VirtualDub filters

[BlizzofOZ]

Extremely new to capturing... so be gentle.

I have used VirtualDub in the past, mostly frameserving. But, I do know that VirtualDub is one of the best (if not THE best) softwares for capturing and editing.

So, I would like to know the best way to apply filters in VirtualDub.

Do you run source AVI thru, applying the filter and output to another AVI?

Is it better to frameserve while applying the filters?

[Asmodian]

Actually the best way to apply filters is not in virtualdub but in avisynth (best used with vitualdubmod).
You might try http://www.avisynth.org/index.php?page=AviSynthFaq to get started.

[BlizzofOZ]

Is that the "better" way to do it? Or does VirtualDub have problems with some filters?

I ask because I went to Don Graft's site and he has basic instruction on how to apply filters.

I tried and created a new avi file... but everytime I go to play, or even click on it to highlight the file, I get a Win XP error box to send an error log to MS.

Any thoughts?

[Asmodian]

It is the much "better" way, VirtualDub has some filters and the ones it has should work fine. Avisynth frames serves video to VirtualDub(Mod) and has a much greater selection of filters. When doing full processing mode in VirtualDub the video is converted to the RGB color space (if it wasn't already in that format), this means that when going from a yv12 source (DVD & DV & more) to a yv12 destination (xvid, divx, and the like) the color space is converted twice (yv12->rgb->yv12). These conversions slightly change the video and take CPU time. Avisynth, of course, doesn't need to convert to rgb.

The error in explorer is probably do to a corrupted/invalid avi file which is crashing shmedia.dll when it is trying to make a thumbnail for it. I would delete the registry entryies that sound like they deal with video that reference shmedia.dll, I always delete these three:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{40C3D757-D6E4-4b49-BB41-0E5BBEA28817}
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}

It might stop crashing if you just delete the last one (the thumbnail extractor). If you delete all of these keys you will not have a special tab in the properties dialog that tells you info like resolution & duration and AVI's will not have thumbnails.

ps. Donald Graft's website is a great place for filters for both VirtualDub and Avisynth. Decomb is a must for anyone dealing with video sources that have been telecined.

[BlizzofOZ]

Well, I was just over at DVDRHELP... was checking the huffyuv codec area that they have. User comments show that the newest 2.20 version is causing problems... like the one I described and a possible solution by checking the "Always suggest RGB format for output". I'll give that a try when I get home tonight and post my results:


downloaded the latest codec the other day, without noticing all the problems listed here. I was converting some divx .avi's to huffyuv for editing and for later conversion to MPEG2. Anyway, Virtualdub had no problem encoding the files, but when I would go into Windows Explorer, and JUST HIGHLIGHT the file, Explorer would immediately crash.

I was just trying to check the file out to make sure everything was in sync. It will not play in Windows Media player (v9) and would still crash Explorer. It took me a while to figure out that it was the codec. I installed an earlier version and now I don't have any problems. It is always possible that "always suggest RGB format for ouptut" would work as suggested by dreze, but I'm going to stick with the previous setting.


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Posted April 06, 2004 by ccraman. Tool version 2.2.0 using OS WinXP
Ease of use 8 of 10 Functionality 2 of 10 Value for money 2 of 10 Overall score 4 of 10







Hi,
I had, I think, the same problem as the one reported by migf1.
I solved it by forcing "always suggest RGB format for ouptut", as described in
http://www.neuron2.net/www.math.berkeley.edu/benrg/huffyuv.html

Now, I can use video captured with VirtualVCR without problems in Adobe premiere pro.

Hope this can help.


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Posted March 10, 2004 by dreze. Tool version 2.2.0 using OS WinXP
Ease of use 10 of 10 Functionality 10 of 10 Value for money 10 of 10 Overall score 10 of 10







Same here. The new version doesn't seem to work with MSP7 either. Stick with the old one.


