Resume function would be nice...

[Mooseman-007]

Hi everybody!

As I ran into this problem now I really would like to see it :)

There are actually a few feature requests dealing with the same problem here:



When you do a backup of your DVD and FairUse examines that a disk error occured (maybe because the disk is full - and it was :( ) A requester pops up giving you the "chance" to cancel.
If this button could offer a possibility to "resume" (after you killed some megabytes on your hard disk) many people who had their computer running for hours or days wouldn't root out their hairs...
As the resulting video size for a multipass encoding doesn't seem to be predictable - maybe the program could give the user a "guess" of how many additional disk space is needed, before starting the encoding process, or if it is easier to determine from the program just a "guess" while doing the encoding passes? (I don't know if this is really realizable).
Many computers are not that highperformers, meaning the encoding process could take some days. If you imagine that someone has only one room to live - with his computer near the bed there is actually no possibility to do a backup because the computer is very loud.
A feature like a button for "stop encoding" that would stop the current encoding process by knowing at which point the program is and saves this to the hard disk, so you could wake up the next morning, start up your computer and after loading the Project file and pressing the "resume encoding" button you could go on with the encoding. (Actually it hasn't to be exactly like that but I think you know what I mean...).


These would be very usefull features - at least the resume button (in the case of a disk full error) shouldn't be a problem to implement.

greetings,
Mooseman-007

[madrona]

Could you use the APM suspend, sleep, or hibernate features to accomplish the "stop encoding" feature you describe?

I have suspended my laptop by closing the lid while Fair Use was running, then opened it and continued encoding. (Didn't do it much, just tried to see what would happen.)

[coredump]

Yes!

Resume after "out of disk space" would be very nice!

:D :D :D

[Mooseman-007]

Originally posted by Mooseman-007
As I ran into this problem now I really would like to see it :)


Ups - me and my englsh :)

When I read this sentence the second time it sounds like... "Fix it you idiot!"... but it was meant to be like "I would like to see that really, really, really" <- not good in explanation though?

@madrona:
I'll try this, though I don't think all of my hardware is hybernautable...

@fu2k:
Is there something like a feature-request list or "things I'll do in the next release" except the very vague list in the faq where things like this would be on third position to be implemented?
I still think that a resume function would be something which would increase the comfort of FairUse enormously.

[kender]

I think this is the most requested feature for fu2k. I would like this feature even if it meant joining up multiple avi's in vurtualdub.

Hibernation is not an option for most of us, it can also be very ustable with some hardware.

sound integration would be nice but I actually enjoy messing around with azid/lame. I never used fubatch but I think it also takes care of sound stuff well.

[madrona]

I didn't mean to suggest that I *don't* want to see a "pause" feature implemented. I just wanted to suggest a workaround that might work until the feature is implemented by the designer.

With newer OS's the power saving features are implemented at a low level and driver support is improving. I think you would have a good chance of success. It's worth a try, anyway!

[joshcali]

I would love a stop/resume feature!
Fair use encodes can take a full 20 hours or more. Since I have to use my computer for work, I'd love to run the encode at night, stop the encode when I need to work on the computer during the day, and then pick up the encode the following night.

madrona, the idea of using suspend is nice, but it doesn't let you use the computer while you're pausing fairuse. Also, you really want a stop/resume so you don't have to worry if you crash your computer doing other work while your fairuse session is paused.
Also, for people with only 1 computer (most users!?) you don't want a suspended process in the background while using your computer for other memory/graphic intensive tasks...

[alku83]

in case you guys didn't know - you effectively can pause fairuse, altho the computer must still be on. during the encoding process, just click on the back button, which will bring up a dialog saying are you sure u want to stop encoding process. just leave this here and pretty soon cpu usage by fairuse will drop to 0%. Now, do what u like, and then when u wanna resume, go ahead and click that no button.

[gldblade]

Woah, really? But I thought pausing wasn't feasible... Or at least that's what people used to say...

