MPEGRepair is a versatile MPEG encoding utility designed to both ease the difficulty of MPEG encoding and assist in the repair of troubled video streams. MPEGRepair is capable of handling HDTV and IMAX video frame sizes.

Tech Tips - MPEG to H.264 Transcoding

Overview

MPEGRepairHD’s transcoding ability can be used to convert your old MPEG content into the new highly compressed AVC/H.264 encoding standard in a single easy pass operation.

Demo

A demonstration of the MPEG to H.264 transcoding capability of MPEGRepairHD can be obtained at h264transcodedemo.zip. Just unzip the directory structure and launch the Mpg2H264.bat program.

The demo program will automatically transcode the included MPEG file called flowers.mpg into anAVC/H.264 file called flowers.264.

Transcoding using the MPEGRepairHD GUI

MPEGRepair transcoding is accomplished by browsing to or entering the source MPEG file you wish to transcode in the Encode Input edit box. The source MPEG can be an elementary, program, transport, VOB, or system stream. MPEGRepairHD will automatically determine the input file format and extract and decode the individual frames during the transcoding process*.

Once you have set up the MPEG source for the transcode, you can next configure the actual re-encoding process using the Optimize Encode | Configure and Preprocess settings as needed. The H.264 encoding is controlled entirely in the Configure | H.264 dialog box. Check the Encode Using H.264 box at the top of the dialog. Be certain to update the Frame Width and Frame Height in this dialog as well. The Source Pictures can be used to specify the number of frames to transcode if you wish to transcode fewer frames than exist in the source video. Remember that settings in other dialogs do not affect the H.264 encoding.

You can use the PreProcessing options to re-size the source video before encoding. The H.264 Frame Width and Frame Height should be identical to the frame size resulting from the PreProcess option if used.

Click on image to see larger view

Depress the Encode Run button to start the transcoding process.

Transcoding using the WorkShop SDK

The Expert WorkShop SDK can be used to decode each frame into memory. Be sure to provide each DecodeNextFrame function call with pointer to a memory buffer that will hold the entire frame. We recommend that you specify a frame type of YUV as that is the native MPEG storage format.

The Expert H.264 WorkShop SDK can be used to encode each frame as it is decoded using the above decoding process.

Specifications

Transcoding source can be any multiplexed or elementary MPEG 1 or MPEG 2 source file including transport, program, VOB, and system streams. The H.264 encoding can be to baseline, main or extended profile at levels 1.0 through 5.1. Encoding can be from all I frame through only one I frame per video. Encoding can use from 1 through 5 reference frames. Frame sizes can be from 16x16 through 16384 x 16384. Encoding can be constant quantization (variable bit-rate) or constant bit-rate

*The original SD 3.0 mbps mpeg file will be transocded into a 0.7 mbps H.264 file.

MPEGRepairHD and ExpertWorkshop SDK are trademarks of PixelTools Corporation. All other brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respected holders