AVI TIPS

[Ken Cox]

The objective of this thread is for members to place tips for making avi's.

It will be the responsibilty of the members to add/copy their experiences to this thread.

When Igor gets caught up, hopefully he will agree with this approach and will make a TIP Category --

It is not intended to be a social thread --

before i start copying my entries over,

Members what do you think ?

ken

[JRR]

Glad someone took the bull by the horns Ken !

[pip]

Ken

Great idea!

PIP

[Lloegyr]

I too must agree.

I know the difficulty that is involved in what Igor is valiantly trying to achieve, and we all have to be patience. I have, following Igors first instructions, made excellent SVCD's of many of my shows. BUT I do not know where to post my results, my feelings because there are so many threads going on and the results and comments will be lost in so many areas.

We do now need to have a separate area for the VCD,SVCD and DVD area because it does demand a different philosophic photographic approach, also a a physical approach as LUMENLUX and MICHEL have very neatly pointed out.

Mike

Mersea Island

[Ken Cox]

Well, lets get this thread going

my intial entry from

Posted: Nov 24 2003, 04:44 PM

i used ver 4.2 beta 2

and

made a multi show -- 3 shows - with roxio's dvd builder

used one show that i had previously made with my pictures [100 dpi]using the beta 1

the exe was 4,248 kb

the avi was 25,394 kb

the other 2 shows were from pictures from the web -- one set was a series of puppies and the other was made with weekly winners of pcworld's photo contest -PC World's Digital Focus Newsletter-http://www.pcworld.com/howto/locations/0,loc,81,tk,dfx,00.asp

both sets were 72 dpi - i elected to use someone else's picts to rule out any bias on my part -- - my own pictures have been adjusted -- in the case of the puppies i wanted to see the hair detail and the mix of pictures from the magazine were all winners

puppies details

exe was 1,143 kb

avi was 25,394 kb

pc world details

exe was 10,815 kb

avi was 53,889

estimated vcd size was 101 mb -- there is +-3 mb of overhead making the menu etc

encode time was 48 mins and 50 sec.

burned at default speed 32x - actual speed varies

total time encode to burn complete 49 mins 25 secs.

final size on the cd-r disk 90.6 mb.

the show was played on a 6 mos old plain Toshiba dvd player sent to a plain 1 yr old Toshiba 29" tv

the fine details of the puppy's hair,ears etc was perfect and the PCWorld show was just as good - my picts were -- well they were of my grandkids so what else can i say:))

my system details

PIII 1.3 ghz 512 meg ram -- 700 mb fixed swp file

winxp home edition

dvd builder portion of roxio ezcd platinum 6

be well rested before you start

make sure you have good size text and i would suggest not placing it on the slides -- use the object editor and put it there or as others have said many times make a slide up in a graphics program and put your text on the slide and then insert it in the sequence

verify the operation of every step in the bulding of the avi before starting the final process

a lot of work, but was worth it -- good things dont come quick and easy

ckfox asked the following

File Names?

I'm with everyone else. This is a fabulous upgrade. The DVD's look great!

One question:

My file names didn't show up in the TV format. Is there a way to make them appear?

Thanks again,

Ken Fox

and i replied

do you mean the individual slide names

if so

my comments from above posting

make sure you have good size text and i would suggest not placing it on the slides -- use the object editor and put it there or as others have said many times make a slide up in a graphics program and put your text on the slide and then insert it in the sequence

and same is mentioned in other recent threads

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums//index...t=ST&f=2&t=1321

LisaNeal asked

Ken:

I saw your post above where you said there were fine details in the images of your vcd at 72 dpi. What were the other specifications of the files that you used?

I've tried converting to 72 dpi and I'm not seeing the detail in my images that I would like.

I'm using this for portrait viewing sessions and need as much detail as possible.

Thanks in advance,

Lisa

and i replied

Lisa

the picts from pcworld range any where from 30 to 375 kb and must not be larger than 640/480

see

PC World's Digital Focus Newsletter-http://www.pcworld.com/howto/locations/0,loc,81,tk,dfx,00.asp

and have a look at the archives and you can and save the picts and experiment

the puppies were 11 to 58 kb at 720/540 -- the picts are part of a series -- picts are taken real close up with a wide angle lens to accentuate their noses -- sort of a fish eye effect

another site to visit is

http://www.mplonsky.com/photo/Gallery.htm

he has picts of bugs that are sharp at 72 dpi -- i had good success puting some of his shots in a proshow vcd

dont know what else i can tell you

the puppy file is 14 slides 13 animal slides and an intro slide [the text on intro slide does not convert nice]zipped they are are 452 kb -- small enough to email if you want to play with them

email me at

pbyk@sympatico.ca

ken

so this was my intial experience's from beta 1 and 2.

