VidCoder: Alternative HandBrake GUI for Windows (1.3.2)

[RandomEngy]

VidCoder (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/) is an alternative GUI for HandBrake on Windows.

http://engy.us/pics/main.png (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/)

As far as the encoding goes, it's full-featured: It's got all audio, video and container formats, filters, advanced x264 options, subtitles and chapters.

However it goes beyond the standard HandBrake GUI in some areas. I've been able to call directly into the HandBrake core libraries, rather than wrap the CLI as the current Windows client does. The result is I get instant static previews of the source material, just like in the Mac version. The preview instantly reflects changes in resolution, pixel aspect ratio and cropping. Other advantages include the ability to pause and resume an encode and the removal of those pesky console window popups at the start of every job.

Beyond the tighter integration to the core libraries, I've overhauled the entire UI, including the workflow and preset system.

You'll need .NET Framework 4 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e5ad0459-cbcc-4b4f-97b6-fb17111cf544) (only the Client Profile is neccessary).

I'd appreciate any feedback. I'll be checking this thread and taking feature requests or bug reports. You can post them to the CodePlex site as well.

http://engy.us/pics/preview-ui.jpg (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/)

[odditory]

I like this encoder a lot based on the test encodes I've done so far, and since the core handbrake devs seem to favor the Mac version, the Windows version doesn't get as much attention and that's where VidCoder comes in. It's definitely a lot more "tight" than the HB windows GUI, you won't see a DOS window for the encoding status nor a separate queue window - all these are in the same window since it's not just a front-end to the HandbrakeCLI like regular HB. I like the preview ability, since it's a major omission from HB's regular windows version but present on the Mac version.

it's got auto-updating built-in which is nice, and the updates seem to be coming pretty frequently. this is arguably the easiest to use x264 encoder GUI for windows out there right now. keep up the good work!

[Inspector.Gadget]

Looking pretty good. I haven't used Handbrake recently, but if the HB devs have implemented the x264 tune/preset system in their GUI (e.g., a selectable Tune "Film" option rather than just deblock etc. sliders) you should consider doing it here. Otherwise, perhaps you could further improve on Handbrake's default GUI by doing so. Thanks!

[stax76]

Wouldn't be .NET 3.5 Client Profile be sufficient? That's the highest included in Win 7. Do you use any 4.0 features?

[RandomEngy]

I use IntPtr.Add (as a convenience) and there's a bug about data binding to radio buttons that's fixed in 4. There's also the nice stuff like named parameters and more useful overloads on stuff like Path.Combine(). Also I figured I'd just go with 4 out the gate so I don't have to worry about a framework upgrade for a while.

Looking pretty good. I haven't used Handbrake recently, but if the HB devs have implemented the x264 tune/preset system in their GUI (e.g., a selectable Tune "Film" option rather than just deblock etc. sliders) you should consider doing it here. Otherwise, perhaps you could further improve on Handbrake's default GUI by doing so. Thanks!

All the advanced options are the same as what you'd see in the HandBrake GUI. I'll look into the --tune option.

[flebber]

Encoding with Vidcoder now. I have used handbrake lately to do some encodes. I will be trying to create some now that fit the below specs.

Only one thing interface wise, when I had finished choosing my profile settings there isn't a "close" "finish" button to return to the main screen. Not major in the least. Oh and vbr for AAC and MP3 would be a sweet addition.
http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp60/samsung_hd_tech/Fileformats.jpg



Cheers

[odditory]

Does the big red "x" in the upper right hand corner not work for you to close the settings?

personally i'd prefer that the ESC key also close it, but that's just me.

[flebber]

Does the big red "x" in the upper right hand corner not work for you to close the settings?

personally i'd prefer that the ESC key also close it, but that's just me.

no doesn't bother me, i was just looking for a save and close option.

[Przemek_Sperling]

My impressions are very positive.The interface is IMO better than the original. And big thank you for eliminating the CLI window :-)

Some random thoughts:
- I have problems with subtitles (it also applies to Handbrake svn 3036 and 3154). Sometimes I can make them, sometimes (usually...) not which depends on the movie. What interesting it does not apply to the burn in subs. Handbrake 0.94 works without a hitch.
- the green progress bar could show how much of the job has been done (percentage)
- the destination selector could add mkv and mp4 extensions to the file if such container has been selected in advanced mode
- please make similar mechanisms of default calculating movie resolution like in avi.net. I know from my experience that most my inexperienced friends have problems with these calculations. avi.net assumes that the width of the encoded movie equals to the width of the source (like 704 or 720 in case of DVDs) and height is calculated this way to be in
proportion to the movie (like 1.78, 2.35 etc.)

[RandomEngy]

If you fiddle with the Encoding settings and close the window, your changes will still be persisted and will apply to any encodes that you make. You can go back and revert or save the changes later.

- The idea for ESC to close the settings window is good. I'm also planning on having Ctrl+S do a save.
- Like the idea of having the percentage displayed on the progress bar. I'll add that.
- Adding the correct extension based on the encoding settings is also a good thought.
- VidCoder does do automatic resolution calculation. Just make sure that Keep Aspect Ratio is checked. Choosing Loose or Strict anamorphic should also work.

[Przemek_Sperling]

Thank you!

I have one more suggestion, expressed by my friend. Can you make VidCoder be able to open iso image files like Fairuse Wizard did? My friend stores films in this way and she asked if this feature can be built in. I do not know how FairUse did it (the program was open source but AFAIK there were some problems with the sources, however, there were independent compilations like these made by Celtic_Druid). 7-Zip opens the files and it is open sourced so vidCoder could use the 7-zip libs.

[Washka]

Oooo, great util. I try to encode small clip from MTV 720x576 to my mobile phone Nokia N86 8MP res. 320x240 as MP4 (x264)
first clip was encoded with 234 FPS but second clip with 25.2 FPS average. :confused:
Both are captured same day as MPEG2


edit:
anamorphis was on Loose and that slow down encoding like 100%
edit 2: Well. Mpeg4 FFMpeg 540 FPS and much better for phone.
:)
That`s it :P

[acrespo]

I can't load a DVD in Videocoder.
When I click on DVD/VIDEO_TS Folder of Source combo box the window "Search Folder" only show Desktop and Windows "drivers" folder. I don't know if it's because i have brazilian portuguese version of Windows Vista Ultimate SP2 here.

[m110s]

Target size in video/quality is broken.
Encoding same movie with HandeBrake gave mi exact size but with Vidcoder it missed a lot.
Also, IMHO, visual appearance could be better. I prefer clean and simple look something like Simple x264 Launcher.
Keep on good work and I'm waiting for new verson to test it.

[RandomEngy]

VidCoder 0.4.0 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/44624) is out.

Added the keyboard shortcuts I was talking about.
As well as the automatic addition of the correct extension.
Also queuing up multiple video files or titles at once.

acrespo: I'll see if I can repro that.
m110s: Thanks for the report; I'll look into that. I've mostly been using the constant quality.

[flebber]

Vidcoder crashes when trying to analyse this source file.

Format : Flash Video
File size : 15.8 MiB
Duration : 3mn 47s
Overall bit rate : 583 Kbps
Encoded date : Thu Apr 08 19:42:29 2010
rating : none

Video
Format : VP6
Duration : 3mn 47s
Bit rate : 500 Kbps
Width : 480 pixels
Height : 360 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 30.000 fps
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.096
Stream size : 13.6 MiB (86%)

Audio
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Dual mono
Duration : 3mn 47s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 96.0 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Stream size : 2.60 MiB (16%)
Writing library : LAME3.97 (beta)

Edit
Using version 0.4

[RandomEngy]

If it didn't give you a stack trace then it probably died somewhere in the HandBrake core. Does the same file fail to load in the official HandBrake GUI as well?

[flebber]

If it didn't give you a stack trace then it probably died somewhere in the HandBrake core. Does the same file fail to load in the official HandBrake GUI as well?

I have just used handbrake 0.9.4 and it loaded and encoded the file normally, no error.

[Przemek_Sperling]

I have just used handbrake 0.9.4 and it loaded and encoded the file normally, no error.

The thing is that AFAIK VidCore is based on the dev core rather than the stable one. It has some pros and cons.

[RandomEngy]

Yeah, I've been working off the latest SVN. When it reaches a release point I'll leave the core files at a stable point. Unfortunately, this means that without the file I don't know whether it's due to it being a dev build or from the C# interop. :(

[Przemek_Sperling]

I have to confirm what flebber already noticed - v.0.40 is pretty unstable. Besides of the crash during the analyse there are some crashes during the encoding.
And also one more remark - VidCoder 0.40 behaves like an app which must run in realtime. It horribly slows down apps which run concurrently, which is irritating, e.g. YoWindows (screensaver) opens in nearly a minute, closes even more sluggish.

[MovieFan81]

Thanks for the GUI.
seems nice, i will try soon!

[RandomEngy]

Well, hopefully getting a stable release of the HB core will help the stability issues. Also it would help if I had a source file that caused a crash so I could see if I can isolate what the problem is.

In the next version I'll add in lowering the CPU priority during encodes, that defaults to below normal and is customizable.

[Washka]

Can u add in Audio at Sample Rate "Same as imput or As is."

[Washka]

I try to recode this video :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_fCqg92qks to mp4 FFMPEG 2pass for my phone and crash just when u press stat.

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: VidCoder.exe
Application Version: 0.4.0.0
Application Timestamp: 4bdca10e
Fault Module Name: hb.dll
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 4bd23e06
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0005647d
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.272.7
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 0a9e
Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3: 0a9e
Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

[RandomEngy]

I was able to convert the video to MP4 FFMPEG just fine using the 640x480 MP4 source from Youtube. Which source were you using?

[Washka]

Same that from Youtube. I reinstalled, restarted windows and it was worked fine.
I encoded few music videos from some Original Music DVD with AnyDVD installed and that was working perfect. All 23 Songs converted in few minutes. Some of them with 350 fps 2 pass in x264 this time.

[Mary H]

I've been trying out this new app today, looks very promising! Created two MKV files from 4-5 minute test files (MKV and M2TS). Very easy to use, excellent results.

However, I'm unable to open any DVD folder structure from the hard drive. Tried several different ones, always with a "Vidcoder has stopped working" error.

Tried on 2 computers, both with Windows 7. One has Ultimate x64, the other Professional x86. Same results on both.

[RandomEngy]

Washka: You can download the video in several formats in youtube: varying qualities of .flv and .mp4 are available. Which one did you get?

Mary H: Could you post the encode log? I'll see if I can repro this as well.

[RandomEngy]

New release: 0.4.1:

Changes:
* Marks system as "working" to prevent computer from sleeping during an encode.
* CPU priority changed to BelowNormal during encodes.
* Encode percentage displayed on progress bar.
* Added additional options for custom format auto-naming: {preset}, {date}, {time} and {quality}.
* Fixed crash on re-opening settings window.
* Fixed crash on adding SRT subtitles.
* Fixed null reference exception on some batch encoding.
* Fixed exception when HandBrake logs an empty line.
* Fixed video encoder not updating on revert or change of preset.

Should prompt you to update next time you close VidCoder.

[Przemek_Sperling]

Well done! Thank you!

[flebber]

Updated to 0.4.1 and my previous issue with flv files http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1396513#post1396513 and the new version has resolved it. I have just completd a successful encode. Like the progress bar to . good stuff.

[ehushagen]

I just want to thank you for this amazing front-end! I'm in the process of converting my TV collection from DVDs to my NAS, and the ability to choose multiple titles from the DVD rip has been a lifesaver.

Out of curiosity, is there a way to increase the gain when using faac? The resulting audio's volume is noticeably quieter than when I used the Nero aac encoder with MeGUI.

[RandomEngy]

I don't think the HandBrake API exposes audio volume controls at the moment. I'll keep an eye out for it though.

[ehushagen]

Alright. In the meantime I'll continue using ogg audio, as it plays back at a higher volume.

[lilhobo]

hey i encoded with MPG4 settings but the VLAN player doesnt allow for searching in the mp4? if i tried to watch inthe middle, he video restarts from the beginning

[RandomEngy]

VidCoder 0.5.0 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/47922) is out. Should auto-update when you next close it.

* Adds a Completed Items list, where you can check up on the encode time, status (Succeeded/Failed) and play the finished file by double-clicking.
* Also added Apple presets, but the advanced x264 options are wrong for the iPad preset... just delete them and it should be fine; will be fixed in the next patch.
* Fixed a few more bugs, updated the folder picker dialog, added peak framerate control, and added the smart title picking from Handbrake (can pick out the correct title from a bunch of scrambled ones).

lilhobo: That's odd. Does it happen with all source material you try?

