Video Recording/Playback/Editing/Converting/etc.

bmwracer wrote:Agh, I had high hopes for HCEnc, but I noticed that the encoder seems to have problems with images with repetitive patterns like stonework and brickwork in buildings: I get those distracting moire patterns... :sweat:

Oh well.

Tried different settings with HCEnc, no improvement.

Looks like I'm staying with TMPGEnc running in CQ mode. :victory:

I just noticed that the latest version of ConvertX is out. Has anyone tried it yet?

cori wrote:I just noticed that the latest version of ConvertX is out. Has anyone tried it yet?

Not me.

bmwracer wrote:
Not me.

Fine. :( Where's AD when I need him? :sweat: :beaten:

cori wrote:Fine. :( Where's AD when I need him? :sweat: :beaten:

Hanging out with family, seeing that it's the weekend.

bmwracer wrote:
Hanging out with family, seeing that it's the weekend.

But aren't we his family too? :puppydog:

cori wrote:But aren't we his family too? :puppydog:

Only on weekdays.

bmwracer wrote:
Only on weekdays.

I wonder if he converts stuff on the weekdays at work too. :hehe:

Speaking of that, I think I'll just download that upgrade and try it out. I hope it's just a regular download and that I don't need to register or anything. :sweat:

cori wrote:

I wonder if he converts stuff on the weekdays at work too. :hehe:

I think he does...

cori wrote:

I wonder if he converts stuff on the weekdays at work too. :hehe:

Speaking of that, I think I'll just download that upgrade and try it out. I hope it's just a regular download and that I don't need to register or anything. :sweat:

Tadaima!

No, I haven't tried it yet. I don't know if you can upgrade your version because of the serial number you have :bonk: But from all reports, it's a big step up from the previous version.

Anime Dad wrote:

Tadaima!

No, I haven't tried it yet. I don't know if you can upgrade your version because of the serial number you have :bonk: But from all reports, it's a big step up from the previous version.

Okaeri, AD! Thanks again. :D

And I'm trying out the new version of ConvertX. Though it has a ton of new features, I'm not too happy about a couple of things:

1) There is no indication of how long the it will take to convert the files....oh wait, I just spoke too soon because now it says "1 hour." Ok, scratch that.

2) There is no log on the bottom that shows the progress of the converting like how it did in the previous versions. Maybe I just need to click on something though. I didn't really fool around with this version, I just wanted to see what the quality would be like.

3) Oh, and I had a complaint about the menu thing. Though there are a bunch of new menu layouts, it still didn't have what I was looking for. And in the past, when you edited how you wanted the menu to look, it would show a preview of it. In this latest version, it doesn't. Unless I'm overlooking something.

Here's hoping that this trial run will be ok. :fingerscrossed:

cori wrote:

Okaeri, AD! Thanks again. :D

And I'm trying out the new version of ConvertX. Though it has a ton of new features, I'm not too happy about a couple of things:

1) There is no indication of how long the it will take to convert the files....oh wait, I just spoke too soon because now it says "1 hour." Ok, scratch that.

Sou desu.

2) There is no log on the bottom that shows the progress of the converting like how it did in the previous versions. Maybe I just need to click on something though. I didn't really fool around with this version, I just wanted to see what the quality would be like.

Go to the Window menu and tick "Log" :)

3) Oh, and I had a complaint about the menu thing. Though there are a bunch of new menu layouts, it still didn't have what I was looking for. And in the past, when you edited how you wanted the menu to look, it would show a preview of it. In this latest version, it doesn't. Unless I'm overlooking something.

No, no preview. That does suck somewhat :(

Here's hoping that this trial run will be ok. :fingerscrossed:

Ganbatte ne!

Anime Dad wrote:Go to the Window menu and tick "Log"

Thanks! I kinda feel dumb now. :bonk:

No, no preview. That does suck somewhat

I thought it sucked a lot because I want to see exactly where the words are when I put the background pic up. I also wanted to see if I needed to alter anything before starting the conversion.

Ganbatte ne!

Thanks. I need all the luck I can get because this program just got mind-numbingly complicated for someone like me. :sweat:

cori wrote:

Thanks. I need all the luck I can get because this program just got mind-numbingly complicated for someone like me. :sweat:

Catch-22 my dear. The more options a program has, the steeper the learning curve... and the more possibility of something being wrong when it's finished.

I created a DVD of a 2-minute Ai Otsuka film clip I had, with version 2.9.9X. The actual menus looked good, but you couldn't change the background pic etc in that version :bonk:

Anime Dad wrote:

Catch-22 my dear. The more options a program has, the steeper the learning curve... and the more possibility of something being wrong when it's finished.