Roxio 6 has so far satisfied me as well as people i have demo'd the final product for on large screen TV's.

I will have to totally rethink my approach when making new shows -- and it will start at the initial scanning of my prints -- the scans will be making larger pictures and i will quite likely be making 2 different formatted shows --one intended for the computer one for vcd/tv -- time will tell.

A time saver i have been using when making the AVI -- i have created a a folder on one of my drives called AVI TEST folder --- when i save the p2e produced ___vid.avi, i direct the save to that folder. when i Import to Roxio DVD builder, it goes back to the last folder it worked out of so looks at AVI TEST folder for the avi files to import - -if you are making a multiple avi show it saves looking for the files.

Ken

[Ken Cox]

I found a step by step page making a vcd show using ULead

at

http://www.infinisource.com/multimedia/vcd...-slideshow.html

there are more related links by same author

and

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/

ken

[Ken Cox]

see thread

What other ways to use a PTE-generated .AVI?, Locked into Ulead DVD Movie Factory?

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums//index...t=ST&f=2&t=1309

re my probs with svcd and video cabling

ken

[LumenLux]

This avi "tip" has to do with using Ulead Video Factory2 with PTE. I dl'd and installed the Ulead 30 day trial version on November 24. Today, December 3, the trial version has expired! Surprised as I was, I am even more surprised at the FAQ I now find on Ulead site:

Q:

After installing the trial version, it expired even before the 15 or 30 days allotted for the trial period was reached. How can I continue to try it?

A:

We are sorry to tell you that you cannot continue to try the program unless you reinstall the Windows system or install it on another machine. Please do not try to change the system date and time to extend the trial period. It will cause the trial version to expire immediately.

There must be more to this story, that someone can explain to me?

[Rooskidiver]

I just wanted to share some ideas on creating the VCD's, DVD's, etc. thanks to the help I got from Ken Cox. I had tried several downloaded programs to convert the PTE .avi file to .mpeg. I was then taking that file into Roxio Easy CD & DVD Creator 6.0 to burn to DVD. All my results were pretty bad. Ken suggested importing the .avi file directly into Roxio and letting that program do the encoding and then the burning. The resulting DVD show was spectacular on my son's 42" LCD tv. It was still pretty darn good on my 50" big screen but not quite as clear. I also did a VCD with the same show and it looked good on both tv's.

I think by using the Roxio program I probably cut the entire process down by at least 2/3's. When I used TMPGEnc it took about two hours just to convert the .avi to .mpeg and I was confused the entire time about which settings to use each step of the way. With Roxio I only had to let the program know I was going to use DVD or VCD and the program did the rest. I'm not sure what the program cost because it came with the DVD burner that I bought but it's an excellent alternative to what I had been doing.

Now for the problems. The entire outer edges of the pictures do not show up in either the DVD or VCD finished products. I had made each slide in Photoshop and there were outer frames around each slide which are just cropped off. One slide had some writing near the bottom and this too was chopped off. I had sized these slides at 1024x768. I can't think of any way to correct this situation so will probably just allow for the outer cropping in my next show. It was strange too because I previewed the .avi show in both PTE and Roxio before going on with the encoding and burning and the outer frames showed up in the previews. I had one other problem with the DVD show not stopping at the end of the show but I think that's something I did wrong when I burned it.

Well that's about all I have. Thanks Ken for the topic and your help and suggestions.

[ccmanz]

One way to quickly change the size of your pictures on your screen is....

- Project option.

--screen tab

---check the box Fit to screen (Enlarge image to fit screen)

---Then change the 100 percent of the screen to show image to a lower percent.

maybe around 80% will be close.

I have not used this option yet to create a DVD, But I had already thought about it.

I just am not sure what percent to use. It will just be a trial process.

If you get a number that works well. let the rest of us know.

If your text on the screen is an added object you will have to move it up. But

if it is added to the picture with another program you will not have to do anything.

please let us know if this works for you.

cc

[Ken Cox]

ccmanz

to aid me i used a grease pencil/china marker to put a cross hair x on the centre of the screen and positioned the text and then did a preview

what i found was if i put the text box centred in the x when i tried the show the text was 1.5" higher

and

text that was ok before at 22 pt now needed to be at least 28 pt

and bold italic with shadow

In future i will have to format the show with my screen res at 1024/768 -- this will save repositioning text with the object editor

and when i burn the fist vcd, play it on the the tv and have the p2e show running on computer -- use pause button on dvd and reposition text as necessary - -resave/create as your show under a different name is case something happens

In the future when i scan in pictures i will make their dimensions larger than i did before - how big - i dont know.