[fAy01]

AAC Audio encoding is really bad can you fix that!

NS93_[SAMPLE].mkv
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?knqojyzmzmy

NS93_[SAMPLE][VidCoder].mkv
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?onizmqqamfy

[Darkwhisperer]

Im aware this is more of a Handbrake issue, but I'll throw it out there anyways...

x264 has been using presets for encoding speed for a while now. Is it possible to get a list of vidcoder x264 settings that match up to the presets? IE If I want to encode similar to "slow" preset, then I must set option 1 to x, and option 2 to y, etc...

Otherwise, awesome app :)

[JohnAStebbins]

Im aware this is more of a Handbrake issue, but I'll throw it out there anyways...

x264 has been using presets for encoding speed for a while now. Is it possible to get a list of vidcoder x264 settings that match up to the presets? IE If I want to encode similar to "slow" preset, then I must set option 1 to x, and option 2 to y, etc...

Otherwise, awesome app :)

x264 --fullhelp

[lilhobo]

no mp3 option?

[ehushagen]

There is, but only as long as you choose .mkv as your extension.

[JohnAStebbins]

There is, but only as long as you choose .mkv as your extension.
RandomEngy, handbrake has supported mp3 in mp4 files since march.
http://trac.handbrake.fr/changeset/3167

[lilhobo]

RandomEngy, handbrake has supported mp3 in mp4 files since march.
http://trac.handbrake.fr/changeset/3167

yeah but they might have taken it out along with xvid

[RandomEngy]

RandomEngy, handbrake has supported mp3 in mp4 files since march.
http://trac.handbrake.fr/changeset/3167

Cool, I'll add it in next version.

[lilhobo]

can we have legacy AVI container please LOL

[RandomEngy]

VidCoder is a HandBrake wrapper and HandBrake is not bringing AVI back. It's an outdated and difficult to maintain container format.

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 0.5.1 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/48721).

* Fixed Target Size functionality.
* Added Lame MP3 audio option when using MP4 container.
* Added ability to choose log verbosity and toned down the default logging verbosity from 2 to 1.
* Fixes x264 settings on the iPad preset.
* Made preset system more robust to encoding crashes.

[wpoulson]

Thanks Random Energy for the great product.
I have a question about the constant quality setting. First, what is the reason for the differing scale value between Vidcoder and Handbrake, since Vidcoder uses the Handbrake engine? The Vidcoder default is 20, I think, and if I recall correctly, I think the Handbrake default is 60.something. Is the Vidcoder default the exact same as the Handbrake default. In your opinion, is there any benefit encoding at a setting of 18 vs 20?

Also, for anyone out there that might be able to answer this question...I recently mass encoded a large number of video files with Vidcoder. Most of the files compressed by 50% or more; however, there were a few that compressed by very little. I know every file is different, but does this sound like an incorrectly encoded file? It seems like most encodings will shrink file size by 50-66%.

I had some problems when trying to pass-through DTS or AC-3 5.1. The file would show instantaneously completed, but there was nothing really done. As a general plan, I decided to encode to MKV and keep the original audio for anything above 2-channel and go ahead and convert to aac the 2-channel AC-3. I have been demuxing the original VOB and encoding the video only in Vidcoder and later merging everything together. Can you provide a few words on how to successfully accomplish everything in Vidcoder for passing through DTS or DD 5.1?

Thanks

Warren

[JohnAStebbins]

Thanks Random Energy for the great product.
I have a question about the constant quality setting. First, what is the reason for the differing scale value between Vidcoder and Handbrake, since Vidcoder uses the Handbrake engine? The Vidcoder default is 20, I think, and if I recall correctly, I think the Handbrake default is 60.something. Is the Vidcoder default the exact same as the Handbrake default. In your opinion, is there any benefit encoding at a setting of 18 vs 20?

You must have been using an old version of handbrake. The '60' setting is from a scale that represented the inverse percentage of the full range of possible RF values available from the encoder (x264 RF values range from 0-51). It's inverse because 0 RF is highest quality. This % scale was less meaningful then using the ratefactor directly, so the latest handbrake nightlies have eliminated the % scale. The conversion is 51 - (% * 51). So 60 is equivalent to 20.4.

Also, for anyone out there that might be able to answer this question...I recently mass encoded a large number of video files with Vidcoder. Most of the files compressed by 50% or more; however, there were a few that compressed by very little. I know every file is different, but does this sound like an incorrectly encoded file? It seems like most encodings will shrink file size by 50-66%.

No way to tell without more information about the sources. Activity logs would help also.

I had some problems when trying to pass-through DTS or AC-3 5.1. The file would show instantaneously completed, but there was nothing really done. As a general plan, I decided to encode to MKV and keep the original audio for anything above 2-channel and go ahead and convert to aac the 2-channel AC-3. I have been demuxing the original VOB and encoding the video only in Vidcoder and later merging everything together. Can you provide a few words on how to successfully accomplish everything in Vidcoder for passing through DTS or DD 5.1?


Sounds like a potential vidcoder bug. Again, activity logs would show us what is happening.

[ValorSolo]

Nevermind, my error

[ValorSolo]

My last 3 encodes have all been defective.
The audio starts in sync, but gets out of sync as the movie progresses.
The audio track is faster than the video track.

I've encoded the same movies with RipBot264, and they stay in sync, through-out the film.
And all the movies I encoded with VidCoder before the issue appeared, were all in sync, as well.


General
Complete name : F:\Die Hard.mkv
Format : Matroska
File size : 551 MiB
Duration : 2h 13mn
Overall bit rate : 578 Kbps
Writing application : HandBrake svn3345

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Muxing mode : Container profile=Unknown@3.0
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 2h 13mn
Nominal bit rate : 412 Kbps
Width : 718 pixels
Height : 368 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.35:1
Original display aspect ratio : 2.35:1
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.065
Writing library : x264 core 95 r1592 95aacc4
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x1:0x111 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=0 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=412 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Color primaries : BT.601-6 525, BT.1358 525, BT.1700 NTSC, SMPTE 170M
Transfer characteristics : BT.709-5, BT.1361
Matrix coefficients : BT.601-6 525, BT.1358 525, BT.1700 NTSC, SMPTE 170M

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format version : Version 4
Format profile : LC
Format settings, SBR : No
Codec ID : A_AAC
Duration : 2h 13mn
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Language : English

[ValorSolo]

First off, the issue above only occurred if the source audio was dts.
I selected the ac3 track and it encoded fine, with no sync issues.

I do have a question, though.
Looking at the encoding setting above, I see that "threads=1, sliced threads=0".
Is there a way to change the threads in VidCoder?

And a feature request, although not very likely, but here goes.
A "Create Sample" button, to fully test settings before encoding.
In options, the user can specify starting point and stopping point.
Then clicking the button will create a small sample video.
Just a thought. It would be helpful.

[RandomEngy]

Not sure what's up with the sync issue. You can already create a sample encode though. Just open the Preview window and press the "Play" button. You can change the length of the sample in the options.

[ValorSolo]

I'm familiar with the preview feature, and use it regularly.
But I was referring to creating a sample file in an output directory.
Unless there is a way to save the file created for the preview.
I'll take a look and see if it's possible.

And thanks for replying.
Would you happen to know the answer to my question about setting the threads in VC?

EDIT: I was able to locate the preview file at C:\Documents and Settings\~USERNAME~\Application Data\VidCoder\Preview.mkv on XP.

[RandomEngy]

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "changing the threads". HandBrake by default will auto-detect the number of cores in your system and spawn threads to use as many as it can. This is what VidCoder does. Do you want it to do something different?

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 0.6.0 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/51915).

* Overhauled Advanced x264 panel to bring it up to date and streamline a few things.
* Reworked the Destination UI to be a bit cleaner than a plain textbox. Added more error checking on the Destination box.
* Broke out Current/Average FPS to a popup dialog box when hovering over the progress bar.
* Added "Same as Source" option for audio sample rate. Also did refactoring to store sample rate as a raw number in Hz.
* Visual refresh for Input/Output preview boxes: added gradients, shadows and moved the label inside the box.
* Added tab navigation for titles in the Chapter Markers dialog, and made the text selected by default after tabbing to another title.
* Changed auto-naming to avoid choosing the same name as the input file.
* Updated to latest HandBrake SVN (3501)
* Added icon to the "Play" button for generating preview clips and changed text to "Play Preview Clip".
* Added (No chapters found) marker when there is only one chapter, instead of the "Chapters 1 - 1" UI.
* Added tooltips explaining why the .mp4 extension or the Add Source Subtitle buttons are disabled.
* Tweaked color of paused progress bar.

* Fixed problem where batch file encodes were not automatically assigned the right extension.
* Fixed bug preventing chapter marker UI from showing/hiding when "Include Chapter Marker" checkbox is toggled.
* Fixed crash when using custom chapter names across titles with different chapter numbers. Disabled custom chapter names carrying over from title to title.
* Fixed bug that caused the Pixel Aspect Ratio to display as 0/0 when first switching to Custom Anamorphic.
* Fixed UI issues that could occur when the source scan failed.

[flebber]

The new version seems to be coming along well. Running a few test encodes now. Really this next thing I can do this myself, but thought a good preset to add would be a default divxplus HD.

[TOMillr]

Like your tool, thanks for the hard work. However, how about adding an option to just do a pass-through for the video track (like you can do on a AC3 file)?

[RandomEngy]

Thanks.

However the HandBrake core libraries don't have video passthrough, so I can't put it in VidCoder.

[TOMillr]

However the HandBrake core libraries don't have video passthrough, so I can't put it in VidCoder.
Oh, that's too bad. Any change that this could be patched in somehow as the handbrake guys won't include this feature?

[RandomEngy]

It would have to be a custom build of the HandBrake libraries to do that. I don't think it would be a good idea because it would mean integrating all the changes any time HandBrake updated. Well also because I have no idea how to do it. :)

[mike20021969]

HandBrake lets me put a custom resolution in of 640x360 (16:9). It encodes to these exact dimensions, too. Playing the movie in QuickTime, and clicking Window>Movie Inspector, confirms this.

After I enter 640x360 values into VidCoder, why does it round them to 640x368 (1.74:1). The Movie Inspector confirms 640x368 which is not 16:9.

Although I've tried looking in drop down menus and checking the various other video options in VidCoder, I cannot enter the 16:9 value I require.

A custom setting should be just that, no?

[RandomEngy]

It's rounding to a factor of 16 for compatibility. The last time I tried relaxing this to a factor of 2 rather than 16, it crashed on me. I've updated the HandBrake core since then though, so I'll give it another shot. I think it should be fine now.

[RandomEngy]

Changed it to 2 and everything is working great. Should be in the next release.

[mike20021969]

Changed it to 2 and everything is working great. Should be in the next release.This is great to news. :thanks:

PS You previously mentioned It's rounding to a factor of 16 for compatibility. Compatability for what?
Sorry if I sound thick for asking.
Cheers.

[RandomEngy]

Some of the encoders didn't work unless the dimensions were divisible by 16.

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 0.6.1 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/54882):

* Updated UI to support HandBrake's AC3 encoding.
* Updated UI to support SSA subtitle sources.
* Added ability to import a preset by dragging one to the main window or with Tools -> Import Preset.
* Added ability to cancel scans and preview clip generation.
* Added ability to automatically pause when certain processes are detected and resume when they are gone.
* Relaxed dimension restrictions from a multiple of 16 to a multiple of 2.
* Updated ETA calculation to be for the entire queue and changed format to indicate units.
* Changed subtitles to display their specific type rather than just Text/Bitmap.
* Simplified preview window title when PAR is 1:1.
* Updated HandBrake to svn3594

* Fixed crashes when batch queueing multiple titles with different subtitles/audio tracks.
* Fixed crash when closing while encode is in progress.
* Fixed chapter marker UI visibility not updating on preset revert/delete.
* Fixed issue with auto-calculating dimensions in non-anamorphic which could cause a crash.
* Fixed preview window not updating after delete/revert of preset.
* Fixed foreign audio search.
* Fixed "scan error" message staying around during a new scan.
* Fixed potential crash when switching preview screen during a scan.

Should auto-update the next time you exit the program.

