Articles - > PS3 H.264 Conversion Guide

Title:	PS3 H.264 Conversion Guide
Description:	This guide shows you how to convert DVD/AVI/DivX/XviD/MOV files to a PS3 compatible H.264 file that can uses AAC or AC3 5.1 audio, covering 3 methods for making MP4, VOB or a M2TS stream
Author/Publisher:	DVDGuy
Ease of use:	Intermediate
Software Used:	MeGUI, mkv2vob, Nero Digital Audio Decoder/Encoder, tsMuxeR, TVersity
Page Viewed:	480974 times

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monzaa: i seem to be having trouble...
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Page 3 of 10: MeGUI: AviSynth Script Creator

Step 3: MeGUI: AviSynth Script Creator

For more information on all the settings of MeGUI, ple2ase refer to the MeWiki website.

This step will use MeGUI's AviSynth Script Creator tool to create an AviSynth script. If you followed Step 2, the AviSynth Script Creator tool should already be started with the D2V file created loaded. Otherwise, you'll need to load the media file you want to convert into the "Video Input" section (see hint below about opening files whose formats AviSynth does not natively support, including MOV files).

AviSynth is able to open almost any video file that you are able to play with a Directshow based multimedia player, such as Media Player Classic or Windows Media Player. You may need to select the "All Files" option when opening the file to be able to see it (eg. FLV files). In most cases, you'll need to install a video codec, an audio codec and a splitter filter for the format you wish to convert.

For example, if you want to convert FLV files using MeGUI, you will first need to make sure you have the required video, audio and splitter filters to make FLV files playable in Windows Media Player. A good way to ensure you have all the right codecs and filters installed is to use the K-Lite Mega Codecs Pack. Download the package, and it will ask you to uninstall any existing filters which might interfere, and then install a set that is very compatible with tools like MeGUI. You can find instruction on how to install the K-Lite Mega Codecs Pack here.

The "Input DAR" is the aspect ratio of the input video. In most circumstances, it should be automatically set for you. Anamorphic DVDs will be set to "ITU 16:9", for example.

For DVD sources, press the "Auto Crop" button to remove the black bars from the input video if it has any (most widescreen DVDs will, but most other files won't).

Next, you have to decide whether you need to reduce the resolution of the output video as compared to the input. In most cases, especially converting from DivX/XviD, you do not need to resize it, so uncheck the "Resize" option. For DVD sources, you might need to reduce the resolution, but only if you have file size requirements (eg. to fit a certain amount of video onto 1 CD). For DVD conversion onto a single CD (700 MB) using H.264, you can get away with using the maximum resolution (720x***) - so uncheck "Resize" in this case too.

If you do decide to decrease the resolution, check the "Resize" option and then check the "Suggested Resolution" checkbox too and change the resolution to one that you require. Recommended resolutions for the PS3 include 640x***, 720x***, 1280x*** (720p) and 1920x**** (1080p). In general, you need to ensure the height is a factor of 16 (mod-16) - any height number that is divisible by 16 should be fine, and the resolutions offered by "Suggested Resolution" will ensure this.

Click on the "Filters" tab. For films on DVDs, you usually do not need to run a deinterlacing analysis. If the content you have is TV based, then you might need to click on the "Analysis" button to see if the video requires de-interlacing. Select "Source is Anime" if that's what you have.

Again, if you followed my advice for keeping the resolution for DVD sources, then you don't need either the resize of the noise filters. Otherwise, if you chose to reduce the resolution, then you can choose how the resize will look like ("Bicubic (Neutral)" is recommended as a middle of the road choice). If the source has lots of noise, you can choose to enable the noise filter and choose how much noise is present in your source (usually not necessary, unless the original source is VHS or something). The other options can be left alone ("Colour Correction" is automatically checked for D2V input sources).

If your source is not DVD, then you can click on the "Edit" tab and edit the AviSynth script manually to enable audio (you don't need to do this with DVD sources if you have followed this guide, since we have already demuxed the audio using D2V Creator). Simply change the "audio=false" entry to "audio=true".

Make sure the "On save close and load to be encoded" option and press the "Save" button to save the AviSynth script (by default, in the same directory as the D2V file, the filename is not important). Don't worry too much about the AviSynth Script Creator tool's preview window - it can be a little buggy where cropping and resizing and concerned. After saving, the AviSynth file should be loaded automatically into MeGUI - MeGUI's preview window does work fine and please make sure the video looks alright, especially for DVD sources with cropping/resize.

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Article Navigation:

Page 1: Introduction + Installation
Page 2: DVD/MPEG-2 Conversion
Page 3: MeGUI: AviSynth Script Creator <--
Page 4: MeGUI: Video Encoding Options
Page 5: MeGUI: Audio Encoding Options
Page 6: MeGUI: Cutting, Bitrate Calculator and AutoEncode
Page 7: Method 1: MP4 container with AAC audio
Page 8: Method 2: VOB container with AC3/DTS audio
Page 9: Method 3: M2TS (M2T) container with AC3 audio
Page 10: TVersity: Playing the H.264 file on your PS3

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User Comments:

i seem to be having trouble with the v2.6 if MeGUI. anyone else having probs?

