Anyone know how to make a QT .mpg?

[Bill Lee]

MPEG Streamclip v1.7
http://www.squared5.com
If you don’t have FCP, FCS, DVD Studio Pro, or the MPEG-2 Playback Component installed on your Mac, then you won’t be able to do the conversion with MPEG Streamclip. For some reason best known to Apple, probably licensing fees, this MPEG-2 codec is not included as a standard QuickTime codec.

1) Open the MPEG Streamclip application
2) File>Open Files

[Tom Wolsky]

You can make an .m2t file using Compressor. In the Encoder panel go to the Extras tab and check the box for a multiplexed transport file.

All the best,

Tom

Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 2 Editing Workshop” Class on Demand “Complete Training for FCP5” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy” DVDs

[Dave Jenkins]

Cleaner from Autodesk will make an .mpg that includes video & audio.

[Mark Linthicum]

I Have FCP Studio but for some reason no MPEG-2 Playback Component??? I though it come with FCP Studio?

Thanks Mark

[Bill Lee]

Gosh-darn, you are absolutely right there Tom. Hadn’t looked at the standard MPEG-2 setting for so long.

If you just need a MPEG-2 Transport stream then I’d go with Tom’s solution, but you may still need MPEG Streamclip if you need to create Program streams or have Dolby Digital (.ac3) audio multiplexed in your Transport/Program stream. It all comes down to what the device that is supposed to be playing back this MPEG-2 requires, and also what format you have already.

Bill Lee

[Mark Linthicum]

[billlee] “Gosh-darn, you are absolutely right there Tom. Hadn’t looked at the standard MPEG-2 setting for so long.

If you just need a MPEG-2 Transport stream then I’d go with Tom’s solution, but you may still need MPEG Streamclip if you need to create Program streams or have Dolby Digital (.ac3) audio multiplexed in your Transport/Program stream. It all comes down to what the device that is supposed to be playing back this MPEG-2 requires, and also what format you have already.

Bill Lee “

The Files Compressor make in this format do not even play in QT, these are still m2v and are not mpg. For some reason I can not make a file that will play in the device I need them to play in even though I see all the specs are the same as example file I have that do work! THis is driving me nuts!

Thanks for the help, Mark

[Bill Lee]

I started to reply to your question about where did the QuickTimeMPEG2.component (i.e. MPEG-2 Playback Component) come from, but things got in the way. If you want to know if it’s installed, check /System/Libray/QuickTime for the bundle called ‘QuickTimeMPEG2.component’, or look in your /Libray/Receipts for ‘QuickTimeMPEG2Pro.pkg’ which appears to have been created/modified in 2003 and May 2006 respectively. I’m running FCP 5.1.2, DVD Studio Pro 4.0.3 so if you aren’t running this you may find different modification times. In trying to work out when the MPEG-2 playback component was installed, I spent some time trying to work out which software package installed it, and eventually gave up because my FCP is an 4.x with 5.0 installed over the top of it, with further updates to 5.1.2. It also has a lot of third party software such as EyeTV, VLC, ProjectX, DIVX Pro, MPEG Streamclip, Toast which can all read and display MPEG-2 files to some extent.

Part of the instructions on how to fully remove FCP 4.x includes instruction to remove the QuickTimeMPEG2.component, so it is almost certainly installed as part of FCP4/DVDSP3.

If you haven’t yet downloaded MPEG Streamclip, do so just to read the MPEG Streamclip Guide for it, even if you never use it to encode something (It even has a menu item that will allow you to print out this guide). This guide will give some of the best practical information on Elemental, Program and Transport streams in MPEG-2. The bottom line is that not all streams will play back in the QuickTime Player even with the MPEG-2 Playback Component, and Transport streams seem to be one such example. The .m2t plays back on both MPEG Streamclip and in VLC, but not in QuickTime Player nor EyeTV v2.x.

The MPEG Streamclip Guide says on the first page: ‘To play and export MPEG-2 files, you have to install Apple’s MPEG-2 Playback Component. If you have either Final Cut Pro 4/5 or DVD Studio Pro, the MPEG-2 Playback Component is already installed. Otherwise, you can purchase it online from Apple. QuickTime Pro is not required.’ Later on it says: ‘CONVERTING THE STREAM
The following commands are available only if the source stream is in MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 format; they do not require
the Apple MPEG-2 Playback Component.’, and then goes on to list the convert to Program and Transport stream options, so it looks like you might be able to multiplex and demultiplex without the MPEG-2 Playback Component. Might.

Like I said before, what you need to do will depend on the MPEG-2 playback device you need to feed this MPEG-2 stream to, and there are a lot of varieties of MPEG-2 around as you have now discovered. There is no One And True MPEG-2 with a .mpg filename suffix, but a range of MPEG-2 types with differing formats and encodings. Try taking a short ten second clip and digitising it as MPEG-2 program stream with ac3 audio, MPEG-2 program stream with MP2 audio, MPEG-2 transport stream with MP2 audio. See if the playback device plays back variations of MPEG-2 such as generated by Topfield or Humax PVRs. Take the sample file you have for that device and open it in MPEG Streamclip and examine it with the ‘Show Stream Info’ to get some idea of what you need to generate.

Bill Lee

[Mark Linthicum]

Finally found a solution! https://www.mpeg2works.com/ Great software much cheaper than that crap program cleaner and only $25. this program saved my ass!

I still cant believe Compressor cant make a .mpg!

Hope anyone else with this dilemma will find the answer here.

Thanks for the help.

mark

[Marne Bass]

If I could find the Encoder Pane that would be helpful. I blind – where is it? Everything is so small in Compressor.