[elgan123]

Alku is right. You just have to hit 'cancel' while encoding and then make sure not to press yes. ;)

Do your work and when you are ready to resume encoding just press no. Your time to completion will be all wacky for a while but otherwise no harm done.

[joshcali]

The only prob with this is that you lose all your encoding if
something you are doing while fairuse is paused makes you need to restart the computer. which happens often with windows.
there's got to be a way to stop and resume encoding!

or even an option to do 1-pass at a time so you don't have to wait the full 20 hours... maybe a checklist of which passes you want to do, then you could come back and pick it up again.
also, an option to do them back to back, so if you need to cancel, you only lose the last encoding, and you could retry that one pass later.

[kender]

spliting the batches is a nice way to cut down the time, and somewhat pause Fair Use.

doing them back to back would defeat the purpose for SMP, which is a main reason for fair use even existing (author uses an SMP rig). If I didnt have 2 cpu's myself I'd be learning 4.11/nandub.

There may be other advantages to doing multiple encodes at the same time.

(somewhat offtopic)

I'm not too sure, but I think diff tracking does not always waste thrown out frames when they meet the standards for a lower quality diff in the same batch. I recall that diff's appeared to scale well with more than 2.

[Mooseman-007]

Originally posted by alku83
..during the encoding process, just click on the back button, which will bring up a dialog saying are you sure u want to stop encoding process. just leave this here and pretty soon cpu usage by fairuse will drop to 0%. Now, do what u like, and then when u wanna resume, go ahead and click that no button.
Yes this helps if you need your CPU... but as mentioned before this has two disadavantages:
1) if your computer for some reason crashes you can start encoding again from the beginning.
2) if you don't just want to stop CPU-Usage but to power off your computer (as I told you: there are people with the computer standing next to their bed and no possibility to move the computer to another room...) - this won't help.

Actually the implementation of a start/stop function is dependant on how the encoding loop is programmed. This can only be answered by fu2k.
But a resume button in the dialog (if HD-space is eaten up) shouldn't be a big deal...

[alku83]

Well Mooseman if you had bothered to read past posts then you would realise that fu2k has addressed this topic before, and he stated that implementing a pause/resume feature would actually be very difficult, it's not just a simple loop going on here. we are talking about extremely high compression of a very complex video stream. again, fu2k has already said that this is not as easy as you think. perhaps if you had read past posts you would have realised that.

[elgan123]

Flame throwers ready...:D

Mooseman, if sleep is that important to you I'd use Gknot until you can move your PC into another room (or until you can buy quieter fans.)

I'm in the same situation as you with my PC in my room and no way to move it. But I love FU quality so I built a noise deadening chamber for my PC I kid you not.

And using windows 2000 helps too...less crashing. Don't tell me about game compatibility coz we're talking about DVD conversion here.

FU2K will implement a pause button when and if he can.

[Mooseman-007]

Originally posted by alku83
Well Mooseman if you had bothered to read past posts then you would realise that fu2k has addressed this topic before, and he stated that implementing a pause/resume feature would actually be very difficult, it's not just a simple loop going on here. we are talking about extremely high compression of a very complex video stream. again, fu2k has already said that this is not as easy as you think. perhaps if you had read past posts you would have realised that.

If you would have taxed your brain about the fact that for someone new to fair use, who ran into this forum lately it is very unsatisfactory that the search function is disabled and that this someone already has searched the post headers from within the last 100 days without getting a clue that this topic already has been discussed, you wouldn't posted what you did.

What makes things even harder for someone new to fairuse is the fact that there is no "ToDo" or "WillNotDo" list available somewhere giving _facts_ ... then - yes then, you are right that this posting here is totally obsolet. If you take that in consideration, my post here was totally ok. Also if you know about the thread where this already has been discussed - a neat little link to that thread would have been much nicer.

