Re: [Mjpeg-users] SVCD production trouble

[Steven M. S. <sm...@2B...>]

On 12 Jan 2004, Craig Lawson wrote:

> Can someone help me out with a command line recipe for SVCD production?
> I am following the MJPEG Tools instructions, and I end up with an SVCD
> that works great with Xine on my system, but is unrecognized by both
> Macs and Windows, even when I directly open the mpeg file on the SVCD.

	Do you realize that SVCDs use a different sector size than regular
	CDROMs?   You can't mount a SVCD and access the mpeg files due to the
	mode2form2 sectoring - only the ISO track (the first few megabytes)
	that contains the directory info can be accessed as a CDROM.

	I have no idea if windows knows what a SVCD is or not, but on OS/X
	you can use 'vlc' (http://www.videolan.org) to play SVCDs/VCDs just
	fine.   Even better is that vlc is available as a diskimage/package
	which makes installation a breeze on a Mac.
	
> 1. Start with AVI files, DV format in Cinelerra.
> 
> 2. Set project format to:
>       Audio sample rate: 44100
>       Frame rate: 29.97
>       Width, Height: 480 x 480
>       Color model: YUVA-8
> 
> 3. Render with:
>       Format: Quicktime for Linux
>       Audio: Two's complement
>       Video: Motion JPEG-A
>     (Output verified with Quicktime + wine)

	Why convert the video to MJPEG-A?   Can you specify DV as the output
	video codec?   If the data came in as DV it should be possible to
	use DV for output and that would be a lossless conversion as contrasted
	to MJPEG-A - wouldn't it?   If you have mjpegtools build with libdv
	support it should handle DV in a Quicktime container.

> 4. Extract video and encode as SVCD-compatible MPEG-2:
>       lav2yuv quicktime.mov | 
>         mpeg2enc -f 4 -q 7 -I 1 -V 200 -M 2 -o video.m2v
>       (Output verified with xine; curiously, plaympeg shows
>        only garbage)

	Probably because plaympeg only knows about MPEG-1 video (if it is the
	same program I remember from years ago) and hasn't the foggiest idea
	how to deal with MPEG-2

	Try 'mplayer' instead ;)

> 6. Merge audio and video:
>       mplex -f 4 -b 300 -r 2750 audio.mp2 video.m2v -o svcd_out.mpeg
>       (Output verified with xine; plaympeg fails again)

	-f 4 will set all the necessary parameters for the SVCD format.  No 
	need to give -b 300 or -r 2750 (in fact -f 4 overrides them I believe).

> 8. Burn a CD:
>       cdrdao write --device 0,0,0 --speed 16 videocd.cue
>       (Verify SVCD with xine, VCD mode)

	mplayer vcd://2

	would also work I think.

> This would all be great, except neither Macs nor Windows understand the
> MPEG file on my SVCD, nor the SVCD as such. I haven't tried it yet in a
> DVD player.

	By default the Mac only knows about music CDs and DVDs.   For VCD/SVCD
	playback you need to get 'vlc'.

	Many, but not all, DVD players understand SVCDs (mine do - I made sure
	of that before buying them).   Should only take a minute or two to 
	see if it works.

> (I'm currently avoiding transcode because it deadlocks on my SMP
> processor. Known problem in transcode.)

	Hmmm, threading issues I suspect.   I've had similar problems on other
	operating systems even on single cpu systems - thus my feeling it's
	a threading/mutex handling bug somewhere (transcode just goes to sleep,
	doesn't spin wildly eating up cpu time).

	Cheers,
	Steven Schultz