This last 2 wks has been a real learning experience for me. People that have been making video's dvd's etc have an edge on us that have not done this before

i thought codecs was a division of Kodak

ken

[Rooskidiver]

Just an update ... I tried using 90% for the percent to show and now have the top and bottom border showing with just a little bit of black above and below. The left border shows about half and the right border is not visible.

I'll try 80% next. I think that the entire picture will be in view but there will also be a noticeable black area around the entire picture.

[Rooskidiver]

Back for another update. I noticed when I imported the PTE .avi file into Roxio that it had a lot different specs than the intro file that came with the DVD Builder program. This is a short clip that can be used as an introduction. It had 720x480 for the media size, 4:3 for the aspect ratio, and NTSC for the video standard. When I checked the specs for the PTE .avi file that I had imported I found the following: 720x540 for the media size, VGA for the aspect ratio, and Unknown for the video standard. I couldn't find anywhere in the Roxio program to allow for this difference so I first used TMPGEnc to encode the PTE .avi file using DVD>NTSC, CBR MPEG-1 Layer II Audio (MP2), and 4:3 525 line (NTSC, 704x480) for the aspect ratio. I left all other settings at default. Using those settings the final screen before encoding shows the final file will be 720x480 for resolution.

So ... to make a long story short ... after encoding the file in TMPGEnc I then used Roxio DVD builder to burn to DVD. It did the encoding again but it only took half the time it does when doing it straight from the PTE .avi. The results are it's much better. The picture is centered and I can barely see the edge of the outer frame that I'm trying to get to show up.

But when I created the .avi from PTE I forgot to change the percent of view from 100 so I think now I'll try about 95% and repeat with the .avi file everything I did on the last DVD. And then maybe someone can remind me why I'm doing this. Oh yes ... lots of my friends don't have computers.

[Rooskidiver]

Okay my last try went pretty well. I used the option to Create custom AVI file and set the Width and Height to 720x480. Then under Project Options I set the screen size to 85%. The entire picture is in view now with just a small black border around the outside. It came out really good!

Now for a question, anyone. What does the FPS stand for ... frames per second?? It was defaulted to 30. What does this mean and should it ever be changed?

Carol

[LumenLux]

I have now tried just a couple of PTE/avi shows to DVD. Using Ulead Video Factory2 (trial). It seems my menu pages don't work quite right. Sometimes the #2 button does not run the #2 show for instance. Is this another variable with an imperfect burn, or a software problem, or maybe I don't understand the remote?

[Ken Cox]

So I can not be of much help in this new feature ... but here's a start :

Robert, on my Koss player i cant get to the "movie B" button, but i can with the 2 Toshiba's -- in their case it is track 2, so would suspect it is the player - -

I would go test on a different dvd player - i quit making anything with 2 or more menu buttons for that reason

and again i have read the manual [RTFM]

Ken

[Ken Cox]

James "Slugman"O'Reardon, advised me Roxio have issued an update for The Platinum 6 version -

http://boards.support.roxio.com/roxio/boar...message.id=6359

- the last update was issued Dec 3 2003-- for the DVD builder portion. As Carol found out the dvd update is not for the standard software version.

from the Roxio page

For those of you experiencing problems with poor video output quality or pixilation, please apply this new updater.

but you must update the engine first

Updates Easy CD & DVD Creator's Burning (Recording) Engine, which is used by all components of the Creator Suite.

I updated but can see no improvement

and using the same file as used for my last vcd the encode time increased 11 mins. -- the exe was 22.798 mb, the avi 128.3 mb and it took 1 hr 9 mins to encode

NOT QUICK

ken

[Ken Cox]

Carol

a description of 30 FPS at

http://www.chidlovski.com/personal/30fps/30fps.htm

and from my memory, when the non video cameras of old -- ie non digital-- would video a tv screen you would see a roll effect in the finished video or the transmitted signal -- this is because the 2 were out of sync.

I used to have a magazine years ago that described how to make a video of your 8 mm/super 8/16 mm home movies and how you had to adjust the frame rate of the projector so the video would be stable

ken

[Ken Cox]

I was able to make a svcd show and for some reason my Koss decided it would play it as well as my first svcd attempts made when we first started the avi experience

used beta 3

roxio 6 platinum with latest updates

show i used took 13 mins to encode a 3.8 mb p2e exe and it took 19 mins to encode the same to svcd

viewed on the 13" monitor style tv the transitions were smoother and picts seemed sharper

something to remember

FROM THE ROXIO 6 HELP FILE

SVCD

Stands for Super Video Compact Disc. A standard for displaying full motion pictures with associated audio on CD based on MPEG-2 video and audio.

An SVCD can be played in most newer-model set-top DVD players, holds approximately 15-20 minutes of video, and results in higher video quality than the VCD format (but is not as good as the video quality in the DVD or miniDVD formats).

so if one is trying to make svcd, keep show time within limits

ken

[LumenLux]

Sharing a couple of notes - in case they can help you, Igor, or me to refine this stuff.