Talking about the
extremely high compression of a very complex video stream.:

Independant on how complex a compression algorithm may be (if you are doing complex wavelet-transformations or smaller intervalls while Fouriertransforming a signal or whatever) - you always have kind of states which could be logged: If you watch it from a "higher viewpoint" everything you program is just a simple loop - maybe with many complex steps inside, nested again in neat little loops but in the end it's a loop :)
As I'm a programmer myself I know that this is sometimes hard to implement if not planned from the beginning because if you want to stop/resume that...lets call it loop :) ...you maybe have to save a lot of complex data and have to care about that everything needed for the next loop is in the state it was before you stoped it. That was all my question was about and I didn't expect that someone else than the progger could answer that :) (actually it's not _that_ easy... but I tried to make it clear for

Although I can understand that someone gets mad about questions beeing asked again; if the circumstances don't allow people who are new to this topic but know how to search for their questions first (but this possibility is refused) you shouldn't blame them but the circumstances - or at least understand them, too.

[cofferscuffs]

And to add to Mooseman-007's post, if you'd bothered to check in on the Site Announcement forum lately, you would of seen kaizen's post about the search being off, http://rilanparty.com/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11107. So if YOU, alku83, had bothered to read posts....

[alku83]

did i ever mention searching? no i dont think so. even when i was new to fairuse myself, and new to this forum, i read the previous i only had to read 2 or 3 posts to understand that there is no point requesting things, because fu2k has his own plan in mind, and will update whenever he wants. and, if you bothered to read the FAQ, you would see that there is a nice list of priorities:

The priority order for current work is:
1. Fixing bugs
2. Further audio support
3. Other new features
4. Speed optimisations

So, perhaps when the next version is released, and bugs and audio support have been ironed out, maybe, just maybe, we can hope for a pause/resume function. but for now, if u cant live without it, find another method.

and mooseman, i too am a programmer, and altho i do on some part agree that it may well be easy to implement the pause/resume function inside a simple loop, again, fu2k has clearly said several times that it is not that easy, in fact, it is qutie difficult.

[Mooseman-007]

Actually you really didn't read my posts (or my english is _that_ bad that it's not understandable... If the last should be the reason I apologize for it blandestly!)

Originally posted by alku83
...(some nonsensical stuff)...if you bothered to read the FAQ, you would see that there is a nice list of priorities:
...(followed by an excerpt from the FAQ)
This came in reply to:
Originally posted by Mooseman-007
that there is no "ToDo" or "WillNotDo" list available somewhere giving _facts_...
and even better my first posting:
@fu2k:
Is there something like a feature-request list or "things I'll do in the next release" except the very vague list in the faq where things like this would be on third position to be implemented?


Did you get it now? This is like somebody saying "Yes, I'll do some things somewhere in the future if the question was "What are you going to do exactly tomorrow?".

(some pathethic words)... if u cant live without it, find another method.
I can live with it for sure! But the program would be much more comfortable with this function (in whatever of the three initially in this post given ways it would be implemented). That - only that - is the reason I started this thread. Everything you replied so far has given really nothing to this thread...

... again, fu2k has clearly said several times that it is not that easy, in fact, it is qutie difficult.
Same I already suggested... so why mention it again? It would be much more helpful if you would have posted a link to one of the several threads that seem to exist about that... (I really would have said thank you...)

All you said in your last post is ... actually nothing. So if you have constructive words to offer, I'd like to hear from you - but don't let us fill up this board with stuff like that. You can discuss with me about that via my mail-Account: elchmann007@gmx.de
A nice ending of this post although would be a post for the link where to find the discussions about the resume function.

[elgan123]

@ Mooseman-007 & alku83

I think you have both made your points. This forum is not the place to argue any 'personal' issues.

Those of us who have used Fair Use for a long time just have an understanding of the program and the author's intentions for future development that comes from frequenting this forum. Unfortunately, this 'understanding' doesn't always filter down to new users.

About a resume button, sorry Mooseman, I can't post a link to a thread when this was discussed before because I couldn't find it. The earliest threads are dated September 11. Obviously, it was discussed before that date and it was probably discussed before this forum was moved to this server.

