Movie Format Conversions

Here is a Home DVD Player List

"The VCD Guide" List of Movie Types for PC

    To start off I'd like to say, read all of this. And don't e-mail me questions that are posted on this page. Thanks. Ok first of all you will need a few utilities. You will also need a lot of hard drive space, 8 gigs minimum. Plus a lot of patience. All tools are freeware or shareware, if I am mistaken, email me. One more thing. Always use Microsoft MPEG-4 Video/Audio when encoding Video or Audio. Best compression. And always check the homepages below for newer releases!

    Ok, now lets begin. We will start with the highest quality of movie files, DVD (VOB files) and end with the lowest (But Good) quality of the ASF format. And you will need the proper codec files. To install the latest codec files download Windows Media Tools. Freeware from Microsoft.

   DVD (VOB files) to MPG. You need a DVD player for your PC. If you can not copy the VOB files on to your hard drive, there is a utility out there called DeCSS.exe (newer movies use cladDVD), This will copy all the VOB files to your hard drive. Once you have them on your hard drive, you can use a utility called Flask. The problem with flask is you have to install Adobe Premiere, add Panosonic MPEG Compressor to it. Flask has all the instructions on how to do it. If you want to see my Flask settings click here. When choosing your frame rate 29.97 or 23.976, Flask automatically selects the best one for you. Once you get Flask to work, you'll never have to worry again. Flask converts VOB files to MPG. You can then turn it into a VCD with Nero or Adaptec Easy CD Creator. Another option is the DVD2Mpeg, Hard to setup, but works good.

    FlaskAMD Excutable Only. Optimized for the AMD/Duron Chip. For better performance and better quality if your system has the AMD. Source Code Here. Worked great for my Athlon, and didn't work at all for my K6-2.

    VCD Info. Using Xing Mpeg Encoder. Select (At the Bottom) VCD / NTSC. Choose your File (Any MPEG or AVI) and select the destination folder. Now you can Burn on your CDR with Nero or Adaptec Easy CD Creator a VCD. You can play VCDs with any MPEG player or PC VCD Power Player or use a good home player that has CDR support, like the APEX AD-600A (Best), Pioneer DV-525, Playstation or 3DO with VCD modulator attached. Here is a Home DVD Player List.

    DVD (VOB files) to MPEG2-SVCD. NEW THE EASIEST SVCD GUIDE IN THE WORLD!

    SFD Files: Are purely m2v (or Mpeg 2) files without audio. You can edit them the same as mpeg2 files with TMpegEnc. Reasons for this is to reduce the file sizes to make their DC backups. Hence SFA is the audio.

    MPG Joining. Using iFilmEdit you can easily add 2 or more MPG files together. For step by step details click here.

    MPG Cutting. I use VCD Cutter Real easy to use. For step bt step details click here.

    DAT to MPG. For all you DreamCast / VCD lovers use VCDGear to transform a VCD Dat file to an MPG. Run VCDGear20.exe, select dat -> mpeg in the extraction / conversion box. Hit the load button to file the dat file you wish to convert. Hit start, and your done. This is basicly good for one thing, playing VCDs on your DreamCast.

    AVI Joining. I use Fast Movie Processor. Easy to use. Doesn't like huge files though.

    AVI Watermarking. Use Virtual Dub and the plugin Logo. Extract the plugin into you VirtualDub/Plugins/ directory. Load up the AVI file. Select Video Tab, then Filters, Add, Logo by Donald Graft, select placement (use show preview) and then save the AVI.

    AVI to MPG. This one is real easy. There are hundreds of tools to do this. I use Xing Encoder with the settings  VCD/NTSC settings for VCD. Screenshot. Film or Pal is acceptable too. Or for better quality (but takes longer) PanasonicMPEG Stand Alone.

    MOV to VCD: Can be done with Apple QuickTime Registered version to convert to AVI. Or with Adobe Premiere with the Panosonic MPEG Compressor.

    BNK or SWK. These are pretty decent movie formats. But not common. They are mainly used in games like the Tomb Raider Series. Rad Tools has utilities for both these formats to Encode or Decode from both or to another format. It's Freeware.

    MVE and VP files. These formats are used with certain (old) games. Here is a documentation on these formats. I don't have the dllpack, but it ran ok for me without it. Read the text files inside the zip file for more info.

    DVD (VOB files) to AVI. New Flask now converts VOB to AVI in one easy process!! 

    SMR (nAVI Files) to VCD. A very nice codec you can get my instructions here. You Will need SMR Codec and Windows Media Tools. 

    DivX (Avi Files) to VCD. Instructions here. You can make it as clear as if you got it off the DVD itself.

    MPG to AVI. Use a program called Virtual Dub. Its freeware. Works really good too. Or can use Adobe Premiere. File Menu, Utilities, Batch Conversion. Select your MPG file. Now remember, using either of these programs you want to select Microsoft MPEG-4 Video/Audio. This is the best compression for video and also uses the least about of space. Now why would you want to convert MPG to AVI?? Well you can make an AVI into an ASF. MPG you can't (yet). Rendering MPG to AVI can take from 3 to 18 hours on a 600meg file, depending the speed of your CPU (3 hrs based on a P3 600 and 18 hrs based on P1 233).

    AVI to ASF. Use Microsoft's Windows On-Demand Producer (More Freeware from Microsoft). Its the best and easiest. Compress at 512 (LAN Speed) for best results. They also have an Encoder on thier Windows Media Tools. But I use the Windows Media Tools for ASF Indexing and linking ASF files together. Everything thing about converting AVI to ASF is very basic and easy to use.

    VIV Files (VIVO): An earlier version of ASF (kinda), bought out by realplayer and integrated it's software. Not really used any more but I do have the last of its products here. VivoActive 2.1

    RM Files (RealPlayer): This format sucks so bad I refuse to even consider converting anything regarding it. But for those of you who don't care read this.

    ASF to VCD: This I would never do but it is possible with TMpegEnc.

 LINKS

Here are some links where you can find the tools you need.

RAD Tools.  http://www.radgametools.com/

Windows Media Tools and On-Demand Producer. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/en/download/default.asp

Virtual Dub http://www.geocities.com/virtualdub/

Flask MPEG   http://go.to/flaskmpeg

Oleg's DVD Page http://dvd.da.ru

VCD Helper www.vcdhelp.com

Doom9's Site http://www.doom9.net Great tutorials on SVCD and VCD