Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with mpeg

No libdvdcss? Curse you, Handbrake!

dunkadunc — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 17:40:52 -0800

What's the best (free) way to back up DVDs these days? Back when I had a Mac, I used to use Handbrake to rip DVDs to MPEG4 files- It was quick and easy, you select the titles you wanted to rip and (shazam!) it ripped them for you to the format you wanted.
However, I'm using a PC now, and it's a couple years later. I've installed Handbrake, but much to my frustration they no longer include libdvdcss, which is needed to rip most DVDs. They do say it automatically detects an copy of libdvdcss on Linux and OSX, but I can't even find a Windows binary of the libary online to see if that would work.

So, what's a good, free (as in beer) program to rip DVDs to MPEGs these days? Everything I see people talking about online seems to either (a) involve multiple programs to decrypt and re-encode or (b) is something you pay money for. With the open-source community out there, I can't believe there isn't some slick program that can both decrypt and encode- is there some way I can just feed a copy of libdvdcss to Handbrake to get it to work, or is there another program out there now?

Finding the right AVI encoder settings

Yakuman — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 23:21:34 -0800

How do I encode AVI files in Xvid or Divx according to the fashion often seen on bittorrent, where two hours of US TV, minus commercials, fits on one CD?

Deinterlacing MPEG2 files.

pompomtom — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:19:25 -0800

How can I deinterlace the MPEG files I have from my PVR? I use mpeg streamclip to grab MPEG2 transport streams from my PVR box and trim and demux them. Then I use mplex to remux them, into a nice MPEG that XBMC (and just about everything else) can play.

The problem I have is that the files remain interlaced, and gives that icky sawtooth look on any serious horizontal motion. 2.6Mb example file here. Mostly it's ignorable, but surely this is fixable. Can anyone suggest a way to do this - ideally with free (as in beer) software, or software I already have, I have macOS and linux machines available - but if this'll take any significant processing power a mac option would be preferred.

Help converting MPEG image

yazi — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 10:07:12 -0800

Making scrapbook of grandson. Need help getting the initial "frame" of an MPEG file converted into a JPEG or TIF "still shot." Also need help making a CD dub of his favorite tunes for him. Looked at previous posts. Too advanced for me. My tech skills are focused on just things that I need for work. Otherwise, I am a bit dyslexic and get stuck generally with tech instrux, esp. as products and formats change so swiftly these last 12 years or so. I was taking pix of grandson with my daughter's camera but inadvertently had it on "movie". So I ended up with several very short MPEGs. I would appreciate learning the following:
1. get the initial frame, what I see when I open the MPEG in "Go Live," converted into a TIF or JPEG.
2. save the whole MPEG "movie" on a CD (what? ... just put the MPEG file into the burn "project"? Will the users of the CD just dbl click it to see the little movie? CAN YOU PUT BOTH movies and music dubs on same CD??? or does Bill Gates need to have it be one or the other?)
3. general help dubbing a CD with grandson's favorite songs... all from different sources. Some are MP3s, but some are different formats, downloaded from web; some from commercial CD's. I tried following Roxio instrux, but got confused.

If a responder would like to be REALLY KIND to me, and could give help by a 15-min. phone chat, that would be super. Email to set up a date. My email's in my Profile.

free video editor?

princeofpersiaxz — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 17:06:58 -0800

I am looking for a free video (mpeg, wmv, etc) editor with some very basic options! ok I have looked far and wide online for a video editor. my disk space on my PC is getting scarce, so I am wanting to edit clips out of some video files to free up some space on my hard drive. is there a free video editor that will let me cut out (not "hide" hint hint Microsoft Movie Maker) clips from a video file, without any watermarks or restrictions? my hard drive says thanks!

Editing MPEG1 audio in place

Gyan — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 23:23:31 -0800

How do I edit audio in a MPEG1 without going through a video re-encode? I assembled a 6-min film for a friend in Premiere 7 and outputted to MPEG1. Now, he needs to mute 3 seconds of audio but I don't have the original raw DV footage as it took up much needed space. Can I work on the MPEG1 without any video degradation? What tools can I use? Just in case, what about the same situation for MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 Part 2?