Last night I made a PTE show to test to DVD. The PTE show has 14 slides (large file sizes of c. 1600- kb), mp3 file of 2 min 19 sec. Assorted random transitions.

Using 4.20 Beta #3, the PTE/avi produced file was encoded/burned to DVD with each program:

Ulead Video Factory 2: 50 minutes

Roxio DVD Builder: 28 minutes

Pinnacle Studio 8: 1 hr. 10 minutes

Playback results:

Roxio screen quality seemed best.

Video Factory2 showed more pixel-vibration in certain light/midtone areas of photos

Studio 8 looked like a disco strobe light show!

The encoding time by all three seemed way long to me. (I have not compared them to earlier versions of PTE beta, but I did not think my previous times were this long even on longer PTE shows.) Are these times similar to what Igor and others are experiencing? I did redo the PTE show using same photos but file sizes all less than 100 kb, vs. earlier sizes of 166 kb. With the small file sizes the encode time by Roxio diminished only by a minute or so. If a two minute PTE requires 30 minutes to encode, we will all be as old as Guido before we can view a half hour PTE show on DVD!

FYI - I did notice that when leaving PTE/avi open, it is not just "open" for "access" to certain PTE files. It appears that the PTE create function actually runs as it is encoded by the external software. I may not understand that exactly, but what I noticed is that if I previewed the show in Roxio, Ulead, or Pinnacle, the opening random transition of PTE was different each time I previewed. Not just different per the multiple open instances of PTE, but different each time I previewed it in, say Roxio. That surprised me.

[JSlugman]

Hi guys,

Thanks to Ken for tackling this moose of a topic! Just got done with a major update of my websites so now I'm jumping deep into the DVD fracas. Seems we might be moving to an area of the world mostly devoid of cheap internet access (the Azores) so I have a limited amount of time to learn some stuff to keep me busy for a couple of years.

So far I've made a 4-show DVD using ULead's DVD Slideshow Creator 2.0 burning feature with no problems other than a 2+ hour burn time. Looks great running on an RCA player and a 27" screen. Since then I've gotten Roxio's Easy CD/DVD creator 6 platinum and will hopefully be able to burn something tomorrow.

FWIW, I've found that when I tried to use CompUSA's DVD+R or DVD+RW media I get a failed burn about 1/2 the time (with an HP dvd300i burner).

James O'Rear

Anchorage, Alaska

www.operationhannah.com (our adoption travels to China)

www.foreverfamilyfilms.com

[Michel]

What is your blank DVD ?

Tested very good DVD +RW ?

TDK, Verbatim, Maxell....and tell us the results of your tests, if you want !

The DVD writer also...

[JSlugman]

Michel,

Sorry, CompUSA is a computer chain store and I was using their store brand which I don't recommend.

I just completed a test with Memorex DVD+RW media and am happy, one for one so far.

Show stats: 106mb file size, 28 minute burn time. 2 PTE shows and one Roxio intro animation. I had the 2 PTE shows set at 90% coverage but one of my graphics had a lens flare effect that got cut off so there's something to consider in the future. Looked good on my RCA and Magnavox players as well as my PC. I'll add narration to one of the PTE shows tomorrow and re-burn. Graphics appeared to be where they should be, but I was just eye-balling it 'cause I don't have a grease pencil like some of you guys...hee hee hee.

Celeron 500mHz

Win98 SE

512mb RAM

HP dvd300i burner firmware 1.25

Roxio EZ-creator 6 platinum w/ full updates

PTE beta 4

temp dir on a 40gig USB external drive

Ain't this fun? I just might start smoking again...

[Tripstrilles]

@Michel

1. LiteOn 811 S DVD-Burner

2. Nero 6.30

3. TMPEGenc

4. Ulead Movie Factory 2.0

5. DVD Shrink (for ripping DVD Movies - and !!! if you have a PTE-DVD-Movie which is too large, you can compress it to burn it onto one DVD).

6. DVD2One (same as DVD Shrink, but the quickest rip-software)

- AVI-Output interlaced/no sharpness filter/no mark for movie factory

- Encoding 720 x 576 PAL/4:3 display/center/one avi with variable bitrate, the second with constant bitrate 8000, manual filter: sharpen edges

- The finished mpeg-files inserted into movie factory

- Creating a main-menu

- Burning directly out of movie factory on dvd+rw

Superious quality at my plasma-tv

Thanks Igor !!!

[Picture Dude]

>Roxio DVD Builder: 28 minutes

What product is this? Is this this Easy Creator 6 or ?? Can you give me a link so I can try as well??

Thanks,

Gary