MeGUI - x264/XviD/lavc/Snow encoder with MP4/MKV/AVI output & audio

[Sharktooth]

I have a question. Why does updater save all files on C: instead of %TEMP% and then do not remove them after update procedure.
im not sure about this, but i clearly remember there were problems with the autoupdater on vista so berrinam (?) found that workaround.

[rebkell]

don't bother . pirks is no longer with us.

I hate to hear that, as a Vista user, I'm not overly concerned with the extra step to start to run the program as Admin, but I did understand and could understand some of pirks points. I really do like megui, but I do kind of get the impression, that the megui developers aren't concerned with Vista compatibility.

[Sharktooth]

... again... we're doing what we can to make it work on Vista.
it's not our fault if M$ in its stupidity made Vista ask for user confirmation for every single stupid thing (maybe with SP2 it will even ask if you're sure you want to turn the PC on!)
we cant fix it... we have very limited resources and we code in the free time. flood M$ with requests for an OS that acts as an OS instead of telling BS about megui devs...
also if you look at the changelog, you'll se the actual active coders are only 2 (kurtnoise and mutant_fruit), since i havent any free time, doom9 is "retired", berrinam is missing, spawn guy is busy, etc...
so, the actual status is: IT WORKS! just run it as admin... if you're concerned about clicking OK at the OS idiot popup, just disable the damn UAC!

[tomos]

UAC is a good idea in theory but a PITA in practice. That's why i have it disabled. It's Microsofts own fault for ignoring security for so long and then throwing in an unfriendly 'fix' for it. Of course this means that *so* much software written pretty much assumed you had admin rights on windows.

They should have done this in stages and left the full blown thing in windows 7. Esets security center does a better job of it IMO.

[~bT~]

Why not just ask users of MeGUI on Vista to turn the STUPID UAC off if they want to use it?

[Ryu77]

^ ~bT~, Sharktooth just did...

if you're concerned about clicking OK at the OS idiot popup, just disable the damn UAC!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just wanted to point out that I found the strangest bug. However, I think that it could exist in the Nero Digital AAC encoder rather than MeGUI itself but I couldn't think of anywhere more appropriate to post it. Although, it could be possible there is an error with the command line that MeGUI is feeding to the Nero encoder...

Anyway, what happens is when I attempt to encode an AAC audio file to AAC-LC using the Nero encoder in MeGUI, the encoder does its thing as normal. I multiplex the video file and audio file with YAMB (so I can use the ND Standard brand name metadata, just something I like to do so I can easily right click and get detailed media file information). Most media identification tools (Gspot, MediaInfoRaw) show the audio as AAC-LC but on the Nero Digital properties tab (Right Click/Properties/Nero Digital), it is shown as HE-AAC!

To confirm this problem, this file will not play on my iPod (iPod can only decode AAC Low Complexity). I then used a different AAC encoding program and created another AAC-LC stream and used the exact same process to multiplex. The file now plays on my iPod without a problem and the Nero Digital tab is now showing it as AAC-LC.

So in short... The Nero Digital AAC encoder via the MeGUI interface is creating an AAC stream with a LC "tag" but it is actually a HE stream.

Note: I am using the Nero Digital AAC Encoder v1.1.34.2.

[stax76]

does anybody know who is the AviSynth developer responsible for the installer, or who else could make a build. The reg key for the location of the plugins should be at HKEY_CURRENT_USER and the default location for the plugins should be in the local app data dir of the current user.

[arrirc]

Hello Sharktooth (and everyone else :) )

There is one observation I would like to share with you...not sure if its a bug though.

I have seen that if I put the PC on hibernation when the X264 encoding is in progress, after I awake it, the FPS drops drastically. Now after some time the FPS picks up but it never reaches to a value even near to the time when the work actually started, that is before hibernation.

For example, right now, one encoding is going on. When I started it, the FPS was about 18. Now as I restarted it from hibernation, it showed a FPS of 0.58, and now after running it for about 15 mins, the FPS 0.81. I have tested it on different sources, but same scenario is replayed every time. I know that this FPS will rise continually, and the ETA will be lowered, and the actual time taken for the job to finish will be little more, but the FPS will never attain the value even near to 18. The X264.exe is run under Normal Priority Mode and I am using Windows XP.

[rebkell]

... again... we're doing what we can to make it work on Vista.
it's not our fault if M$ in its stupidity made Vista ask for user confirmation for every single stupid thing (maybe with SP2 it will even ask if you're sure you want to turn the PC on!)
we cant fix it... we have very limited resources and we code in the free time. flood M$ with requests for an OS that acts as an OS instead of telling BS about megui devs...
also if you look at the changelog, you'll se the actual active coders are only 2 (kurtnoise and mutant_fruit), since i havent any free time, doom9 is "retired", berrinam is missing, spawn guy is busy, etc...
so, the actual status is: IT WORKS! just run it as admin... if you're concerned about clicking OK at the OS idiot popup, just disable the damn UAC!

You really need to back off the insults, the reason pirks is gone is because of your attitude and tone, you've taken offense to anything said in this thread concerning Vista and it not working correctly in Vista.

Hey, we all love megui and we want to use it, we're not here to bash it, we love it and want it to do all it's capable of, but currently it doesn't do all it's capable of in Vista. Vista is pretty good stuff for a Home Theater PC, right out of the box, I use it for recording all my shows, and then I use megui to encode them. I've never gotten any of the one step/click stuff to work, I just go through all the motions to get what I want, but it just doesn't work right for some reason. It may very well be a problem with avisynth, I'm not smart enough to understand all the inner workings of this stuff.

We're the users and we don't claim to know what is and isn't, but we do feel rather intimidated when we ask for help or try to understand what is wrong and we get told that we're using a stupid OS and we need to reinstall the whole thing from the ground floor and start over.

[Sharktooth]

@arric: that's due to the fact FPS is a calculation based on encoding time. The Hibernation time adds to the calculations.

@rebkell: i did not insult or bash anyone (except M$ which obviously deserves it). i just said it isnt possible to remove the admin rights requirement coz other softwares megui is based on REQUIRES it.
How many times i have to repeat myself?
pirks is gone coz he kept hitting the nail when there was nothing to hit. I didnt talk to any mods. pirks is gone by their initiative and that lets me think if you continue taking his same position you will end up the same way. This is not a warning, it's just my logical and personal conclusion.

[stax76]

@Sharktooth

what app needs admin rights for what reason? I know only the AviSynth plugin issue and that can be worked around.

[Doom9]

Taking a step back - I thought applications should be installed in c:\program files , and that's a path where restricted user accounts have no access to. Does Microsoft recommend to install applications under documents and settings now? Regardless of which directory you download your updates to, at some point you need to replace existing applications and unless they're in a directory where non admin users have access to, you cannot get around admin rights for the update procedure.

Likewise.. .NET's config files work if the config file has the same name (plus extension .config) and is in the application folder.. so unless the installation folder is a user folder and not a system folder, forget about editing the configuration.

I recently had to deploy a java app that uses rmi. As it is, the rmi server runs on the same machine as the rmi client, and yet unless you adjust your java security settings. I looked around a bit if there were ways to handle the issues programmatically seeing as the rmi client ends up running as a service anyway (needing network and db access amongst other things) - but there doesn't appear to be a convenient way - so in the end, you just end up bypassing security by turning off security altogether.

I often see the same thing with databases.. it's so darned annoying figuring out all the possible accessible objects and giving the proper access (especially when SPs and triggers come into play), and without a tool that allows you to track a user and then click a button like "give user access to all the objects accessed within the last half hour, and remove dbo", it's so much more convenient just handing out dbo rights.

Or take .NET remoting.. you can encrypt and authenticate traffic.. but you need certificates to do so. So you have to buy a certificate and deploy it - or you just forget about the added security.

Bruce Schneier has a good take (http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Ftr%2FIm-wesentlichen-ist-das-ein-menschliches-Problem--%2Fartikel%2F105632&langpair=de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) on the whole security through technology angle. Bottom line: human beings always have and always will be the weakest link. And annoying people just makes them more susceptible to try something in revenge for being annoyed day in and out. If you look at the time spent waiting for security restrictions to be lifted so you can go to work.. it makes you cry.

And to get back to megui, there's a political component to it - volunteers work on it, and if they don't like an OS, they're not likely to bother much if the app doesn't work on the disliked OS. And the more you argue how those that prefer XP is better are wrong, the more annoyed those volunteers get and the less likely they are to bother at all. Vista is better is no argument for why somebody that dislikes Vista should spend a second on changing an application to make it work more smoothly with Vista.