[RandomEngy]

HandBrake added unencrypted blu-ray support recently. I've gotten it working in VidCoder but there's an odd and frequent crash on scanning for some reason (so it's disabled in 0.6.1 for now). My next big tasks are fixing this and getting blu-ray working, then an x64 build.

[flebber]

With 0.6.1

I get this error when importing megui xml preset.

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at VidCoder.Model.Presets.LoadPreset(String presetFile) in D:\docs\projects\VidCoder\VidCoder\Model\Presets.cs:line 104
at VidCoder.Services.PresetImport.ImportPreset(String presetFile) in D:\docs\projects\VidCoder\VidCoder\Services\PresetImport.cs:line 23
at VidCoder.ViewModel.MainViewModel.<get_ImportPresetCommand>b__49(Object param) in D:\docs\projects\VidCoder\VidCoder\ViewModel\MainViewModel.cs:line 1960
at VidCoder.RelayCommand.Execute(Object parameter) in D:\docs\projects\VidCoder\VidCoder\RelayCommand.cs:line 43
at MS.Internal.Commands.CommandHelpers.CriticalExecuteCommandSource(ICommandSource commandSource, Boolean userInitiated)
at System.Windows.Controls.MenuItem.InvokeClickAfterRender(Object arg)
at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.InternalRealCall(Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs)
at MS.Internal.Threading.ExceptionFilterHelper.TryCatchWhen(Object source, Delegate method, Object args, Int32 numArgs, Delegate catchHandler)

[RandomEngy]

Oh yeah I should mention that this only imports VidCoder presets, not presets from other programs. Though I should definitely clean up that crash.

[odditory]

thanks again for the hard work with this thing, glad to see updates are still rolling. i love this a whole lot better than handbrake because its a lot tighter and more than just a facemask for the CLI like HB's windows GUI.

as for the Bluray issue, for now i'm getting around it by using MakeMKV to convert a bluray rip to an MKV file with chapters intact, then I drop that MKV into Vidcoder which then picks up the chapter markers and everything - something it can't obviously if I try to drag&drop any files from the original BD structure folder.

[RandomEngy]

Glad you like it!

Oh and by the way: j45 just fixed the crash on scanning blu-ray structures recently. Blu-ray direct ripping is working now! It will show up in 0.7.0 which I hope to have out sometime this week. Though one caveat is that it doesn't support subtitles yet.

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 0.7.0 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/55357):

* Blu-ray support added! Thanks to j45 for getting this in HandBrake and fixing an issue I was running into. (Requires AnyDVD HD and subtitles are not supported yet)
* Added option to control the number of preview images created during a scan.
* Added memory and disc caching for preview images to make dragging the slider more responsive with HD material.
* When editing the destination, clicking outside of the box removes focus from it.

* Fixed crashes when switching titles when making preview clips or canceling in the scan phase.
* Fixed crash when attempting to import an .xml file that isn't a VidCoder preset.

[toby702]

trying to analyse this source file.

[Przemek_Sperling]

Thank you for your hard work.

I would like to ask you for one thing: can you use NeroAAC as an alternative to FAAC? FAAC is very outdated (it cannot ompete not only with Vorbis but also with LAME), moreover, it uses only LC profile. I know that NeroAAC is not LGPLed so the installation could be made similar to LameXP and some builds of BonkEnc - take NeroAAC libraries and drop them to the root folder.

[RandomEngy]

Would love to but that's built into HandBrake. It's the only working AAC encoder for windows right now. Mac gets something better (core audio I think) but that's not working on Windows.

[RanmaCanada]

I would like to say that your program rocks totally. I use handbrake a lot for my anime encodes, and it is a huge problem to get the DAR proper when I am setting things up to be moved to bluray. Your program actually has the DAR calc nice and simple. Any idea what it is like to convert 8 dvd's of eps to find the DAR is incorrect and have to do it all over again. Cause no point of importing the files into multiavchd and then having it re-encode them all because the DAR is incorrect. Thank you so much for making this proggy! Now to find the donate button and give you some!

Do have one question though. Have just encoded some of my stuff, and I have multiple on multiple sub streams. There should only be a max of 2, but for some reason I have some files that have 4 and one movie that has 8 (movie only had 1 sub track to begin with). I have checked them and the files are all the same. Since I am encoding stuff and authoring it to bluray it is not a big deal as I can take the subtracks out, but I am curious as to why it is doing this.

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 0.7.1 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/55704):
* Changed file caching from PNG to BMP for a performance increase, and refactored it to never block the UI thread. Moving the preview slider and making picture changes should be more responsive.
* The Video tab now displays the type, video codec and framerate of the input.
* Updated wording on DVD/VIDEO_TS folder to refer to Blu-rays as well.
* Updated look of the "remove" button.

* Fixed crash when dragging a row by its remove button.

Ranma: Thanks. You say that the output movie has more subtitle tracks than intended? Are they getting duplicated? Which ones were you picking?

[RanmaCanada]

Yes it appears they are being duplicated, but it is not on every title. As I said I am converting my anime collection of legally bought and owned anime, because box sets take up too much space now haha. Anyways, Trigun, it has 2 sub streams, and when encoded it gave me 4. They are all the same. Vampire Hunter D, gave me 8 substreams, and there is only 1 in the dvd. Slayers Book of Spells gave me 12 substreams.

It appears to be duplicating the first substream, but not on every title. The other Slayers movies I did were perfectly fine, only the one was affected. I am going to try encoding these files by themselves and not in a batch as I did just to see if it is the way the pgc is on the disc, or if something else is going on.

K I updated to the newest version, and when I did the eps individually, it only gave me the 1 substream. As soon as I did it as a batch, ie processed the entire dvd at once, I suddenly have 4 sub streams. Not sure what is going on.

[RanmaCanada]

K so Trigun ep 01 has 4 sub streams, when there is only 1 on the disc. Ep 2 has 4 as well, then it gets weird. Ep 03 has 5 sub streams, and ep 04 has 6 sub streams. They are all in one pgc on the disc, meaning chapters 1-20 of one big play list. So I have the chapters split as per normal, 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20. As you would normall split up a multi ep pgc. The chapters are fine in the mkv file, the audio tracks are great, just the subs seem to go berserk. And as I said if I only do 1-5 and not queue the rest, there is no subtitle duplication. Yet for some reason Vampire Hunter D, which is 1 movie, still has massive amounts of subtracks. It might be these specific titles?? Not sure as everything else pretty much worked, cept for that one Slayers movie heh. I know the odds of you having this stuff is close to nil, but whatever information I can give you I will!

[RandomEngy]

I think I know what's happening. I switched over from manually creating my own subtitle list to creating it via hb_add_subtitle. They must not be going away in between queue jobs and just building up. I'll try to get it fixed sometime this week.

[RanmaCanada]

No rush at all. Whatever I can do to help you out just let me know. I can't code, but I can encode whatever you need and let you know the results? You still need a donate button :P haha. I am one of the few people that donated to Dean, the creator of Multiavchd, and I would like to send you some bux as well. You sir deserve it for your attention to your work. I will try Vampire Hunter D on it's own and see if it goes nuts in regards to making subs.

[Jonodan]

I am having some difficulty designating Target Sizes in Vidcoder and getting an output file of a completely different size.

I want to be able to convert some TV shows I recorded from cable TV (Standalone DVD-R, in SP "2 hour" mode) to MKV (or MP4) to add to a multimedia streambox I use. I also want to reduce the file sizes in the process.

However, when I use Target Size, the requested file size was not respected in the resulting file. Here is an example:

- - - - - - -
FILE: Gettysburg - Little Round Top (Civil War Combat - Military Channel).mpg
Runtime: Approx 45 minutes (File size 1.574 gig)

Source: Recorded from Cable TV onto Standalone DVD-R (SP / 2 hour mode). Imported DVD-R directly into Corel / Ulead Videostudio - commercials removed - saved to mpg file using "same as Original Video Clip" for video settings.

VIDEO DETAILS: NTSC, MPEG-2, Upper Fields First, 24 bits, 720x480, 4:3, 29.970 F/S, Vairable Bit Rate (Max 6124 kbps)
AUDIO: Dolby Digital, 126,710,711 Samples, 48000 Hz, Bit Rate: 256
- - - - - - -
After scanning w/ Vidcoder, the video was noted as "No Chapters Found" and audio reflected "1 Unknown (AC3) (2.0 ch)"

I used all default settings except for setting the output directory, choosing MKV as the container, setting 2 pass encoding w/ turbo first pass and adjusting the TARGET FILE SIZE as 950 meg.

For reference, some of the default settings I did NOT adjust were h.264 as Video Codec, Audio settings also all left as default (Target Stream: All, AAC (faac), Dolby Pro Logic II, 48 hz, 160 bitrate)

The encoding took almost 6 hours and resulted in a MKV file of 133 meg (not 950).

I have noticed a few other things. When ripping a music video (330 meg) from a commercial DVD (using DVDFAb to rip the DVD to PC, and - thereafter - the same process used for the sample file noted above - Imported to ULEAD, edited, saved to MPG), VidCoder converted it properly using these same settings and shrinking it as requested (to 180 meg).

ALSO - VidCoder seems to respect requested Target Sizes with my DVD-R recordings if I turn the "2 Pass Encoding" option "OFF".
ALSO: I had similar issues using the original "Handbrake" GUI.

I'm thus assuming the issue stems from my DVD-R sources, but would still like to covert them and reduce them down in size.

Any thoughts?

I am adding a link to the TEXT file of the VidCoder log file. Thanks for any feedback.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/5/15/1081476/Vidlog.txt

[RandomEngy]

If you're getting the same problem with the original GUI it's probably an issue in the HandBrake core. You should ask about that over at the HandBrake site; I only work on the Windows UI.

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 0.7.2 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/55865).

This fixes the duplicated subtitles issue.

[RanmaCanada]

ok trying it out now and I will post the results when I am done. Thank you for your quickness. You still need a donate button :P

[RandomEngy]

For a number of reasons I don't think accepting donations for the project would be a good idea. If you'd like to express your appreciation, donate whatever you feel like to Village Reach (http://villagereach.org/).

[RanmaCanada]

It works now. No problems with multiple streams. Thank you!

[scarmdjee]

I like this app very much.
So good job RandomEngy :)

just 2 things..

1: Format profile: can you put this to High@L4.1?
the highest profile is only 3.1, can i change it myself, or is this not an option for this app?

2: Pixel Aspect Ratio: it seems i can't change it to other ratio's..
It always stands to 1/1, do i something wrong?

Keep up the good job m8, it really is a nice and easy to use prog. ;)

[RandomEngy]

:)

You're talking about x264 profiles? Profiles and tune settings don't work with HandBrake; only the direct settings on the Advanced tab.

About the Pixel Aspect Ratio: do you have Custom Anamorphic selected?

[scarmdjee]

Ah, that's too bad that uou can not make these settings.. maybe in the future.. :)

about AR, yes i have Custom Anamorphic selected ;)

grtz

[b66pak]

I've been able to call directly into the HandBrake core libraries...

it is possible to add the option to skip video encoding (set as "copy stream") for h264 sources?
_

[RandomEngy]

scarmdjee: Do you have the Pixel Aspect Ratio radio choice checked? It won't be editable if you have Display Width selected.
b66pak: The HandBrake libraries don't support video stream copy and they don't have any plans on adding it. As a consumer of those APIs I don't have any way of adding it.

[scarmdjee]

scarmdjee: Do you have the Pixel Aspect Ratio radio choice checked? It won't be editable if you have Display Width selected.


i have found it RandomEngy ;)
a mistake from me wich i overlooked..
thx for replying m8 ;)

[DottorLeo]

Can you add the "preset" and the "tune" options to VidCoder? It's quite tedious to copy all the string on the command line.

For example to use the preset "veryslow" i had to add manually this string ref=16:bframes=8:b-adapt=2:direct=auto:me=umh:merange=24:subq=10:rc-lookahead=60:analyse=all:trellis=2.

Anyway, really nice GUI!

[ckmox]

Can you add the "preset" and the "tune" options to VidCoder? It's quite tedious to copy all the string on the command line.

For example to use the preset "veryslow" i had to add manually this string ref=16:bframes=8:b-adapt=2:direct=auto:me=umh:merange=24:subq=10:rc-lookahead=60:analyse=all:trellis=2.