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Posted March 08, 2004 by migf1. Tool version 2.2.0 using OS WinXP
Ease of use 8 of 10 Functionality 1 of 10 Value for money 1 of 10 Overall score 1 of 10







Ive just tried this version out it seemed to of worked when captured with huffy 2.20 and can read it in Media Player and VirtualDub but when i tried to edit it in premiere premiere wouldnt let me put it in the timeline to edit the clip.
Also when i edited it in VirtualDub then saved it with huffy 2.20 it became unuseable.

I would recommend to stick with the original huffyuv 2.1.1 version as it work excellent for me. and if a new version comes out i would recommend to test it thoroughly to make sure it works 110%. Also if you dont see an improvement in a newer version it might also pay to stick with 2.1.1 as it works.

Tried it in win98se and xp

[Asmodian]

Hmm, I didn't know you were using huffyuv (the new version even). Next time give more info and you might figure it out faster ;)

ps. deleting the regkey(s) will probably stop your computer from crashing when even clicking on a bad avi file.

[BlizzofOZ]

Asmodian... you are right. You'd think I would know better since I have been reviewing these forums a few years!

I guess then that this is a pretty known problem, then? Again, when I get home, I'll give a try.

This is what I am doing: Capturing with my ATI 9700 AIW card, to AVI both uncompressed and PicVid's mjpeg. I want to pass this thru VDub to clean up the video. The captured video plays just fine. But...

When passing the above 2 types of files thru VDub with some filters, I used PicVideo's mjpeg codec. I had the Compression/Quality slider up around 18/19 and the output is very choppy. I seem to get better results around setting 9, but the sound is out of sync.

Any reasons why? Is this where frameserving with Avisynth comes in for better results? The input was tried with both uncompressed and PicVid's mjpeg.

My computer meets the necessary requirements... I'm just wondering if something is not set properly on VDub.

[Asmodian]

Any reason you are not capturing to a lossless compression format (huffyuv or one of the others)?
You should get much better results if you don't use a lossy compression multiple times as each time the video quality will drop (of course this isn't the source of your problem as you tried uncompressed and even using mjpeg multiple times would just cause low quality video not choppy video - afaik).

I don't think there is a setting which can cause choppy playback in virtualdub (is frame dropping an option? - if so make sure it is off ;)). I don't have much experience with the picvido codec maybe it starts dropping frames if the compression is set too high? You should try everything the same but use huffyuv(v2.1.1) or vble or one of the other lossless codecs as the destination format.

About the audio desync, what frame rate are you capturing in and do you do anything to change the frame rate? What format is the audio captured it? What filters are you using in virtualdub? What exactly are you capturing on (cpu, ram).

Have you looked into virtualdubmod? It makes using avisynth much easier (open via avisynth in the open menu and ctrl-E for an avisynth editor) and can save to more advanced file containers (ogg, matroska). Sorry about all the questions. :D

[BlizzofOZ]

Asmodian... just wanted to thank you for your help!

I had posted another thread because I kinda worked past some of my issues, plus I wanted to give a little more consice info ;)

I have a P4 2gz computer with DMA enables on drives. I am using my new ATI 9700 AIW to capture, using ATI's MMC (latest version). The capture seems to work just fine, wheather capturing uncompressed, Huffyuv 2.1.1, PicVideo's MJPEG codecs. The avi's produced play just fine. Nope... no dropped frames either.

I am capturing from older VHS... and needless to say, the video needs to get cleaned up. I thought I'd use VDub to do this. But it seems, I just can't a good, playable avi's out of it. Even when applying no filters, just running it through VDub, using Huffyuv to PicVideo's MJPEG codec... I get very choppy (and static like sound) avi's.

Yes, I also tried to use VitrualDubMod and frameserve with Avisynth. I a simple in/out process and still same choppy results!

It was suggested that maybe I was cascading compressions, but I know I had capped uncompressed and then input into VDub, using the different codecs.