[stax76]

Taking a step back - I thought applications should be installed in c:\program files


usually yes but our apps are a special and rare case.

and that's a path where restricted user accounts have no access to.

in Vista even with admin account apps run restricted, it's recommended to do admin task in another process that has a manifest telling Vista to run it as admin, installers have such a manifest, Vista shows then the prompt to run it elevated. Usually it's not necessary to do admin task for most applications, if you still need to it's quite possible without restarting as admin: you have to do a out of process COM server but with .NET and basic COM knowledge it shouldn't be hard to do.

Does Microsoft recommend to install applications under documents and settings now?

under special requirements, yes

here is a good article on the topic: http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/01/UAC/default.aspx

[rica]

Thanks Doom9 for opening this issue to discussion.
I've been trying to figure out this issue for couple of weeks.
I've never succeeded to update megui while it is installed under path C even as admin.
I made the registry tweaks so as to login as admin:
http://img356.imageshack.us/img356/9778/rica2di8.jpg

Here you will see i'm admin:
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/6493/rica1mk2.jpg

(For tweaking details, you may have a look at this:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11888596#post11888596 )

And finally, i installed megui under a folder (Megui) on desktop.

(BTW, i haven't installed Vista SP1 yet. Dunno it helps?)

[Kurtnoise]

I just wanted to point out that I found the strangest bug. However, I think that it could exist in the Nero Digital AAC encoder rather than MeGUI itself but I couldn't think of anywhere more appropriate to post it. Although, it could be possible there is an error with the command line that MeGUI is feeding to the Nero encoder...
why not posting your logfile ?

So in short... The Nero Digital AAC encoder via the MeGUI interface is creating an AAC stream with a LC "tag" but it is actually a HE stream.
not at all.


note for yourself: the iPod Shuffle 2nd generation has some troubles to decode the streams encoded by this compressor. This has not been fixed yet (not in the CLI)...

[Kurtnoise]

What I've started to do is asking the user to approach third party application developers with feature request, code looks as follows:


If files(0).ContainsUnicode Then
Msg.Show("Filenames with unicode characters are not supported by DGIndex." + CrLf2 + _
"StaxRip will now open a forum thread, please request unicode support there!", MsgIcon.Warning)

ProcessWrapper.StartFile("http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=87807")
Exit Sub
End If

For Each i In ",[]"
If files(0).Contains(i.ToString) Then
Msg.Show("Filenames with the character '" & i & "' are not supported by DGIndex." + CrLf2 + _
"StaxRip will now open a forum thread, please request support for the character there!", MsgIcon.Warning)

ProcessWrapper.StartFile("http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=87807")
Exit Sub
End If
Next


Are you sure about that ? Could you give me some examples for this please ?

2 short tests :
Log for job1 (idx, éçççà oè.VOB -> éçççà oè.d2v)
[28/03/2008 21:57:02] Started handling job
[28/03/2008 21:57:02] Preprocessing
Job commandline: "C:\tmp\megui_all\trunk\megui\bin\Release\tools\dgindex\DGIndex.exe" -SD=< -AIF=<D:\INLAND EMPIRE\VIDEO_TS\éçççà oè.VOB< -OF=<D:\INLAND EMPIRE\VIDEO_TS\éçççà oè< -exit -hide -OM=0
[28/03/2008 21:57:02] Encoding started
[28/03/2008 21:57:26] Running auto force film
[28/03/2008 21:57:26] Job completed
[28/03/2008 21:57:26] Postprocessing


Log for job1 (idx, éçççà oè.VOB -> éçççà oè.d2v)
[28/03/2008 22:00:28] Started handling job
[28/03/2008 22:00:31] Preprocessing
Job commandline: "C:\tmp\megui_all\trunk\megui\bin\Release\tools\dgindex\DGIndex.exe" -SD=< -AIF=<D:\c'est peut être ça\é à ù\éçççà oè.VOB< -OF=<D:\c'est peut être ça\é à ù\éçççà oè< -exit -hide -OM=0
[28/03/2008 22:00:31] Encoding started
[Information] [28/03/2008 22:02:58] Running auto force film
Film percentage: -1
[28/03/2008 22:02:58] Job completed

[Kurtnoise]

what app needs admin rights for what reason?
MP4Box associated with the tmp dir using/writing...

[stax76]

The string you've tried is covered by codepage Windows-1252 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows-1252). Try this: Česká

MP4Box associates with the tmp dir using/writing...

I'll try it.

[Ryu77]

why not posting your logfile ?

Ok, I would have done so but I deleted it out of habit. I will need to do another encode to get a log file. I'm happy to do that. I'll post it soon. :)


not at all.

What did you mean? Why does the Nero Digital properties tab display it as a High Efficiency AAC stream then?

note for yourself: the iPod Shuffle 2nd generation has some troubles to decode the streams encoded by this compressor. This is has not been fixed yet (not in the CLI)

My iPod is the 5th generation Classic (video).


If there indeed an issue with the Nero AAC encoder, what alternative is there? I looked at the other AAC encoders in MeGUI... FAAC doesn't give the option to choose HE or LC. Winamp AAC doesn't seem to offer "Stereo", unless "Joint", "Independent" or "Dual" is Winampese for "Stereo"... :confused:

EDIT: Here is the XML file for the settings I used...

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<TaggedJob xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<EncodingSpeed />
<Job xsi:type="AudioJob">
<Input>D:\Audio.dts</Input>
<Output>D:\Audio.mp4</Output>
<FilesToDelete />
<CutFile />
<Settings xsi:type="NeroAACSettings">
<delay>0</delay>
<delayEnabled>false</delayEnabled>
<ImproveAccuracy>false</ImproveAccuracy>
<ForceDecodingViaDirectShow>false</ForceDecodingViaDirectShow>
<DownmixMode>DPLIIDownmix</DownmixMode>
<BitrateMode>CBR</BitrateMode>
<Bitrate>156</Bitrate>
<AutoGain>false</AutoGain>
<Profile>LC</Profile>
<Quality>0.5</Quality>
<CreateHintTrack>false</CreateHintTrack>
</Settings>
<Delay>0</Delay>
<SizeBytes>0</SizeBytes>
<BitrateMode>CBR</BitrateMode>
</Job>
<RequiredJobNames />
<EnabledJobNames />
<Name>job1</Name>
<Status>WAITING</Status>
<Start>0001-01-01T00:00:00</Start>
<End>0001-01-01T00:00:00</End>
</TaggedJob>

Does that help? I posted that because you asked for a log file but there is no error with the log file. As I said previously the encode is done as normal and you would expect everything to go ok. Until after I multiplex with the video and look at the Nero Digital properties tab and see HE AAC is displayed under audio type and as I said my iPod will not play this file.

Also, you might notice that I selected CBR 156Kbs. The reason I am doing this is because the final file is coming out at 160Kbs (the iPod specs recommends this as the limit. It's probably a little flexible but I would rather not take the chance). Back to the point, why is the encoder not respecting my bitrate choice to the exact number? If I choose 160Kbs, it ends up being 164Kbs.

Here is the final log file, if you need it...

Looking for job processor for job...

Processor found!



------------------------------------------------------


Starting job job1 at 11:52:41 AM

Starting preprocessing of job...

Preprocessing finished!

successfully started encoding

Processing ended at 12:14:09 PM

------------------------------------------------------

Log for job job1

Input: Channels=2, BitsPerSample=16, SampleRate=48000Hz
Command line used: D:\Multimedia applications\MeGUI\tools\Nero Digital AAC encoder\win32\neroAacEnc.exe -ignorelength -lc -cbr 156000 -if - -of "D:\Audio.mp4"*************************************************************
* *
* Nero Digital Audio Reference MPEG-4 & 3GPP Audio Encoder *
* Copyright 2007 Nero AG *
* All Rights Reserved Worldwide *
* *
* Package build date: Aug 6 2007 *
* Package version: 1.1.34.2 *
* *
* See -help for a complete list of available parameters. *
* *
*************************************************************




------------------------------------------------------

Starting postprocessing of job...

Job completed successfully and deletion of intermediate files is activated

Postprocessing finished!

End of log for job1

Thank you very much for your attention to this problem. :thanks:

[stax76]

MP4Box works with Vista UAC here.

[Kurtnoise]

The string you've tried is covered by codepage Windows-1252 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows-1252). Try this: Česká
ok...too bad.

