Convert NSV To MPEG submitted by : capt_rock

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Preface: I use WinXP (SP2). Your actual mileage may vary. Furthermore, this process isn't new - I didn't invent it - but, these specific steps are the ONLY way I could get results. Comments and suggested improvements are welcome.

Opinion: Always donate for freeware - even a small amount. In some way, always pay for what you use, read, listen to, or watch. Internet sharing is a priviledge - don't bite the hand that feeds.

1. Install mPlayer/mEncoder (free) and include the Windows Essential codec pack. It includes lots of codec support for things rarely supported elsewhere.

2. mPlayer should be able to play the video but, there will be no sound.

3. Install Winamp media player. This should be able to play the video with sound (no surprise there) but of course, you can't do anything except watch it on you computer screen.

4. However, within WinAmp:Options:Preferences and under Plug-ins:Output there should be a selection called NullSoft Disk Writer. Select it and click Configure. Specify a target drive/directory and Output File Type. Choose Force WAV File. Click OK and click Close in the Preferences window.

5. The next time you File:Play, WinAmp will dump the audio portion to a file. This setting will persist until you reconfigure the output plug-in.

6. Install the NSV Demuxer software created by Kurosu and use it as follows :
nsvd -n input.nsv -a video.avi -w audio.ext
to demux the NSV file into separate video and audio files.
Toss the audio file - it will not be needed.

7. Install AVI-Mux GUI by Alexander Noé.

8. Use AVI-Mux to recombine the video file from step 6 and the audio file from step 4 into a new AVI file. I kept all options at default values.

9. Now mPlayer should be able to play the AVI file with sound. Therefore, you can now use mEncoder to transcode it to MPG.

10. mEncoder is a command line codec with lots of available options. My personal goal was to take a low resolution and low bitrate NSV file and create an MPEG-2 file (with as much quality as possible) that Nero would burn onto DVD without further transcoding it (since I couldn't control Nero's encoding). For NTSC (USA) and 4:3 aspect (not widescreen TV), I used the following:

mEncoder -oad lavc -oac lavc -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd
-srate 48000 -af lavcresample=48000
-vf scale=720:480,hqdn3d,harddup,softskip
-lavcopts acodec=ac3:abitrate=192:aspect=4/3:keyint=18:
vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=9800:
vbitrate=4800 -ofps 30000/1001 -o output.mpg input.avi

These are somewhat "standard and recommended" settings (see project web site help files). The "denoise" filter (hqdn3d) is optional but doesn't seem to slow things down too much. The aspect=4/3 seems to be the thing that Nero needs to skip its internal transcoding (and go directly to burn). There may be other ways of doing this. And, letting Nero transcode it anyway may be harmless but, it certainly takes more time.