MeGUI "step by step" Guide (x264/MKV encoding)

[Nguyen Trung Hoa]

I wrote this Tutorial some time ago on a movie topic, never did I remembered to put it here. But its never late for good things to do or to say.
This entire idea of "small sized high quality" rips (especially for people with slow connections, without RS accounts and generally for everyones convinience) came from our dear member "Adzapper", so this is his legacy, but he never wrote any tutorials :P.
But he did helped somewhat with his pointers, although this tutorial is entirely my work, and "my way" of doing it. I hope it will help you for making these awesome rips.

Here are the links of 300MB MOVIE TOPIC's. Be sure to check them out!

On Original Thread the team members were:
ADz - NRI - xRBx - NeSa - JiM - SHAn - MiR

This is the second thread, cause the original one was deleted, frankly I don't know why, but surely Adzapper had more important things to do :), this second topic was started by "mini x264" member, as a result of great demands for these movies.

300MB UNiTED TEAM

Code:

http://www.warez-bb.org/viewtopic.php?t=1455047

Team members on the second topic are:
sAm - scOrp - roNy - sUN - dAp - sPYc - DwM - LMK

So this is their hard work and make sure you drop by sometimes saying a "Simple Thanks" on their topics.

BRIEF TUTORIAL FOR MeGUI AND ENCODING FROM HD's, DVDR's, HDrips AND DVDrips!


1. Installing and Updating:

Necessary codecs and programs:

Download links:


.net framework 2.0 (if you don't already have it installed)
Megui needs Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 to work properly.

Code:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856EACB-4362-4B0D-8EDD-AAB15C5E04F5&displaylang=en

If you don't have .net framework installed you will probably get these errors:
1. megui.exe - Application Error - The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application.
2. .Net framework initialization error.

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack:

Code:

http://www.codecguide.com/download_k-lite_codec_pack_mega.htm

Codecs, maybe the most important thing in this process...
Download them first and install.


Avisynth:

Code:

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/AviSynth.htm

Avisynth, the second most important thing.


Nero Audio Codec:

Code:

http://www.nero.com/eng/downloads-nerodigital-nero-aac-codec.php

Audio codecs (Nero Digital Audio) Third most important thing, you will be using this codec a lot. :) Explanation on how to use it, below.

meGUI (main program):

Code:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/megui/

install MeGUI, update it. (Update is a MUST! then load all profiles offered during the update!)

Latest x264.exe version: (it has more and advanced options for encoding than the one during the meGUI update, just replace it in C:/meGUI/tools/x264.exe)
Make sure you download the proper version for your Windows (Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7) check if it's x86 (32bit) or 64bit, of course that depends on your processor (CPU). 64bit processors have more operations than x86 (32bit) ones, allegedly meGUI works faster with 64bit x264.exe (library), but I haven't tried it yet, although x86 version of x264.exe works fine on 64bit systems, 64bit x264.exe does not work on x86 (32bit) systems. I can't bother with 64bit system (Windows) it's a pain in the ass mostly because of 64bit drivers for every single component :).

Code:

http://x264.nl/

My present profiles that I use (HQ-Slow, Slower etc. included):

Code:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=871Q5Q35

2. Opening and Creating Avisynth



When you run the program, File/Open your source film,
(SOURCE MUST BE GOOD QUALITY -- HD, HDrip, DVDR, DVDrip or atleast R5 LINE --, don't bother with low quality sources) it will ask you to create AVS file, its mostly needed for resizing, cropping,filter information, and source path of course. Just untick/unselect the Resize, cause if you temper with the resolution it doesn't turns out quite well, so original resolution is fine without resizing.
Only HD and DVDR need to be resized and cropped!



3. x264

Make sure that codec is x264 and container/extension/File Format is MKV. Use HQ Slower profile (it takes some time to encode, for me its like 3.5hrs, and on dual core processors its around 2hrs.) or even HQ slow (not much faster but with less command lines). Experiment with it, look at other people rips (especially Adzapper's, then compare to your own), maybe you find even better profile than HQ slower.
I was testing Sharktooth's custom profiles that can be found here:

Code:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=101813

Latest profiles in newer MeGUI versions:

Code:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=139765

Does not means that they are better, I still use old profiles.

