to TMPGEnc. Works great too, but Premiere (even 6.0) isn't as good as MSPro6 when it comes to usability.

As for the lacing issues in the rendered files, try setting the field options for each clip to FRAME in MSPro and then render it to the codec of your choice using field B if it's going to be played to the video output. This often helps eliminate comb artifacts, especially when moving paths or overlaid graphics are involved.

You can also normalize the frame rate within 1 fps using the File/Convert/Frame Rate option in the editor. Capturing with AVI_IO fixes frame rate issues outright by locking the frame rate down to 29.970 fps exactly to start with.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 28 January 2001).]

[Trinity]

I used AVI_IO to capture Matrox MJPEG clips which were locked down at 29.97 fps. These were successfully 'Smartrendered' in MSP 6.0 when I previewed...only the transitions were rendered.

But...

Why is every clip re-rendered when I try to create a video file (using the Matrox MJPEG codec) even though all the project attributes are the same as the clips, and 'SmartRender' is checked in the Options tab?

[Dr Mordrid]

Are you sure the audio bitrates are exactly the same? That can be a problem. So can the use of Uleads recommended MSPro6 changes to the ulead32.ini file for Matrox cards. They force the audio to be re-rendered and disable OpenDML to make MSPro6 compatable with the Matrox cutlist driver.

A better approach is to disable the Matrox cutlist driver in ulead32.ini. This forces MSPro6 to use it's own cutlist driver, which works better and is compatable with OpenDML. It also allows you to turn off the Ulead switches.

What you do is look in the [PLAYBACK] section of ulead32.ini and put a ";" in front of the line that references MCLPlugin.dll. Remove the Ulead recommended lines and it should work fine.

Dr. Mordrid

[Trinity]

I commented out the line you described as well as the ones below that Ulead says to add:

[HardwareAcc]
NotSaveOpenDML=1
AviPlayEngineMCI=1

[Playback]
RenderAudio=1

It still re-renders when creating a video file. Since SmartRender works for preview, the clip attributes MUST match otherwise it would not have worked. The question is why does Create,File not behave the same way as Preview?

I consider this a serious problem not only from a performance standpoint, since it is uneccessarily creating a degraded generation of the source.

[Dr Mordrid]

Wait a minute....brain defogging....a while ago I sent a bug report to Ulead on something like this.

It didn't register right away because I've been using Premiere/RT-2000 a lot lately.

SOMETIMES, but not always or with all codecs or setups, MSPro6 will misread the frame rate of a 29.970 fps clip as either 29.969 OR 29.971 fps. This can trip-up smartrendering to disk.

I'm not sure if it's misreporting the length of the clip and that's throwing off the frame rate calculation or vice-versa, but it does happen from time to time.

What's really weird is that the frame rate reported by Insert Video File/Info IS CORRECT at 29.970 fps!!

Perhaps that button is reading the info from Windows directly while the timeline is calculated another way. Anyhow....

Fix strategy:

Check your clips reported frame rate ON THE TIMELINE by clicking on them and selecting "properties" from the context menu.

IF the frame rate is indeed misreported in the above manner (verify this by checking its properties with Windows Explorer) then just change the frame rate in Create Video to what the MSPro6 properties sheet reports and the project should now smartrender to disk.

That's right: lie to it!!

The weird part is that even if you set up Create/Video File using a frame rate of 29.969 fps or 29.971 fps the exported file will be correctly rendered at 29.970 fps!!

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 29 January 2001).]