How to convert your AVI/DivX to SVCD

How to backup your AVI(DivX) to SVCD
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is a simple method
to produce top quality SVCD's from your top quality AVI(DivX)'s. If the AVI has poor play back quality, then suggest you convert these to VCD instead, see the other Tutorials on how to do this. You can't increase the quality of a poor quality movie by encoding to a better quality format.

The guide is substantially quicker than using TMPGEnc and the final result has an improved overall quality, for both Video and Audio. While the final
SVCD is not as good as a direct DVD to SVCD conversion, if the starting AVI(DivX) has been made properly with a high bit rate, then excellent results can be produced. This procedure uses DVD2SVCD with the aid of Cinema Craft Encoder.

I have converted many AVI's or DivX that have come in various forms. The AVI's Video encoding can be done with DivX 3.x, 4.x, 5.x or Xvid. The Audio can be MP3, VBR MP3 or AC3. All are accepted and all converted using this same procedure. Any other forms, I don’t know as I haven’t encountered them yet.

This guide is based on using Nero
to burn the final SVCD, or if you choose to incorporate Chapters, etc. you need to use CDRWIN to burn the CUE/BIN files to CDR.


Software you will need:

1. DivX Codec 5.02 or later (d/l from _http://www.divx.com or
http://www.cdrsoft.cc )
2. DVD2SVCD 1.0.9 Build 3 or later (d/l from _http://212.88.77.140/ )
3. Cinema Craft Encoder 2.50 ( d/l from _http://www.geocities.com/gircobain/ )
4. Nero 5.5.x (d/l from _http://www.ahead.de or
http://www.cdrsoft.cc ) or
CDRWin 3.9x (d/l from _http://www.goldenhawk.com or
http://www.cdrsoft.cc )
5. Xvid Codec or DivX 3.11 codec may be needed ( d/l from _www.doom9.net )


You will also need a Computer with:

* Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 or XP installed.
* A Pentium III 550mhz or equivalent as a minimum.
* At least 128meg memory, 256meg preferred.
* Hard drive with at least 5 gb FREE space in one partition.
* A CDR(W) Burner
to produce the SVCD and a box of good quality CDR's
* A sound card and
SVCD player to check the finished product.


Tips before we get started:

* Turn OFF
your Screen Saver, it will simply slow the conversion down by hours.
* Do not run any other program in the background while DVD2SVCD is running, especially if you have a slower computer.
* Turn the screens colour depth
to 16bit colour or better.
* Re-boot the computer BEFORE you start the conversion.

So you have downloaded the software and checked that you have the right stuff in
your computer. Sounds good, then lets get stuck into it!



Step 1: Getting Ready.

1. Install DivX Codec (and Xvid if needed)
2. Install CCE
3. Install DVD2SVCD
4. Install Nero or CDRWIN as required.



Step 2: Checking the AVI file

1. Every version of Windows comes with Windows Media Player (WMP), so we will use that
to check the file. You will need version 7 or better installed.

2. If the DivX is on a CD, copy it
to your Hard Drive.

3. Run Windows Explorer, locate
your DivX file, and RIGHT Click on it. From the windows that opens, go to Properties, then Summary. You will now see all the characteristics of the file. Write down the Frame Width and Height as we may need them later on and note the Data rate. If data rate is less than 100 kb/s, I would not suggest you continue. Also if the width is less than 480, I would also suggest you dont continue. The quality of these AVI's are poor and converting to a SVCD will only yield poor results. Convert these to VCD instead.

4. You can use the Frame width and Frame height (from above)
to work out the Aspect ratio of the movie but the simplest is to actually play it full screen. So play it in WMP, and hit t-Enter to get to full screen display. If there are no black bars top or bottom, then its a 4:3 full screen. On a 15" monitor, if there is about 1 1/4" or 3cm of black bars top and bottom of the screen, then its a 16:9. If there is about 2" or 5cm of black bars then its a 2.3:1 These 3 variations cover 99% of all movies.


Step 3:
SVCD Conversion.

1. Run DVD2SVCD. It may complain it cannot find CCE, so click the Encoder tab and then browse
your HD for CCE (cctsp.exe) depending on where you installed it. This will happen 1st time it is run only.

2. Click the Misc. tab, then select the Input File Type
to be AVI. Then click Default Output folder to select the Output folder where all the files will go. Un-tick Don’t Delete any Files (not important if you don’t), change DVD2SVD Level to Advanced. You may need to check the box next to Convert divx3 tp divx4 ( can resolve CCE problem) but so far I have had no problems converting DivX3 encoded AVI's.