What software should I use to write a VCD?

gregb1007 — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:30:22 -0800

What software should I use to write a VCD? I would like to put my video files in VCD format on CD using my CD-RW drive so that I can watch them on my DVD player (I have no DVD writer.) The problem is that I can't figure out what software I should use. Please recommend a software package that writes MPEG files to VCD. Hopefully it is a low-cost program or even a freeware one. (P.S: I did try Aurora Video Converter but the program froze in the middle of writing the CDRW, so I won't use it again.)

Hey buddy, ya want to buy an algorithm?

toxic — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 23:57:58 -0800

What is the legal status of the XviD codec libraries, ffmpeg, and/or other F/OSS programs that implement the (patented) MPEG-4 algorithm? The libraries I linked to are distributed under the GPL or LGPL, but it's clear that because of the patents that apply to MPEG-4 that the software is of somewhat dubious legality in the US. Most of what I've found online consists of either academic debate or an almost comical disclaimer. I haven't been able to find any clear description of what is and isn't legal with regard to this sort of software. Can a user in the legally use it to decode files? encode files? Modify and redistribute the source code?

I'm primarily interested in the US, but data points from other countries would probably be interesting, too.

Toast Titanium 8 settings

hz37 — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 03:23:02 -0800

I'm creating a DVD Video for my family using Toast Titanium 8. I wonder what the best encoding settings for my case are. Of course I can go for all the automatic settings, but I wonder if there are benefits in (un)checking Half-PEL, adjusting Reencoding (Always?) and Field Dominance (Progressive?). The source material are MPEG-2 clips, 720 x 576, 25 fps (PAL), taken from mostly old super 8 movies. The family disc will be a standard PAL 25 fps DVD (4:3) thas are not important, as there is no audio. But can I increase the average t should play well on as many DVD players as possible. Audio settingbit rate, which defaults at 4.0 Mbps?? I especially wonder about all of this, because the MPEG-2 clips can't be played by QuickTime Pro on my Mac. However, VisualHub and Toast can. Converting to DV using VisualHub gave me ugly horizontal artifacts, so does that call for progressive field dominance? Thanks for any insights!

How do I delete a stubborn mpeg file?

zembla3 — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 08:58:04 -0800

My computer is refusing to let me delete a fairly large file. It's an mpeg movie file I downloaded from Limewire (have mercy, MPAA)! Whenever I try to delete the file, I get a message claiming the file is in use by another program, but I don't see any programs running in task manager that would be using this file. The file is in my documents folder. Any thoughts on how this stubborn mpeg can be deleted?

SMIL -> MPEG

DU — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 07:44:52 -0800

How do I convert a (simple) SMIL file into an mpeg (or anything else I can upload to YouTube)? Long story short, I have a bunch of jpgs that I want to turn into a movie on a Linux platform. There are many utilities that will do this; I've used ImageMagick in the past fairly successfully. But now, for the first time, I also have sound I want to add. I can even find a few tools (such as ffmpeg) that will take a wav and a some jpgs and convert them into a movie as long as the wav and jpgs are of the same "length" (at least that's the claim--I haven't actually gotten this to work either).
However, I think it should be simpler than this. The tool I'm using to create the jpgs and assign the sounds is creating a SMIL file. It looks something like this:

<smil>
<body>
<seq>
<img src="image01.jpg" dur="100ms" />
<audio src="snd01.ogg" />
<img src="image02.jpg" dur="100ms" />
<img src="image03.jpg" dur="100ms" />
<img src="image04.jpg" dur="100ms" />
<img src="image05.jpg" dur="100ms" />
<img src="image06.jpg" dur="100ms" />
</seq>
</body>
</smil>

(This is from memory and is only an example--probably not well-formed SMIL. The ogg file would start playing at the same time as the frame it follows and keep playing until the audio runs out, while showing frames all the time. At least that's what the creation software seems to do.) It seems like with all the needed information available, including how to sync the audio and video, some utility should be able to convert this SMIL directly into an mpeg. And indeed, there is a set of utilities call smilutils that claims to work with SMIL. smilutils didn't work, so I dove into the guts, added debug statements and traced it through only to find that it accepts video clips, not jpgs. WTF.

