Converting to mpeg4

[antplugger]

Great - Now I can stop hunting for why recording quality setting dont work.

What do you use to convert to MPEG 4 ?

Ta

[blade]

I've never converted anything to Mpeg4, but I know there have been quite a few threads about it. If I'm not mistaken I think Autogk is one of the more popular choices for conversion. If you do a search for it you should find quite a few threads.

[mike1961]

I've recorded lots of shows to mpeg4. AutoGK was sort of an "older way" but much faster because it records in DIVX or XVID. You can get much better quality if you encode in H264 format (same quality for about half the filesize). You can use either Nero Recode which costs but will easily convert your DVD's to Standard Profile AVC. You can also use StaxRip which is free on the doom9 boards and converts any mpeg2 file from Sage. I use the High Profile AVC. I'm easily getting the same 3.2 gb/hour Sage file in around 240 megs / hour or less. However, both Nero Recode and StaxRip take my computer around 7-8 hours to encode so I just let two of my computers do their stuff overnight and then I have them going in the background during the day so I can easily convert 4 movies a day with no problem. In other words, just be patient because it takes time to convert but in the end it's worth it. I then put the mpeg4 files on my C drive while my mpeg2 Sage stuff is on the D drive which keeps my fragmentation of my C minimal. There's quite a few posts on this stuff and I credit almost all the stuff I've learned about this to dvd_maniac (you can easily run a search on mpeg 4 here and find tons of info on how to do it).

Mike

[mike1961]

AntPlugger - I currently use StaxRip to convert my mpeg2 files to mpeg4 high profile AVC which is free on the doom 9 boards. There's also a lot of info on these boards with more details on how to do it. I also use Nero Recode to convert my dvd's to mpeg4. They average around 240 mb/hour.

Mike

[dvd_maniac]

Originally Posted by antplugger

Great - Now I can stop hunting for why recording quality setting dont work.

What do you use to convert to MPEG 4 ?

Ta

What do you mean "recording setting dont work"?
Do you mean you do not have an mpeg-4 enabled capture device (Plextor) or that your device just won't use the mpeg-4 quality?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

What do you mean "recording setting dont work"?

This thread was split from another one where someone was asking about recording quality settings not being used, since the topic of converting to mpeg4 was completely different. The comment you quoted regards antplugger's question in that thread about why the quality settings weren't affecting the HD recordings. That question was answered in the other thread.

- Andy

[sso]

Mike,

Continuing from my thread reg. compression, I now see why it is not a good idea to make too high compression in SageTV - This simply cant be done realtime without significant quality loss.

On your recommendation I have downloaded and installed StaxRip (and all the 20 "support programs".

I also managed to do a x264 compressed file (giving me a .mkv type file), but neither SageTV nor MS WMP will play this. The compression actually was not that significant, going from 1.1 GB to 0.7 GB.

Therefore a couple of questions:

• What format (which settings) to make a good compression to the 300-500 MB/h you mentioned
• What do I need to do (if anything in order to play these back in MS WMP or SageTV?
• How shall this be written to a CD or multiple to a DVD for playback on a player?

Thanks in advance

[mike1961]

Hello - you are half way there. You can get great quality at 4-5 mb/minute which is only 250-300 mb/hour. 500 mb/hour is way too much space and not necessary. The trick is to start out with a really good video in mpeg 2 to begin with. I've compressed both Sage and DVD's. DVD's look incredible at 250 mb/hour and I can't even tell the difference between the mpeg4 file and the original DVD on my computer monitor. I have my Sage settings at 3.2 gb/hour. You don't want to go from 1.1 to .7 gb. You want to go from 3.2 gb/hour to 250-300 mb / hour.

2. I use GermSage (free download from this forum) from Sage which allows you to use any media player.

3. I don't know yet what software is required to burn an mp4 file to DVD. I'm trying to do the opposite. I want everything on a hard drive so I don't have to waste space or time looking for DVD's.

Mike

Originally Posted by sso

Mike,
I also managed to do a x264 compressed file (giving me a .mkv type file), but neither SageTV nor MS WMP will play this. The compression actually was not that significant, going from 1.1 GB to 0.7 GB.

Therefore a couple of questions:

• What format (which settings) to make a good compression to the 300-500 MB/h you mentioned
• What do I need to do (if anything in order to play these back in MS WMP or SageTV?
• How shall this be written to a CD or multiple to a DVD for playback on a player?

[dvd_maniac]

Any hardware player that can play mpeg-4 AVC will just pick up the file on the disc. Just burn as a data CD/DVD.
It is going to be VERY hard to find a player that can handle AVC profiles. This is more of the Future than the present.
As far as WMP... Install Halii Media Splitter and FFdshow, as far as playback in Sage? Forget about it right now and follow Mike's advice...Install GermSage and use the external player feature.
Also, unless you are using the MKV container for another reason, switch to the mp4 container instead.

@ Mike...

Do you still have the detailed instruction PM I sent you for Staxrip setup? If so, could you cut/paste it here for SSO?

[mike1961]

Sorry - I don't have it. But, I will say this, StaxRip is quite simple to use once you get started. I find now all I do is Crop, Cut, Check Compression and encode.

By the way - dvd_maniac, have you noticed that some movies won't encode to mpeg 4? Not many though. I think I have had 2 so far. They just won't do it. Both as I recall were long movies (over 3 hours). One was the LA Marathon 2006. I tried it with both StaxRip and Nero Recode and both failed using AVC. I didn't try any other profiles. Any thoughts/suggestions?

Thanks,
Mike

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

Do you still have the detailed instruction PM I sent you for Staxrip setup? If so, could you cut/paste it here for SSO?

[dvd_maniac]

Never had an issue like that although every recording I ever encoded using StaxRip has been stripped of commercials first using Videoredo and that program usually fixes bad audio and video sequence frames which could be causing your problem. I remember when I used to encode using AutoGK and Xvid and I didn't cut out the commercials first that I sometimes had that problem. Everytime that happened I would cut out commercails then try again and usually it worked.