3. Click the Conversion tab, and load in the AVI file. It will indicate its length and select an Aspect ratio mode and mark the Audio track. There is no Cut or Trim features here. I do not recommend ticking NTSC
to PAL box unless you like jerky movies. DVD2SVCD still has problems with most AVI's setting the correct aspect ratio. It tends to select 4:3 (No borders, encoded as 4:3). Change this to 16:9 (borders added, encoded as 4:3) if you found it above to be 16:9. If you found it to be widescreen 2.3:1, there is no option for this and has to be set manually. See Note 1 below.

4. Click on Finalize Tab, there is nothing in here
to change.

5. Click the CDImage tab. If you don’t want any fancy Chapters or Title pictures, etc, just click Don’t Make Images and you will end up with 2-3 MPG files ready
to burn with Nero. If you do want to include Chapter and/or Title Pictures, then select VCDXBuild. The default ChangeCD pic is excellent. Enter a CD Label, such as THE_DISH. If you click on Movie info (IMDB), it will extract all the movie data (Directors, actors, etc) and the DVD front picture from _www.imdb.com for inclusion on the CD if you have an internet connection. Click on Include movie info on CD to include this info on the CD. For Fixed Chapters, select a number in seconds that you want each chapter point to be set to. I use 240 (4 min.) so I get about 10-12 per CD.

6. Click the bbMPEG Tab, there is nothing
to change except maybe the CD overlap in Seconds. Change to suit your own preferences.

7. Click the Pulldown Tab, there is nothing
to change or setup in here. This will run Automatically if a 23.976fps NTSC framerate is found.

8. Click the Audio Tab. Leave Audio downsample 48 -> 44.1 ticked as this makes a fully compliant
SVCD. However, leaving it unticked will produce a better quality Audio playback, but if you burn the MPG file with Nero it will say its non-compliant and you will have to turn compliance off. All DVD Players (and now 99% of PC's) can play 48kHz audio. Change Audio Bitrate from the default 160bps if you wish but the higher it is, the lower the Video bitrate is used to fit it onto the CD's. Most DivX have been encoded with low Audio bitrates anyway. The box for Autodetect Azid Gain (2 pass) should be ticked as this with Normalize the audio sound level.

9. Click the Frameserver tab and select Resize Method
to be Bicubic Resize. Click on Sharpen and enter its value as 0.4. Make sure Resize is set to SVCD ('cause tha’ts what we are making folks!).

10. Click the Bitrate tab
to see the number of CD's and their size for the movies length. Leave these at default initially, just un-select Min Avg if its ticked. DVD2SVCD calculates the bitrate automatically for you to just fit onto your CDR's. But I would suggest you change all the 740 to 800 and use ONLY 80min CDR's.

11. Click the Encoder tab and make sure Cinema Craft Encoder is selected (and not TMPGEnc). Multipass VBR should be set at 3 for best results. Click on the Advanced button and un-select all MPEG2 Video Settings. If you are encoding a small 43min episode
to fit to one 80min CD, then I would suggest ticking CBR instead of VBR 3 pass, as encoding time will be dramatically reduced and quality basically the same. Give it a try and compare. But if you have a 120min movie and trying to fit to 2 CD's, stay with VBR, or better still change to 3 CD's for a substantial improved quality SVCD.

12. All is now setup and we are ready
to begin the encodeing. If you intend to be doing a few movies, all the setup above needs to be done once and will remain set to the same settings next time you run DVD2SVCD. Next time you will only need to load the AVI in, set folder to save to and change CDImage info.

13. Click the Conversion tab again and if all is ready, click the GO button. Click Start Conversion then confirm with OK.

14. Go
to sleep, work or school as this process may take a long time. On a P700 it can take over 24hrs with a 4pass VBR encode! On an Athlon 1800, most movies convert 3pass VBR in 5-7 hours.

15. When finished you will have in the default folder you selected, about 20-30+ files. There will be 2-3 MPG files like bbMPEG_Muxed_File00.mpg if you did not make an image. You will have 2-3 BIN & CUE files like CD_Image_File_CD1.bin if you did.

16. Play them with WinDVD (or
your favorite SVCD player software) to check them for lip sync near start and finish of each file and any other problem, like incorrect Aspect ratio. If your made an Image file, load it into Daemon Tools CD Image and run the MPG file from there.

17. You have now made
your first SVCD files and all that’s left is to burn them.



Step 4: Burning.

1. If you have BIN & CUE files, run CDRWIN. Click on the top left button and then the Load Cuesheet button. Browse
to the folder where the images were saved to and load the CD_Image_File_CD1.cue file for CD1. Select the Write Speed to be 4x or 8x and all other boxes un-ticked. Hit the Start Recording button and sit back and watch your first SVCD disk being burnt.