I've only been even aware of the existence of SMIL for a couple days. Does anyone more familiar with this stuff know where I should look next to solve my problem? Maybe my best bet is to write my own program that will read the SMIL, convert the the oggs into a single wav file of the right length and then run ffmpeg myself?

Another idea is to use separate video editing software to combine them, but I'm wary of this. For one thing, video editing on Linux? For another, I'd like the toolchain to be as short as possible, so I don't have have discrepancies between what the creation software thinks is going on and what the editing software thinks.

Sudden problem encoding video

ascullion — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:05:16 -0800

I regularly use ffmpeg to encode videos (from mpeg2 to mpeg4) for my ipod. I've been doing this for nearly a year with no problems. Now, every time I start an encode, my system is suddenly under a lot of pressure - I can't use any other application. If I go into the windows task manager and set the priority to 'below normal', all is fine again. Anyone have any idea why this change might have occured, or any idea how I can get around it (preferably without using task manager)? For info - i think this is a windows problem, rather than an ffmpeg problem. I suspect windows isn't allocating resourced properly anymore, for some reason. The same symptoms happen with other software sometimes - ffmpeg is just the one i use most.

Can I record straight to my iPod?

beammeup4 — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 23:06:18 -0800

Can I record video from my ATI DVR straight to my iPod? I've got an ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 tuner with the ability to record shows onto your computer like a DVR. The software has a number of recording settings, including an option to define your own custom record settings.

Does anyone with this device or an ATI All-in-Wonder know if you can define the video recording settings in a way that it is automatically compatible with the iPod? There is an option to record in MPEG-4, but it records it with an AVI extension that I can't drag into iTunes.

How can I get a 170 MB MPEG file on DVD without losing any quality using a brand new Macbook?

stlboi — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 16:19:32 -0800

How can I get a 170 MB MPEG file on DVD without losing any quality using a brand new Macbook? I have been using my PC to burn MPEGs (roughly 170 MB each) to DVD. Specifically, Nero 7 Ultra. The DVD I create has crystal clear quality compared to the original MPEG on my hard drive and the process is simple. No convert this and convert that and match the sound after you convert the sound, bla bla bla.

Now that I have switched to Mac, I've tried iDVD numerous times. Although I absolutely LOVE how it puts everything together and the customization of it all is nice, the quality is really poor compared to the original MPEG on my Macbook. The quality is fine to watch, but it's not as clear or sharp as the original and what I'm use to.

I did a little test with MPEG Streamclip. I turned the MPEG into a DV and then create the disc image on my hard drive using iDVD. The quality appeared to be a lot better.

Here's the problem so far: when I import the episode into Streamclip, it only imports like the first 33 seconds of the episode. I've looked in and out of preferences, and I don't see anything that controls this. And it's a free program, so it's not a demo thing that only lets you test a small amount of the video like other programs you download the trail for.

Is there any way to import the entire episode into Streamclip and turn it into a DV?

Are there any other FREE programs that can turn my episode into a DV?

Am I going about this the wrong way? Please let me know what I'm doing wrong.

Please suggest an alternative if this is the long way of doing it.

Thank you all!

Why does Nero insist on stretching my files?

oddman — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 13:45:39 -0800

Help me make good looking movies with small picture dimensions. My dad has a bunch of 320x240 WMV videos that he would like to burn to DVD. The problem is that Nero seems to insist on burning them at 740x480. As a result the video looks really bad on a TV screen.

I wold like to be able to create a DVD with the smaller (and better looking) resolution videos. Does anyone know how to force Nero to burn DVDs at the native resolution of the source file?

This thread (http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/27791) helped, but we would have to spend about $200 bucks for both the encoder and DVD authoring programs. Clearly, working with Nero would be better. ( I tried using the encoder to make mpeg files and then using Nero, but Nero seems to insist on re-encoding everything. I think I could use something called "smart encoding" but I'm sure if that's what I need or not.)

