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).
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. Once you have it fully installed, you can now go on and download MeGUI.
Download MeGUI and install it. 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 due to copyright reasons (it is freeware, but you need to go through Nero's software agreement first before you can download it). If you need to update "neroaacenc", go to
this page, select "Agree" to download the ZIP archive and extract the .exe files (in the win32/ folder in the ZIP archive) to your "megui\tools\neroaacenc" folder (eg. "c:\program files\megui\tools\neroaacenc\neroaacenc.exe").
When all the updates are completed, you can now close the MeGUI updater.
If you are converting from a commercial DVD source, you will need to rip the DVD to your hard-drive using RipIt4Me. RipIt4Me (and tools required by it) also needs to be installed - you can either follow the instructions in the
RipIt4Me guide or follow step 1 of our
Quick and Dirty DVD Backup Guide (you can skip installing ImgBurn and DVD Shrink, just install DVD Decrypter, RipIt4Me and FixVTS).
And we're now finished with the installation. If you are converting from a commercial DVD source, please proceed to the next page/step (Step 2: DVD Ripping). If you are converting from MPEG-2 (but not from a commercial DVD), please skip to step 3 (Step 3: D2V Creator). For all other video formats (eg. AVI,
Step 2: DVD Ripping
Step 3: D2V Creator
This step will use MeGUI's D2V Creator tool to create a D2V file needed for MeGUI/AviSynth to handle MPEG-2 files. This step is required only for MPEG-2 files - all other types of inputs do not require a D2V file and can be loaded straight into AviSynth and therefore, you can skip this step and go to the next page/step (Step 4: AviSynth Script Creator).
Start MeGUI. I like to first clear the job queues of previously finished jobs. This is optional, but it might help to make things clearer. To do this, click on the "Queue" tab and then click on the "Clear" button.
From the "Tools" menu, select "D2V Creator". In the "Video Input" section, load the first ripped VOB file of the movie titleset (the rest of the files in the set will be loaded automatically). You will get an error message about not being able to find DVD Decrypter generated info files, this is fine (as we did not use DVD Decrypter's IFO mode) and
press "OK" to skip this error.
In RipIt4Me's step 1, you were asked to take note of the audio track numbers. We'll need it here select which audio track(s) to demux - you can select more than one track if you want the encoded file to have multiple audio tracks. Alternatively, you can just select the demux all the tracks and then choose the correct audio track(s) later on.
The default save directory is the same directory as your loaded DVD VOB files - change this if you want to.
Select both the "On completion load files", "and close" checkboxes and
press the "Queue" button. You are now returned to MeGUI -
click on the "Queue" tab and press the "Start" button to start the D2V creation. When processing has finished, the status of the queued job will read "Done" and the created D2V file will be loaded into the AviSynth Script Creator ready for the next step. This can take a while, so please be patient - the status window's progress bar may not move, but don't worry, DGIndex is working
Step 4: AviSynth Script Creator
This step will use MeGUI's AviSynth Script Creator tool to create an AviSynth script. If you followed Step 3,
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.
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. Instructions on how to do this can be found in the
FLV playback section of our
YouTube, Google Video Download and DivX Conversion Guide.
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.
Press the "Auto Crop" button to remove the black bars from the input video if it has any (most widescreen DVDs will).
Next,
check the "Suggested Resolution" checkbox and change the resolution to one that you require. For DVD conversion onto a single CD (700 MB) using H.264, you can get away with using the maximum resolution (720x***). If you have specific requirements, such as conversion to iPod/PSP compatible files, please make sure the resolution you select matches your playback device's capabilities.
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. 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.
Step 5a: Video Encoding Options MP4
We'll now set up the H.264 encoding options in the x264 encoder. This step has the most options to configure, and too many to cover in this guide alone. What I'll recommend is to use one of Sharktooth's profiles, and if you need further explanation of the options, refer to our
x264 Options Explained article.
In the MeGUI "Input" section, select "x264" as the "Codec" and "MP4" as the "Container".
For the "Video Profiles" option, select one of the x264 encoding profiles so we don't have to manually configure all the settings (unless you want to
, then click on the "Config" button to do so). A full explanation of what each profile is used for can be found on the
official forum thread for the profiles. For compatibility, I recommend using the CE profiles, particularly the "CE-QuickTime" profile (this will make the MP4 file playable in Apple QuickTime 7 or newer). The "CE-Baseline" profile is also fully QuickTime compatible, but uses less advanced features (and so will be faster during encoding at the expense of some quality).
Step 5b: Video Encoding Options XVID
Step 6: Audio Encoding Options
Step 7: AutoEncode and starting the encoding
MeGUI Custom x264/AVC video profiles. (Updated: 2006-12-21)
Instructions
Install
MeGUI and let the autoupdate run, it will automatically fetch the profiles from the autoupdate server or if you prefer get the profiles archive (below) and use the MeGUI Import Profiles option to import them.
Once imported you will find the profiles in the "Video Profiles" drop down list.
Before starting encoding set the bitrate or quantizer (manually or thru the calculator) and adjust the inloop filter accordingly to your needs/taste: keep it 1;1 or higher for anime/toons (max 3;3) and not higher than x264 defaults (0;0) for movies.
Profiles for maximizing Quality and hit a desired bitrate/filesize (2 or more passes, SLOW encoding, High Profile)
HQ-Slow: Pretty slow but not much. Quality is near the best.
HQ-Slower: Slower than HQ-Slow but it tries to squeeze some more compression thru the use of more reference frames.
HQ-Slowest: Same as HQ-Slower with more reference frames.
HQ-Insane: All settings maxed out.
Profiles for Common Encoding (2-passes)
CE-Highprofile: Common settings using high profile options (not compatible with QuickTime)
CE-Mainprofile: Common settings using main profile options (not compatible with QuickTime)
CE-QuickTime: Common settings for QuickTime 7 compatibility.
CE-Baseline: Common settings using baseline profile options (100% compatible with QuickTime 7)
Profiles for maximizing Speed and hit a desired bitrate/filesize (1-pass)
1P-Maxspeed: Everything disabled for max encoding speed (good for live capturing).
1P-Intermediate: Intermediate settings for average speed and final quality.
1P-Goodquality: Settings for good quality with 1 pass.
Profiles for constant Quality/Quantizer (1-pass)
CQ-Lossless: Lossless encoding.
CQ-ASP_Q2_equiv: Almost the equivalent of MPEG-4 ASP Q2 encoding.
CQ-ASP_Q2_eq(crf): Same as above but with "constant quality" (constant rate factor).
Profiles for Anime/Toons (2 passes)
AE-Standard: 2 passes, Main Profile, standard quality.
AE-Goodquality: Slower than AE-Standard, High Profile, higher quality.
AE-Maxquality: Slowest mode with maxed out settings, best quality.
Profiles for Consoles and Portable Devices
PD-PSP: Profile for Sony PSP playback.
PD-Xbox_Hires: Profile for MS XBOX and higher than 512pixels resolution (latest XBMC is needed).
PD-Xbox_LoRes: Profile for MS XBOX and lower than 512pixels resolutions (latest XBMC is needed).
PD-iPod: Profile for iPod Video based on
Arstechnica settings.
PD-iPod 5.5G: Profile for the new iPod 5.5G.
Profiles for HD-DVDs
SA-HD-DVD: First EXPERIMENTAL Profile for HD-DVD.
Url to this pages:
http://nade.dk/web/nade/site.nsf/FramesetHP?readform&wmain=files/Megui