Anyway, really nice GUI!

handbrake has its own set of presets so the preset and tune option for x264 is not going to work with it

im a handbrake user so i know this as vidcoder at its core uses handbrake too

[DottorLeo]

handbrake has its own set of presets so the preset and tune option for x264 is not going to work with it

im a handbrake user so i know this as vidcoder at its core uses handbrake too

Yeah but the presets are a simple command that gathers toghether many others, for example as the "very slow" preset on my message above. You can do the same thing changing the values on the Advanced menu as the preset value so why don't add a simple command to the job instead every time editing the command line or all the value in that menu? :confused:

[RandomEngy]

I suppose you could do something like that. Though it would be a rather annoying feature to implement and maintain since you can't just pass a preset name into x624 and trust it to do the right thing. You'd have to keep all the tunes and presets up to date yourself. HandBrake does have some plans to implement tunes/presets for real at some point so I don't really have a big motivation for going off and doing it the hard way.

[anonchoad]

Works flawlessly. Awesome app RandomEngy. Thank you very much.:D

[zygo]

very nice app randomengy. only found it the other day and am most impressed with its ease :)

i have 3 requests for consideration: (or maybe they are there & i just havent found them yet)

1) in the video tab there is the selection for frame rate. currently if you select 'same as source' you get a file with a variable frame rate averaged on the source not a fixed frame rate. can we get a radio button for selecting fixed or variable? a bit like if you choose the frame rate directly you get a button to make it variable rather than fixed.

2) the chapters that handbrake includes (in mp4) dont work in anything but apple stuff (not mpc, wmc, wmp etc.). if handbrake cant do any differently, would it be possible to have the ability to have the gui create a batch file after each encode that could be fed the information/command lines etc. from the ui to have chapterextractor(or something else) extract the chapter info from source file/files and then mux it into the mp4 with mp4box (a bit like how hdconvertox does it). the same system could also be used for other post encode operations like moving a file from local onto a server etc.

3) in the log, after the source is scanned, there is a comment warning you that the content is probably interlaced and giving you a fraction indicating the chances it is. could there be something show up on the page with this warning so it is plain to see? possibly this could be latched to a setting of 'auto' in the interlaced dropdown so that if 'auto' is preselected and the interlaced flag is there the interlaced filter is set to a preset setting automatically. (did that make sense?? ;)

anyway, much thanks from me for your efforts

zygo :)

[RandomEngy]

Those all seem like good suggestions. I'll look into them when I get a chance.

[JohnAStebbins]

3) in the log, after the source is scanned, there is a comment warning you that the content is probably interlaced and giving you a fraction indicating the chances it is. could there be something show up on the page with this warning so it is plain to see? possibly this could be latched to a setting of 'auto' in the interlaced dropdown so that if 'auto' is preselected and the interlaced flag is there the interlaced filter is set to a preset setting automatically. (did that make sense?? ;)
zygo :)

This interlacing information very inaccurate. It is making a guess based on the number of preview frames that appear to be interlaced. First, a frame that appears to be interlaced may not be (false positive hit). Then, the percentage is based on how many hits are seen in the preview images that are scanned. Because there are only a small number of previews scanned, you are going to suffer from small sample statistics. This often results in no interlacing warning for a source that is interlaced because still (or low motion) frames will not be detected as interlaced. If much of the film is low motion, then few (if any) of the preview images with be detected as interlaced.

I tried to make use of this information for exactly what you are asking for. It was essentially useless. Set the threshold too low and it tells you everything is interlaced due to the false positives. Set it too high and it tells you everything is non-interlaced because of low motion frames. Set the threshold in the middle somewhere and you get essentially random results that are incorrect as often as they are correct.

[DIEGO7-5]

Or you could just set "decomb" to "default" when unsure as it will only deinterlace when necessary from what i understood.

[zygo]

yeah, i realise it wont be perfectly acurate but its a start. i have found just 1 interlaced movie in a collection of several hundred dvds. it would be handy if i could get flagged should another one pop up.

i tried the decomb(default setting) but it was a pretty awfull result. deinterlace worked well but i had to go back and rip it again & re-encode it (i had deleted the rip after the 1st encode)

cheers to all :)

edit:
just checked out decomb in the handbrake wiki. seems that 'default' in my case may have been 'off'. from what i read, leaving decomb 'on' all the time will not effect progressive video at all but should sort out any interlaced frames it encounters. thanks for the heads up DIEGO7-5, ill give it a try set to 'on'.

cheers :)

[insect111]

how about adding GPU acceleration...hehehe.

[Mr. Monte]

My vidcoder crashes when I use preview, Handbrake works. What can I do to ascertain the possible issue? (New, fresh Win 7 Ultimate install on a i7 quad core laptop)

TIA

[RandomEngy]

There's a bug in the current version that will crash if you've got Custom anamorphic on and have not changed the Display Width away from 0. That might be what you're running into. It will be fixed in the next version. Hopefully I'll get some time to crank something out this weekend.

[RandomEngy]

zygo: About the frame rate. I don't know exactly what you mean. There's no fixed/variable choice when using the source framerate on the official HB GUI either and I'm not sure how to implement that.

About the chapters: What format would be useful?

[zygo]

gday RandomEngy

zygo: About the frame rate. I don't know exactly what you mean. There's no fixed/variable choice when using the source framerate on the official HB GUI either and I'm not sure how to implement that.


its not in the hb gui but it is there in the cli. to quote the wiki...... (http://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/CLIGuide)

"--vfr, --cfr, --pfr: Variable, Constant or Peak Framerate. (Default is VRF unless -r is specified in which case CFR is default) "

"same as source" should also have the option to add --cfr which then sets the encode to constant rate

About the chapters: What format would be useful?

using vc outputing to mp4, the chapters are currently inserted the 'apple' way. other software/guis (using mp4box) mux chapters differently to the mp4, i believe its the 'nero' way.

not sure if its possible with vc using the hb core to control this, but on my hardware here, anything muxed with mp4box shows selectable chapters and all mp4's from vc show no chapters (mediainfo shows chapters are there in the container)

or, if your thinking about the batch file idea, you could have a couple of "boxes" in another tab of the gui with "pre-encode" and "post-encode" commands.
these commands could use variables that are passed at encode time eg. <infile> <outfile> <titleno> <videotrackno> <audiotrackno> <subtrackno> etc.

pre-encode
____________________________________________________________
|eac3to.exe <infile> <subtrackno>:"forced.sup"
|java -jar BDSup2Sub.jar forced.sup forced.idx /res:1080p
|
|
|
|____________________________________________________________
post-encode
____________________________________________________________
|ChapterXtractor.exe <infile> chapters.txt
|mp4box.exe -chap chapters.txt <outfile>
|
|
|____________________________________________________________


at encode time these commands are executed (say via a batch file thats created or internally in a cmd environment)

hope this helps

cheers

zygo

ps. any chance of adding a way to automatically extract pgs subs from blurays (eac3to), converting the forced subs to srt/idx (bdsup2sub) & then using them in the hb encoding process??
a bit like the way "another eac3togui-plus" does.... would be great to have the whole process in 1 piece of software :)

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 0.8.0 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/58650):

* Added x64 version. (note that closed captioning doesn't work in this build)
* Made the audio output preview more detailed and accurate. If the chosen encoder or mixdown is incompatible with the source, the fallback that will be used is displayed.
* Added "Auto" to the audio mixdown choices.
* Reworked non-anamorphic size calculation to work better with non-standard pixel aspect ratios and cropping.
* Reworked Custom anamorphic to be more intuitive and allow display width to be set automatically (Thanks, Statick).
* Allowing higher bitrates for 6-channel surround when using AAC.
* Changed wording on empty width and height fields from (not set) to (auto) to be more clear.
* Combined AC3 and DTS passthrough options so that one choice can work as a passthrough for either format.
* Changed built-in presets to use Auto sample rate rather than 48 kHz.
* Updated the "Encode" icon look

* Fixed crash that could occur when refreshing the preview image while encoding a preview clip.
* Disabled deinterlacing on static previews to help prevent a crash.

[RandomEngy]

zygo:

Yeah, I can't control the way that HandBrake adds chapter markers. I can set chapter names and tell it to write the chapter markers out, but nothing else.

About the pre-and-post encode commands... seems like a decent general power-user feature. Though it might not be as simple as it seems. Sometimes the "infile" that I give to HandBrake is just a VIDEO_TS or blu-ray folder. I'll think about it.

About the bluray subs: I don't think there's way to pass in anything but SRTs for external subtitles.

[Przemek_Sperling]

The x64 version of VidCoder works great! Thank you!

[Mr. Monte]

RandomEnergy,

Is it to assume that when you build a newer release, you use the latest (nightly build) CLI? In other words..will it have all the HB bug fixes, additions and latest x264 in it?

Thanks for your work

[RandomEngy]

It is usually pretty close to the nightly build when I release. It's sometimes a little bit behind because I have to do the build and integration myself (I need to build the libhb DLLs myself in a Fedora VM), or I might have a small release where I don't bother to update it. You can check which HandBrake SVN revision I'm using on the About dialog. But it's certainly a lot closer to the nightlies than it is to the official releases.

[Mr. Monte]

RandomEnergy,

Just tried this build and my crash noted above during preview in Windows 7 fixed..thank you

Thanks again

Very nice..I like to use this (Handbrake) for VC-1 encoded rips..since I always seem to have a audio sync no matter what I try with other GUI apps.

[Mr. Monte]

Released VidCoder 0.8.0 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/58650):

* Added x64 version. (note that closed captioning doesn't work in this build)

RandomEngy,

Glad you posted about the closed caption on the x64 version. The two websites i saw stating the x64 was now availabale did not mention that. Any idea when that may be fixed?

Can you give an approximate speed increase using the x64 vs x86? (IE, is it using the x64 version of x264lib and any other x64 versions of software that might add increased encoding?). Reason I ask is it appears to be the concensus currently that even using x64 versions of x264...there is a neglegible increase. I assume at some point those speeds diffrences will broaden.

Thanks again for a very nice program :thanks:

[RandomEngy]

its not in the hb gui but it is there in the cli. to quote the wiki...... (http://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/CLIGuide)

"--vfr, --cfr, --pfr: Variable, Constant or Peak Framerate. (Default is VRF unless -r is specified in which case CFR is default) "

"same as source" should also have the option to add --cfr which then sets the encode to constant rate

So here's the full, up to date explanation:

--vfr, --cfr, --pfr Select variable, constant or peak-limited
frame rate control. VFR preserves the source
timing. CFR makes the output constant rate at
the rate given by the -r flag (or the source's
average rate if no -r is given). PFR doesn't
allow the rate to go over the rate specified
with the -r flag but won't change the source
timing if it's below that rate.
If none of these flags are given, the default
is --cfr when -r is given and --vfr otherwise

Same as Source means VFR and preserving the source frame timing. There aren't any options on that. CFR means a specified frame rate with Peak Framerate unchecked. PFR means a specified frame rate with Peak Framerate checked.

[JohnAStebbins]

RandomEngy,

Glad you posted about the closed caption on the x64 version. The two websites i saw stating the x64 was now availabale did not mention that. Any idea when that may be fixed?

Can you give an approximate speed increase using the x64 vs x86? (IE, is it using the x64 version of x264lib and any other x64 versions of software that might add increased encoding?). Reason I ask is it appears to be the concensus currently that even using x64 versions of x264...there is a neglegible increase. I assume at some point those speeds diffrences will broaden.

Thanks again for a very nice program :thanks:

CC isn't supported on the x64 version because we changed mpeg2 decoders from mpeg2dec to ffmpeg and ffmpeg doesn't currently support passing the CC data to us. No eta because nobody is working on this yet. The change was made only for the x64 windows build because mpeg2dec would not build and patching it would have taken an enormous amount of effort. It's really borked on x64 windows.

On other platforms, moving to 64 bit gives about 10% improvement. But there are other factors that are going to affect speed in the windows x64 build. One of which is the above mentioned switch from mpeg2dec to ffmpeg. I've not done any benchmarks to see which of those two decoders is faster.

[Mr. Monte]

John,

Thanks for the info. Please advise all involved in the Handcoder, VidBrake project <g> I appreciate their hard work. It has really helped me compile my collection. :thanks:

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 0.8.1 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/59263):

* Adds ability to choose an arbitrary range (in seconds or frames) to encode.
* Adds ability to override the title number in the output file name when enqueing multiple titles.
* Updated presets: Added iPhone 4, Apple TV 2, fixed some existing presets that should have had weightp=0 or trellis=0 on them.
* Added {parent} option to auto-name format. Use {parent:2} to refer to a folder 2 levels above the input file.
* Added {title:2} option to auto-name format. Adds leading zeroes to reach the specified length.
* Update to HandBrake SVN 3735: the 0.9.5 release version.
* Adds minimum size to preview window.

