Sound Quality of MPG's/Avi's

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know the 'audio' quality of the sound with a MPG or AVI/DIVX video, or do i just go by the bitrate when it is converted...

I have 120 DVD music video's which i want to convert to MPG or AVI/DIVX, and i want to keep the audio quality as high as possible...

I want to run them through my PC in my car, and Hard-Drive space isnt really an issue...To be honest i have downloaded about 15 AVI/DIVX music videos and i cannot tell the difference in Audio quality between the Video's and the 256kbs mp3 files i have also downloaded.

I am using a PIII-800mhz, 192mb ram, 64Mb Graphics Card & USB external Audigy 2 MP3 6.1 sound card. (This will be upgraded to at least a P4/AMD 2.0ghz in the very near future)

For the time being i amjust running the front & rear speakers as stereo + the sub on a seperate channel (Not sure if thats 1.1 or 2.1, but i am looking to get 6.1 surround sound from my PC, when i get some more amps, and a decent set of comps)...Is this realistic?

Daz

 

[Tom]

The audio track is the least of your worries when encoding video

MPEG is probably going to be the better of the two though.

 

[Anonymous]

Having a 'Ripping' Time

Why do you say that?

I have encoded many an MPG and AVI/DIVX file with no problems but i have never bothered about the quality of audio before, i have just used the default in the encoding software...I think the default was 112kbs, does the norm apply. (the higher the bitrate the higher the quality, but depending on what the original was, i presume if the original was say 128kbs, there would be no point in encoding the video with 192bks audio?)

Daz

 

[Dank_Army]

Re: Having a 'Ripping' Time

Hi,

You've got a task on there!

To convert dvd to mpg takes quite a long time usually - especially if you want to change resolution e.g. 720 x 564 of dvd to 640 x 480 or less. On my computer 1.3ghz athlon not exactly a beast but quick nether the less - takes about 40 mins to convert dvd to mpg - dont ask me how long it takes the other way round

The sound issue may be a problem, dvd audio is in ac3 format and needs to be normalized - 5.1 dolby to 2 channel stereo. When i do this it always sound weird on my stereo, sort of tinny. You will have to use a recording software like cool edit pro. You would then play the dvd on your copmuter and record the sound with cool edit, then encode the recorded music to mp3 format or even better Ogg vorbis 190 kbps or higher.

Post here if you want any more info

john

 

[Tom]

Re: Having a 'Ripping' Time

Daz, when the MPEG stream is taking up 4-8MB/s, worrying about audio being 64/128/256k/s is not really top priority. The audio usually gets done with a simple and quick encoder rather than being squished as small as possible as you find in MP3s.

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Re: Having a 'Ripping' Time

I have an AMD 2400+ and it takes roughly about the same time...

I may have explained it incorrectly...

I can easily convert the DVD's to AVI/DIVX, but i end up with Stereo sound...The problem i have is that i want to keep the surround sound (5.1 or better)...

I have tried to use cool edit pro 2, but i end up with the same results...

Basically i end up with a MPG with no sound, and an Audio track, no matter what encoding i select i end up with an audio track with no better than 156kbs (Stereo), If i look at the stats on the DVD, it think is 320kbs, after encoding (at 320bks), the stats say 156bks...

I want to create a AVI/DIVX (purely for size/compression, maybe this is the problem), with 5.1 surround sound audio...

The software i am currently using is DVD-2-One or similar, and TMPENG Pro (Or whatever its called))...

Daz

 

[Tom]

Re: Re: Re: Having a 'Ripping' Time

Ahh.. thats a different kettle of fish.

As fas as I know the MPEG format only has 2 audio channels. Tenner says there is some bit of software out there that does what you want though.

 

[Dank_army]

Re: Re: Having a 'Ripping' Time

Hi,

I found some informatino regarding dvd content:

PAL

Video:
Up to 9.8 Mbit/sec MPEG2 or up to 1.856 MBit/sec MPEG1 video
720 x 576 pixels MPEG2
704 x 576 pixels MPEG2
352 x 576 pixels MPEG2 (Same as the CVD Standard)
352 x 288 pixels MPEG2
352 x 288 pixels MPEG1 (Same as the VCD Standard)
25 fps (frames/second)


Audio:
48000 Hz
32 - 1536 kbit/sec
Up to 8 audio tracks containing Dolby Digital, DTS, PCM(uncompressed audio), MPEG-1 Layer2. One audio track must have MPEG-1, DD or PCM Audio.

So your audio layer can be in the range of 32 to 1536 kbps. What I would do:

1) Get a program called FlaskMpeg
2) Load in your .vob file (DVD content)
3) Go through the settings changing all your bit rates and resolutions and more importantly your CODEC, get a codec called divx or xvid then encode to that.
4) Prepare for a very long wait.

Go to www.dvdrhelp.com for more information

Regards,

John

 

[Dank_army]

Re: Re: Re: Having a 'Ripping' Time

Hi,

Check this out:

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=157747&highlight=multi+channel

It can be done, but you will have to convert your dvd to svcd format mpeg 2 i thinks - it will have a multi channel 5.1. audio layer

John

 

[Boorock]

PC in a Bravo ???

Hi,

I'am sure that this is an old issue but, How did you installed the PC in your Bravo ?

Well, I got the point but what about the keyboard/mouse controls & the monitor ?

How did you feed the PC, the power supply I mean...

How the heel did u solve the vibration problem ? None of the drives HDD/CD-DVD-ROM will work without any tune ups in the case ???

Did you add the PC to a in-dash TFT screen ?

Please share the details...

Thanks in advance.

PS: I'am sure that I've seen a post like PC in a Bravo but I couldn't succeed to find it for details..
Anyone can u please post the link ?

 

[Anonymous]

Re: PC in a Bravo ???

Installation.
Simply a small PC in the boot.

Keyboard/Mouse.
See Below

Power Supply.
The PC has a 250w Power supply, so i am using a 300w inverter (12v DC - 240v AC), I had a power cable that i use for my amp already in the boot, so i put a fused splitter in to get power to the inverter.

Vibration.
HD - As long as you mount the Hard-Drive vertically, you shouldnt have a problem.
CD-Rom - I don't use the CD-Rom on the move, i only use it to intall or copy stuff to the Hard-Drive.

Screen.
I now have a 7" Touchscreen up front to control all my installed software.

I Still have a lot of tyding up to do...and will do a full write up of how to do it.

But in the meantime...if you need any more info just let me know.

Daz