(My father also has Pixela so instruction on using that would be fine, also. Although I find that programs non-standard interface to be almost inscrutable.)

Convert Video to be played on a sony cybershot?

allthewhile — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 18:11:32 -0800

How can I encode a divx file into the proper mpeg format in order to play it on my sony cybershot digital camera? I have a 2gig memory stick on here and want to use it as a media player. I found a program that will convert the files for me. However, it does not encode in 30fps, and the quality is not good either. I've tried to copy the settings made in the output file from this program, but just can't get it right.

I know that I have to do the following:

1. Change the file name to something recognizable by the camera.
2. Encode in mpeg1 with the proper audio encoding as well.

Is there something I'm missing?

USB-Based MPEG-2 Hardware Encoder..PVR not necessary

ostranenie — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 08:28:52 -0800

Can anyone recommend a good (preferably USB-based) hardware MPEG-2 encoder? Not a PVR, just an encoder. I have a DVD-Video recorder and that's what I use to dub tapes and record television. I've been using Quenc to encode AVIs and other digital movies to MPGs while I then convert to IFOs/VOBs (a DVD) using Dvdauthor. But Quenc (and TMPEGEnc 3.0, which I also own) are too slow!

I am looking for a device (and software, probably) that will take in raw digital video (such as from a software frame server) and spit out an MPEG-2 program stream (VBR, GOP boundaries and all). I understand I can buy a device like a USB PVR that encodes to MPEG-2 on the fly, but I don't want/need that—I already have the video, just want to convert it to MPEG-2 as quickly as possible.

Does such a device exist? Is it for professionals only and in the $5k range or something?? Am I limited to PVR-type devices and software for now? Help!

Thanks in advance!

Windows Media Center--mpeg

smithygreg — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 10:14:17 -0800

How do I make mpegs from Windows Media Center... Hi...Is there a way to make mpegs from the TV I record from Windows Media Center? Is there a way to bypass the DRM?
Are there other options out there that are better than WMC?

What's the easiest way to join MPEG-2 segments?

aaronetc — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 09:25:02 -0800

I have a set of about two dozen DVD-ready MPEG-2 files that I'd like to combine into one file without re-encoding. What's the easiest way to do this? I can do under XP or OS X, but XP is preferred. I am using Sony DVD Architect to build the DVD itself, and it seems that joining separate MPEGs into one title is the only thing it won't do. The MPEGs were created using AviSynth, which craps out if I try to combine them in the source, so it seems I can only do it after the fact. If I Google for MPEG joining software, I get tons of results that all look similarly dodgy. As I said, Mac or Windows is fine, but the Mac is a MacBook and the Windows machine is a Dell desktop with about twice the processor and RAM, so I'd rather use the latter.

Conversion: ppt to mpg.

ハッカー — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 06:19:52 -0800

ppt -> mpg ?? I have a bunch of military briefings in PowerPoint. These are all the boring ones that nobody wants to be stuck briefing, but that still need to be done annually. My Commander has asked me if it is viable to put them all on a DVD so that we can have them in one place.

Except...

He wants the briefings to be "performed." This means he doesn't want a .ppt file, but an mpeg-2 file that can be burned to a DVD playable on a TV. The slides need to transition automatically in the movie, and have full audio recorded to accompany the video. This is essentially an effort to create a one-stop shop so that once a year we can pop in the dvd and just sit back for a few hours as the briefings do themselves.

How the hell do I do it?

Downloaded video to DVD?

killdevil — Mon, 15 May 2006 13:05:47 -0800

How do I convert the various popular flavors of digital video floating around the Internet into a format I can easily and reliably burn to DVD and play on a DVD player? I'm technically savvy, but this remains beyond me. What I'm looking for are simple, free tools I can use to convert various AVI and MPEG video files for playback on a DVD/TV. The formats I need to deal with are those popularly used to encode movies and tv shows for distribution via bittorrent and similar.

I'm on Windows, if it matters.