[Kurtnoise]

What did you mean? Why does the Nero Digital properties tab display it as a High Efficiency AAC stream then?
I meant:
1) The Nero Digital AAC encoder is able to create AAC streams embedded in the MP4 container.
2) The Nero Digital AAC encoder through MeGUI works perfectly.
3) LC is not a tag but more datas bitstream.
4) HE is a technique to improve efficiency.
5) HE streams contain the same core as LC ones.



My iPod is the 5th generation Classic (video).


If there indeed an issue with the Nero AAC encoder, what alternative is there? I looked at the other AAC encoders in MeGUI... FAAC doesn't give the option to choose HE or LC. Winamp AAC doesn't seem to offer "Stereo", unless "Joint", "Independent" or "Dual" is Winampese for "Stereo"... :confused:

check out more carefully the several AAC presets supply by MeGUI...Using Joint-Stereo should be fine.

Does that help?
it shows that the command line is correct.


Back to the point, why is the encoder not respecting my bitrate choice to the exact number? If I choose 160Kbs, it ends up being 164Kbs.
1) depends how the bitrate has been found/calculated.
2) This is probably due to the bitrate reservoir.

[Ryu77]

I meant:
1) The Nero Digital AAC encoder is able to create AAC streams embedded in the MP4 container.
2) The Nero Digital AAC encoder through MeGUI works perfectly.
3) LC is not a tag but more datas bitstream.
4) HE is a technique to improve efficiency.
5) HE streams contain the same core as LC ones.

I understand all that but I don't think you are understanding what I am saying.

I set the Nero encoder to AAC-LC but after I multiplex the video and audio, the Nero Digital properties tab is identifying it as HE-AAC. The MeGUI + Nero AAC encoder combination is the only software that is causing this problem. Also, other media identifcation tools say it is AAC-LC. So the same media file is being displayed as having a HE-AAC stream in the Nero Digital properties tab, and shown by MediaInfoRaw as having a AAC-LC stream, why the discrepancy?

Whenever I create mp4 files (mpeg4 sp + AAC-LC) for my iPod with any software other than MeGUI, they always play fine and the Nero Digital properties tab displays AAC-LC. So with that being said, there obviously is something wrong with MeGUI or Nero's CLI AAC encoder.



Also, if point number 2 is correct, what did you mean here?...

note for yourself: the iPod Shuffle 2nd generation has some troubles to decode the streams encoded by this compressor. This has not been fixed yet (not in the CLI)...



In regards to alternatives to the ND AAC encoder...

check out more carefully the several AAC presets supply by MeGUI...Using Joint-Stereo should be fine.

I completely understand what joint stereo is but it still isn't stereo in it's true form. I guess I was just concerned what joint stereo might do to a Dolby Pro Logic II encode. This is why I wanted to use the ND AAC encoder instead of the Winamp encoding engine.

I truly appreciate your help but I don't want it to be pushed aside like I'm some nOOb with a problem that doesn't really exist. By saying "The Nero Digital AAC encoder through MeGUI works perfectly" as you did earlier gives me the feeling that you are under the impression that it's all perfect. If that's the case then I shouldn't have bothered posting this. I can assure you that I wouldn't have posted this without the right reasons for being concerned.

[Kurtnoise]

I set the Nero encoder to AAC-LC but after I multiplex the video and audio, the Nero Digital properties tab is identifying it as HE-AAC. The MeGUI + Nero AAC encoder combination is the only software that is causing this problem. Also, other media identifcation tools say it is AAC-LC. So the same media file is being displayed as having a HE-AAC stream in the Nero Digital properties tab, and shown by MediaInfoRaw as having a AAC-LC stream, why the discrepancy?
If you don't use the ND muxer, then don't trust the ND infos properties. That's quite simple. Believe me, all files encoded with this compressor are detected correctly with MediaInfo.

Whenever I create mp4 files (mpeg4 sp + AAC-LC) for my iPod with any software other than MeGUI, they always play fine and the Nero Digital properties tab displays AAC-LC. So with that being said, there obviously is something wrong with MeGUI or Nero's CLI AAC encoder.
Well...are you sure that all other softs use the same tools as MeGUI instead of running conclusion ?

And I told you already that there are problems with some iPods and that comes from the encoder not MeGUI. :rolleyes:

Anyway, I've made some tests with this compressor (different LC-AAC presets) for my iPod nano and all play fine.


In regards to alternatives to the ND AAC encoder...

I completely understand what joint stereo is but it still isn't stereo in it's true form. I guess I was just concerned what joint stereo might do to a Dolby Pro Logic II encode. This is why I wanted to use the ND AAC encoder instead of the Winamp encoding engine.
well...obviously no, you don't have understand what JS is.

[Ryu77]

^ Yes I do. Without going into all the technical dialect, which I am sure you know more than me about. I will just quote directly from Wikipedia as it says it better than I ever could...

The term joint stereo has become prominent as the Internet has allowed for the transfer of relatively low bit rate, acceptable-quality audio with modest Internet access speeds. Joint stereo refers to any number of encoding techniques used for this purpose. Two forms are described here, both of which are implemented in various ways with different codecs, such as MP3, AAC and Ogg Vorbis.

Intensity stereo coding

This form of joint stereo uses a technique known as joint frequency encoding, which functions on the principle of sound localization. Human hearing is predominantly less acute at perceiving the direction of certain audio frequencies. By exploiting this 'limitation', intensity stereo coding can reduce the data rate of an audio stream with little or no perceived change in apparent quality.

More specifically, the dominance of inter-aural time differences (ITD) for sound localization by humans is only given for lower frequencies. That leaves inter-aural amplitude differences (IAD) as the dominant location indicator for higher frequencies. The idea of intensity stereo coding is to merge the upper spectrum into just one channel (thus reducing overall differences between channels) and to transmit a little side information about how to pan certain frequency regions to recover the IAD cues.

This type of coding does not perfectly reconstruct the original audio because of the loss of information which results in the simplification of the stereo image. It can produce unwanted artifacts that affect this image to a perceivable extent. However, for very low bitrates this tool usually provides a gain of perceived quality.

It is supported by many audio compression formats (including MP3, AAC and Vorbis) but not always by every encoder.

My understanding of Dolby Pro Logic II is that it discretely alters the dynamics of the audio stream to allow the decoder to simulate a surround sound environment from a 2 channel source. Also as I am not using such a low bitrate, I really don't feel JS would be of any benefit. In regards to DPL/DPL II, once again I will quote from Wikipedia...

Dolby Pro Logic is a surround sound processing technology designed to decode soundtracks encoded with Dolby Surround. Dolby Surround Stereo was originally developed by Dolby Laboratories in 1976 for analog cinema sound systems. The format was adapted for home use in 1982 as Dolby Surround when HiFi capable consumer VCR's were earlier introduced and was then replaced by the newer and improved Pro Logic system in 1987. However, the term "Dolby Surround" is still used to describe the encoding technology or matrix-encoded soundtrack, whereas Pro Logic refers to the decoding technology/processor. It is the home theater version of the Dolby Stereo technology used in movie cinemas in the 1970s and '80s.

Dolby Surround/Pro Logic is based on basic matrix technology. When a Dolby Surround soundtrack is created, four channels of sound are matrix-encoded into an ordinary stereo (two channel) sound track by using phase shift techniques. A Pro Logic decoder/processor "unfolds" the sound into the original 4.0 surround—left and right, center, and a single limited frequency-range mono rear channel—while systems lacking the decoder play back the audio as standard Stereo.

Although Dolby Surround was introduced as an analog format, all Dolby Digital decoders incorporate a digitally implemented Dolby Surround Pro Logic decoder for digital stereo signals that carry matrix-encoded Dolby Surround.

Dolby Pro Logic II. In 2000, Dolby introduced Dolby Pro Logic II (DPL II), an improved implementation of Dolby Pro Logic. DPL II processes any high quality stereo signal source into "5.1"—five separate full frequency channels (left, center, right, left surround and right surround) plus one low-frequency-effects (deep bass) channel. Dolby Pro Logic II also decodes 5.1 channels from stereo signals encoded in traditional four-channel Dolby Surround. DPL II implements greatly enhanced steering compared to DPL, and as a result, offers an exceptionally stable sound field that simulates 5.1 channel surround sound to a much more accurate degree than the original Pro Logic.

