Wanted! Newbie Guide to Avidemux2, divx2****...
 

Hi ya,
I'm looking for some information (the best were some kind of *Guide*) of how I can use the Avidemux2 application to recode my DivX AVIs to either SVCD or to DVD.

Tons of posts are here to seen in the forum boards, pointing to scripts like divx2vcd.sh, divx2svcd.sh, divx2cvcd.sh, tovid.sh and etc. Nothing worked really good for me and I wasted many CDs of burning weird MPEG files with either bad quality (VCDs converted by divx2vcd.sh) or overburning them with monster 900MB files got from divx2svcd.sh.

Using the scripts just does not produce what I like, maybe I'm missing something genial simple, but I can't get the scripts working properly.

I even tweak these scripts in order to get the best of them, but for no avail. Here's small report of what problems I do have with the scripts.

I'm using the latest mjpegtools and transcode installations, got directly from their corresponding sites - compiled and installed without problems, all needed libraries found and recognized correctly. MAD, Lame, FFMPEG, AC52 and etc. libraries also are up-to-date. I also have the latest MPlayer version installed from precompiled RPM, as I use apt-get (I do not believe this could be the problem at all, as I can play virtually any type of video files with perfect quality on my box)

divx2vcd.sh
Produces bad quality video with strange yellow/red/blue halfpicture shifts either on the lefthand side of the screen or on the righthand side. I tried the "-k" option to the transcode application, but that didn't do anything useful - the color shift persists.

divx2svcd.sh
Produces monster big files as it somehow uses bitrate above 2300 Kbits/sec. The MAXVIDEOBITRATE is set there by default to 4 000 000, which is almost 4Mbits/sec. Setting it to 2 300 000 or even to 1 150 000 does nothing as the transcode engine plays with very variable rates and the result video has very high output bitrate (around 3.8Mbits/sec)
Strangely the SVCD video does not have the color shift as it is in the VCD conversion. But I can't burn 900 MB and over on one single CD. The max capacity I can overburn is 868 MB on 870 MB media. Splitting it into 800 MB pieces produces 4 or 5 (!!!) MPEG files from two 700MB AVIs. That's weird folks...!

tovid.sh from this fellow linuxer wapcaplet (thanks buddy for that good script!)
I thought this could be the magic *piece of cake* I'd use to convert the AVIs to good *VCDs, capable of being played on standalone DVD players. But for no avail unfortunately. The video is converting just fine, but the audio conversion just kills instantly the MPlayer (which is used to decode the audio stream of an AVI). I've tried with many version of MPlayer, including older ones but in any version the audio can't be extracted that way as stated in the script. I even played a little with the options, plugins and codecs from the MPlayer - again no success. Strangely decoding/extracting the streams simultaneously (both audio and video at the same time) works very well, but produces only one file uncapable of multiplexing with mplex or tcmplex.
I'm going to send a bug report to the MPlayer's staff.

Finally I got the Avidemux2 installed (again the latest version) and gave it a try. Well, it heavily lacks of tutorials and documentation, so I was unable to do anything with it. It seems though, there're way to merge multiple AVIs to one single DVD project, just I do not know how.
Any help with this will be greatly appreciated - How to use the Avidemux2 app to convert my AVIs to good playable SVCDs and/or DVDs?
Many thanks in advance!

Kind regards,
sbogus

That's odd!
It couldn't be true, no one here knows nothing about how to use Avidemux2, or how to tweak the divx2????.sh scripts in order to produce simple, yet of good quality MPEG video suitable to be burnt on normal CDs or to be compiled in a DVD.

If although that's really the case, then I want kindly ask the Forum's moderators to kill this thread.

Kind regards,
sbogus

I 've only done vcd.
I'll get back to you later in the day.
Let me know if vcd is acceptable because even if
I make an svcd, I don't have a player to test it.

Thanks for the post auditek747,

as long as the VCD has an acceptable quality (say, at least the picture does not have the color shifts) I'll agree to do such conversion.

Thanks again.

Kind regards,
sbogus

Well I just made an svcd compatable mpeg using
avidemux. The quality was the same as the vcd's
I've been making and I'm not sure how it would
play in a stand alone player.

I'll give you a step by step for making vcd's.

The programs I use are:

avidemux2
mplex (provided by mjpegtools)
K3b (I do not know how to use vcdxbuild and K3b
does it for me)

Open your vid in avidemux

you should only put an hour of vid on a vcd. If your vid is
more than an hour but less than 2 hours, move the slider
to the middle. (if more than 2 but less than 3, move to a third)
Use the double red arrows to move backward or foward a
few frames untill you find a good place to split. (end of scene,
break in the action, or whatever) Write down the frame number.
click on the >A button. Move the slider to the end. click on the
B< button. Select edit - delete. ( this will not harm your vid)
After processing this part to vcd, reopen your vid, use the slider
and double red arrows to move to the frame number that you wrote
down, click on B< , select edit - delete.
Process this part.

To process to vcd:

click on V filter, select vcd res
click on A filter, if your vid is NOT at 44100hz audio then select
resample to hz and put 44100 in the dialog. (vcd must be 44100hz
audio)
click on V codec, select vcd
click on A codec, select ffmpeg mpeg audio, configure to 224kbits
click on V process, click on file - save - save video
give it a name ending in .m1v (myvcd.m1v)
save it
click on V process to unselect it
click on A process
click on - audio - save audio
give it a name ending in mp2 (myvcd.mp2)
save it
open a terminal and cd to the directory with your m1v and mp2
type:
mplex -f 1 -o myvcd.mpg myvcd.m1v myvcd.mp2

You now have an mpg compatable with vcd.
It needs to be burned properly though.
K3b does this by selecting - file - new project - new video cd project
and then dragging your mpg into the project window.

I don't know how to create the cue/bin stuff manually. I'm disabled
and other than compiling I tend to use gui's for everything.

I know this is alot of stuff, and I've been up all night and am a little
punchy but what the heck!, give it a shot!

I'll be off line for a good 8 hours so you if you have any questions
about all the junk I wrote I'll answer later this evening.