* Fixes crash on batch encoding files.
* Fixes a possible null reference crash.
* Fixed crash that could occur when custom output file format was chosen.
* Fixed radio button markers disappearing from default/custom file format choice.
* Fixed problems with inline track name preview not showing up on audio stream selection in the encoder window.

[Mr. Monte]

Thanks sir

[Mr. Monte]

RandomEnergy or John,

Do you forsee in the future being able to import an external audio file?

IE, I have a BluRay with DTS-MA, I wanted to keep the DTS without encoding, just the core though..not the MA. Currently Handbrake only allows passthrough, unless you want to reencode. So I thought I could use EAC or TSMuxer to extract DTS core and then import that into my encoding job in Vidcoder. Unfortunately, Vidcoder allows importing outside subtitles, but not audio.

Thanks,

[JohnAStebbins]

RandomEnergy or John,

Do you forsee in the future being able to import an external audio file?

IE, I have a BluRay with DTS-MA, I wanted to keep the DTS without encoding, just the core though..not the MA. Currently Handbrake only allows passthrough, unless you want to reencode. So I thought I could use EAC or TSMuxer to extract DTS core and then import that into my encoding job in Vidcoder. Unfortunately, Vidcoder allows importing outside subtitles, but not audio.

Thanks,
Not likely. Generally, we try to keep the focus on transcoding. Such features belong in an app that specializes in muxing. Look at mkvmerge (or mmg for a gui) and MP4Box for such features.

[Mr. Monte]

John,

Thanks for the reply..I use all of those plus some. RipBot fills those needs like I asked above. However, I still have to extract the DTS core manually, sine Atak favors AAC.

Thanks again

[Pulp Catalyst]

does this program resolve or get around the horrible issue handbrake has when dealing with Sci-fi material like "Star Trek TNG/DS9" where you get that horrible stutter on some scenes especially on scenes that have panning,

i heard it has something todo with VFR, but i confirmed in the end it does not, it's a limitation of handbrake or x264 dealing with such things, PAL material only

i want to go on record here and say that i am aware that VFR cannot always be resolved,
but the issue with handbrake is not only does it not minimize the effect of the stutter, but i have found it actually makes the stutter more prominent than in the original source, and compared to other converters

i have done many tests, read a lot of posts in "Handbrake" forum (stutter is an issue that has plagued handbrake for quite sometime now)
i have tried VFR, Peak rate....blah blah.....but this apparently does not help PAL material at this time, it's targeted at NTSC material

done many comparisons with handbrake output files to other converters,

there is no question that handbrake seems to make the stutter effect worse

i just wanted to get that clear, i know there is always issues with TNG/DS9 type of material, but handbrake makes the end result far worse then any other top quality converter, in fact it makes it far worse period (again this has been talked about in handbrake forums, they are aware of this issue..... they have been aware of this issue for a long time in fact....still no fix as of yet)

(Staxrip, Fairuse Wizard, Xvid4PSP, AutoGK) these all seem to reduce the effect of VFR in the TV shows mentioned (Staxrip seems todo a better job overall, but they all do a good job at reducing the effect of VFR (stutter)

(handbrake has made many refinements concerning this stutter issue.....but for NTSC material only....NOT PAL)
VFR is tailored and designed for NTSC at this time, PAL users do not really benefit from VFR at all (this has been talked about and confirmed in handbrake forums)
VFR does not help PAL source (something todo with PAL material having different kind of telecine compared to NTSC, what has not been explained however in the handbrake forum is why handbrake causes so much stutter compared to other converters out there (mentioned above) on PAL material! fare enough handbrake can't fix the stutter.....but why does it make it so much worse......3 times worse in some cases (especially on panning screens funny enough)

handbrake is a one of it's kind mind, doesn't use avisynth so i heard?


anyway now for my question,
i was wondering if this program will have the same stuttering issue as handbrake, or has this been worked around?
sometimes work around can be done with GUI's, different approaches can sometimes eliminate potential problems that existed with the original application, so that's my question?



anyway here is when i say, i love Handbrake, the GUI interface is so intuitive, and the quality of the overall program is 10/10 points,
but it can only be used for Film encoding at this time, which is a real shame,

[RandomEngy]

VidCoder uses the HandBrake core so it should encode things the same way.

[Pulp Catalyst]

i see, thankyou

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 0.8.2 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/61687):

* Updated auto-naming to handle seconds and frames ranges as well. Deprecated the {chapters} token for auto-naming in favor of {range}.
* Allowing file drag to preview window and enabling main window shortcut keys to work no matter what window is focused.
* Added option in config to enable giving custom names to audio tracks. (Note that these names will only show up certain players like iTunes or on the iPod. Players that support custom track names normally may not show them.)
* Added tooltips on the Enqueue and Encode buttons explaining if they're disabled due to no chosen output folder.
* On the Queue Multiple Titles dialog, if "select range" is enabled, the range will now update after the range has changed. Also clicking on the number box will select all text within it.

* Adding missing trellis=0 to the Apple Universal preset.
* Fixed issue that could cause different custom cropping values to be lost when encoding multiple items in a queue.
* Fixed issue with non-anamorphic calculations with cropping and Keep Aspect Ratio.
* Fixed crash that could occur on opening the Destination Browse dialog with manually entered relative paths.
* Fixed Queue Multiple Titles option not showing up after choosing an output directory.

[thewonderer]

Thank you for your hardwork...

I came across the frame stutter too.. I have a i5 CPU and when i play back a NTSC DVD transcode use CRF 18 the video pauses for about 2 seconds before starting again.

Hopefully handbrake will fix this issue.

[DIEGO7-5]

Great Software no doubt about it. Just one strange thing: MKV´s generated with "High Profile" Preset only play on my WDTV Live, not on my Samsung BD-C 5500 BluRay Player while files generated with "RipBot264" play on both devices.

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 0.8.3 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/65063):

* Added new feature from HandBrake: Audio Gain. You can now adjust the volume up or down when encoding a track.
* Updated to HandBrake version 3935svn.
* Changed user preset storage and queue persistence to use SQLite database instead of XML files. Should eliminate the chance a crash could wipe out user data.
* Added ability to export a preset to an XML file, since user presets can no longer be found in the %appdata%\VidCoder directory.
* Added up and down buttons to number controls.
* Added individual job ETA to queue progress tooltip.
* Changed "video file" icon to look a bit more like a traditional windows file icon.

* Fixed turbo first pass not working.
* Fixed crash when trying to play a non-existent video file from the completed items tab.

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 0.8.4 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/65988):

* Added automatic preview of encoding bitrate when Target Size is chosen, and file size estimation when Average Bitrate is chosen. Also moved bitrate calculation to VidCoder as it will be removed from HandBrake soon.
* Added button to clear completed queue items.

* Increased size of number box controls in the queue multiple titles dialog to compensate for up and down buttons getting added.
* Fixed bug with range specification which was causing the end of the range to be used as a duration.
* Encodes that fail to produce an output file but report success are now reported correctly as failed.
* Changed preview to use calculated bitrate for the full encode when using Target Size.

[Vilmalith]

0.9 still being released this weekend? I'm not sure what vidcoder does different then the handbrake gui. But unlike the handbrake gui I haven't run into any audio drift problems using VidCoder.

[RandomEngy]

Hmm, that's odd. VidCoder just calls into the HandBrake core for encoding so I don't know why VC would work and HandBrake wouldn't.

About 0.9.0, I was originally planning to release this weekend but I've run into some problem with encodes getting cut off with the message "ERROR: Failed to write frame to output file, Disk Full?" . This seems to happen no matter which disk I write to. The problem takes a few hours to reproduce so it will probably be a while since I want to try and find if it's in earlier released versions, is just related to the source I'm using, if it exists in HandBrake, etc.

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 0.9.0 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/67117):

* New startup UI for one-click scanning of discs or opening a file/folder.
* New seek bar on the preview window to make switching previews easier (you can click anywhere on the bar).
* Added gradient backgrounds to the main window to visually group the sections.
* Added Open Video File and Open Video Folder options to the File menu.
* Moved preview button to be in line with the other control buttons.

* Fixed settings getting in a weird state if they were saved without an output folder being chosen.
* Fixed preview image not getting updated for the first change made after saving a preset.
* Fixed potential overlap of file names when batch encoding by fixing the auto-numbering system.
* Fixed crash on batch encoding files with no audio.
* Fixed issue with psy-rd not registering above 1.0.
* Fixed video encoder getting null value when switching from MKV to MP4 with Theora selected.

[ziemlichdunkel]

Released VidCoder 0.9.0 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/67117):


Tried the new v. 0.9.0

Get always the following crash, no matter what mkv-File i try to reencode: (happens after a while of encoding, still in the first pass phase, in this example at 12% of encoding)

Problemereignisname: APPCRASH
Anwendungsname: VidCoder.exe
Anwendungsversion: 0.9.0.0
Anwendungszeitstempel: 4ddf141c
Fehlermodulname: hb.dll
Fehlermodulversion: 0.0.0.0
Fehlermodulzeitstempel: 4dddd0b7
Ausnahmecode: c0000005
Ausnahmeoffset: 00000000006dfb53
Betriebsystemversion: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
Gebietsschema-ID: 3079
Zusatzinformation 1: 095e
Zusatzinformation 2: 095e4b76850fc26f19e391a7081950b1
Zusatzinformation 3: 89fd
Zusatzinformation 4: 89fd26cbd35cdc960a0dde0c125074af

Any idea or suggestions? :thanks:

[RandomEngy]

Crashes in the HandBrake core are tricky because I don't get a stack trace. A few things to try:

* If you're using x86 version, try x64
* Try an earlier version, like 0.8.2, which was built off of HandBrake 0.9.5 release

If you can, send me the preset you're using (export to .xml file) and file you're trying to encode, and let me know which flavor you're using (x86/x64). If I'm lucky the problem is in HandBrake itself and I can do some printline debugging to figure out what's going on.

[ziemlichdunkel]

Crashes in the HandBrake core are tricky because I don't get a stack trace. A few things to try:

* If you're using x86 version, try x64
* Try an earlier version, like 0.8.2, which was built off of HandBrake 0.9.5 release

If you can, send me the preset you're using (export to .xml file) and file you're trying to encode, and let me know which flavor you're using (x86/x64). If I'm lucky the problem is in HandBrake itself and I can do some printline debugging to figure out what's going on.

Preset and Screen of Mediainfo is attached (the file itself is to big to sent), tried both flavours (x86/x64) without luck.

It must be a bug in the Handbrake Core, because I get the same crash on "video.net - another gui from this forum" - I will play now with different older versions... any dependencies to other installed software?

best regards, and thanks for your help and the nice programm :)

[RandomEngy]

Oh yeah if it's happening in video.net as well I think it's a HandBrake core issue and nothing I can do about. If this happens in the official HandBrake GUI as well you could ask them for support.

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 0.9.1 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/67400):

* Added color coding to the Log window. Errors are highlighted in red, HandBrake logs are in black and VidCoder logs are in dark blue.
* Moved enqueue button down with the other control buttons.
* Added logic to report failures when errors are logged during the encode or when the encode finishes prematurely.
* Added Copy button to Log window.
* Adjusted audio track selection box to always show the full track name.
* Changed encode job progress bar to also be colored yellow when the encode is paused.
* Added multi-select to drag and drop on all lists (queue, customize queue columns).

* Updated to HandBrake 4011svn. This may fix some crashes on mpeg2 sources.

