CCE's Limitations

To CCE's credit, it does one thing very well. It encodes MPEG-2 video. It's MPEG Audio encoder is fairly low quality, and it has no AC-3 encoding capabillity at all. Its filters aren't as good as you can get from editing software, and it can't even open many video files. It does, however, do a spectacular job of encoding MPEG-2 video. Since that's what we're doing at this stage, most of those limitations aren't important, but one important quirk of the program is.

Opening MPEG files

One of the few video containers CCE can open is an AVI file. Even then, there are restrictions on what video content can be contained in the file. Without other software, like MPEG-4 decoders, installed it requires that your video be in either YUY2 or RGB colorspace. This rules out most AVI files as well. So how can we get it to read our video? AviSynth

AviSynth

AviSynth presents video through the same Windows interface as an AVI file - Video for Windows (VfW). AviSynth has the abillity (via DGDecode) to read MPEG files, as well as converting the video to the YUY2 colorspace CCE requires. CCE can open AviSynth scripts because it sees them like AVI files.

YUY2 Colorspace

In the previous guide you should have created AviSynth scripts for all your sources. They should all end with this line:

ConvertToYUY2()

That line converts to the YUY2 colorspace so CCE will accept it as input. If, for some reason, you're reading this guide but not using CCE to encode, you should probably omit the line from your scripts.

NTSC Scripts

If you want to double check your scripts to make sure they read correctly, you can use these examples as templates. If you're making a PAL DVD you should look below at the PAL Scripts section for help. With a couple of exceptions each one applies to multiple video sources. Each title will be listed with the script to be used. All you should need to do is change the location of the source file to match yours.

The 39 Steps

MPEG2Source("D:\Storage 3\Basic DVD Project\Feature\The_39_Steps.d2v", cpu=0)
MPEG2Source("D:\Wherever\The_39_Steps.d2v", info=3)
ColorMatrix(mode="Rec.709->Rec.601", hints=true)
Lanczos4Resize(720,480)
ConvertToYUY2()

Electric Earthquake, Eleventh Hour, & The Mechanical Monsters

MPEG2Source("D:\Wherever\filename.d2v")
tfm(d2v="D:\Wherever\filename.d2v")
tdecimate()
ConvertToYUY2()

The Mummy Strikes

MPEG2Source("D:\Wherever\filename.d2v", info=3)
ColorMatrix(mode="Rec.709->Rec.601", interlaced=true, hints=true)
tfm()
tdecimate()
ConvertToYUY2()

All Remaining MPEG-2 Files

MPEG2Source("D:\Wherever\filename.d2v", info=3)
ColorMatrix(mode="Rec.709->Rec.601", interlaced=true, hints=true)
tfm(d2v="D:\Wherever\filename.d2v")
tdecimate()
ConvertToYUY2()

The Arctic Giant

DirectShowSource("D:\Wherever\arctic_giant.m4v", fps=29.97)
tdecimate()


Lanczos4Resize(720,480)
ConvertToYUY2()

All MP4 Files

DirectShowSource("D:\Wherever\filename.mp4", fps=23.976)
Lanczos4Resize(720,480)
ConvertToYUY2()

PAL Scripts

If you want to double check your scripts to make sure they read correctly, you can use these examples as templates. If you're making a PAL DVD you should look below at the PAL Scripts section for help. With a couple of exceptions each one applies to multiple video sources. Each title will be listed with the script to be used. All you should need to do is change the location of the source file to match yours.

The 39 Steps

MPEG2Source("D:\Storage 3\Basic DVD Project\Feature\The_39_Steps.d2v", cpu=0, info=3)
MPEG2Source("D:\Wherever\The_39_Steps.d2v", info=3)
ColorMatrix(mode="Rec.709->Rec.601", hints=true)
Lanczos4Resize(720,576)
ConvertToYUY2()

Electric Earthquake, Eleventh Hour, & The Mechanical Monsters

MPEG2Source("D:\Wherever\filename.d2v")
tfm(d2v="D:\Wherever\filename.d2v")
tdecimate()
AssumeFPS(25)
ConvertToYUY2()

The Mummy Strikes

MPEG2Source("D:\Wherever\filename.d2v", cpu=0, info=3)
ColorMatrix(mode="Rec.709->Rec.601", interlaced=true, hints=true)
tfm()
tdecimate()
AssumeFPS(25)
ConvertToYUY2()

All Remaining MPEG-2 Files

MPEG2Source("D:\Wherever\filename.d2v", info=3)
ColorMatrix(mode="Rec.709->Rec.601", interlaced=true, hints=true)
tfm(d2v="D:\Wherever\filename.d2v")
tdecimate()
AssumeFPS(25)
ConvertToYUY2()

The Arctic Giant

DirectShowSource("D:\Wherever\arctic_giant.m4v", fps=29.97)
tdecimate()


Lanczos4Resize(720,576)
AssumeFPS(25)
ConvertToYUY2()

All MP4 Files

DirectShowSource("D:\Wherever\filename.mp4", fps=23.976)
Lanczos4Resize(720,576)
AssumeFPS(25)
ConvertToYUY2()