MPEG-2 codec

[Francis]

Hello,

I'm trying to make some movies with WMM, using my old analog VHS-C cassets.
My video card is an ATI AIW 9000Pro, which gives MPEG-2 captured files of
very good quality, as far as I can judge when I watch them with ATI/MMC or
Windows Media Center.

My problem comes when I try to import these MPEG-2 files in WMM: I get then
the following message:"xxx.mpg could not be imported. An interface has too
many methods to fire events from. There are no additional errors / dialogs."
Having visited this newsgroup and the Papa John's website, I've seen that
the problem is due to the lack of an appropriate MPEG-2 codec.

So, my question is: how to solve this problem at the lowest cost:
- either, I buy a movie creating application, such as PowerDirector Pro, or
any one else, but it can be quite expensive
- either I use WMM, but I need to install the missing MPEG-2 codec.

So, I'm interested to get any advice or recommendation on that topic. I
would just add that I'm just a beginner in this domain, so, the simplest and
cheapest the solution is, the best it is.

Thanks in advance

Francis

 

[Guest]

Hi Francis,

TMPGEnc is a great software package and the MPEG2 codec
with it is free to use for a 30 day trial period.
Download it, use it for a month and see if it works with
your computer and MM2. If so, it's a good investment. If
not, try another.

There's a link to TMPGEnc on my CD and DVD Burning...
General pages.

PapaJohn

 

[Francis]

Hi PapaJohn,

Thanks for your response. Unfortunately, TMPGEnc does not solve my problem,
except if I've not seen all its possibilities.
Well, I'll try to be clearer.
I've several analog VHS-C video cassets that I would like to use to make
some movies by using WMM2. So, I've tested almost all the formats available
within WMM and ATI/MMC to capture a first casset, and I've obtained the best
results, far ahead the others, with the ATI VCR proprietary format and with
MPEG2.
My problem is due to the fact that I cannot import the MPEG2 files in WMM.
When I try, I get the message (in French): "xxx.mpg could not be imported.
An interface has too many methods to fire events from. There are no
additional errors / dialogs."
So, I think that this issue results from the lack of an appropriate MPEG2
codec, and it is for that type of codec, or any other thing, that I'm asking
your recommendations. TMPGEnc does not seem to be the solution.
@+

Francis

 

[Bob]

I think PapaJohn is suggesting is that you use TMPGEnc to convert your MPEG2
video to DV-AVI. Then you can import the DV-AVI file into Movie Maker.

-Bob

 

[Francis]

Hi Bob,
Ok, in this way, TMPGEnc works well.
But is it really necessary to convert MPEG-2 -> DV-AVI to use Windows Movie
Maker, because I've read somewhere that there is a lost of quality every
time a conversion from one format to an other one is done. So much more so
as, at the end, the SVCD or the DVD will use a MPEG2 format.
Of course, if the quality lost of conversions from MPEG2 to DV-AVI to MPEG2
is almost nothing, it's not a problem for me.

Francis

 

[Bob]

Francis,

In converting from MPEG-2 to DV-AVI, you should see very little loss of
quality. In fact, TMPGEnc may actually give you better quality than you
would get by importing the MPEG-2 directly into Movie Maker (if it would let
you). That's because the act of importing a video into Movie Maker is
effectively performing a format conversion.

Where you may see a perceptable loss of quality is when you convert back to
MPEG-2, since that is a more compressed, lower quality format than DV-AVI.
The built-in MPEG-2 encoders in some low-end DVD authoring software are
pretty poor. Your best bet would be to re-encode it using TMPGEnc, and then
author the DVD with software that will not re-encode the video again (like
TMPGEnc DVD Author for example).

If you used a true MPEG-2 editor, you could edit the video with absolutely
no quality loss. But then you'd be limited to simple cuts and splices -- no
effects or transitions.

-Bob

 

[Francis]

Hi, PapaJohn and Bob,

Thanks a lot for your advices.TMPGEnc do really offers a lot of
possibilities.
Even if I've not yet solved all my video problems, I think that I've enough
to start my first steps.
By the way, all my congratulations for PapaJohn's web site: very clear and
understadable, even for a french "neophyte".

Francis

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

Thanks Francis,

Although Movie Maker 2 imports and seems to work with MPEG2 files with my
Ligos codec, I run into an occasional quirky thing. So, to play it safe and
not run into something unexpected during editing or rendering, I always
convert MPEG2 files into DV-AVI (or WMV if I don't need the high quality),
and then use the DV-AVI or WMV files as source files for movie projects.

So my need is to get the best DV-AVI file that I can, to use as a starting
point, from the MPEG2 files. I wouldn't start with MPEG2 files at all if I
could help it, but if that's all there is, just make the best of it.

PapaJohn