[Mr. Monte]

Randon,

I get the below error when opening Vidcoder 091 nad then exiting out..doing nothing else. Using WinXP Tablet edition

System.TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for 'VidCoder.WindowPlacement' threw an exception. ---> System.InvalidOperationException: Unable to generate a temporary class (result=1).
error CS0002: Unable to load message string from resources.
error CS0002: Unable to load message string from resources.
error CS0002: Unable to load message string from resources.

at System.Xml.Serialization.Compiler.Compile(Assembly parent, String ns, XmlSerializerCompilerParameters xmlParameters, Evidence evidence)
at System.Xml.Serialization.TempAssembly.GenerateAssembly(XmlMapping[] xmlMappings, Type[] types, String defaultNamespace, Evidence evidence, XmlSerializerCompilerParameters parameters, Assembly assembly, Hashtable assemblies)
at System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer.GenerateTempAssembly(XmlMapping xmlMapping, Type type, String defaultNamespace)
at System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer..ctor(Type type, String defaultNamespace)
at System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer..ctor(Type type)
at VidCoder.WindowPlacement..cctor() in D:\docs\projects\VidCoder\VidCoder\WindowPlacement.cs:line 60
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at VidCoder.WindowPlacement.GetPlacement(IntPtr windowHandle) in D:\docs\projects\VidCoder\VidCoder\WindowPlacement.cs:line 108
at VidCoder.WindowPlacementWpf.GetPlacement(Window window) in D:\docs\projects\VidCoder\VidCoder\WindowPlacementWpf.cs:line 19
at VidCoder.View.MainWindow.Window_Closing(Object sender, CancelEventArgs e) in D:\docs\projects\VidCoder\VidCoder\View\MainWindow.xaml.cs:line 287
at System.ComponentModel.CancelEventHandler.Invoke(Object sender, CancelEventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Window.OnClosing(CancelEventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Window.WmClose()
at System.Windows.Window.WindowFilterMessage(IntPtr hwnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam, Boolean& handled)
at System.Windows.Interop.HwndSource.PublicHooksFilterMessage(IntPtr hwnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam, Boolean& handled)
at MS.Win32.HwndWrapper.WndProc(IntPtr hwnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam, Boolean& handled)
at MS.Win32.HwndSubclass.DispatcherCallbackOperation(Object o)
at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.InternalRealCall(Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs)
at MS.Internal.Threading.ExceptionFilterHelper.TryCatchWhen(Object source, Delegate method, Object args, Int32 numArgs, Delegate catchHandler)

[RandomEngy]

I think this might be the problem:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/908158

You need to have List Folder Contents and Read permissions on %windir%\temp .

[Vilmalith]

In v0.9.1 it seems to be encoding the movies successfully (I do straight from dvd/bd to my media server) but status is being reported as failed. I watched one of the movies and it seemed to work fine, mediainfo reports the correct length and such. They are all ending with this at the end of the job log:
# Encode failed. HandBrake reported no error but the encode finished prematurely.
# Job completed
# Queue completed

I didn't try v0.9.0 but v0.8.4 worked great.

[RandomEngy]

I was having some problems with encodes stopping in the middle and failing without reporting anything wrong. I put in some logic to mark it as failed if the ETA was over 1 minute away but it finished. What do you see on the job ETA when the encode finishes? Are you using 2-pass? Does the reported ETA look weird?

Oh and if the file plays it's probably fine.

[Vilmalith]

I usually just start the encodes and do something else.

I did just watch it do one, the encodes are finishing well before the status bar gets to 100% and the estimated time remaining still has a couple mins left. I've done 4 movies so far with 0.9.1, it's done this on all of them and so far they all seem to work fine.

[RandomEngy]

Is it happening around halfway through? Does it happen no matter what source you're using? Are you using 2-pass?

[Vilmalith]

I am using CQ and I have not tried ripping the movie to HD and then encoding. All the movies have been direct encodes from dvd/bd to my media server. If you'd like I can rip a couple to HD and then do the encode to see what happens.

I believe the status bar gets to around 70% or so when the encode finishes with the failed status.

[RandomEngy]

Weird. HandBrake may be reporting the wrong encode progress amount. Don't know why else it would stop at 70% like that.

[Vilmalith]

I grabbed the latest handbrake nightly and did my usually stuff with that and it finished fine.

[RandomEngy]

Oh I just got this too. I'll figure out what's going on.

[ckmox]

@RandomEngy

slightly offtopic but do you know any documentation for using or knowing the parameters of libhb.dll?

[RandomEngy]

They don't have any documentation. There's some comments in the source: most of the relevant functions are in libhb/hb.c . I've also written a C# wrapper over hb.dll called HandBrakeInterop that has some XML comments on the functions (it's checked into the CodePlex site and HandBrakeInterop.dll comes with the VidCoder install). Nothing official and standalone though. If you'd like some more tips on how to use it, let me know.

[RandomEngy]

About the encodes reporting as failed: It appears that updating HandBrake to revision 4024 fixes it right up. I'll have a fix out shortly.

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 0.9.2 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/67904):

* Updated to HandBrake 4024svn. This fixes problems with mpeg2 sources: corrupted previews, incorrect progress indicators and encodes that incorrectly report as failed.
* Fixed a problem that prevented target sizes above 2048 MB.

Just a quick "breaking bug" update.

[Vilmalith]

It's working great!

[ckmox]

They don't have any documentation. There's some comments in the source: most of the relevant functions are in libhb/hb.c . I've also written a C# wrapper over hb.dll called HandBrakeInterop that has some XML comments on the functions (it's checked into the CodePlex site and HandBrakeInterop.dll comes with the VidCoder install). Nothing official and standalone though. If you'd like some more tips on how to use it, let me know.

thanks RandomEnergy ill check it out

[Vilmalith]

Just a heads up, I'm still getting the failed status every once awhile even though it appears that encodes complete successfully and the videos seem to work. If I had to put a number to it I'd say maybe 1 out of every 4 movies ends with a failed status.

[RandomEngy]

Well that's troubling. What sources are you using? DVDs? Do you notice how close it gets to finishing before cutting out?

[Vilmalith]

So far they have all been DVDs. Since I have to redo my whole entire dvd and blu ray collection (due to audio sync issues I didn't catch early on, this was with a different process not VidCoder) I'm not sitting around and watching them encode. I start one on each pc, leave and do something else and then come back after 30mins or so to see if they're done. Check them with media info, start the next encodes then stream the previous encodes to make sure all is good.

When I have made it back at the end of an encode I do notice that the encodes sit at ETA: 0s and status bar saying 100% for awhile and this time is not consistent between movies.

[RandomEngy]

Hmm, I guess HandBrake might just be off a bit on that. I'll turn off that feature for the next release so you don't get scary "encode failed" messages when everything is fine.

[flebber]

I am on wndows xp sp3 and have completed 10 encodes now with no error. not sure if that really helps but I can't see any errors here at the moment.

[Vilmalith]

Just as a heads up, not sure what was happening before, but I haven't had a status show as failed in like 20 encodes now.

[thewonderer]

Great program... thanks for all your work.

Just a quick bug report. In win7 64bit, when i change the picture/screen resolution settings via the up and down arrows, if I click on the arrow buttons too many times, it crashes. Also, when i want to just set the height and width to auto, i dont find it easy to do...

[RandomEngy]

Yeah it crashes on making previews sometimes. I've tried to do what I can to mitigate it but the crash happens down in the bowels of HandBrake somewhere and it's tough to debug. As for changing the height and width to auto, just delete the number.

[JohnAStebbins]

Yeah it crashes on making previews sometimes. I've tried to do what I can to mitigate it but the crash happens down in the bowels of HandBrake somewhere and it's tough to debug. As for changing the height and width to auto, just delete the number.

Have you tried sprinkling printf's or hb_log's through hb_get_preview to see how far it gets?

[RandomEngy]

I was investigating this a while back and I believe I tracked it down to one of the avpicture_fill calls. I suppose I could drill into that one by modifying the contribs and building but I have not worked up the nerve to go down that road yet. I think at the time I assumed I had screwed up the pinvoke structure marshaling somewhere and was messing up some memory, but I've since re-checked everything and I think I'm doing that correctly. (accounting for struct alignment in x86/x64 and all that). I may make one more stab at mitigating the problem then try and see where it's actually crashing.

I wish I had a proper debugger for this. :(

[JohnAStebbins]

I was investigating this a while back and I believe I tracked it down to one of the avpicture_fill calls. I suppose I could drill into that one by modifying the contribs and building but I have not worked up the nerve to go down that road yet. I think at the time I assumed I had screwed up the pinvoke structure marshaling somewhere and was messing up some memory, but I've since re-checked everything and I think I'm doing that correctly. (accounting for struct alignment in x86/x64 and all that). I may make one more stab at mitigating the problem then try and see where it's actually crashing.

I wish I had a proper debugger for this. :(

if avpicture_fill is failing, I would check that title->width/height and job->width/height are set to sensible values. Bad dimensions are the only way I can think of that avpicture_fill might fail. avpicture_fill really does very little work. It is merely setting up pointers to each color plane in the buffer you are passing and sets row strides.

[RandomEngy]

Okay well I know at least one problem... the minimum width/height seems to be 46 now, not 32. So pressing the "up" arrow when the width or height is on (auto) will crash it. That might be the crash that everyone is seeing.

[RanmaCanada]

Is there anyway to change the audio encoder from ffmpeg? I have some older anime I ripped a few years ago, ok, like almost a decade ago, and I am having issues with the conversion. I did it back when ogm was all the rage for space saving and stuff, and vidcoder/handbrake is having serious issues with the audio. The audio is ogg, and whenever I am trying to convert it to ac3 or aac, the audio has static, pauses and is just plainly horrible. I have tried using other apps like bencos, hybrid, megui, mediacoder and they all are able to process the audio properly, but not the subtitles. I want to use vidcoder because this is 7 seasons of anime, all the titles done properly and chapter breaks. I do not feel like re-ripping all 150+ episodes again haha. But if I must I must. I know it more than likely is a handbrake limitation like vfr, but it never hurts to ask? :)

[Vilmalith]

Just wanted to say this is still working great. I've ripped 200 of my movies so far. Ever so often I still get a failed status even though the movie works. But so far so good, loving it.

[Hobbe]

thanks for a great program... just a feature request.. Is it possible to show the input audio on the audio tab like you do on the video tab? Right now you only see the type of audio.. and not channels, bitrate and sample rate.

[ralph9994]

Would like to let you know that VidCoder runs great on Windows 8.

[RandomEngy]

Thanks for the reports. Working on the next version at the moment.

Vilmalith: I'm going to remove the incorrect "failed" messages.
Hobbe: You can see the channels in the description: usually it says (2.0) or something similar on the track title. I'll look into displaying bitrate/sample rate as well on the audio tab.

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 0.9.3 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/70601):

* Added option to Sleep, Log off or Shut down after the encode queue completes.
* Added support for DTS-HD passthrough. Note that Target Size/Size estimation will not work correctly for this as the underlying libraries do not report the bitrate correctly.
* Added Dynamic Range Compression (DRC) support
* Added shortcuts to re-open recent sources
* Updated Normal preset x264 settings to be faster. (mirroring HandBrake update)
* Moved encode progress bar and ETA down to the bottom of the window.
* Updating to HandBrake SVN 4103.

* The XmlSerializers used are now pre-compiled. This means things should be a little faster on startup and this should eliminate some crashes related to compiling them.
* Changed update metadata storage to use the sqlite DB. This along with some extra checks to ensure the installer file exists should eliminate some reported crashes around auto-update.
* Stopped reporting early completions as failures. Too many false positives.
* Prevent a crash when getting the system DPI fails.
* Removed code that reads an old version of the encode queue. Should prevent crashes that have been reported.
* Fixed buggy "(Empty)" drive option appearing in the source list.
* Fixed a crash that occurred when attempting to pause a restored queue item before the on-demand scan had completed. The pause button is now disabled until it can have effect.
* Fixed some controls getting partially cut off in the Picture tab at minimum window width.

[flebber]

Thanks for the new version. Will it be possible to add selector for AAC LC, HE, Hev2, or to use nero to acheive it?

[flebber]

0.93 On windows XP SP3. When using it from DVD drive to scan source it is freezing. I have tried it with two of my DVD's now the progress bar moves along 3 bars and that's where it stays.

To be sure I wasn't impatient I left it an hour and a half and still at the same point. Got a new DVD in at the moment and stil same result after 20 minutes.

[Przemek_Sperling]

Thanks for the new version. Will it be possible to add selector for AAC LC, HE, Hev2, or to use nero to acheive it?

I already asked for that feature. The answer seems to be "no" :-( Pity because the quality of sound is so-so if compared to Nero.

[RandomEngy]

Yeah AAC audio is up to the HandBrake people. They recently added FFMpeg AAC but it's worse than FAAC right now. They can't do Nero due to licensing issues so their hope is that FFMpeg AAC will get better.

As for the scan freeze: Are you using AnyDVD? Does the freeze happen when you copy the source to the hard drive first? I'm not getting that problem here.

[flebber]

No I don't use the program AnyDVD, the freeze only occurs when I click DVD source using vidcoder. I will install handbrake later and see if that works for the two DVD's I tried.

