Articles - > MeGUI H.264 Conversion Guide

Title:	MeGUI H.264 Conversion Guide
Description:	A guide on how to use MeGUI to encode H.264 (MP4) files, using DVD conversion as the main example
Author/Publisher:	DVDGuy
Ease of use:	Intermediate
Latest Version:	1.1 (details)
OS Support:
Software Used:	MeGUI, Nero Digital Audio Decoder/Encoder, x264
Date Added:	Nov 24, 2006
Last Updated:	Oct 9, 2007
Page Viewed:	548799 times

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mrpijey: Excellent guide! The only problem I...
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Categories:

Main Categories: AVI (DivX, XviD ...), DVD/SVCD/VCD (MPEG-1/2), MPEG-4 (ASF/WMV, QuickTime, Real, H.264 ...), DVD Conversion
Sub Categories:
AVI To Other Format Conversion -> AVI to MPEG-4 (AVC, H.264) Conversion
DVD Conversion -> DVD To MPEG-4 (AVC/H.264) Conversion
MPEG-4 (ASF, WMV, QuickTime, AVC, H.264 ...)
Video Encoding -> MPEG-4 (DivX, XviD, WMV, QuickTime, AVC, H.264 ...) Encoding

Page 1 of 7: Introduction and Installation

MeGUI is one of the newer tools that has been designed with H.264 encoding in mind, while supporting other types of conversion, such as XviD. This guide shows you how to encode a H.264 (MP4) using MeGUI from a DVD as the primary example (instructions for converting other types of video files are also included).

Update: There is now a version of this guide for encoding Xbox 360 compatible H.264 files, also using MeGUI. Read our Xbox 360 H.264 Conversion Guide to find out more.

This guide is aimed at intermediate users, basically users that are familiar with DVD conversion/backup and want to experiment with H.264 and MeGUI. As such, basic knowledge of DVD ripping and conversion is required, although brief instructions will be provided in any case.

Software you'll need (all freeware):

Step 1: Installation

The first thing you need to do before you can even install MeGUI is to download and install Microsoft's .NET Framework version 2.0. It's a fairly large file and installation could take more than half an hour.

The next thing you need to download and install is AviSynth.

You can now go on and download MeGUI.

Install MeGUI. Start it up and most likely, it will prompt you to update the software used by MeGUI - click "Yes" to launch the update Manager.

Press the "Update" button to start the update process - MeGUI will automatically download and launch the install for the required software. You will most likely get a "1 file had problems" error, this is because the "neroaacenc" software cannot be downloaded automatically from MeGUI. To download it, go to this page, and download the ZIP archive. There are several files in the ZIP archive, but the files we need are NeroAacEnc.exe or NeroAacEnc_SSE.exe. As the name suggest, the "SSE" version is optimized for processors that support SSE instructions (which is most of them, including all Intel Pentium III or newer CPUs and AMD Athlon XPs or newer). Extract one of these .exe files to your "megui\tools\neroaacenc" folder (eg. "c:\program files\megui\tools\neroaacenc\win32\neroaacenc.exe").

When all the updates are completed, you can now close the MeGUI updater.

If you've extracted neroaacenc, you might need to access the "Settings" option from the "Tools" menu, and go to the "Program Paths" section. For "NeroAacEnc", use the browse button to locate where you extracted the neroaacenc executable file (eg. "c:\program files\megui\tools\neroaacenc\win32\neroaacenc.exe"). Press "Save" to close the settings window.

Also, MeGUI often doesn't update to the latest x264 version, so you will have to do this manually. First, from within MeGUI, go to the "Tools" menu and select "Settings". Go to the "Program Paths" section and see where MeGUI accesses the x264.exe file.

Then go to our x264 software page and check the latest version - if it is newer than the version listed in MeGUI, download and save the x264.exe to where MeGUI accesses the x264.exe file to replace the old file (usually c:\program files\megui\tools\x264\x264.exe).

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Article Navigation:

Page 1: Introduction and Installation <--
Page 2: DVD Ripping
Page 3: D2V Creator
Page 4: AviSynth Script Creator
Page 5: Video Encoding Options
Page 6: Audio Encoding Options
Page 7: Cutting, Bitrate Calculator and AutoEncode

Revision History:

Version 1.1:

Date Updated: Oct 9, 2007
Updated instructions for MeGUI 0.2.6, for parallel execution using multiple workers

Version 1.0:

Date Updated: Nov 24, 2006
First public version

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User Comments:

Excellent guide! The only problem I have with this approach is that you can't control the output resolution very efficiently (meGUI reports 16:9, but outputs the video in 4:3 anyway, and if manually resized the output is skewed anyway) and the output video is extremely washed out compared to the original. I played back the resulting mp4-file in Quicktime, VLC and other players and it's the same on all, blacks are grey. The entire picture has a LOT of brightness.

Thanks, I've been trying to learn how to use this tool. There is a doubt in using autoencode: I'm not sure the profile I chose is used or not. for example, in the main input interface, I chose MKV as container and then the video profile. But when I press autoencode, the window pops up did not show any chosen profile while the container is MP4 as default... It feels the the settings in main input interface are ignored?

Astro_Toy: Rest assured that the profile settings are being used. However, you do need to separately select the container (MKV, MP4) since this setting is not part of the profile.

I keep getting "error" for audio when I start the encoding. Any ideas? I tried .mkv & .mp4 & I tried both the 5.1 audio track & the 2.0 track from my DVD.

Check your application routes in settings, Had that same problem encoding with NeroAAC and it was because I didn't have right route to the codec. Hope this helps. :-)

I'm getting this error:"C:\Program Files\megui\tools\x264\x264.exe: unknown option -- nal-hrd" when I encode using the SA Blu Ray profile. I made up my own blu ray profile without the --nal-hrd option. It is running now but I have to wait another 9 hours for it to finish (I have a crappy 1.8 GHz Athlon PC) and see if the result is any good. In the meantime, can you point me to any fix to this error?

Sibenik: That profile works for me. Are you using the latest version of x264 as updated through the MeGUI updater (as opposed to downloading the latest x264.exe from the official site)? Try that if you are still getting this error.

ok i keep getting an error when trying to use the avisynth creator it is a " Unable to render the file. You probably don't have the correct filters installed." all of the options are greyed out other than the Video input the avisynth which is set at "*scratchpad*" with the config button available and also the video output is available. I've followed this tutorial but it doesn't address this issue but i might have missed something. Any thoughts guys?

Roguecat: Sounds like you don't have the right filters installed. Make sure you are able to playback the file in Media Player Classic, and it is highly recommended that you use ffdshow, as it works very well with Avisynth