avi2vcd Readme.txt file

avi2vcd Version 1.3.11

    This program is Copyright (C) 2000, 2001 John Schlichther. It is offered
    without guarantee or warranty, either expressed or implied. It is up
    to you to determine if this program is suitable for your purposes.
    While the author may provide updates, improvements, or fixes, there
    is no obligation to do so.

    This program may NOT be included with any other program or distribution.
    You may  not charge for copies of this program, or media containing
    this program without the express written consent of the author. You may not
    distribute this program, but may freely reference the web site from
    which it may be downloaded "www.mnsi.net/~jschlic1". Do not provide
    direct links to this program because the web site is subject to revision
    and your links (other than to the home page) WILL break.

    This program is an *.avi to VideoCD 2.0 compliant mpeg encoder. It
    generates 3 variation of Formats for VideoCD, NTSC, PAL, and FILM. The
    input avi files must conform to the following format limitations:

    Horzontal width: <= 768 (352 preferred)

    Vertical height: <= 576 (240 preferred for NTSC or FILM)
                            (288 preferred for PAL)

    Frames per second: >= 1 (23.976 preferred for FILM)
                            (25     preferred for PAL)
                            (29.97  preferred for NTSC)

    Colour depth: 8, 16, 24, or 32 bits (24 or 32 bits preferred)

    No audio or:
        Audio sample rate: 8, 11.025, 12, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, or 48 KHz
        Audio Sample size: 8 or 16 bit
        Audio channels: stereo or mono
        Audio format: PCM (uncompressed) (16 bit, stereo, 44.1KHz preferred)


To install avi2vcd, copy the avi2vcd.exe file to a convienient location on
your hard drive, possibly c:\windows or c:\winnt. You may create a shortcut
to avi2vcd on your desktop.

Double click on the shortcut. Type the full pathname of your input avi into
the "Source AVI file" box, or use "Browse" to select your source file. The
target file defaults to the same name as you source, with a .mpg extension,
located in the same directory as your source file, but you may edit this
path. Press "Encode" and wait.

Note that avi2vcd does not generate any intermediate or temporary files. The
avi is encoded in one step, both audio and video, to an mpeg.


Problems:

    You MUST be able to play the avi you wish to encode with MediaPLayer!! If
    you can't play it with mediaplayer, then avi2vcd won't be able to encode it.
    It is also possible that even if you can play the file with MediaPlayer, then
    avi2vcd may not be able to encode it if the file uses a codec which is not
    DirectShow/DirectX compatible.

    First you should make sure that you have the latest version of avi2vcd,
    (from //www.mnsi.net/~jschlic1)

    as well as the latest version of DirectX. At the time of this writing
    the DirectX update (Version 8.0a) could be downloaded from:

        http://www.microsoft.com/directx/homeuser/downloads/default.asp

    You'll want get the appropriate download for your system. There is
    one download for Windows 95, 98, 98SE, and ME, and another download for
    Windows 2000. There is no DirectX update available for Windows NT.
    For NT, make sure you have the latest Service Pack installed, which
    will update your NT DirectX to the latest version available for NT.

    If Microsoft moves this link, then try searching for DirectX from Microsoft's
    home page.

    If you are using a video capture card, you should also make sure you have
    the latest drivers for your capture card from the manufacturer.


    If you still have problems with avi2vcd, please send me a note detailing the
    problem. Include a copy of the encoding log. Avi2vcd creates an encoding log
    by using the same name as your source file with the extension .log and places
    it into the same directory as your target file. I.e. if your source file was
    "simpsons.avi" then the log file is "simpsons.log". The log files contain
    details which will help debug the problem.

Be sure to read the avi2vcd_faqs.txt file which accompanies the encoder.

PLEASE NOTE THAT AVI2VCD CAN ONLY ENCODE AVI FILES WITH UNCOMPRESSED AUDIO!!

DIVX encoded avi's typically use MPEG Layer 3 compression on the audio, and hence
cannot be encoded by avi2vcd if they do.

If you need to encode videos with compressed audio, you can use the utility
"decompress.exe" which is included in the zip file with avi2vcd. Decompress will
convert the video to one with uncompressed audio which avi2vcd can handle.

www.mnsi.net/~jschlic1

This release of avi2vcd may have bugs or limitations.

Encoding Tips:

    For DV files: (please read the "DV_readme.txt" file)

Due some issues (bugs??) with DirectShow, you may experience more reliable DV capture,
as well as encoding with avi2vcd, if you set your DV camcorder to 32KHz 12 bit audio.

    For an Analog capture card:

Try to capture your video at the highest data rate your computer is capable of. If you have
sufficient disk space, capture uncompressed. If you must use video compression, use as little
as possible. Generally 4:1 video compression or less when applied to a clean, noise-free video
will still result in an acceptable mpeg video. Capture your video at a resolution that is close
to the final mpeg resolution, i.e. if you are going to create a VideoCD at NTSC resolution
(352x240x29.97fps), capture at 352x240x29.97fps. If your capture card cannot capture at
352x240, but can capture at 320x240 or 640x480, use 320x240. There is no advantage to
capturing at 640x480 from television or video tape whose horizontal resolution does not
exceed 300 lines. Even though avi2vcd will accept a wide variety of frame rates in the input
video, you will get best results if your input video is captured at exactly the same frame
rate as that of the VideoCD format type your are going to encode, i.e. 23.976 fps for FILM,
25 fps for PAL, and 29.97 for NTSC.

Release History:

Ver 1.3 - August 6th, 2000
        - New features:
              - DirectShow support
              - vertical resizing
              - ability to encode any acceptable avi to any of the three valid
                VideoCD formats
              - support for no audio and mono in addition to stereo audio.
              - audio resampling to support every standard PC audio sample rate
                (8, 11.025, 12, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, or 48 KHz)
              - DV Video can be encoded directly without first resampling audio
                to 44.1 KHz
              - Added error message regarding attempts to encode compressed audio.
                 (Those which avi2vcd is able to detect)
              - added user selectable video inversion (some VFW codecs do not
                properly advertise vertical orientation to DirectShow)
              - additional debuging information written to log file

        - Bug fixes:
              - Corrected video inversion problem for users of Pinnacle DC10+
                mjpeg capture card
              - Corrected major bug which would cause extensive excessive blockiness
                in video for certain videos with extreme detail and high motion
                rates as well as some animations
              - corrected problem with rerunning encoder without restaring it, used
                to cause encode to crash the second time if encoder was not exited
                first then restarted.
              - numerous other small bug fixes

Ver 1.2 - minor bug fixes, corrected colour balance, added ability to handle input
          videos with up to 720 horizontal pixels, and full frame interlaced video
          (480 NTSC, FILM and 576 PAL).

Ver 1.1 - minor bug fixes, added ability to handle almost any frame rate in input avi.
        - added FAQ

Ver 1.0 - March 19th, 2000

          Initial Release