Because of the limited nature of the original DPL, many consumer electronics manufactures introduced their own processing circuitry, such as the "Jazz", "Hall", and "Stadium" modes found on most common home audio receivers. DPL II forgoes this type of processing and replaces it with simple servo (negative feedback) circuits used to derive five channels. In addition to five full range playback channels, Pro Logic II introduced a Music mode which would not add any processing to the left and right channels, but will still extract a center channel and two surround channels, providing a net effect of a wider center channel.

The Pro Logic II system also features a mode designed specifically for video gaming, and it is frequently used in game titles for Sony's PlayStation 2, Nintendo's GameCube and Wii as an alternative to digital technologies like Dolby Digital, LPCM or DTS.

Please excuse me for quoting so much here but Wikipedia explains it much better than I could. If indeed the information in a 2 channel Dolby Pro Logic encode is so valuable, wouldn't it be a fair concern that joint stereo may lose some of this information? I do feel that my concern for using joint stereo with DPL II is valid. Would it be possible to explain to me how joint stereo retains all the information a DPL II encode does?

If you don't use the ND muxer, then don't trust the ND infos properties. That's quite simple. Believe me, all files encoded with this compressor are detected correctly with MediaInfo.

Does a ND muxer exist? Can you tell me where I can obtain such an application? The reason I didn't consider the muxing process being a concern is because as I mentioned before I encoded an AAC-LC stream with another application (TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress) and used the exact same muxing method (YAMB). This file had no problems at all.

[Kurtnoise]

My understanding of Dolby Pro Logic II is that it discretely alters the dynamics of the audio stream to allow the decoder to simulate a surround sound environment from a 2 channel source. Also as I am not using such a low bitrate, I really don't feel JS would be of any benefit. In regards to DPL/DPL II, once again I will quote from Wikipedia...
Instead of quoting and wasting your time, did you try what I said ?

Does a ND muxer exist? Can you tell me where I can obtain such an application?
Nero Recode...

[Ryu77]

Instead of quoting and wasting your time, did you try what I said ?

I posted that reference to point out why I do not want to use joint stereo in the Winamp AAC encoder. I think I am entitled to that opinion. At the end of the day, it is my opinion. Also, I quoted all that text from Wiki to save time, not waste it. It was much easier to cut and paste, than attempt to explain it in my own words. I only did so because you stated that I didn't know what joint stereo is. I wanted to point out that information is easily obtainable and that I've already dedicated the time to learn what it is.

Nero Recode...

Well, I have not seen access to a muxer in Nero Recode. Back to the point... I already pointed out that I have used the same muxing process with aac streams encoded with other applications. They play fine. Doesn't that rule out the muxing process?


You know what, thank you for your time but I can see that you are being quite arrogant about this whole thing. Ever since my first post you have defended the MeGUI + Nero AAC encoder like I was giving you a personal attack. I posted my findings as I thought you would appreciate the feedback to make the application better. There is something wrong with either MeGUI or Nero's CLI AAC encoder going on, as I have clearly pointed out a number of times in my posts. The whole time you have tried to say how perfect it is. Don't worry about it... I really couldn't be bothered with this anymore. I'll just use something else to encode AAC.

[~bT~]

^ when you find that something else, let me know :)

i also think something is not quite right with megui+ndaac.

[Atak_Snajpera]

"Independent" or "Dual" is Winampese for "Stereo"...

My common sense tells me that Stereo is hidden under "Independent" (Independent channels)

[Ryu77]

My common sense tells me that Stereo is hidden under "Independent" (Independent channels)

Yes, I thought so initially too but some research incorrectly indicated it wasn't.

I just did some more research and found out that it is indeed stereo. From what I found out, it is "simple stereo". I am not sure if there is any difference from that to normal stereo but from what is indicated, it is. :)

^ when you find that something else, let me know

i also think something is not quite right with megui+ndaac.

I used TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress (via AVIsynth) to complete the above successfully. You could also use Foobar. If I am re-encoding video and audio together for my iPod, I usually use Nero Recode. :)

Don't get me wrong. I think MeGUI is a fantastic application. I have recommeded it to others on countless occasions. I just wont be using it (with Nero's AAC encoder) for aac encoding.

[Kurtnoise]

I posted that reference to point out why I do not want to use joint stereo in the Winamp AAC encoder. I think I am entitled to that opinion. At the end of the day, it is my opinion. Also, I quoted all that text from Wiki to save time, not waste it. It was much easier to cut and paste, than attempt to explain it in my own words. I only did so because you stated that I didn't know what joint stereo is. I wanted to point out that information is easily obtainable and that I've already dedicated the time to learn what it is.
Ok...so, you trust an article *without* making some tests. You're free but don't count on me to help you now.



You know what, thank you for your time but I can see that you are being quite arrogant about this whole thing.
really ??? Since the beginning I told you what is the problem and you continue...So, thank you. That's give me a good point to stop the development coz I'm really tired by such people.

:stupid:

[Ryu77]

^ I think there is a BIG misunderstanding here. At no time did I say that the problem lies with MeGUI. I did say on a number of occasions say that it could indeed be the Nero AAC Encoder. I am still convinced that there is a problem because I have in fact done some cross referencing with different encoding applications as I mentioned many times.

If you saw it as an attack on MeGUI, I am truly sorry. I did also say that I feel that MeGUI is a fantastic applcation but I wont use it with Nero's AAC encoder because of the problem I have found.

There is no reason to lose motivation on this excellent application. I am still very, very thankful towards you and all the developers of MeGUI, if you are willing to receive my appreciation. I was just frustrated because I felt like you didn't want to listen to my problem. I back tracked along our conversation and now I can see that you thought I was saying MeGUI was to blame but in actuality I was very open to the fact that it could indeed be the Nero AAC encoder.

I would rate MeGUI as one of the best (freeware) encoding applcations that exist. I hope that helps lift your spirit. I never at any time meant any malice. Please continue with the good work. :)

[bond]

guys, please be nice to each other. Kurtnoise13 is a very respected member of this community and knows what he is talking about. ryu77, i really recommend you to try all the things he recommends. if you did and there still is a misunderstanding please try to solve it nicely

[Ryu77]

bond, you are 100% right. I can see Kurtnoise does indeed offer a lot to this community. This is why I posted my findings here in the first place.

Also, it is because of his reputation here that gave me the reason for wanting to back track along the conversation and see where it went wrong. I do hold respect for him and I wanted to know how the conversation went off track. I can see now that there was a misunderstanding and we were talking about different things. I hope this doesn't happen again as I would rather see everyone working together to achieve things that we are all so passionate about. This is what forums like Doom9 exist for. :)

[Sharktooth]

there's no misunderstanding. he offered you a solution and you refuse it coz you're trusting an old and generic article without even trying what he proposed.
this behaviour is an offense for the developers of any software coz positive criticism is ok, but you're basically saying you know more than them (us).
it's not the first time it happens and it really pisses me off. i wont tolerate that any longer coz that is the main reason i lost the fun and the interest in coding MeGUI a while ago...
MeGUI is free and it's developed in the free time, we dont do it for money, we dont do it for fame or glory. it's even opensource so if you find something you dont like you can code and change/correct it.
that said, draw your own conclusions coz what you see now on sourceforge could be the last version of MeGUI ever since if Kurtnoise leaves i will follow as well...

[saint-francis]

Oh shit! Guys please let's not be too hasty here. Let's not let one bad apple (or miscommunication as I hope it is) spoil it for the many many MeGUI users out there. MeGUI is, as far as I can see, the most sophisticated tool for general video encoding out there to date. I love it and use it regularly. If development ceased I would still love it, but I would also love to see even more development. As it is it works very well. We all know this (we do all of you in the peanut gallery!). Get a gmail account for MeGUI and accept paypal. Let that be known and you will receive donations. I for one will give to all of the dev's. I will do it privately if a public solution isn't desired. I'm sure others would too.
@ dev's. People who complain about MeGUI and don't offer help with issues they see or think they see are a waste of your time. Please don't think about what they say. Don't respond to them.

[Ryu77]

Excuse me Sharktooth but I think I have offered my fair share of an apology. I have said more than once how good MeGUI is. The last 2 posts I made showed that I wanted to reconcile and hopefully end any further discrepancies. Now you want to bring it up again! :( I just went back to my last two posts and highlighted the parts in blue where I felt I was offering my effort to make amends. I said it was a misunderstanding because it was...

This is why...