[RandomEngy]

Are the DVDs commercial DVDs with copy protection? VidCoder needs another program to strip off the CSS to read those.

[flebber]

Yeah Fast and the Furious 1 & 2. So how do you tell vidcoder to use another program for libdvdcss

[RandomEngy]

Options are on the VidCoder main page: http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/

I tried getting VidCoder to load in libdvdcss.dll but it would always blow up with an inexplicable error.

AnyDVD, Passkey for DVD, DVDFab DVD Copy and DVD Decrypter are some options for you. DVD43 if you're on an x86 OS.

[Mr. Monte]

RE,

I have a working 0.9.2 Vidcoder x86 running on my x64 Win 7 video machine. I D/L'd the new 0.9.4 X64 version and installed. I ran it and the add to queue button would not become active so I could do a batch encode. I then downloaded the X86 version and installed that and it worked fine...any suggestions?

[RandomEngy]

Do you have your output directory set? Does the tooltip say anything when you hover over the button?

[ziemlichdunkel]

When using copy source audio and it's an DTS MA HD, then Vidcoder job gives an unsuccessful error, I clicked then on Log in the Menu then the app didn't respond anymore.
After viewing the Log manually it says:

[11:52:10] * audio track 0
[11:52:10] + decoder: Deutsch (DTS-HD MA) (5.1 ch) (track 1, id 0x1)
[11:52:10] + DTS-HD passthrough
[11:52:10] * audio track 1
[11:52:10] + decoder: Chinese (DTS-HD MA) (5.1 ch) (track 1, id 0x2)
[11:52:10] + DTS-HD passthrough
.......
x264 [info]: profile High, level 5.0
ERROR: muxmkv: Unknown audio codec: c0040000
[11:52:37] work: average encoding speed for job is 0.000000 fps
[11:52:37] sync: got 0 frames, 172920 expected
[11:52:37] h264-decoder done: 7 frames, 0 decoder errors, 0 drops
[11:52:37] reader: done. 1 scr changes
[11:52:37] render: lost time: 0 (0 frames)
[11:52:37] render: gained time: 0 (0 frames) (0 not accounted for)
[11:52:37] dca-decoder done: 0 frames, 0 decoder errors, 0 drops
[11:52:37] dca-decoder done: 0 frames, 0 decoder errors, 0 drops
[11:52:37] mux: track 0, 0 frames, 0 bytes, 0.00 kbps, fifo 8
[11:52:37] mux: track 1, 0 frames, 0 bytes, 0.00 kbps, fifo 8
[11:52:37] mux: track 2, 0 frames, 0 bytes, 0.00 kbps, fifo 8
[11:52:37] mux: track 3, 0 frames, 0 bytes, 0.00 kbps, fifo 8
[11:52:37] decomb: deinterlaced 0 | blended 0 | unfiltered 0 | total 0
[11:52:37] libhb: work result = 0
# Encode failed. Error(s) were reported during the encode.

Also I noticed this warning:
x264 [warning]: --psnr used with psy on: results will be invalid!
x264 [warning]: --tune psnr should be used if attempting to benchmark psnr!

What does it mean?

best regards, and thanks for the program...

[JohnAStebbins]

ERROR: muxmkv: Unknown audio codec: c0040000


It means HB_ACODEC_FF_I_FLAG was somehow propagated from the input audio codec value to the output audio codec value. This flag should only be present on input codec values. Also, this flag completely goes away in HB svn 4141.

[JohnAStebbins]

Also I noticed this warning:
x264 [warning]: --psnr used with psy on: results will be invalid!
x264 [warning]: --tune psnr should be used if attempting to benchmark psnr!

What does it mean?


HandBrake enables psnr statistics logging in x264. Many people doing comparisons of encoders try to use these statistics improperly. So the x264 developers added this warning to try to get these people to do proper comparisons. The numbers are still somewhat meaningful without --tune psnr, just not suitable for comparing encoders.

[RandomEngy]

Thanks for the report (and the explanation). I'll look into the error (and I'll see if I can repro the encode log freeze) for the next version.

[ziemlichdunkel]

Thanks from me too for explaining, hope to see a fixed version soon, because your program rocks.
* MAy I suggest one thing for future releases: I noticed that there is no way to change the temporary directory which is used during conversion.
Because my C:\ Drive is an SSD and therefore not so big, I would really love to see an option to change the temp Folder from the currently used Windows Standard Temp Folder too a custom one...

[JohnAStebbins]

Thanks from me too for explaining, hope to see a fixed version soon, because your program rocks.
* MAy I suggest one thing for future releases: I noticed that there is no way to change the temporary directory which is used during conversion.
Because my C:\ Drive is an SSD and therefore not so big, I would really love to see an option to change the temp Folder from the currently used Windows Standard Temp Folder too a custom one...

Hrm, libhb uses GetTempPath() to get the temp directory from the OS. So it should use whatever you set your TEMP environment variable to.

[RandomEngy]

It means HB_ACODEC_FF_I_FLAG was somehow propagated from the input audio codec value to the output audio codec value. This flag should only be present on input codec values. Also, this flag completely goes away in HB svn 4141.

Ahh I see. I had applied the HB_ACODEC_PASS_MASK to see if the codec was valid to pass through, but I neglected to apply to to the final output codec (which would have cleared out that flag). That problem will be fixed in the next version.

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 1.0.0 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/71622):

* Added splash screen
* Updated to HandBrake svn 4167: This adds AAC and MP3 passthrough as well as DTS and DTS-HD passthrough for MP4.

* Fixed that reported encode failure with the incorrectly masked output codec.

So it's out of beta! Nothing really special about it, just thought it has gone through enough use and stabilization to get to 1.0. Didn't want to hang out in 0.9.X with HandBrake too long. :)

[Frozen-Figo]

I really like this encoder, very simple, easy to use. For now I have one problem, the high CPU usage (100%)

I have Core 2 quad, 8 GB of ram, Win 7 64-bit
Here's the settings I use

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<UserPreset Version="3">
<Preset xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<Name>Frozen</Name>
<IsBuiltIn>false</IsBuiltIn>
<IsModified>false</IsModified>
<EncodingProfile>
<OutputFormat>Mkv</OutputFormat>
<PreferredExtension>Mp4</PreferredExtension>
<IncludeChapterMarkers>false</IncludeChapterMarkers>
<LargeFile>false</LargeFile>
<Optimize>false</Optimize>
<IPod5GSupport>false</IPod5GSupport>
<Width>0</Width>
<Height>0</Height>
<MaxWidth>0</MaxWidth>
<MaxHeight>0</MaxHeight>
<CustomCropping>false</CustomCropping>
<Cropping>
<Top>0</Top>
<Bottom>0</Bottom>
<Left>0</Left>
<Right>0</Right>
</Cropping>
<Anamorphic>Loose</Anamorphic>
<UseDisplayWidth>false</UseDisplayWidth>
<DisplayWidth>0</DisplayWidth>
<KeepDisplayAspect>true</KeepDisplayAspect>
<PixelAspectX>0</PixelAspectX>
<PixelAspectY>0</PixelAspectY>
<Modulus>16</Modulus>
<Deinterlace>Slow</Deinterlace>
<Decomb>Off</Decomb>
<Detelecine>Default</Detelecine>
<Denoise>Medium</Denoise>
<Deblock>0</Deblock>
<Grayscale>false</Grayscale>
<VideoEncoder>X264</VideoEncoder>
<X264Options>rc-lookahead=50:b-adapt=2</X264Options>
<VideoEncodeRateType>TargetSize</VideoEncodeRateType>
<Quality>15</Quality>
<TargetSize>350</TargetSize>
<VideoBitrate>900</VideoBitrate>
<TwoPass>false</TwoPass>
<TurboFirstPass>false</TurboFirstPass>
<Framerate>0</Framerate>
<PeakFramerate>false</PeakFramerate>
<AudioEncodings>
<AudioEncoding>
<InputNumber>1</InputNumber>
<Encoder>Faac</Encoder>
<Bitrate>160</Bitrate>
<Mixdown>DolbyProLogicII</Mixdown>
<SampleRateRaw>0</SampleRateRaw>
<Gain>0</Gain>
<Drc>0</Drc>
</AudioEncoding>
<AudioEncoding>
<InputNumber>2</InputNumber>
<Encoder>Faac</Encoder>
<Bitrate>160</Bitrate>
<Mixdown>DolbyProLogicII</Mixdown>
<SampleRateRaw>0</SampleRateRaw>
<Gain>0</Gain>
<Drc>0</Drc>
</AudioEncoding>
</AudioEncodings>
</EncodingProfile>
</Preset>
</UserPreset>

[RandomEngy]

Having high CPU use is the objective (during an encode). The more CPU you use, the faster the encode goes. The priority is set to Below Normal so other processes can do things if they want.

[Przemek_Sperling]

Released VidCoder 1.0.0 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/71622):
[...]
So it's out of beta! Nothing really special about it, just thought it has gone through enough use and stabilization to get to 1.0. Didn't want to hang out in 0.9.X with HandBrake too long. :)

Congrats! :thanks:

[Frozen-Figo]

Having high CPU use is the objective (during an encode). The more CPU you use, the faster the encode goes. The priority is set to Below Normal so other processes can do things if they want.

True, but it sounds that Vidcoder use all available resources, I don't have any problem with that, but it's weird compared with others encoders

[RandomEngy]

Video encoding is a very CPU-intensive process. Usually when an encoder doesn't make full use of CPU that means that it's not multi-threaded and is simply unable to put all of the CPU cores to work.

[acrespo]

I have problems with subtitles here.
Two computer, first with Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bits. All movies i did with this computer are ok, including subtitles in .srt format.
Second computer with Windows 7 64 bits. The subtitles here have a black background and the position is not correct (align on right).

I am using the same profile in both computers. I already tried x64 and x86 versions and the result is the same.
Anybody knows a workaround?

[mike20021969]

Hi. Can anyone tell me where VidCoder stores the user presets file?

I've looked in Program Files>VidCoder = I can see the BuiltInPresets .xml file.
All Users>Application Data = found nothing.
MIKE>Application Data>VidCoder = Found nothing.
MIKE>Local Settings>Application Data>VidCoder = found user.config file - looking at it using notepad, there were none of my numerous presets.

I thought there would be another .xml file with my user presets stored somewhere. I feel I'm looking in the wrong locations :confused:

(I have 22 presets and know they can be exported individually. But 22 are loaded when the program starts - chosen via the drop down menu - so they must all be stored somewhere).

[RandomEngy]

They're stored in %appdata%\VidCoder\VidCoder.sqlite . It's a SQLite database. They used to be in .xml files but there was a problem that your presets would disappear if the program crashed during an update. You can get them back into XML files to look at manually by exporting them.

[mike20021969]

@RandomEngy
Thanks for that :)

[Przemek_Sperling]

Something about AMD Catalyst 11.8. They should not be used with VidCoder (I checked 0.9.3 and 1.0.0) because the windows of the program show big ugly black spaces. Something is definitely wrong with the drivers because it happens not only with VidCoder and has been reported by quite many users. Catalyst 11.5 drivers work without any problems (checked by myself).

[thewonderer]

Would like to request a feature or 2...

A overwrite warning would be good and some settings to either, overwrite without warning, warn before overwrite, or rename the file and continue.

Would also appreciate a easier way to rename the output file before encoding, maybe even batch naming...

thanks

[RandomEngy]

Customizing the behavior on overwrites sounds like a good idea to me. I'll put it on the backlog.

As for renaming the output file before encoding, you can just click on the output path and type in the new name. It's not terribly obvious that you can click there and I plan to fix that in my next release.

And for batch naming, there's already an auto-naming system in place: you could use that to name multiple files.

[flebber]

You bumped up vidocer ro 1.0 but your thread title stil shows 0.9.3

[RandomEngy]

Right, thanks for pointing that out. There's like 7 things I do after every release and that slipped my mind this time around.

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 1.0.1 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/72528):

* Added the ability to bring back a queued item for editing (Right click -> Edit).
* Added an option to minimize to the system notification area rather than the task bar.
* Added Android encoding presets.
* Added context menu options to queue items to move them to the top or bottom of the queue.
* Changed encode destination box to look more like an editable text box.
* Support for subme=11 in the advanced options GUI.

* Fixed a problem where a deblock filter could get added to the encode when deblock was disabled. This should fix issues with normal encodes only using 1 CPU core.