Fu2k has always maintained that the order in which Fair Use will progress is as in the FAQ.

1. Fixing bugs
2. Further audio support
3. Other new features
4. Speed optimisations

So it looks like a 'pause' or 'stop encoding' button will be priority #3 if it happens at all.

Peace.

[kender]

I got to thinking

lets say I had an encode from another project that matched the project exactly (spare computer?), how could I add it? what files should I copy? I hear it can be done.

On that line of thought...

When you quit Fair Use the avi files are still there right?
Lets say I forgot to cut the credits out but I know they are around the end of the film.

Maybe my computer crashes or I just have to reboot
with FU about 95% done. I dont care about the last 5%.

Is there any way I could alter the project/log/text files to get to the crosscutter?

How about 50% done? If I could get to the cross cutter then I'd specify 350megs and do the rest later. better yet, average the diff threshold between the first and last half.

If we can figrue out how to do that then we have a resume/recover function. It could even be scripted!

[alku83]

kender,

generally, when fairuse crashes, if you try to view the AVI files, they won't open, with an error something along the lines of they are not a valid AVI file. so, i doubt fairuse would be able to make much use of them.

i think, in the mean time, if encoding time is a problem, you could perhaps encode half the movie in two goes, or just get a faster CPU :) unfortunately, i think it will be a very long time before a pause/resume function is found.

mooseman - i apologise, i was mistaken. i'd forgotten that when we got the new board all the old posts were lost. so, i apologize. i just hope you understand my position, being someone who checks this board everyday in the hope of further development, only to find that someone is asking when fu2k is going to update, and please put this feature in, and why hasn't fairuse been updated in so long. fu2k is a very busy man and to tell you the truth i dont think fairuse is on his list of high proirities right now. i've heard guardian knot is quite good, altho i haven't tried it myself, perhaps you could give that go?

[kender]

alku83, you are right.

If you dont quit out of fair use properly (only on crash?) they are missing the avi index, it is very easy to use DivFix.exe or virtualdub to rebuild it (although virtualdub takes quite a bit longer, possibly because it rekeys everything).

I'm not sure how much the cross cutter depends key frames, but FU2k did say hacked Dll's with scene detection messed with it. At any rate it shouldnt have to be more difficult than spliting a projcet into 2 segments and joining them later.

The main problem is tricking FU into thinking its done so we can use the cross cutter.

Next time I back up a dvd I'll try it.

Should be something like this:
1)fix index/rekey avi's if needed
2)Crop avi files to tbe same point/keframe (aren't they already?)
3)create dummy project with correct length or edit the project with notepad.
4)update the end of logs etc to look like they are finished. Compare with a finished project to see what the end should look like.
5)use the cross cutter to get the desired size
6)encode the rest
7)join with virtualdub

Audio shouldnt be a problem, either deal with 2 ac3's->mp3 before joining in virtualdub or rip the full ac3 and add affter joining.

[alku83]

sounds interesting to say the least kender

just thought i'd let you know that part "2)Crop avi files to tbe same point/keframe (aren't they already?)". altho i was under the impression that fairuse went thru the movie frame by frame and encoded each frame the number of times and bitrates required, it doesn't appear to work exactly like this, because it's happened to be me a few times, and i've had video files ranging at least 30 mins apart. strange...

at any rate, i'm quite interested to see how it all goes, let us all know!

[Spec20glugger]

I agree with elgan, on this, fu2k will develop better features. As for the resume, have any of you JUST indexed the whole movie and then ripped the first half of a movie (approx. 350 megs) and then ripped the second half of the movie (last 350 megs) on the next night?

This is assuming you need the computer for work the next day. Now that you have these 2 sections, append them in Virtdub or nandub. Make sure to keep your resolutions the same, as well as your compression ratios. On a side note you can also tell whether or not your movie will have a high diff number.