4. Audio



Select codec to be NDAAC (Nero Digital Audio Codec) Use profile NDAAC-HE-64kbs, then select Adaptive bitrate and set from 30-50kbs (thats enough for decent audio quality and extremely high compression!) or you can use LAME MP3, go to config, there is not much things you can do here just change the bitrate from 128 to 80 (below that, the sound isnt very good) click OK.
NDAAC (Nero Digital Audio) is one of the best codecs, probably even better than LAME cause it can do high audio compression while preserving decent audio quality at small bitrates.
When you download nero audio codecs, copy all the files (neroAacDec.exe, neroAacEnc.exe, neroAacEnc_SSE.exe, neroAacTag.exe) from extracted directory (win32) to C:/Program Files/MeGUI/. Do not copy the entire directory, only files.


5. Final Step
In the lower right corner you have "Autoencode" tab. Click on it.



Select a Container to be MKV (if it isn't already). This is where you decide the entire outcome/bitrate of the movie. Click "average bitrate" option and type the desired bitrate (example: 500kbs total, 450kbs goes to video 50kbs to audio, of course if audio is set to 50kbs if it is set to higher bitrates then it will lower video bitrate), that is depending on movie duration your size and bitrate will vary. Aim to get the size 1MB BELOW the targeted size, if its 300MB rip, aim to 299MB, if its 400MB rip, aim to 399MB (this is because of compressing with winrar so you dont get fourth rar file on 300MB rips that is like 1-2MB's)

Also you should cut the end credits of every movie (source), there are a lot of programs that can do that easily.
It's not about the size, its about entire quality of the movie outcome.
Those 5-10 minutes can mean A LOT to entire picture quality on final result.
I did this regulary, just forgot to mention. Cheers!

6. Encoding



In autoencode window click Queue. In upper left corner you have the tabs Input/Queue/Log. Click on Queue. Click Start. If no workers exist program will offer to create one!
And thats it. Now you have to wait :P, in my case 3 hrs.

As Adzapper said, 100MB is 30min of the movie, 200MB is 60min of the movie, you get the point.

Ripping and encoding the movies from DVDR's.

I've done few DVDR's with megui (if you remember chronicles of riddick, underworld, underworld evolution etc.)
I've used two more tools for that one is called joinvobfiles that can be found here:
Code:

Code:

http://beginwithsoftware.com/videoguides/joinvobfilestool.html

and this one:

mpeg2cut (you can trim vob files if you want to remove end credits)

Code:

Code:

http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/downloads/showsoftware_mpeg2cut_294.html

ok this is MY process, probably there is faster, better blah blah, but still it worked.

First you need to find the main movie files usually called:
VTS_01_1.VOB,
VTS_01_2.VOB,
VTS_01_3.VOB,
VTS_01_4.VOB,
(DVD Decrypter is the best for that, if you know how to use it just select the option "select main movie files", and select the location).
Copy it to some temp folder and join those files with (join vob files program that I've provided the link for) into one big 4gig vob file.

rjuan pointed out an easier way to join vob files, that DVD Decrypter can join them as one file while copying "main movie files" I haven't tried this cause generally I didn't encode much of DVDRs to x264.
Here is how:

First step:


Second step:


Use mpeg2cut if you want to trim the end credits, save as new file of course. (When you cut, you select time borders from start to the time where end credits begins, then save that trimmed file to a new file)

Second thing you need to is open that joined file e.g. "joined.vob", File/open in meGUI, choose d2v creator, demux all audio tracks, wait until its created, open that d2v file, now very important thing... Avisynth will open, here you need to crop the image to remove black stripes (I've always used Auto crop and it worked fine), save that avisynth by desired name.
Choose appropriate audio track (there will be few probably... english and any other language).
The rest of the process is the same... Experiment with it...

Audio out of sync problem

I usually don't have this problem, ever... But for few of you who do come across bad audio source or something is messed up during the audio encoding process and your final output is out of sync, here is how you fix that in a few simple steps. There is an option in meGUI how to fix this but I prefer mkvmerge.
First, download mkvtoolnix (mkvmerge)

Code:

http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/win32/mkvtoolnix-unicode-3.0.0-setup.exe

Install it and follow these steps.



Hopes this helps..

I see many of you ask the same questions about problems not even looking what others have already encountered and sloved.

Word of advice, first read through the tutorial, then if you encounter any problems during setting up the program, encoding etc. search and read through these pages, miraculously you will probably find an answer for your problem, if not then try to ask for help.

Many of these same questions will probably not be repeated over and over again. :D

Cheers! :)