Utility to automate Fair Use audio processing

[madrona]

I am just finishing a program to automate Fair Use audio processing, and I need help testing it. I've tried it successfully on Win98 and Win2k, and I'd like someone else to verify these results and possibly test it on additional OS's (WinME and WinXP) to let me know if it works there.

I think my program is probably similar to FUBatch, but I hope it might be more useful to a new Fair Use user who prefers a GUI wizard-style utility rather than a text file of settings.

I'd really appreciate some feedback before I submit it to Doom9. Any help would be appreciated; I will preferentially try to honor feature requests from folks who provide detailed feedback during trials.

I'll watch the forum and my hotmail account (madronawizard@hotmail.com) for responses or usage questions.

Sorry for the size (3.5mb) of the download. I tried to include all the components required by a newbie user, including copies of Fair Use, Nandub, etc... Consequently, I'll post it in a couple pieces (setup.exe, and setup-1.bin through setup-4.bin) all in zip files.

TIA,
Madrona Developer

[madrona]

I don't see my first attachment (setup.zip). Does the moderator have to do something to allow the attachment to show up?

[madrona]

Another try posting my attachment.

[Huge]

Setup.exe doesn't install.. it asks for Disk1.

[madrona]

Sorry, gave up when I didn't see attachments showing up.

I'll repost them now. There will be Setup1.zip through Setup4.zip

[madrona]

Setup2.zip

[madrona]

Setup3.zip

[madrona]

Setup4.zip

I removed the attachments 12/28/2001. Please download the latest version from Doom9's website.

[pacohaas]

why are there so many setup files?

[madrona]

The posting form said the attachment limit was 1mb. The package is over 3mb.

It includes:
-Madrona (my program)
-Fair Use
-Nandub
-Azid
-Lame
-Normalize
-DivX codec installer
-ForceASPI17

I am packaging it to be an all-in-one installer. Do you think 3.6mb is too big?

[flagg]

hey there
I downloaded your program, because it was interesting to get a all in one package that used fairuse. I didn't go through with a rip - because the soundoption only allows 96 kbps - is there a reason for this ?

Flagg

[madrona]

Well, pretty much the object was to duplicate the steps in the Doom9 Fair Use guide, just without having to manually adjust all the settings.

I tried to remove any decision making that wasn't necessary to make things easier for a new user. In my own experience, 96kbps is a fine standard setting. I don't think it's a good idea to go higher than this for a one-cd encoding.

You may adjust the Lame encoding parameters in the Madrona.ini file to any bitrate you want; if you do this, just ignore the screen in Madrona that says to use 96kbps in Fair Use. Madrona will use whatever you specify in the ini file.

[pacohaas]

Originally posted by madrona
...96kbps (CBR) is a fine standard setting.Duck, the audio guys will come in swinging. Maybe you wanna change the default to abr 96. Here's a highly tuned setting for any ABR bitrate:
--dm-preset <bitrate>

[madrona]

I am using ABR by default. The complete Lame parameters I set as the defaults are:

-m j --abr 96 --nspsytune

After 50+ movies I've never noticed artifacts, flanging, etc... Plus using these encoding parameters and entering 96kbps in Fair Use with a 700mb target results in a final filesize of 696mb to 701mb 99% of the time.

[Mooseman-007]

I'm just trying your tool and would like to make a suggestion:

When asked for the _exact_ project name and folder - there is only a browse button next to the folder but not to the project name.

It would be much easier and more fault-tolerant if the user could also browse to the project...
Another thing is that, when the user has done that in the field for the project folder automatically could be an default path - pointing to the folder where the project is situated in.

Another thing I would like to see is the possibility to put the Madrona-Window into the background (the little square with an "_" in it :)

Greetings,
Mooseman-007

[madrona]

These were both features I did not intially implement because of additional research or coding required.

I've now implemented both these features. They'll be available in version 1.3.0 and later.

Those were both good suggestions - thanks for trying it out!

[chemmajik]

Hows the development going with this project, cannot believe I missed this one. I havent downloaded yet, did you choose mp3 or ac3 as your final audio output, or did you make a choice chooseable?

[madrona]

I followed Doom9's guide closely -- these were all the steps I was doing manually. Madrona produces an MP3 output file (defaults to 96kbps ABR, but the LAME parameter string is in the .ini file for editing) and joins that with the AVI output from Fair Use. I mainly wanted to balance ease-of-use with functionality, and my target audience is definitely folks who want one-disc movies.

I found the mind-boggling array of audio and video encoding formats and procedures intimidating when I first tried encoding my own DVD's, and I wanted to simplify that process for a newbie. Therefore, I have made all necessary "decisions" regarding programs and formats.

Doom9 has now posted version 1.2.0 in his News list, so download it from there, not from this thread. I'm working on 1.3.0 now, which will add batch processing ability.

