Readme for avi2mpg1 ver 1.11 This program is distributed under the GNU copyright, please see the accompanying file COPYING for details. Please note that only the changes to the original source code are copyrighted under GNU, except for the the multiplexer portions, which are also under the GNU copyright. The copyrights for the other two source programs, the video and audio encoders are detailed in their respective source, as well as the original distributions. avi2mpg1 is a simple command line mpeg-1 encoder that runs at the command prompt under Windows '95 or NT. Copy the file avi2mpg1.exe to any directory in your path. C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND or C:\WINNT should work for most people. Invoke the program with the following syntax: usage: avi2mpg1 [-options] inputfile.avi [inputfile2.avi ...] [outputfile.mpg] where: options can be: -b byterate Where byterate is total system stream rate in KB/s (default 150) Valid range = 10 to 5000. -s bitrate Where bitrate is total system stream rate in K bits/s (default 1200) Valid range = 80 to 40000. YOU CAN ONLY SPECIFY -b OR -s, NOT BOTH! -a bitrate Where bitrate is audio bitrate in K bits/s (default 128 K) Valid values for layer I: 32,64,96,128,160,192,224,256,288,320,352,384,416,448 Valid values for layer II: 32,48,56,64,80,96,112,128,160,192,224,256,320,384 -l layer Where layer specifies which layer to use, valid values 1 or 2. (default 2) -j specifies use joint stereo mode IF input file contains stereo audio. Has no effect if audio portion of .avi is mono. (default non-joint stereo) -p filename.par specifies the name of a file that contains additional parameters for the video portion of the encoder. ** please note that the format of the .par files has changed starting with version 1.10, see templat.par for details ** -e if avi is corrupt (ie: some frames unreadable) fake using last frame, bad audio replaced with zero data. -n no audio, generates video only (.m1v) file, also needed if avi does not contain an audio stream. -y vbv_buffer size in 16K bit multiples, default = 20 -m motion search magnitude, range 0 - 4, default 0, higher values MAY result in better encoding (depending on video), but will take SIGNIFICANTLY longer to code. Try it on a short sample first! -c hor_size ver_size crop (or expand) to specified horizontal and vertical size. -f frame_rate_code force specific mpeg frame rate, regardless of input video frame rate, implies -n (video only) -x suppress usage of MMX extensions -d use double precision math (slower) -q fast quantization (less accurate) -t fast motion compensation level, range 0 - 3, default 0 (normal) -h n put sequence header to every n-th GOP (needed for some hardware decoders like VELA-research's) inputfile.avi A windows avi file (you can now specify multiple input avi files for encoding to a single output file) constrained to the following parameters: Horizontal size: < 4096 pixels Vertical size: < 4096 pixels Frame rate : 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, or 30 FPS 10, 12, 12.5, and 15 are also supported, but upsampled to standard rate. Colour depth: 16, 24, or 32 bit. (thousands, millions, millions+) codec used in file must be installed in windows. Audio sample rate: 11.025, 22.05, and 44.1KHz Audio sample size: 8 or 16 bit Audio channels: 1 or 2 Uncompressed PCM audio only.. outputfile.mpg Optional if only one input file specified, if not specified, inputfilename with .mpg extension will be created. inputfile.avi A windows avi file (you can now specify multiple input avi files for encoding to a single output file) constrained to the following parameters: Horizontal size: < 4096 pixels Vertical size: < 4096 pixels Note: if dimensions are not a multiple of 16, then frame data will be padded out to a multiple of 16 with resulting black bands around picture. Frame rate : 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, or 30 FPS 10, 12, and 15 FPS are upsampled. Colour depth: 8, 16, 24, or 32 bit. (palletized, thousands, millions, millions+) codec used in file must be installed in windows. Audio sample rate: 11.025, 22.05, and 44.1KHz Audio sample size: 8 or 16 bit Audio channels: 1 or 2 Uncompressed PCM audio only. outputfile.mpg Optional if only one input file specified, if not specified, inputfilename with .mpg extension will be created. The optional template.par file contains the same values that the encoder has hard coded as default values for all other video encoding parameters. Use this file as your starting point for experimenting with other values, such as motion search vectors. See param.txt. *** WARNING: VIDEO EXCEEDS CPB STANDARD!, if you get this warning during video encoding, your video exceeds the Constrained Parameter Bitstream standard, and may not be playable on many mpeg-1 players, either software or hardware. Although many players can play mpeg-1 with higher than CPB bitrates, few are capable of higher resolutions than SIF (352x288). Example 1: avi2mpg1 test This example will encode an .avi file "test.avi" located in the current directory to test.mpg, at 150KB/sec total data rate with audio at 128Kb/sec. Example 2: avi2mpg1 -v file1.avi file2.avi file3.avi result.mpg This example will encode 3 input avi's (file1, file2, and file3) to a single mpeg "result.mpg" with VideoCD parameters. You will need to make sure that the current directory has enough room for the temporary files the encoder will produce, in other words, approximately twice the space needed for the resulting .mpg file. Credits: This program is basically the combination of the video encoder by the MPEG Software Simulation Group, available from: "http://www.creative.net/~tristan/MPEG/mssg/mpeg2vidcodec_v12.tar.gz" the ISO audio encoder, available from: "ftp://ftp.iuma.com/audio_utils/converters/source/mpegaudio.tar.Z", and Christoph Moar's systems stream multiplexer, available from: "ftp://ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/pub/comp/graphics/mpeg/mplex/mplex-1.1.tar.gz". Note: this file has apparently been removed from this web