1) I showed proof that there is something wrong with the Nero AAC encoder used by MeGUI or the way the iPod reads it. Kurtnoise took it as if I was saying the problem lies with MeGUI. That indeed is a misunderstanding. He also stated that MeGUI and Nero AAC encoder work perfectly together. How could that be the case when I don't experience this problem with any other encoding application using the exact same muxing method (through YAMB)? What confuses me is that even Kurtnoise stated there was some problem experienced with the way an iPod reads files created with the Nero encoder, then afterwards he stated it all worked perfectly. I explained my cross referencing more than once. Would you like a sample file?

2) Kurtnoise suggested that I use Winamp's AAC encoder (based on my reference to this encoder in the first place). I then attempted to work out which one was stereo out of "Dual" or "Independant". I already decided that I didn't want to use joint stereo. He then said to me that I should use joint stereo. When I explained I didn't want to, he then said I did not know what joint stereo is! I posted a reference to Wiki to point out how easy it is to obtain information these days. Of course I have read more than that one single article. I didn't want to use joint stereo as I wanted no compromise at all in the DPL II downmix. Am I not entitled to that opinion?

3) There were a number of times that I asked Kurtnoise questions to clarify what he meant but he ignored them. :( I felt like he saw me as lower than him and that I should blindly follow his advice. I am sure that I am wrong on this but this is the way I felt.

I have also made it clear on a number of occasions that I do indeed see Kurtnoise as someone more knowledgeable than me but that doesn't take away my God given rights to my own preferences. I am deeply sorry if I have offended anyone. I would also like to offer a PayPal payment. I know for sure how much I value MeGUI and I would feel saddened if development stopped. I feel like I should have notified Nero of this problem but I am almost certain it would have fallen on deaf ears. What can I do to show you that I appreciate everything about MeGUI and the developers behind it?

[Taurus]

Come on, please stop this.
@Ryu77: I understand your arguments.
@Kurtnoise13: I understand your arguments too.
For the sake of MeGui: Let's calm down and have a more objective look at it.
Remember Gordianknot or AutoGk?
len0x and the other Devs went tired of being critized and overflooded by requests and false conclusions of users.
Don't let this happen to this wonderful new baby of this forum.
Ryu77's observations are a minor aspect of the whole.
Vista integration is another.
But to keep this conglomeration of tools working it needs a more distant point of view.
I've struggled along with GK and it became a wonderful child of his time.
Nowadays MeGui is his legitimate successor for the new age :).
So let your energy flow and don't become upset by words.
Look at what you created!
Sorry, for being a little of topic.
Let's go back to business, please :thanks:

[stax76]

Posting logs and sample output file on rapidshare would have been a better start :logfile:

[arrirc]

@arric: that's due to the fact FPS is a calculation based on encoding time. The Hibernation time adds to the calculations.

Thanks very much Sharktooth, so there is no real need to worry. Its gonna take the same time as shown at the beginning sans the hibernation time.

:thanks:

[shevegen]

Seems people here need to calm down ;)

[bob0r]

@Sharktooth.

You should not get offended by such people.
I think you have no idea how much HAPPY MEGUI users there are around the world. And i think the number is growing and growing as we speak. You all do great work on megui and i truely hope you guys will continue.

The world of x264 video encoding has just started, simply said: WE NEED YOU GUYS!

Keep your head up high, continue the good work, and sharktooth message me on irc, i got something to show you :cool:

[Sharktooth]

maybe you all should talk to kurtnoise... not to me...
as i said, if he leaves i leave too.

[bob0r]

Ok.....

Or as we say at Dance Radio FUCK IT ALL! (http://danceradio992.cz/fuck_it_all-lousy_shit.mp3)

If you like coding megui, continue, if you hate it, stop.

My personal motto: Don't look at what others do.

(And people wonder why Linux can't beat Windows, lawlifying)


/me irc only, later!

[Ryu77]

Kurtnoise and Sharktooth, can I just ask something... Are you guys looking for a Scapegoat? Are you looking for an excuse to stop working on MeGUI and just want to blame others?

Please hear me out...

I am not the type of person that starts or enjoys arguments. I am far more mature than that and I often make efforts to diffuse arguments.

At no point in my conversation did I attempt to offend or insult. It was only after I received a few belittleing comments that I decided to say something back.

I have seen more than once on this thread where someone has felt intimidated by responses from you guys. Now I am not at all saying that they are always right and you should just take everything thrown your way but there are some points to consider...

You are the face of MeGUI, so as such you represent that software. That is a leadership role where you should always have enough humility to respond in ways that never belittle others. Even if they do say things that are perceived as insults, you should be strong enough to take the high road. Everybody knows that you are what makes MeGUI what it is today. Where is your resilience?

Something so minor as something said on an internet forum would stop you developing MeGUI further?? Do you realise how crazy that sounds? If I listened to every insulting comment on the internet, I would be institutionalised by now! :confused:

I really hope you understand what I am saying here. Yes, it's true that you guys know everything about MeGUI. However, that doesn't mean that you know more than everybody else about other things. If people can not be humble enough to listen to what others have to say than I can assure you that no progress will ever be made. The greatest leaders in this World have one common trait, this is the ability to listen and learn from what others say and do, and then apply this information to make progress and innovation.

[bob0r]

I kinda agree with Ryu77 here.

Same when it comes to x264, all the dumb things i ask or say and dark and pengvado have to put up with me.
But i always get a professional response back.

What ever your choice may be i have to add this:

WHAT A GOD DAMN BAD TIMING NOW THAT x264 AQ is released! JUST FUCK IT ALL, GO OUT ON THE BEACH AND LISTEN TO SOME BOB MARLEY!!

@Sharktooth
PLEASE
update x264 808 modified .exe (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1120689#post1120689) and add the profile to megui update server!!
(Before you go to the beach)

[~bT~]

@ bob0r

as the devs are no longer willing to update megui, can we just replace the exe file for things to work?

[bob0r]

@ bob0r

as the devs are no longer willing to update megui, can we just replace the exe file for things to work?

Yes that will work, and i am sure they are willing, they just have to come on irc :)

[Sharktooth]

i dont like to repeat myself. im not the only megui developer AND if you watched the changelog it's about one year i just dont mess with MeGUI code. i just committed some simple patches here and there coz i already lost interest in megui in a similar episode of arrogance.
i decided a while ago to spend my time into more important things (real life issues) and code just when i find the "inspiration".
Kurtnoise kindly joined the megui devs coz there were too many bugs in megui. He did a great job and he doesnt deserve all this pressure. There is a bugtracker and a support forum on SourceForge. USE THEM! We asked to do that millions of times.
Also if you're going to post bugs do it the way it's meant to be done. Discussing stuff is the wrongest way to get things fixed. Only devs should do that... users should only report... unless they have a working fix (code)... then they may post it in the patches tracker.

[obieobieobie]

I've had a problem with the update_cache in megui for a while now, but I fixed it just now.

The problem was that each time megui updated, it would create a folder in the root of the partition megui is located.

I have megui in d:\misc\megui\ and it would create d:\update_cache\

I fixed this by deleting the preceding / in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MeGUI\update_cache entry in the registry. Now it works as intended, using the update_cache folder under the megui folder. Thus changing it from /update_cache/ to update_cache/

I am on WinXP SP2 with megui 0.3.0.0, .net 1, 2 and 3 with all the updates I could get from windows update.

[Sharktooth]

0.3.x is experimental and unstable...

[ajamils]

I converted mkv movie to mp4. Conversion when fine but the resulting file had 2Channel audio instead of 6 Channel. Also, the file did not play in my Ps3. It showed up as "Corrupt Data" What am I doing wrong here ?

