MeGUI Tutorial
So you got them MKV's, MP4's and what not. But you want to play them on your iPod/PSP/DVD Player/XBOX. So what do you do? You ENCODE the video. So let's get a quick overview on how video encoding works. Basically you have codecs, encoders, and containers. The codec is the type of file it is; it's basically the way the pixels are aranged and compressed. Then encoding comes in to play; this is the way HOW they are compressed. We have a brazillion codecs floating around on the interwebs and the mainstream ones are DivX/XviD, h264, MPEG-4 and WMV (sucks the most). I'm not gonna cover how to encode WMV because that is just lame.
Now once you encode a file, they need to be stored in a container. This container contains the audio and the video, and somtimes chapters, subtitles etc (DVD files, MKV files). Some containers have limitations to which codec they can handle. For instance: avi is a container and it is not really suitable for h264 video files. However, MKV and MP4 are, but MP4 is then again not suitable for subtitles. So we can go on and on for ever but let's get to the real deal here. We want to encode a video to a specific format. Well these are the tools you're gonna need.
MeGUI - Download
Nero AAC Encoder - Download
CCCP - Download
First of all, you want to install CCCP. Just install it by clicking next. Don't worry about any settings. You could enable autoload VSfilter when you see it.
Next download MeGUI and install the software (I assume you know how to do such simple things).
Then Fire that baby up. If it prompts you to update, do so. If it doesn't go to Tools -> Update or simply press CTRL+U.
A box will show up with a couple of checks. DO NOT deselect any of them and simply update by pressing... update 
. Mine are all empty because I'm fully up to date.
Now after several boxes will probably pop up asking you for profiles. These things are VERY VERY VEEERRRYYY important if you are a newbie to encoding, which most of you ARE. So select the profiles you're gonna use. Don't over do it with the audio though. You just need a good quality one. For the video ones, I would select a fast and high quality. The other ones are not necessary. If you are encoding anime, I would obviously select the anime ones.
Next 2 steps are sort of optional. They are very handy for encoding audio, but it is not really necessary. I DO STRONGLY recommend it.
Since you are up to date it is time to add the Nero AAC Encoder files. So download the and store it on your desktop. Open up the ZIP file and extract the win32 folder somewhere where you want to store it in. You can rename the folder to something like Nero AAC, make sure you will be able to find it in the next 2 minutes. Now go back to megui and go to Tools -> Settings.
Use the tabs to navigate to Program Paths -> Audio. Press the 3 dotted button next to NeroAacEn. Find your folder you've just stored away (or probably lost because you didn't read my instructions. Click the NeroAacEnc.exe, nothing else. There we go... now your MeGUI is set up for encoding to any format.
Now let's open up your video. I'm going to use Chihiro's K-ON! Episode 9 :) Go to file and press open -or- Simply click CTRL+O.
Start navigating to your video file. Once you are there, you will probably see no files at all. The reason is because MeGUI is probably filtering for AVS files. So select All Files.
Time to select your video. Mine is in MKV form so it will automatically demux (extract the video and audio files from the container, totally different story. Will add second segment to tutorial about it, is very handy). 2 New boxes should pop up. One with a video, and the other one with some settings.
Now let's go over this stuff. First you need to take a look at the Input DAR. Look at your video still that is up there. Is it stretched or compressed? If it is compressed, put the input DAR on ~1.8. If it is stretched, put it on ~1.3.
Then you might want to disable the Clever Anamorphic thing. It sometimes screws up your video and doesn't work at all on the ipod touch. Check if your players supports anamorphic video. If you deselect it, make sure to select the "Suggest Resolution (Mod16)" box.
Now proceed to the filters box. There isn't really that much to do here other than selecting whether your video is anime or not. Now press save and close the video window that will pop up.
There we go! Your megui interface is all set up and it knows what to encode. The question however still remains: HOW?! Now we will tell MeGUI how it should encode. This is where the profiles come into play.
In the drop down menu select the preferred profile. Since I want my MKV file to be converted into a AVI - XVID i will select XVID from the drop down menu.
Now it's time to pick the container since the best container for XVID is probably AVI (next to mkv which is simply the best).
We're almost done! Time to select the audio codec. This is probably a hard one, because you need to know what sort of codec your device needs. Depending on the requirement select the appropriate codec from the drop down. For XBOX you can use AAC or AC-3 (AAC = MP4 File). I'm gonna use AC-3.
You can go into the config and select the quality but its default is 384kb/s which is MORE THAN ENOUGH imo.
We're done with the setting up of your videos. It did take a long time if you read through this entire tutorial, but trust me. Once you get the hang of it (2 tries), you're gonna blaze through this. It's so much better than anything else. So click AutoEncode and let's enter the final settings. A new box should pop up. This is for the file size and avarage bitrate.
Select anything you want here. Good bitrate for anime is 1200 kb/s. For live action 1500-1700. It all comes down to trial and error. But 1200 is very safe. Next is to select a container on top. Obviously you want AVI. Press queue and you're done. Let meGUI do it's thing and check back in your original video folder after 20 minutes.
For progress you can simply click the Queue tab in the main MeGUI interface.
There you have it!
This is how you convert MKV's to anything else!
If something is missing or you get an error or anything like that: COMMENT and I'll be glad to help.
FAQ
Q: It doesn't convert any subtitles!
A: What you could do is one of the following (all of this stuff is in your start menu under the Combined Community Codec Pack-> filter):
- Enable Autoload VSfilter in the haali media splitter config.
- Enable Subtitles in FFDShow Video Decoder. Make sure you select process entire image, and accept embedded subtitles. < Will fix the issue most likely
- Re-install CCCP because you screwed something up.
Q: My size is all messed up when I convert to XviD! I put in 175 MB and it gives me 195 MB!
A: Well an answer to that question is not really applicable. It depends on your video and on your settings. XviD is known to add in "extra" information for encoding. Also your audio can play a large role in this. Try using the bitrate setting instead when you click "Auto Encode". 800-1000 KB/s for SD def Anime (considerable amount of 'action') and 1500-2000 KB/s for Hi-Def Anime. For live action you should add 200 KB/s to all of that. This was you will eliminate all pixelation and blocks apearing on your video. My best advice is "Trial and Error!"
Q: What if I have Dual Audio and a multiple subtitles?
A: Unfortunately MeGUI doesn't have a feature to select which audio track and which subtitle track you want to appear in the encoded version. But there is a way around this. Haali splitter is configurable in such a way that it prioritizes the audio and the subtitle track and pairs it together. So what you first want to do is fire up the haali splitter configuration. Then click options and go the the Languages menu. Then select Audio Language Priority and type in "jap" without the quotation marks (" "). Then select the Subtitle Language Priority and type in "eng" without the quotation marks too. Then go to Match Subtitle track name to audio. Select yes. Save and X out. You are done! It should work fine now. You can test it by actually playing the video in a player (preferably mpc) and check if the audio and the subs are prioratized.