Thanks for your comments.

[chemmajik]

I'm going to wait for 1.3, I don't want to put anymore load on doom9 then I have too... The ease of use is what I liked about fair use in the first place to get a good quality output.

[famewolf]

:confused:

Madrona,

I submitted an email to you concerning a problem with madrona a few days ago..have not heard any sort of reply but then again it is the holidays..just wondering if you received it..basically I tried your madrona 1.20 version and it basically worked wonderfully...I did run into one problem which was that I had nandub setup to create a 0 delay and a -100 delay by default..when it gets to 100% completion of the 0 delay nandub is locking up and has to be cancelled..then madrona has to be cancelled...the 0-delay copy is fine and has even been the proper delay to have in both my trials however the lockup is annoying...I also upgraded the lame package to 3.90 instead of 3.88 but that has not affected the nandub problem one way or the other..I considered backing up to the RC1 version of nandub...my system is an AMD athlon 1ghz with 768 meg ram...60 gig hd for ripping...not sure what other details you want.

[mordant]

You said that you have Lame set at a default of ABR96 but I don't see that in the ini file. Just a line to start the program, no parameters after.

Being able to choose the birate would be most helpful. Since Fair Use itself defaults to 128 why not have that as the default for Madrona? In the Doom9 guide it recommends having a bitrate above 128...

[madrona]

famewolf:

Sorry I didn't see your email. I've been checking my
hotmail account, but I still don't see your message. I guess you either sent it to someplace other than madronawizard@hotmail.com, or it got processed by the Junk Mail filter. If that's the case, sorry!

Please help me out by supplying the following details...

- What OS are you using?
- You say this happens every time you use the program, starting from the very first time? Or did it happen after you tweaked something in the ini file?
- Can you use Nandub manually to create output files? Do you get any errors there, or does it work ok?
- What *exactly* does "locking up" mean? Does Nandub or Madrona stop responding?

I would definitely use the version of Nandub included with my setup.exe program. Madrona is a glorified macro, and it relies on menu items and dialog box fields to be in a certain place or called a certain thing, so it is highly version-specific.

mordant:

You need to run through the program once to fill in the ini file. In the first two releases, I packaged the program with an empty ini file. When the program runs, it will set the ini settings to defaults and add them to the file. After completing the program, if you look again you'll see my defaults now filled in, including the Lame parameters you're looking for.

I used 96 kbps ABR for several reasons. See the earlier message in this thread about the same question. I think 96kbps is adequate, and I'd rather use the bits for video quality. I've never watched one of my one-cd movies and said, "Wow, wish that audio sounded better." But I watch them all the time and think, "Wow, wish that video LOOKED better." So I try to squeeze as much quality as I can out of my 700mb cd by encoding the audio at the lowest possible "acceptable" rate, and by cutting off the titles at the end of movies.

Use whatever parameters you like. I put everything in the ini file because I knew experienced users would want to tweak these settings.

-Madrona Developer

[famewolf]

Madrona,

To answer your questions I'm using Windows 2000 Pro. Nandub locked up the first time used and continues to lock up in the same place whenever used. I've tested it with two totally different movies...by lock up I mean if I ctrl-alt-del and look at the tastlist windows 2000 identifies nandub as "Not responding" and when you look at nandub it has gotten to 100% completion of the 0 delay output file but the window is just sitting there...none of the buttons to cancel or X the window respond either. I have used both virtualdub and earlier versions of nandub to write output files but have not tried creating one manually with your version yet. I have not tweaked the ini file in any way. Madrona itself does not lock up but obviously it's waiting on nandub to respond so it can continue processing...it allows me to cancel it.

[madrona]

Thanks for the info. Win2kPro is one of the OS's I test on, so I'm surprised to hear about this problem. Please try running Nandub manually (the same version you're using with Madrona) and see if you can create the problem. Be sure to reproduce the same environment as Madrona by doing the following:
- open a source .avi file
- set to direct stream copy
- open an MP3 file
- set the audio delay to 0 (should be default)
- select Save As and enter name for output file
- see what happens! Same error? No error?

[mordant]

Hey, just wanted to let you know that I just did two rips with Madrona and everything went pretty well. I used the default setting of 96 for audio. The two films I ripped are old 70s Kung Fu flicks with an english dub track, so they are not a good source for judging audio quality. Still, the audio seemed fine.

Thanks for putting this together. It nice to be able to start it and not worry about it until its done.

[madrona]

Cool! Thanks for the feedback. Hope you found the Lame parameters ok in the ini file, although you said you left it at the defaults for your test. What OS are you using?

[mordant]

I'm using Win98SE on an 900 T-bird, with 256 megs of RAM and a 30gig hard drive.

I can see where the ini settings are now, but I'm going to try your 96bits for the time being. =) Thanks again for a nice addition to a great app.