[Hobbe]

Thanks for new version! But I have a problem since v1.0.. I always get these error in the log: ERROR: Invalid byte for codeset in input, discard byte
# Encode failed. Error(s) were reported during the encode.
And this is when I import a srt file in the encode. The resulting file get the subtitle but it is missing some characters..

[mike20021969]

@RandomEngy

I have a request aswell. It's more of a little irritant than anything else.

I realise there are a couple of ways to close VidCoder, but I am so use to doing File>Exit with other programs, it would be nice to see this in VidCoder.

If not, thanks for reading. The program is excellent.

[RandomEngy]

Hobbe: Hmm, does the encoding you chose on the SRT file in VidCoder match up with the encoding of the actual SRT file?

mike: Sure, I'll add it.

[Frozen-Figo]

I tried to update vidcoder, but had this

System.IO.IOException: The directory is not empty.

at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
at System.IO.Directory.DeleteHelper(String fullPath, String userPath, Boolean recursive)
at System.IO.Directory.Delete(String fullPath, String userPath, Boolean recursive)
at VidCoder.Services.Updater.HandlePendingUpdate() in D:\docs\projects\VidCoder\VidCoder\Services\Updater.cs:line 144
at VidCoder.App.OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e) in D:\docs\projects\VidCoder\VidCoder\App.xaml.cs:line 44
at System.Windows.Application.<.ctor>b__1(Object unused)
at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.InternalRealCall(Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs)
at MS.Internal.Threading.ExceptionFilterHelper.TryCatchWhen(Object source, Delegate method, Object args, Int32 numArgs, Delegate catchHandler)

[RandomEngy]

Go to Start -> Run -> %appdata%\VidCoder

Then delete the directory with the update installer in it, and try running again. I'll fix this in the next version.

[DJ-1]

Hi, I'm on the lastest Video. Coder v1.something
I used the old version to convert DVDs to. Mp4 for playback on PS3. They work fine.
Using the latest version I'm using 2 aac audio tracks in the output file...+ .mp4. Container with h264 inside.
The PS3 now plays the 1St audio track slightly out of sync, but the file is fine.
Anything I can do to to stop the 2nd audio fouling things up?

Cheers

[meshaun]

How to use the Megui DXVA Extra Quality preset with Vidcoder?
Or the cmds for the Options String?

[DJ-1]

Hi, I'm on the lastest Video. Coder v1.something
I used the old version to convert DVDs to. Mp4 for playback on PS3. They work fine.
Using the latest version I'm using 2 aac audio tracks in the output file...+ .mp4. Container with h264 inside.
The PS3 now plays the 1St audio track slightly out of sync, but the file is fine.
Anything I can do to to stop the 2nd audio fouling things up?

Cheers

Erm ok, I just tried a .M2ts source file using same settings...all OK on PS3 video player.
Does the app handle .m2ts files differently from.Vob's?

[RandomEngy]

VidCoder doesn't add any special logic for VOB vs M2TS. I think the difference in handling would be in HandBrake.

[meshaun]

DXVA settings?

[RandomEngy]

I don't know of any. You would have to look in the MeGui preset and translate the x264 options string to the HandBrake/VidCoder format.

[DJ-1]

VidCoder doesn't add any special logic for VOB vs M2TS. I think the difference in handling would be in HandBrake.

OK, just went to HdConvertTox GUI for a comparison on the same. Vob input files...
Again, plays fine on pc (as does the vidcoder output), but it definitley did something different with the file with playback on ps3 XMB video player, playback is flawless..... I just can't stand the interface of hdconvertTox

Are you the developers of this vidcoder?, or do they watch this thread?

Cheers.

[RandomEngy]

I develop VidCoder UI but I call into the HandBrake core to do the actual encoding. So I usually have no control over issues like these. I would check and see if it has the same problem when you use the official HandBrake GUI. If it works fine with HandBrake the problem might be with VidCoder incorrectly passing parameters or something. In that case send me an encode log, and if possible the video clip you're trying to convert and an exported preset of the settings you're using.

[DJ-1]

Yeah, handbrake does same thing, it's why I jumped from handbrake to vidcoder, also I Preffer vidcoder as it save All settings per preset, rather the than just the main one's like handbrake does

I'll get a log up shortly,

[DJ-1]

ok, Here I`m linking a Source (.vob), Vidcoder output, HDConverTox output + Logs
Source file
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=GMNUT6L8
Vidcoder Output .mp4
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VQ9SM7LU
LOGs: attached + Preset....(preset use was "Normal`modified`")



For Comparsons:


HDConverTox output
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=70ZTRLYJ

I`ll just repeat, when played back via VLC media player theyre all ok, when played back on PS3 (Have not tried other standalones) the HDConverTox output file plays with with proper A/V Sync on the main audio track

Cheers.

P.S. if the logs dont show up look here:http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1524598#post1524598 POST 3724, i stupidly put this reply in the wrong thread initially :(

[RandomEngy]

Oh sorry what I meant was that if the official HandBrake GUI was having the same issue you should bring it to them. It's their job to do the actual encoder; I just write the GUI and pass options in to it.

[DJ-1]

ok, well can you see anything by looking through the Logs ?

[RandomEngy]

All the attachments are still pending approval.

[DJ-1]

I've posed it all in the handbrake forums bug section now also anyways....

[Hobbe]

[QUOTE=RandomEngy;1522963]Hobbe: Hmm, does the encoding you chose on the SRT file in VidCoder match up with the encoding of the actual SRT file?

Yes.. I have always used UTF-8..
Our "swedish unique" characters are missing from the sub... Tried severals encodes now. And I always use mkv as output if that matters.

[RandomEngy]

Don't know what's wrong with that offhand. Maybe upload a sample .srt file and I'll take a crack at it.

[buffalofloyd]

Thank you for this tool, I am really beginning to like it! I think having the ability to see a short clip of the actual encoded files is very very nice and convenient. Also being able to pause an encoding is very helpful. I've had several .flv files that I couldn't encode properly with other tools but VidCoder did the trick. One improvement I would suggest is to allow the ability to import different types of subtitle files. Seems now you can only import .srt files unless the subtitle files is already muxed in the video file. Is that correct?

[RandomEngy]

That's right. Subtitles are functionality that HandBrake implements and I just wrap. When HandBrake adds support for more types I will do so as well.

Hobbe: I checked out the SRT you sent and confirmed the problem. Notepad2 says the .srt file was ANSI but none of the ANSI encoding choices worked (in either VidCoder or HandBrake). However I was able to get it to work by re-saving the .srt file with UTF-8 encoding. You can do that with a program like Notepad2 (File -> Encoding -> UTF-8).

[Hobbe]

Thank you for finding this! I use that as a workaround then.
Do you know when you will release a new version of vidcoder? with a newer handbrake... and how do you know which version of ffmpeg handbrake uses.
And was it possible to show the input audio bitrate on the audio tab?

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 1.0.2 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/73303):

* Added option to put encoded files in their source directory.
* Added options for how to resolve file conflicts: Overwrite, automatically rename or prompt.
* Added leading zeros to time output when auto-naming files to let them sort correctly.
* Added File->Exit .
* Added inline warning for DTS audio in MP4 container.

* Fixed problem where the first click on another UI element while editing the destination would not register.
* Fixed problem where entered text in the destination field might get clobbered when a scan finishes.
* Fixed problem where blu-ray folders wouldn't get the right {source} for auto-naming.
* Fixed File -> Open options being available when scanning.
* Fixed crash on batch encoding videos with no audio track.
* Fixed problem where numbers could get copied from one preset to another when switching between them.

[RandomEngy]

Hobbe: You can keep track of what's in HandBrake here: https://trac.handbrake.fr/timeline

There hasn't been much development on the HandBrake core lately since j45 is off on vacation. I haven't been updating it since there's not much to update.

Also about the input bitrate: sometimes it's accurate but other times it's wildly incorrect. And there's no real good way to tell when it's wrong. If the bitrate that HandBrake exposes ever becomes reliable I'd gladly do so.

[buffalofloyd]

Thank you for the updated version RandomEnergy. Am I correct in my assumption that it is not possible to add an external audio file to a encode? I see an option for "add audio encoding" but it seems there is no way to select a separate audio file. Does this mean you can only select the audio file that's already muxed in with the video file and multiple encodes of that? For example...

If I have a TrueHD track... two of my options could be to encode to AC3 6 channel discrete @ 640kbps (btw, if I select this option is it just extracting the AC3 core or actually re-encoding the whole audio track? Forgive me if this is a noob question but I haven't been doing this very long and some parts are new to me :D)

and/or

Encode the TrueHD track to 192kbps stereo.

There is no option to select like a second separate audio track like commentary for example. I know there are other tools that can be use to get around this but I'm just trying to see if I'm missing something or if it's a limitation of the HandBrake software.

Thanks for your time.

[RandomEngy]

Yeah you can only take audio from the video file. You can't bring in outside audio. You could have a commentary track if both were in the original source.

Also if you want to keep the source the same you have to choose Passthrough. If it's anything other than Passthrough it will be re-encoding it.

[mike20021969]

Released VidCoder 1.0.2 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/73303):

* Added File->Exit
Thanks for the update and the added exit option :cool:
:thanks:

[buffalofloyd]

Yeah you can only take audio from the video file. You can't bring in outside audio. You could have a commentary track if both were in the original source.

Also if you want to keep the source the same you have to choose Passthrough. If it's anything other than Passthrough it will be re-encoding it.

Thank you for your response. I suppose I could mux everything I need into a file and then use vidcoder to then use all those files. Basically the only extra files you can import are .srt files.

[star5]

VidCoder 1.0.2!
Thank you!
:thanks:

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 1.0.3 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/73475):

* Fixed preview button on encoding window not working.
* Fixed output to source directory not working for batch encodes.
* Fixed startup crash on restoring queued items. (introduced last version)

Fixing a few regressions from some major refactoring in 1.0.2.

[RandomEngy]

Released VidCoder 1.0.4 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/73728):

* Fixed Queue Multiple Titles menu choice not appearing when applicable.
* Added a cleanup option when a corrupt user.config file is encountered.
* Added an option to delete user settings/presets on uninstall. This should make recovering from corrupted data a bit more straightforward.

[buffalofloyd]

Released VidCoder 1.0.4 (http://vidcoder.codeplex.com/releases/view/73728):

* Fixed Queue Multiple Titles menu choice not appearing when applicable.
* Added a cleanup option when a corrupt user.config file is encountered.
* Added an option to delete user settings/presets on uninstall. This should make recovering from corrupted data a bit more straightforward.

Thank you very much!

[DJ-1]

@RandomEnergy
after encoding a few bit and peices i noticed I was using the FPS option: `Same as Source`, when infact any video (from a 25FPS PAL Source ) was being encoded at 24.987fps, 24.9xxfps (varies slightly from 1 encode to another, same source.)

after seeing this i now manually select 25FPS (rather than auto) and it seems to have sorted the audio issue i posed last week, just had a look at the sample i posted here, it is 24.987fps

[Hobbe]

Tanks for new version!.. But when you upgrade.. my own preset lose some settings.. like deblock, Psychovisual Trellis, Adaptive Quantization mm.. known bug?

[RandomEngy]

No I have not heard of that happening. I just tried to reproduce your problem but the Deblock and Psychovisual Trellis aren't affected after an upgrade for me. That seems kind of odd since I don't touch the presets during an upgrade.

[Hobbe]

Strange... It has happed me several times... I'll check if I can reproduce it :).
Feature req: Is it possible to have x264 preset/tunes setting in a dropdown box or someting like that on the advanced tab?

[RandomEngy]

I don't think I'll be adding that unless HandBrake gets better native support for it. There's no place I can just pass in a preset or tune to x264.

[DJ-1]

I don't think I'll be adding that unless HandBrake gets better native support for it. There's no place I can just pass in a preset or tune to x264.

Hi, did you see my reply I put up yesterday?

Also it'd be nice if CUDA was supported, do you know if they're putting it into handbrake?

[RandomEngy]

Yeah I saw it. Glad you were able to resolve your problem. I don't think the HandBrake team has any immediate plans for supporting CUDA.

[DJ-1]

Yeah I saw it. Glad you were able to resolve your problem. I don't think the HandBrake team has any immediate plans for supporting CUDA.

Yeah so there is still a problem, with the same as source option not doing as it says.....

Also, what aac audio encoder does handbrake/vidcoder use, same settings, I get better audio from another GUI, using Nero aac. ...

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