When I get home, I am going to capture to uncompressed and then run thru vdub uncompressed and then another run compressed to see my results. I'll post back...

[fccHandler]

Is it VirtualDub(Mod) giving you choppy playback? If so, then that's perfectly natural (especially with uncompressed source and some filters active). Probably you're just exceeding the capabilities of VirtualDub's filter+playback engine, so it stutters because it can't show you the results in real time. But I suspect that when you save the processed video, the output AVI will play fine.

[BlizzofOZ]

Thanks for responding fccHandler.

Actually, I've tried both VDub and VDubMod (frameserving with Avisynth).

Both products, after saving the avi, was giving me choppy play back.


UPDATE: I have seem to have gotten past the choppy video. I used UYVY, as suggested, to capture. Then fed that into VDub, output avi using huffyuv 2.1.1. The video is not longer choppy, but the sound seems to lag behind. I noticed upon rendering, VDub is displaying "rendering fps" as anywhere between 19 and say 26. I never saw is it 29 or above. This causing the lag?

[fccHandler]

The choppy playback of the output file may still be due to a bottleneck in the system. Uncompressed RGB and UYVY can be very taxing on the CPU and hard drive.

Regarding the sound lag, the "rendering fps" only indicates how fast VirtualDub is able to process and write the output, which will vary depending on your CPU load. It has nothing to do with the frame rate of the AVI, or A/V sync.

Are you running Windows XP? I have a friend with an ATI AIW 9700 Pro running XP, and he was never able to capture in sync with his setup. We tried just about everything, including most of Black Viper's (http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm) tweaks.

But depending on how desperate you are, I still have a few ideas we didn't try, but it will involve reinstalling XP, or (worst case) downgrading to Win98SE. Even then, I can't guarantee that my untested ideas would work for you...

[BlizzofOZ]

I seem to gotten past the choppy play back, I just get lag in the sound.

Yeah, I'm using WinXP. I highly doubt that I am taxing my 2gz CPU... but, I guess, it is possible. Again though, the capture vid/sound is just fine. It's when I pass it thru VDub that I get the lag.

I have no problems re-installing, I actually pretty proficient in doing that. I have DVD burner and Ghost now, so now I can just restore my "basic" image back to my hard drive. Doesn't take long now.

But, before I go down that road... Again, I was just wanting to use VDub to clean up the video. This is VHS... so I was not looking for miracles! I just was looking to maybe sharpen the image a little and definitly bring down the saturation... colors are intense in some senes. I am sure that some of video editing softwares out there can handle color and saturation/hue editing. I will go down that avenue then.

But, there is one thing that I will try. I know that VHS is not the most reliable source... so, I may try a few of my other vids, especially some of my professionally produced (wedding) vids, and see if I get the same results.

I last 2-3 days, I have learned much... and by trial and error, have gotten past some major problems (using huffyuv 2.20 was one of them). I'll post my results of using other vids later.

If you have more thoughts, please post! :)

[fccHandler]

Well, the idea isn't mine (it was suggested to me by Avery Lee), but you could try reformatting your hard drive as FAT32, and installing WinXP on that. Quoting Avery: "NTFS has a decent hit in terms of sequential write performance and fragmentation resistance and IMO is not as good for a high bandwidth, minimal-file-count application like video capture."

As I said, my friend wasn't keen to do this so we never tried it.

[BlizzofOZ]

Well, my "professionally" produced VHS also is showing same lag too. Although, this seems the lag is in the video... sound comes first. I check my CPU usage and I was hitting between 25 and 45%.

I am going to, at this point, blame it on just crappy VHS. I assume this is where a TBC would help. Oh well, like I said, wasn't expecting much.

Anyway, I am going to continue and get an editor (Adobe Premiere Pro, Ulead or Pinnacle) and see what they can do for me. I would gather they can do some basic fix ups, such as saturation correction, which is all I really need.

Thanks for your help!!!