I created a DVD of a 2-minute Ai Otsuka film clip I had, with version 2.9.9X. The actual menus looked good, but you couldn't change the background pic etc in that version :bonk:

Yeah...you're right. With this new complicated program and the higher chance of having mistakes, I'm seriously wondering if I should just stick with the older version. Or maybe I should go with the programs that beem uses because you do the conversion first and then you can fool around with the other stuff later. That way if there's a mistake, you don't need to go through those hours of converting things again. Well, we shall see how successful I am with this new program. :fingerscrossed:

cori wrote:

Yeah...you're right. With this new complicated program and the higher chance of having mistakes, I'm seriously wondering if I should just stick with the older version. Or maybe I should go with the programs that beem uses because you do the conversion first and then you can fool around with the other stuff later. That way if there's a mistake, you don't need to go through those hours of converting things again. Well, we shall see how successful I am with this new program. :fingerscrossed:

If you decide on converting avi to mpg first you may want to consider tempgnc verson 3 which is all I use now. It is super powerrful and very fast if you feed it an mpg file. Also you eliminate virtual dub as it has a superb subtitler built in which replaces virtual dub. The menus are fantastic. You can now title vertically or diagonally as well as add any text anywhere on the menu in addition to the title and episodes.... Then you can do all kinds of new stuff with the fonts for example add a border etc. You can use their templates or bring in your own image or video clip for the background. You can speicify the menu size as 4/3 or 16/9.

The only downside is that you can feed it any file type but if it's not mpg, you pay the price in time way more than converting to mpg first with any other converter. Oh it will also compress your DVD output if it exceeds the capacity of a DVD if you so specify. IN fact you can tell it exactly how big you want the output file to be. It has a built in DVD writer which I have not used yet as I like Clonedvd2 for that. You can also increase the volume of sound if the source video sound is too low.

ralphm1999 wrote:

If you decide on converting avi to mpg first you may want to consider tempgnc verson 3 which is all I use now. It is super powerrful and very fast if you feed it an mpg file. Also you eliminate virtual dub as it has a superb subtitler built in which replaces virtual dub. The menus are fantastic. You can now title vertically or diagonally as well as add any text anywhere on the menu in addition to the title and episodes.... Then you can do all kinds of new stuff with the fonts for example add a border etc. You can use their templates or bring in your own image or video clip for the background. You can speicify the menu size as 4/3 or 16/9.

The only downside is that you can feed it any file type but if it's not mpg, you pay the price in time way more than converting to mpg first with any other converter. Oh it will also compress your DVD output if it exceeds the capacity of a DVD if you so specify. IN fact you can tell it exactly how big you want the output file to be. It has a built in DVD writer which I have not used yet as I like Clonedvd2 for that. You can also increase the volume of sound if the source video sound is too low.

I think I've used that program before. While it's pretty good, I like the convenience of not having to deal with having to manually convert stuff then feeding it through that program. With ConvertX, it does all the dirty work for me. The only bad thing is the RAM in my laptop being only 512MB, so it takes a long time for the whole process (about 3-4 hours).

Because most of the files I have is in avi format, I know I'll have to convert them into mpg myself. I dunno. I think I'm just a a simple kind of gal who doesn't need all the frills of a complicated program, no matter how great the outcome is, so I'll hold off on using it for now. Maybe when I get a faster computer, I'll consider it.

As for ConvertX, I saw the outcome of my trial run and it looks ok. No background pic was to be found anywhere though, which I thought was odd. The menu was pretty nice and I guess I was satisfied with the outcome. I could only check part of the finished project because my laptop screwed up when burning the disc, so I'll have to reburn it when I erase the stuff on my RW discs. Should have done that earlier to save time. :grumble:

No preview? Bummer.

I rely on the preview window a lot, because I tend to change the background pic and colours quite a bit when I'm creating the menu, and sometimes, if I'm not careful, the images/colours aren't replaced with the new ones. I'm able to catch this because of the preview.

Hmm. So Cori, would you recommend downloading the newer version, or should I just stick with the old one?

Wynter wrote:No preview? Bummer.

I rely on the preview window a lot, because I tend to change the background pic and colours quite a bit when I'm creating the menu, and sometimes, if I'm not careful, the images/colours aren't replaced with the new ones. I'm able to catch this because of the preview.

Hmm. So Cori, would you recommend downloading the newer version, or should I just stick with the old one?

I haven't really fooled around with it very much, but from what I noticed, even if you select a background pic, it doesn't show up. Don't quote me on that since I only did one conversion and I'm sure I screwed up somewhere. I thought that the selection for each episode looked kinda cool because when you put the disc in, the button for the episodes literally pops up (you'll probably see this if I use it to convert the IWGP sp).

I think that if you're happy with the older version, you should just stick to it. I'm considering doing the same unless I can figure out how to get the newer one to do what I want it to do.

cori wrote:

I haven't really fooled around with it very much, but from what I noticed, even if you select a background pic, it doesn't show up. Don't quote me on that since I only did one conversion and I'm sure I screwed up somewhere. I thought that the selection for each episode looked kinda cool because when you put the disc in, the button for the episodes literally pops up (you'll probably see this if I use it to convert the IWGP sp).

I think that if you're happy with the older version, you should just stick to it. I'm considering doing the same unless I can figure out how to get the newer one to do what I want it to do.

Ahhhhh okies. Mebbe I'll check the look if IWGP to help me decide whether I should get the upgrade or not. Right now I don't have any problems, because I don't convert at lot.