AVS File (input - Created via MeGUI{AVS Script Edito})
DirectShowSource("D:\MonIn.1080p\Mon.mkv",fps=25,audio=false)
#deinterlace
#crop
LanczosResize(1080,592) # Lanczos (Sharp)
#denoise


Info of Original File (via MediaInfo)

General #0
Complete name : D:\MonIn.1080p\Mon.mkv
Format : Matroska
File size : 2.23 GiB
PlayTime : 1h 22mn
Bit rate : 3863 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2008-02-06 18:22:54
Writing application : mkvmerge v2.1.0 ('Another Place To Fall') built on Aug 19 2007 13:40:07
Writing library : libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1

Video #0
Codec : AVC
Codec/Family : AVC
Codec/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Codec profile : High@L5.1
Codec settings, CABAC : Yes
PlayTime : 1h 22mn
Nominal bit rate : 3631 Kbps
Width : 1080 pixels
Height : 1040 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Chroma : 4:2:0
Interlacement : Progressive
Writing library : x264 - core 58 svn-736M
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:-2:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=6 / me-prepass=0 / brdo=0 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=12 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=3 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=16 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / bime=0 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40(pre) / rc=2pass / bitrate=3631 / ratetol=1.0 / rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' / qcomp=1.00 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:0.5:13.0
Language : English

Audio #0
Codec : AAC LC
Codec/Family : AAC
Codec/Info : AAC Low Complexity
PlayTime : 1h 22mn
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R, Rear: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits


Info of Converted file (via MediaInfo)

General #0
Complete name : C:\Users\AJ\Desktop\New Folder\converted\Temp4Mkv2VOb\Mon-muxed.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format/Info : ISO 14496-1 Base Media
Format/Family : MPEG-4
File size : 707 MiB
PlayTime : 1h 22mn
Bit rate : 1198 Kbps
StreamSize : 2.05 MiB
Encoded date : UTC 2008-04-02 07:04:02
Tagged date : UTC 2008-04-02 07:04:02

Video #0
Codec : AVC
Codec/Family : AVC
Codec/Info : MPEG-4 AVC
Codec profile : High@L4.1
Codec settings, CABAC : Yes
PlayTime : 1h 22mn
Bit rate : 1000 Kbps
Width : 1080 pixels
Height : 592 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Chroma : 4:2:0
Interlacement : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.063
StreamSize : 591 MiB
Encoded date : UTC 2008-04-02 07:04:02
Tagged date : UTC 2008-04-02 07:06:57
BitRate_Max : 4645488

Audio #0
Codec : AAC LC
Codec/Family : AAC
Codec/Info : AAC Low Complexity
PlayTime : 1h 22mn
Bit rate mode : VBR
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : L R
Sampling rate : 48 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
StreamSize : 115 MiB
Encoded date : UTC 2008-04-02 07:06:32
Tagged date : UTC 2008-04-02 07:06:57

[Sharktooth]

Complete name : D:\Torrents\Monster.Inc.2001.nHD.1080p.x264.NhaNc3\Monster.Inc.2001.nHD.1080p.x264.NhaNc3.mkv

Rule 6:
6) No warez, cracks, serials or illegally obtained copyrighted content! Links to content of a questionable nature, asking for, offering, or asking for help/helping to process such content in any way or form is not tolerated.

[ajamils]

Rule 6:

thanks. Post updated.

[Sharktooth]

about audio, try forcing audio decoding thru directshow.
sorry but i cant help you any more due to rule 6...

[ajamils]

about audio, try forcing audio decoding thru directshow.
sorry but i cant help you any more due to rule 6...

ok :(

[obieobieobie]

0.3.x is experimental and unstable...

It updated itself to it. :confused:

[Taurus]

It updated itself to it. :confused:
No, look @ the settings dialog /extra config /configure servers.
you have the choice between stable / development autoupdateserver.
Branch 0.3** is in the development tree.

[Sharktooth]

http://www.sf.net/projects/megui

[obieobieobie]

No, look @ the settings dialog /extra config /configure servers.
you have the choice between stable / development autoupdateserver.
Branch 0.3** is in the development tree.

Yes, and I haven't touched that setting.

megui-0.2.6.1038.exe was the one I installed from and somehow it must have autoupdated to 0.3.0.0. Other than this issue with /update_cache/, it's worked perfectly and I haven't noticed that it is "unstable" or anything.

:shrug:

[ajamils]

Ok just tried converting another file and SAME problem. Source file was 720p with DTS and the output came out to 2 channel (according to mediaInfo) instead of 6 channel(MediaInfo).

What am I doing wrong ???

[rack04]

Ok just tried converting another file and SAME problem. Source file was 720p with DTS and the output came out to 2 channel (according to mediaInfo) instead of 6 channel(MediaInfo).

What am I doing wrong ???

What audio profile are you using?

[~bT~]

Ok just tried converting another file and SAME problem. Source file was 720p with DTS and the output came out to 2 channel (according to mediaInfo) instead of 6 channel(MediaInfo).

What am I doing wrong ???

u need to untick 'force decoding via directshow'

http://maxupload.com/img/89312827.jpg

[ajamils]

What audio profile are you using?
I'm using NDAAC-LC-Multichannel-192Kbps profile.
u need to untick 'force decoding via directshow'

http://maxupload.com/img/89312827.jpg

That's exactly how mine looks except for I have the bitrate at 192 I have "force decoding via directshow" unchecked.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/ajamils/megui2.jpg

[~bT~]

^ try with it checked.

edit: post the log too.

[poisondeathray]

@ajamlis -

I had a similar problem a while ago, and the workaround for this was encoding the .dts => .wav with foobar2000 (with .dts plugin), then using the .wav as input into megui (using NDAAC multichannel profile as well)

Cheers

[ajamils]

^ try with it checked.

edit: post the log too.

Ok will try that out tonight.

@ajamlis -

I had a similar problem a while ago, and the workaround for this was encoding the .dts => .wav with foobar2000 (with .dts plugin), then using the .wav as input into megui (using NDAAC multichannel profile as well)

Cheers
Hmmm...I would like that to be the last resort.... (hate using multiple softwares :))

[calmike79]

Hello, not sure if this is the right thread, but seemed like a good place to ask =)

I've been using eac3to and megui/x264 to backup my HD DVDs for a few weeks now per guides on doom9, but my success rate has been limited... about 8 out of 10 have worked. The two that didn't were Babel and The Kingdom. The only thing those two have in common that I could see was framerates > 23.9xx (i.e. 29.x and 25.0 fps respectively).

The problem seemed to be that the video was playing faster than the audio. I googled around in the case of Kingdom, and while 25 seemed indeed the actual framerate (i.e. nothing going haywire with the avisynth script editor in megui that I could tell), I tried to force it to a 23.976 framerate per mkvmerge as a shot in the dark, but the resulting video would barely play. Any tips? Grazie...

[ajamils]

I tried the option "force decoding via directshow" and still the same result. The output file contains 2 Channel audio instead of 6.

Finished File
General #0
Complete name : C:\Users\Arsalan\Desktop\New Folder\converted\Temp4Mkv2VOb\test-muxed_0.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format/Info : ISO 14496-1 Base Media
Format/Family : MPEG-4
File size : 707 MiB
PlayTime : 1h 22mn
Bit rate : 1197 Kbps
StreamSize : 2.05 MiB
Encoded date : UTC 2008-04-03 05:13:25
Tagged date : UTC 2008-04-03 05:13:25

Video #0
Codec : AVC
Codec/Family : AVC
Codec/Info : MPEG-4 AVC
Codec profile : High@L4.1
Codec settings, CABAC : Yes
PlayTime : 1h 22mn
Bit rate : 999 Kbps
Width : 1080 pixels
Height : 1040 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 1.038
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Chroma : 4:2:0
Interlacement : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.036
StreamSize : 590 MiB
Encoded date : UTC 2008-04-03 05:13:25
Tagged date : UTC 2008-04-03 05:17:04
BitRate_Max : 4785088

Audio #0
Codec : AAC LC
Codec/Family : AAC
Codec/Info : AAC Low Complexity
PlayTime : 1h 22mn
Bit rate mode : VBR
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : L R
Sampling rate : 48 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
StreamSize : 115 MiB
Encoded date : UTC 2008-04-03 05:16:45
Tagged date : UTC 2008-04-03 05:17:04



Original File
General #0
Complete name : D:\HomeVid\test.mkv
Format : Matroska
File size : 2.23 GiB
PlayTime : 1h 22mn
Bit rate : 3863 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2008-02-06 18:22:54
Writing application : mkvmerge v2.1.0 ('Another Place To Fall') built on Aug 19 2007 13:40:07
Writing library : libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1

Video #0
Codec : AVC
Codec/Family : AVC
Codec/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Codec profile : High@L5.1
Codec settings, CABAC : Yes
PlayTime : 1h 22mn
Nominal bit rate : 3631 Kbps
Width : 1080 pixels
Height : 1040 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Chroma : 4:2:0
Interlacement : Progressive
Writing library : x264 - core 58 svn-736M
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:-2:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=6 / me-prepass=0 / brdo=0 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=12 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=3 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=16 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / bime=0 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40(pre) / rc=2pass / bitrate=3631 / ratetol=1.0 / rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' / qcomp=1.00 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:0.5:13.0
Language : English

Audio #0
Codec : AAC LC
Codec/Family : AAC
Codec/Info : AAC Low Complexity
PlayTime : 1h 22mn
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R, Rear: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits



Also notices that the original file was 2.23 GB but the converted file is only 707MB. Is that normal ?

