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
This step will rip (copy) the DVD files from the DVD disc to your hard drive, for further processing or burning straight to a DVD recordable. This step uses RipIt4Me (which will control and use DVD Decrypter, FixVTS as needed). Before you run RipIt4Me, make sure you don't have any other DVD decrypting/ripping tools running (like DVD43, AnyDVD, DVD Region+CSS Free) and also close any
conflicting programs. The instructions here are for you typical movie DVD - for episodic DVDs (eg. TV shows), please refer to
this RipIt4Me FAQ entry.
There are some running tips/notices for RipIt4Me in the
official guide (just below the table of contents).
This guide will not cover all aspects of RipIt4Me operation. If you run into problems or see error messages in this step, or simply want to read a more detailed guide on RipIt4Me, please refer to the
official RipIt4Me guide. There is also a
frequently asked questions document.
Pop the source DVD disc into your DVD drive.
Start RipIt4Me. From the "Logs/Settings" menu, select "Preferences" and uncheck the "Run DVD Shrink after rip" option under the "1-click" mode section. Press the "OK" button to save the changes.
Click on the
button. The following screen should come up:
Check to make sure the selected DVD drive letter is the correct one. The default output directory is based on the DVD's title, and this should be fine. Change the ripping setting to "Movie only" (again, if your DVD is an episodic one, please refer to
this RipIt4Me FAQ entry). The available audio and subtitle streams should now be shown down the bottom - you don't need to change anything, but you need to note down the stream number (eg. 0x80 => 1st stream, 0x81 => 2nd stream) for the audio, which you'll need to know for MeGUI. Press "Next" to continue.
RipIt4Me will now automatically start and operate all the required programs for ripping. When ripping has been finished, you will get a dialog box notifying you that the logs have been moved to another directory. You can view previously saved logs by using the "Log/Settings" -> "View saved logs" function (log files are needed when you run into a problem and want to get help in our (official)
RipIt4Me forum.
The DVD has now been ripped. You can now close RipIt4Me.
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
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)
Url to this pages:
http://nade.dk/web/nade/site.nsf/FramesetHP?readform&wmain=files/Megui