Encoding a movie

Hello,
Have downloaded a musical movie, length 2:54 hours. The picture is a little dark and audio volume low.
I am trying to re-encode the movie (with video and audio filters), once in "AVIDEMUX", had to stop it after six hours when only 35 % were done. Now I'm trying to do the same with "VideoPad Video editor", there are still 7.5 hours to go and only 21% were done. The program and encoder use almost 88% cpu.
I was thinking to do altogather with "DVD styler" to make a dvd and at the same time make the enhancement, but there is only an option to amplify the volume, no video filters.
Is there some way to do this job faster, or some other program which works quicker ?
Answers will be much appreciated
Thanks
Motim

Hi, I found 'DVD Styler' as a replacement for Microsoft's DVD Maker. That was removed when my W7 Media edition was upgrade to Windows 10 (because it was part of the deprecated 'Media Centre').

At the heart of DVD Styler's video processing is the Open Source command line utility ffmpeg, DVDStyler is the GUI front end but the hard work of video processing is done by ffmpeg. You can (and I do) run ffmpeg from a command line yourself, that way you have far more processing options that DVDStyler makes available. While you could use the sub-set of ffmpeg that comes with DVDStyler, it's better to download the complete version. That way you also get ffplay, a video player that takes all the same command line options as ffmpeg and lets you preview the effects. The command line syntax can take a bit of getting used to (unless you are familiar with Linux).

Changing the volume is relatively easy using the audio filter volume.
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/How%20t...0with%20FFmpeg

Changing the brightness/contrast is a bit more complicated, or rather it's tricky to find the right settings for your needs - that's where ffplay is useful. The video filter eq is what you need to use.
https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#eq

As a starting point, try...
ffplay -i input.mp4 -vf "eq=brightness=0.2:contrast=2" -af volume=2
...and adjust the parameters until it looks/sounds as you want.

Then you're ready to do the conversion. The defaults for ffmpeg produce a reasonable compromise between speed of conversion, quality of output and file size. If you want to get higher quality for a smaller file size (at the cost of processing speed) then see the documentation for Constant Rate Factor (CRF).

1. Choose a CRF value
...A lower value is a higher quality and a subjectively sane range is 18-28. Consider 18 to be visually lossless or nearly so: it should look the same or nearly the same as the input but it isn't technically lossless.

https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/H.264

My priority is file size, so I generally use a CRF of 28. You can also select a preset for how fast or slow to process, the slower the better for quality and compression. There are also tunings to suit various video formats (cartoons vs. films, for example). So, once you have chosen appropriate video/audio filter parameters, my command line to do the conversion would be:

ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "eq=brightness=0.2:contrast=2" -af volume=2 -crf 28 -preset veryslow -tune film out.mp4

Depending on your processor speed, the above is likely to run at about half real-time speeds. An hour of video is likely to take at least a couple of hours to process (I leave mine running over night).

Ffmpeg is widely used in the commercial video industry, if you get stuck just Google 'ffmpeg' and what you are trying to achieve - chances are a professional has already asked for (and been given) the answer.

Hello Bree,
Thanks a lot for the detailed answer.
I'm not so familiar using command lines, but I'l give it a try - time to learn.
When I posted the thread about encoding the movie (with "videopad video editor"), it was at about 11 AM (local time), the encoding was supposed to end this moments (9 PM), but an hour ago the program's pop-up window said my movie was succesfully finished, then I klicked on the OK button, and the program crashed. Opened the place where the 'finished' movie file was, there was a large 1.7 GB file - un playable(and unfinished). A whole day work went to the drain.
Now about DVDStyler, when I first made the dvd of this movie, could amplify the volume, but could not find any filters to manage the picture. So I will use your answer as a guide, and give it a try.
Again, many Thanks.
Motim

Hello Bree
Please see attached screenshot, I am poor with command prompt.
Thanks
Motim

I see you've found your ffmpeg.exe. The 'path' command in your screenshot is incorrect. You should have typed:
path=%path%;D:\My Win 10 machine\.....\dvdstyler\bin
(obviously, I've abbreviated that a bit, you should type everything that I've left out and replaced with the '....'). You do NOT type ffmpeg.exe on the end, just the full address of the folder it's in. What you are doing with this command is adding the directory that holds ffmpeg to the list of folders that Windows looks in when you type a command. Next try typing ffmpeg on its own, it should run and tell you its version number, and a lot more besides.

If you can now run ffmpeg, the next step is to change directory to the one where your video file is kept. Use the cd command for this, something like (use your correct folder name, this is just an example):
cd C:\admin\Videos\My Films\

Now you can run your full ffmpeg command. Note that if the names of your video files have spaces in them you need to put them in quotes:

ffmpeg -i "My film.mp4" -vf eq=brightness=0.2:contrast=2 "My test output.mp4"

Let it run until you have encoded several minutes of video (ffmpeg tells you how far it has got), then end the encoding by pressing the 'Q' key (or Ctrl-C). Play the video, adjust the brightness/contrast/volume numbers if necessary and try again (and again) until you achieve the effect you desire. Then you can type the eq=brightness=0.2:contrast=2 parameters (using your numbers and without the -vf bit) into DVDStyler's 'filter' box.

Hello Bree,
Well, had some problems typing correctly in the command prompt box, got many error messages, but finally got this ffmpeg runing.
Made some tests, still have to find the right numbers for brightness and contrast. (Copy and paste does not work in the command promt)
Another small question please, what is the command for audio/volume, or volume I can manage in the dvdstyler.
Your detailed instructions are great. I marked these pages in my bookmarks.
Hope to get satisfactory results without too many tests.
Many many thanks.
Sincerely
Motim

Glad you're getting the hang of it!

The full command line to adjust brightness/contrast and volume all at the same time would be (using -af for 'audio filter'):

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "eq=brightness=0.2:contrast=2" -af volume=2 output.mp4

(using your own numbers, of course)

But if the end product you are aiming for is the DVD, then its easier to use the controls in DVDStyler's 'Audio Properties', they do after all just put the same thing into the command line it uses to call ffmpeg.

volume=2 would raise the volume to 200% of original, volume=0.5 would reduce it to 50%. You can if you prefer specify the volume increase as decibels instead: -af volume=6dB

Good luck.