[~bT~]

^ why are you converting the file? why don't u just simply extract it? its already in the format you want.

[ajamils]

^ why are you converting the file? why don't u just simply extract it? its already in the format you want.

to play in my Ps3 :confused:

[Ryu77]

~bT~, ajamils will need to re-encode. At first glance I thought it looked compatible with the PS3 also. Then I looked along the encoding settings and noticed that 16 b-frames were used. The maximum allowed is 3.

ajamils you will need to re-encode the video if you want it compatible with the PS3. The audio is fine as it is. When you are finished re-encoding the video, I recommend using a MP4 container. MeGUI has a MP4 muxer.

Note: There are instances where you might want to consider re-encoding the audio also. Most AV receivers will not be able to decode AAC audio, and since it is 6 channel, an optical (toslink) or coaxial cable will not have enough bandwidth to deliver 6 channel PCM. So if you have a HDMI v1.3 receiver or you are only sending the sound to your TV, then it is ok to leave audio as is. If you are going to send a digital signal to an AV receiver via optical or coaxial, then you may want to consider re-encoding to AC3. M2TS would be the recommended container choice. tsMuxeR can multiplex into M2TS.

[ajamils]

~bT~, ajamils will need to re-encode. At first glance I thought it looked compatible with the PS3 also. Then I looked along the encoding settings and noticed that 16 b-frames were used. The maximum allowed is 3.

ajamils you will need to re-encode the video if you want it compatible with the PS3. The audio is fine as it is. When you are finished re-encoding the video, I recommend using a MP4 container. MeGUI has a MP4 muxer.

What exactly am I looking for when I want to determine whether certain file is supported by Ps3 or not ?

[~bT~]

@ Ryu77

I was talking about the audio..

[Ryu77]

What exactly am I looking for when I want to determine whether certain file is supported by Ps3 or not ?

Well as you know the PS3 and Blu-ray players require that h264 streams are level 4.1 or lower. Each level will be restricted by the the DPB (Decoded Picture Buffer). Without getting too complicated the 4.1 level should have no more than 4 reference frames and 3 b-frames at 1080p. The lower the resolution, the more reference frames can be used.

However, in your case 16 b-frames is far beyond what the PS3 can decode.

[~bT~]

^ mate, if u look at prev post of mine you will notice we have been talking about audio.

I tried the option "force decoding via directshow" and still the same result. The output file contains 2 Channel audio instead of 6.

[Ryu77]

~bT~, I just did... I just edited my post. I'm sorry about that. I just assumed it was the video as that will also need to be re-encoded.

You are right that he can leave the AAC audio as is (as I said in my note on my post to ajamils), but you will not get 6 channel sound without the player decoding the audio on board and sending it via HDMI v1.3 to a compatible AV reciever, or having a rare AV receiver capable of decoding AAC (then you can use optical/coax). So it might be better to re-encode to AC3.

[~bT~]

^ no prob :) thanks for editing as it made me feel like a prick :(

[ajamils]

when creating the AvsScript....the default value for audio=false (when you look at the code). Should I change it to "true" or leave it as is ?

[~bT~]

^ leave it as it is. demux the audio using mkvextract, then mux it with the video into mp4 using YAMB or MeGUI mp4 muxer.

[ajamils]

^ leave it as it is. demux the audio using mkvextract, then mux it with the video into mp4 using YAMB or MeGUI mp4 muxer.

ok will try that in the evening. thank.

[Ryu77]

when creating the AvsScript....the default value for audio=false (when you look at the code). Should I change it to "true" or leave it as is ?

The AVIsynth script is referring to the video encoding where the audio will be disabled.

Have you tried de-muxing the audio and dealing with that seperately in MeGUI? I would always recommend approaching things that way. I always prefer to encode my video and audio separately. The muxing process usually only takes a few minutes anyway.

You could use MKVextract GUI to extract the AAC audio and then load it into MeGUI by itself.

Edit: ~bT~, it looks like you were posting the same time as me. :) It's a good thing we offered similar advice.

[ajamils]

This is what I did
1) Extracted audio and video files via MKVExtract
2) Converted the audio track from DTS to mp4 using MeGUI (mediaifo shows 6 channel)
3) Loaded the avs file and converted audio in MeGUI
- Set audio profile to NDAAC-LC-Multichannel-HQ-256Kbps
- Codec NDAAC
- Extension : MP4-AAC

input file = 4.36GB
Output file = 836MB (quality degraded)

output file audio = 2 Channel :mad: :mad: :mad:

[buzzqw]

output file audio = 2 Channel

make sure you don't use diretshowsource for decoding the dts... look at log, how is handled the audio ?

BHH

[ajamils]

make sure you don't use diretshowsource for decoding the dts... look at log, how is handled the audio ?

BHH

"force directshow" is unchecked.

[Ryu77]

This is what I did
1) Extracted audio and video files via MKVExtract
2) Converted the audio track from DTS to mp4 using MeGUI (mediaifo shows 6 channel)
3) Loaded the avs file and converted audio in MeGUI
- Set audio profile to NDAAC-LC-Multichannel-HQ-256Kbps
- Codec NDAAC
- Extension : MP4-AAC

input file = 4.36GB
Output file = 836MB (quality degraded)

output file audio = 2 Channel :mad: :mad: :mad:

I don't understand what you are doing... Steps 2 and 3 both state that you encoded the audio but with different methods??

The advice ~bT~ and I gave you was to demux the audio with MKVextract and re-encode it separately (as your step 2 states), then also re-encode the video seperately. Lastly use tsMuxeR to multiplex your streams back into a M2TS container.

I'll state the steps more clearly for you.

1) Demux the DTS audio from MKV container using MKVextract GUI.
2) Load the raw DTS audio stream into MeGUI, and re-encode to 6 channel AC3 (not AAC! Why are you encoding to this format for the PS3?). You can use FFMPEG AC3 encoder @ 448Kbs.
3) Load your AVI synth script into MeGUI (audio=false). Re-encode video only in MeGUI (x264 4.1). It might be best to use the MeGUI x264 Blu-ray profiles. Here's a link: http://www.mediafire.com/?f1zgyj5mn3n
4) Mux new video and audio with tsMuxeR (M2TS output).

[~bT~]

^ huh? i thought the audio was aac already from his prev post now he says its dts? well confusing..

[Ryu77]

^ huh? i thought the audio was aac already from his prev post now he says its dts? well confusing..

Yes, I agree it is very confusing.

I think he has a few different files he is working with... But... His last post says to me that he is converting DTS-->6 channel AAC (in MP4 container)-->2 channel AAC. :confused:

ajamils, could you tell us exactly what you want to do? It might be best to focus on one media file at a time. That way there is no confusion.

[ajamils]

Sorry to get everyone confused. I was working on different files and that why posting different results. I'm trying the problem file with Ryu77 method (posted above). Once its done (4 hours have passed, 5 more to go :(), I'll post the results.

[rebkell]

Sorry to get everyone confused. I was working on different files and that why posting different results. I'm trying the problem file with Ryu77 method (posted above). Once its done (4 hours have passed, 5 more to go :(), I'll post the results.

If the video looks good, you shouldn't have to reencode it, just mux it with the audio when you get it(the audio) the way you want.

[Ryu77]

If the video looks good, you shouldn't have to reencode it, just mux it with the audio when you get it(the audio) the way you want.

Yes, but the video he is working with has 16 consecutive b-frames enabled. So he will need to re-encode it for PS3/Blu-ray stand alone compliancy.

Unless he is now working on a different media file... Which if you have read the previous posts, is very much possible. :confused:

[ajamils]

Yes, but the video he is working with has 16 consecutive b-frames enabled. So he will need to re-encode it for PS3/Blu-ray stand alone compliancy.

Unless he is now working on a different media file... Which if you have read the previous posts, is very much possible. :confused:

Lol...ya I was working on multiple files and that's why it create the confusion.

Ok so here is the latest file (other files were converted with mkv2vob and they worked fine. But this one is giving me problems and that is why I'm trying to convert it with Megui).