Why are some YouTube videos so much better quality than others? What video specs and file format (AVI, MOV, MPG) produce the best results?

JudgeBork — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 17:56:13 -0800

Why are some YouTube videos so much better quality than others? What video specs and file format (AVI, MOV, MPG) produce the best results?

simple images-to-video converter for mac/unix?

sergeant sandwich — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 13:19:55 -0800

can anyone recommend a simple piece of Mac (or unix) software that will take a bunch of image files named abc001, abc002, etc and string them together into a video file that i can view with a lowest-common-denominator video player? i have some code that spits out a bunch of images - currently into the simple PPM format that's part of netpbm package. the images have filenames with sequential numbers in them, and i want software that will just string them together in order into one of the more common (mpeg, avi, quicktime, or whatever) video formats.

i was planning to use ppmtompeg that comes with netpbm but i'm having a hard time getting the netpbm package to compile on my powerbook. while i try to sort that out, i'm wondering if there's any other software available to do what i want?

i see from this thread that apparently quicktime will do this, but i suspect i need the quicktime pro that you have to pay for, as opposed to the free quicktime player.

so, my only absolute requirement be that the software is free. it would be nice if it supported the PPM format (if not, i can batch-convert my images in graphic converter) and extra nice if i could run it from the command line like ppmtompeg so that i can incorporate the conversion into a shell script.

any ideas? thanks in advance!

Burning video DVDs?

bondcliff — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 07:10:00 -0800

How come I can't burn a working DVD to save my life? I've been doing some video editing with Vegas Video. No problems there. When I prepare the film the resulting .mpg file looks fine on my PC. I burn it onto a disk and if (big IF) it works at all in my DVD player the sound is corrupted (static, cutting in and out, distorted) and the video is usually choppy. Basically unwatchable.

PC is fast enough,WinXP, 3.something GHz P4, fast ATI card, 2gb RAM, 7200rpm hard drive, etc. Internal DVD burner (-R.+R, or whatever the two types are) is a "generic" brand. I'm using DVD architect from Sony (came with Vegas 4.0) for burning, though I've also used Nero with the same (bad) results. I make sure I shut off everything (anti-virus, screen blanker, any other taskbar crap) before burning and my temporary burning folder is on a separate physical hard drive from my Windows swap file and system folders. Everything is being done locally, nothing is on a network drive.

I've tried both Sony and Memorex disks, +R and -R. The Sony -R give me the best results, in fact one disk looked pretty good in my player at first, but after a couple plays it started getting progressively worse, even after wiping the disk off.

I've tried playing the disks in my iBook player. Some play ok, even ones that won't play in my stand-alone player, but others won't even load up and then I can't even eject them without rebooting the machine. There doesn't seem to be any pattern as to which disks will work in which players. Some work in both, others work only in the iBook, others will play in the stand-alone but will look like crap. I can burn the same thing twice using the exact same settings with different results. Data DVDs work fine.

I've played with software settings. I got better results when I turned off the "fast video re-sizing" in Vegas, but things were still unacceptable. Although it doesn't seem to help (or hurt) any, I usually burn at the slowest speeds. The file that is created from the video software is an .mpg at "DVD quality" (I think 720xwhatever resolution) that's about all I know. The DVD burning software "preps" it before it burns it. The original source is DV from my video camera. The source looks and sounds fine.

I don't know a lot about DVD or video technology. I suspect cramming all that data onto a small disc with a $200.00 burner, there isn't a lot of room for error. My iBook doesn't have a DVD burner, otherwise I'd try it out there.

I think I may have answered my own question, that my burner sucks, but I don't want to give up yet. Would higher-quality media help? Is there some piece of software that will massage the disk and make it all work?

What have others experienced with burning video DVDs? What about doing it on a Mac? If I got a Superdrive for my iBook (12" G4) would all my problems go away?

I've scoured DVD and video forums but none of the tips I've found have helped much.

Conversion experiences?

Artifice_Eternity — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 01:41:55 -0800

Suggestions on reliable, inexpensive (<$50) software for converting AVI to MPEG-2?