This guide worked like a charm when encoding to AAC, however, when selecting the mkv container and AC3, i keep getting a fatal error in MeGUI. "Input and Output files may not be same Source of exception...". Has anyone else seen this. I've tried from the scratch twice now, and always get this error when I push "autoencode". Thanks!

skro: In AutoEncode, try to set the output file name to be different to any of the input files - try a different directory to save the file if you can

I believe that this guide may need updating, or you need to make seperate guides for AAC and AC3 audio streams. The reason? http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=ps3media&thread.id=96630 I found a way to get seeking to work, but only with AC3 files. And no, this IS NOT the one-step MKV -> VOB way.

Thanks Breakthrough, for the heads up. I'm in the process of updating the guide already, and the new version should be available in a few day's time

Thanks DVDGuy. Again, the only problem with my method is the lack of any other audio stream (DTS/AAC don't work, but I'm still testing PCM). Also, I haven't tested streaming it with TVersity. Now, for my question to you. In my process, I noted that you HAVE to process the video through H264info (regardless if you set the encoder settings properly). I followed this guide exactly, and got a playable stream - however, it doesn't work in a .M2TS container. The reason? I noticed that, when I put the .264 file right from MeGUI (along with the .AC3 stream) into tsMuxeR, and began to mux them, I got a "frame delimiter absent" error. It still processes, but the resultant stream fails to play; only after processing it with H264info does it work. Do you have any clue why this happens, and how to solve it? I don't know much about MeGUI, so maybe it's an option that only relates to the resultant stream? I couldn't find anything in Google, and it'd be nice to eliminate this step (because, more often than not, it's quite time consuming). Thanks! :)

There is an option within x264 for "Access Unit Delimiter" (--aud), which is necessary for storage within MPEG-2 transport streams. Might have to test if enabling this will get rid of the "frame delimiter absent" error

Hi There. I have a problem with the audio decoding. I have several movies with the length of almost 2 hours. After decoding the AC3 soundmix, It will sort of stop by 199.1MB. the projected size will decrease to also 199.1 MB. this will happen by al these movies. When i play the audio file it stopped after the same time as the 199.1MB, When i try to decode a movie with only 43 minutes it does work. does anyone knows with is wrong? tnx for the answer. and thanx for the Tut.

is it normal that after 6 hours im still on job 2. I have 4 jobs: Audio,AVC 1st pass,AVC 2nd pass,mux . Im still on 90% of job2 after at least 6-7 hours.my pc: P4530J 3GHZ 1GB ram GF6600GT, 160 GB SATA HDD

AVC encoding takes a while. For reference, on a P4 3.2 GHz, it takes 30 minutes to encode a 2 minute 720p video (from an 1080p source).

so it's not very pleasant method.If you have to make 30 hour(at least) operation for a 2 hour movie ... ? how would you comment on that ?

The encoding time I quoted was for a P4 3.2 GHz, which is quite outdated now. Modern CPUs should do it a lot faster, but you're still looking at several hours to encode your typical movie. Unfortunately that's the major problem with AVC at the moment, since it's a great quality codec, but it takes a lot of CPU to encode and decode - quality comes at a price. Future CPU/GPUs will support accelerated encoding (I think Nvidia recently demonstrated a transcoding of a 2 hour HD video using their GPU, and it only took only 20 minutes to do the whole thing), and x264 (the encoding engine used by MeGUI) will be updated to include more of these types of acceleration/optimizations in the future.

I made one encoding.I reencoded from 720p mkv file with DTS sound to a 720p(used the resize function and chose 1280x*** suggested resolution) VOB Container with 384Kbps for audio.The file turned out to be 4,62GB although I specified 1DVD on two drop-down menus and I'm not sure but if I remember correct estimated size was not bigger than a DVD can hold.Is this normal and what do I have to change to reduce my filesize to fit a single DVD?Do I have to do all over again because the reencoding took my PC 2 and a half days or is there a fast working splitter to split them in a sec.Thanks in advance.

Awesome guide! on a somewhat related note, does anyone know how to resize/reencode a HDDVD to something playable on ps3 through Tversity? With the format being dead, I'm worried I won't be able to play back my collection once my hddvd addon dies..... I understand it is possible to rip the discs as is, but that will take too much space. I'd like to resize to 720p, and get it in a format the ps3 can read. Any ideas????? Thanks!

tosvus: There's a HD DVD to Blu-ray guide floating around somewhere on the net, which might interest you. I might get around to write a version of this guide too here.

There is no need to fix the h264 stream with H264info anymore. In fact, "fixing" the stream will actually break it (it will still be playable but with glitches). I have a question about b-pyramids: Is it still true, that the PS3 doesn't support it? I just tried a sample with b-pyramids allowed and it works fine. Though I'm not sure if b-pyramids are actually used.