.asf - video CD, How can i do it?

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I have a couple of films ive done in .asf format. I want to make them so that I can play it on my DVD player. Is it possible? if so, how can I go about doing that. I have a CD writer, so burning the cds are no problem.

Thanks, Any help is much appreciated!

-- BecK (lifeforms@startrekmail.com), May 26, 2000

Answers

Virtual Dub 1.3c is the program you'll need. You can use the built-in Mpeg encoder (DVMpeg5.0) to do it on the fly, but quality from this mpeg encoder is like trash. The alternative is use the frameserver from this software to convert the video stream into avi format and let panasonic encoder or LSX encoder to do the job. If you going to use the frameserver, then you must split up the sound stream from the ASF first using the audio process in virtual dub first (save the audio as wav format). You can process both the video or audio as individual stream and combine them at encoding time.

-- lnguyen (wingstarzz@hotmail.com), May 26, 2000.

Funny you should ask this right now as I have just started experimenting with doing the same. I have been using ASF to record TV shows for over a year now, and have amassed quite a large collection of complete series. Now that I have a DVD player that can play VCDs and SVCDs, I am converting some to VCD.

For some reason, ASF gets a lot of ridicule as a not very good format. This is BS. I think the reason for this is because there are a lot of pirated movies out there that are cam'd off movie screens and the quality of these is pretty poor. However, if you know what your doing and set the encoder correctly (bitrate, keyframes and audio rate), you can get excellent results. As a matter of fact, DivX, which so many people rave about is ASF. It is a hacked version of the mpeg4 version 3 video codec and an mp3 audio codec. Anyway, here is how I converted ASF to VCD rate mpg.

1: Edit the ASF into less than 10 minutes clips, usually the amount of time between commercials (no wonder the average persons attention span is so short, LOL). This is done for audio sync problems which I will address later. Edit with ASFChop (I won't go into that here, if you don't know how to use it, don't bother) at the MS-DOS prompt.

2. Use VirtualDub 1.3c (not 1.3d) and set to direct stream copy. You may or may not need to change framerate so audio/video durations match (just have to test). Compression should be set to uncompressed RGB (you will need the pre-6.4 version of MPG4c32.dll in order to be able to play the resultant AVI with mediaplayer). Chances are that the audio may be out of sync, you will just have to experiment with various settings until you find one that works. If necessary, you can always start with smaller asf clips. (After all the conversions, it is no problem to join all the pieces back together).

3. I used TmpgEnc V0.11e to convert the AVI to VCD rate mpg. I used it because it seems to be the fastest at about 3:1 ratio and found no advantage to using Panasonic. There are lots of settings and filters you can play around with. However, I didn't find using the highest quality settings worth the extra time, the lowest quality worked just fine. After it's finished you should have a VCD mpg file that is at least equal to your original ASF. Remember, you must have a good ASF file to begin with. If it has artifacts in the original, no amount of re-processing is going to make much improvement.

4. Now you can either join all your clips together with an mpeg editing tool or just leave them seperate and burn to a VCD in the correct order.

I can tell you that my ASF to VCD conversions look absolutely as good as the original. The biggest headache will be getting the audio to sync up. But isn't this always the case. ;-)

EG Marshall

-- EG Marshall (4me@schoolmail.com), May 26, 2000.


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Uber nicht koggleschrieber uta meine assen holen

-- General Von Kliken Heffer (swine@arse.com), December 04, 2000.


have been doing asf files for my movies and clips for over a year now and also have found great ways to change them over as well...

the information you give is very well thought and extremely workable...however i would suggest a u-lead studios version 7.0 for using when converting either to or from asf format.

seing as to how it has a tie to microsoft in some fashion it comes with the popular wma/asf codecs...absolutely invaluable in quality sound files with the precise video digital can offer...very easy to sync the voice stream (or music) it also in my opinion blows away most all others as far as sound reproduction for low kilobyte reduction and makes it a quality internet sending format as well as recompressing to mpeg or even mpeg-4 if you so desire

and you get to drop one step...the conversion to avi is totally unnessecary when using this system because the output files are exactly the same in size quality and storage capability

i don not know however the possibility of a portable player since i never use one and have never formatted for one

if done properly the 10 minute rule goes out the window as well...using a standard comp (no extra mem just the standard 14g) i can do 35-40 minutes at once with this system...dropping the avi file helps in this fashion as well

hope this helps and pushes you to find more answers...have enjoyed reading your comments and look forward to more

thanx mouthpiece

-- mouthpiece (mouthpiece@labia69.com), May 19, 2001.


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