2. If you have MPG files, run Nero. Click the Super VideoCD tab for a
SVCD, select Create Standard Compliant CD. In Volume Descriptor tab, enter a Volume Label, such as THE_GLADIATOR_1 for disk 1 of the Gladiator. Click on New and then drag & drop the bbMPEG...00.mpg file from the right window (your HD) to the left window (the SVCD disk). Nero will check through the mpg file to confirm that it is a compliant SVCD file. After it finishes checking the file all should be well, click the Burn Button. Select the Write Speed to be 4x or 8x and make sure Disk-At-Once is selected and Finalize CD is ticked. Then click Write and sit back and watch your first SVCD disk being burnt. If you had selected 48kHz audio back in DVD2SVCD, then a Non-Compliance warning will come up, then turn off fully compliant option and burn.

3. The excitement builds! When the burning is finished, shut down the recording program, label the CD with a felt pen and rush
to your DVD player to check it out. If all is okay, repeat this for the second or third disks remembering to change the Volume Label in Nero. Refer to Nero's or CDRWin's help for further info and clarification on how to use them.

4. You can now safely delete all the files created by DVD2SVCD, even the AVI if you no longer require it.

5. Use only good quality scratch resistant CDR's. Some DVD stand alone players will only read from CDRW's, then burn
to CDRW's instead. Burning at greater then 4x or 8x speed can also make them unreadable by many players, particularly the latter part of the CD. Many DVD stand alone units have problems playing SVCD movies altogether, even though the book indicates it can and many will jump and stutter if the bitrate is to high or to low. These problems are not with the SVCD you just made, they are all related to the brand and model of your DVD Player. The SVCD's will play fine on a PC however.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NOTE 1. If the AVI
your encoding has a widescreen Aspect Ratio of 2.3:1, as we found above, DVD2SVCD does not have this as a setting to automate the encoding and it has to be adjusted manually.
a. In the Conversion tab, leave the aspect ratio set at 4:3.
b. Click on the Frameserver tab and change the Edit the Avisynth Script file
to Edit as part of Video encoding.
c. Now start the conversion as usual.
d. Stay with the encoding and after the Audio has been extracted & converted and just before the actual encoding start, an AviSynth script window will pop up. In here we have
to modify the numbers, this example will explain. Once the correct numbers have been entered, the AddBoarders statement added, then hit the Save button and then the OK button. The encoding will now continue as usual and result in the correct aspect ratio for the movie.


eg: Our AVI had dimensions of, say, 512 x 224 ( X x Y ) as found above. This needs
to be resized for a SVCD to 480 x 576 for PAL or 480 x 480 for NTSC. But the pixel aspect ratios of a PC monitor and a PAL or NTSC TV are not the same. PC Monitor pixels have a square pixel aspect ratio of 1:1 but pixel aspect ratio for PAL TV is 54:59 and for an NTSC TV is 11:10.

So the correct resizing parameters for our AVI in this example would be:

For PAL AVI:

Calculated height = ((720 / X) x Y) / (54 / 59)
=((720 / 512) x 224) / (54 / 59)
= 344.16

So the correct "Resize" statement in the AviSynth script would be:
...
BiCubicResize(480,344,0.00,0.60)
...

where the Calculated height of 344.16 has been rounded
to 344 to be divisible by 4 (even better if divisible by 16).

Then we add borders on top and bottom
to fill the height up to 576 pixels.

Correct borders = (576 - Calculated height) / 2
= (576 - 344) / 2
= 116

So the correct "AddBorders" statement in the AviSynth script would be:
...
BiCubicResize(480,344,0.00,0.60)
AddBorders(0,116,0,116)
...

For NTSC AVI:

Calculated height = ((720 / X) x Y) / (11 / 10)
= ((720 / 512) x 224) / (11 / 10)
= 286.36

So the correct "Resize" statement in the AviSynth script would be:
...
BiCubicResize(480,288,0.00,0.60)
...

where the Calculated height of 286.36 has been rounded up
to 288 to be divisible by 4 (even better if divisible by 16).

Then you have
to add borders on top and bottom to fill the height up to 480 pixels.

Correct borders = (480 - Calculated height) / 2
= (480 - 288) / 2
= 96

So the correct "AddBorders" statement in the AviSynth script would be:
...
BiCubicResize(480,288,0.00,0.60)
AddBorders(0,96,0,96)
...


NOTE 2. I would strongly suggest not
to convert widescreen 2.3:1 aspect ratio AVI's to 16:9 SVCD's. You are struggling to maintain SVCD quality from a DivX, and chopping off any part of the pic is only going to make things worse, not better.

I also have problems converting AVI with DVD2SVCD in Batch mode. There appears
to be a small glitch/bug in DVD2SVCD.



ChickenMan (c) 2002