site. I suggest doing a search for "mplex". into a single program to process windows .avi files. My goal was to create a simple, one step program consisting of a single executable file with no required .dll's, bit tables, or configuration files, making it extremely easy to use (provided you are familiar with using command line programs). My own use of MPEG-1 consists primarily of compressing 320x240x29.97FPS files captured with a 'miro DC20 MJPEG capture board, to 150KB/sec with 128Kb audio .mpg streams for burning to CD. As such, the default values for the program are obvious. I have used the encoder extensively to encode avi files of the above nature with no problems. You may encounter some problems using avi files that differ from the above. QUALITY: General Recommendations: The quality of your original source is extremely important! VHS video tape is generally not sufficient (very noisy and 220 lines horizontal resolution or less!!!). If you use live capture from a video camera, make sure you have LOTS of light. Any noise in the video will seriously degrade the encoded mpeg quality. This is true for all mpeg encoders! PLEASE NOTE: although this encoder accepts avi files with less than 24 FPS, 24 bit video and less than 44.1KHz 16 bit audio, you aren't getting the full value of MPEG compression in these cases. Particularily if the video was highly compressed by another windows codec. Internally, the encoder simply upsamples the avi file to 24 bit video at 24 or higher FPS, and the audio is upsampled to 44.1Khz 16 bit. If your capturing the video yourself, try doing it at the maximum rate/resolution your equipment is capable of. The general rule for maximum quality is keep your source file as uncompressed as possible throughout all capturing and editing phases. Let the final compressor (MPEG in this case) do all the compression. BUGS: Some combinations of parameters and certain video streams will result in vbv_buffer overflows or underflows. If this occurs, you will get a count of the number of times it has occured at the completion of the video stream encoding. This results from the video rate control mechanism failing to maintain the video rate. An mpeg file will still be generated, and is still playable by most players (I haven't found any that can't). The most likely result will be a loss of audio/video sync. You can try adjusting the vbv_buffer_size using the -y parameter. Changes: 4/04/1997 - Ver 1.0 - Initial Release - John Schlichther 7/15/1997 - Ver 1.1 - Added support for 8 bit audio at 11.025, 22.05, and 44.1 KHz rates 7/19/1997 - Ver 1.2 - improved low-pass filtering for 11025 and 22050 audio - added 8 bit palletized video - corrected chroma subsampling - added option to specify system stream data rate in K bits/s. - added option to read in video encoding parameter file 7/30/1997 - Ver 1.3 - added option to handle avi's with bad data, ie: replace bad frames with previous good one. (-e) - added option to generate video only file (-n) - added suppport for 10, 12 and 15 FPS video, frames are duplicated to generate standard MPEG frame rate. 8/04/1997 - made options case insensitive - handles video with odd pixel sizes (pads with blanks to even pixel size hor and vert. - changed intermediate file names to be based on output filename instead of input file name. - open max size up to 704 x 480 - increase max bit rate up to 4000K bit/sec - decreased min bit rate down to 80K bit/sec - added user control of vbv_buffer_size - added motion search magnitude control (-m) 8/14/1997 - Ver 1.4 - bug fixes for VideoCD stream creation - add size cropping option (-c x_size y_size) - added force frame rate option (-f) - open max size up to 720 x 480 11/19/1997 - Ver 1.5 - open max size limit to mpeg-1 limit, 4096x4096 - dynamically allocated memory for U and Y buffers in readpic routine - open max data rate up to 40,000K bit/sec - report audio encoding progress in % 3/14/1999 - Ver 1.6 - added code by Adam Baker to handle multiple input avi files. - minor tweaks to bitrates to minimize audio/video sync problems 3/29/1999 - Ver 1.7 - fixed minor bug in audio code which would cause a GP fault on some machines with certain avi source files at end of audio encoding, preventing generation of a multiplexed mpg file. - added 12.5 to 25 fps upsampling rate - added MMX support by Ron Grenier to dist1 routine in motion.c - added -x switch to suppress MMX optimizations 10/01/1999 - Ver 1.8 - added MMX support by Ron Genier to fdct routine - added 3DNow suport by Ron Grenier to dist1 routine - changed chroma subsampling to FIR algorithm, should give better colour in detailed areas 3/03/2000 - Ver 1.9 - added blur filter by Thomas Hieber (thieber@gmx.net) - option -r - added much more MMX code by Gilles Mouchard, including: - option -q has been added to activate a less accurate but much faster quantization - option -t 0..4 has been added to decrease work done in computing distance during motion compensation - disabled -v option (VideoCD), use avi2vcd instead, available from www.mnsi.net/~jschlic1 5/06/2000 - Ver 1.10 - added "write sequence header to every GOP"-feature - option -h wn - initialization file *.par is now searched for in the Windows directory and the order of options is irrelevant (entwicklung@reetcom.de - Volker Bartheld) 7/10/2000 - ver 1.11 - fixed palletized video support For the latest revision check out http://www.mnsi.net/~jschlic1. Compiling: The source code was compiled using MicroSoft Visual C++ 5.0, to recompile, create a new project of the type "Win32 Console Appplication". Add all the .c and .h files to the project, and under the Project Settings menu, under the Link tab, add vfw32.lib to the object/library modules list. WARNING: Don't compile with version 6.0 of Visual C++. This results in an executable which crashes with certain combinations of input videos and computer configurations, the source of which has not been determined. This was a problem with version 1.9. For version 1.10 I have gone back to using Visual C++ 5.0 for avi2mpg1. jschlic1@mnsi.net