General #0
Complete name : C:\homemovie-1080p.mkv
Format : Matroska
File size : 8.72 GiB
PlayTime : 2h 8mn
Bit rate : 9701 Kbps
Movie name : homemovie
Encoded date : UTC 2007-10-25 01:18:11
Writing application : mkvmerge v2.1.0 ('Another Place To Fall') built on Aug 19 2007 13:40:07
Writing library : libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1
Cover : Yes

Video #0
Codec : AVC
Codec/Family : AVC
Codec/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Codec profile : High@L5.1
Codec settings, CABAC : Yes
PlayTime : 2h 8mn
Bit rate : 7772 Kbps
Nominal bit rate : 8210 Kbps
Width : 1920 pixels
Height : 816 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 2.35
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Chroma : 4:2:0
Interlacement : Progressive
Title : Inside Man (2006)
Writing library : x264 - core 56 svn-680
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=8 / deblock=1:-6:-6 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=7 / brdo=1 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=2 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=3 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / bime=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40(pre) / rc=2pass / bitrate=8210 / ratetol=1.0 / rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / zones=179065,184651,b=0.02 / aq=1:0.3:15.0
Language : English

Audio #0
Codec : DTS
PlayTime : 2h 8mn
Bit rate : 1536 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Surround: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48 KHz
Resolution : 24 bits
Title : English DTS 5.1 (1.5mbps)
Language : English

Text #0
Codec : ASS
Codec/Info : Advanced Sub Station Alpha
Title : English
Language : English

Text #1
Codec : ASS
Codec/Info : Advanced Sub Station Alpha
Title : French
Language : French

Text #2
Codec : ASS
Codec/Info : Advanced Sub Station Alpha
Title : Spanish
Language : Spanish

Text #3
Codec : ASS
Codec/Info : Advanced Sub Station Alpha
Title : German
Language : German

Text #4
Codec : ASS
Codec/Info : Advanced Sub Station Alpha
Title : Norwegian
Language : Norwegian Nynorsk

Text #5
Codec : ASS
Codec/Info : Advanced Sub Station Alpha
Title : Bulgarian
Language : Bulgarian



Followed "Ryu77" method of converting audio and video separately using Megui. So far 7 hours have passed by and audio conversion (DTS to AC3) is stuck at 50.60% and video encoding does not show any progress. Megui is responding, which means that Megui hasn't crashed but for some reason audio and video encoding is not working. :confused:

[Ryu77]

Width : 1920 pixels
Height : 816 pixels

Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=8 / deblock=1:-6:-6 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=7 / brdo=1 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=2 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=3 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / bime=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40(pre) / rc=2pass / bitrate=8210 / ratetol=1.0 / rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / zones=179065,184651,b=0.02 / aq=1:0.3:15.0


Followed "Ryu77" method of converting audio and video separately using Megui. So far 7 hours have passed by and audio conversion (DTS to AC3) is stuck at 50.60% and video encoding does not show any progress. Megui is responding, which means that Megui hasn't crashed but for some reason audio and video encoding is not working. :confused:

Audio shouldn't take any more than about 1 hour to re-encode. In regards to your video, there are too many reference frames so you will need to re-encode the video too. Don't forget to use the x264 MeGUI Blu-ray profiles that I linked to earlier in this thread. That way you are guaranteed compliancy with the Blu-ray standard.

If you are experiencing problems converting DTS to AC3 with MeGUI, you could try EAC3to.

[poisondeathray]

I struggled with what you are doing now ajamilis for the audio conversion, wasted many hours. I too hate multiple software, but couldn't find an elegant solution until the method mentioned earlier in post #1566. This was the only way I found that worked 100% of the time. (For me, even EAC3to didn't work, but I used an earlier version at the time, maybe it's better now)

I have another suggestion so you don't waste more time:

Encode only a few frames, to check for compliancy (for PS3 or whatever you intend on using it for). Instead of wasting 8+ hours on an a bad encode, you waste a few minutes. Just use the trim(0,1000) for example, in your script. The same goes for audio processing, if you have a DTS sample.

Good luck

[ajamils]

I'm not sure what's going on but the video encoding status is not moving at all. I left the software run all night and even after 10 hours it still shows blank. Following is what the status % screen is showing

Position in clip/ Total Length: ---/02:08:43
Current / Total Frames: ---/185189
Current/Projected File Size: ---/---
Processing Time: ---
Time elapsed: 10:24:18
Time Remaining: ---

This used to fine..... i don't know what happened all of a sudden :confused: :mad: :confused:

[Ryu77]

I have another suggestion so you don't waste more time:

Encode only a few frames, to check for compliancy (for PS3 or whatever you intend on using it for). Instead of wasting 8+ hours on an a bad encode, you waste a few minutes. Just use the trim(0,1000) for example, in your script. The same goes for audio processing, if you have a DTS sample.

Good luck

This is why I suggested using the x264 MeGUI Blu-ray profiles. This way you are guaranteed compliancy with the Blu-ray standard.

Here they are again, just in case you missed them: http://www.mediafire.com/?f1zgyj5mn3n

[ajamils]

usually how long does MeGUI takes to convert an average 1080p file ? Right now I'm converting a 1080p file (8GB - video only) and first pass took 9 hours and so far its been 12 hours 32 since 2nd pass is running and MeGUI shows remaining time as 19 hours and 37 mins

Is it supposed to take that long ?? :confused:

[tomos]

down to your settings and your computer

[ajamils]

down to your settings and your computer

I'm using MeGUI's blu-ray profile and computer specs are following

Athlon X2 5200+
4 GB RAM
500GB SATA Drive
Windows Vista Ultimate 64 Bit


I think the computer specs are decent to handle encoding task.

[Sharktooth]

blu-ray profile is pretty slow... it's normal it takes so much time.
also avisynth filters may play a role... expecially deinterlacers...

[ajamils]

Ok another question. What's the best way to shrink the size of the movie without losing picture quality and surround sound (that can play on Ps3) ?

I always thought that mp4 can do that but I just converted a movie using RipBot and the output file is exactly the same size as the input file :confused:

[poisondeathray]

Ok another question. What's the best way to shrink the size of the movie without losing picture quality and surround sound (that can play on Ps3) ?

I always thought that mp4 can do that but I just converted a movie using RipBot and the output file is exactly the same size as the input file :confused:

I'll only address the 2nd question, because the 1st sort of violates forum rule #12

.mp4 is just a container. It has very little effect on file size.

File size = bitrate x running time

Your output size is the same size as your input size because you probably chose the same bitrate

[Ryu77]

usually how long does MeGUI takes to convert an average 1080p file ? Right now I'm converting a 1080p file (8GB - video only) and first pass took 9 hours and so far its been 12 hours 32 since 2nd pass is running and MeGUI shows remaining time as 19 hours and 37 mins

Is it supposed to take that long ??

As Sharktooth said... That encoding time is completely normal. The x264 codec uses complicated algorithms to produce very high quality video at efficient bitrates. You could try the "fast" Blu-ray profile instead. You still wont see huge increases in encoding speed but it may shave a few hours off the whole process.

[McCauley]

Hello,

first i want to say thank to the developers of this nice GUI!

Is there a chance that the first turbo pass can be modified? I tweaked my turbo pass according to some suggestions made in this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=135533) and i would like to use it with MeGUI instead of CLI.

Regards
McCauley

[Sharktooth]

you want faster first pass or slower with a bit more quality?

[McCauley]

Hi Sharktooth,

i want to use slower settings to tweak final quality a bit.
I'm at work atm, so i can't say you exactly what i changed, it was subme 3 instead of subme 1 and one or two other things, AFAIR.

Regards
McCauley

[cweb]

I'm not sure what's going on but the video encoding status is not moving at all. I left the software run all night and even after 10 hours it still shows blank. Following is what the status % screen is showing

Position in clip/ Total Length: ---/02:08:43
Current / Total Frames: ---/185189
Current/Projected File Size: ---/---
Processing Time: ---
Time elapsed: 10:24:18
Time Remaining: ---

This used to fine..... i don't know what happened all of a sudden :confused: :mad: :confused:
I have a similar problem right now..
I converted a brief 4000 frame videoclip without problems.
Then I decided to do a longer one.. got the result you mentioned.. something must be wrong.

[McCauley]

Hi,

i want to use slower settings to tweak final quality a bit.
I'm at work atm, so i can't say you exactly what i changed, it was subme 3 instead of subme 1 and one or two other things, AFAIR.

Any progress on that?
I looked through every .xml but didn't find where the commandline for the turbo pass is saved, could someone point me to the place where it is saved? I don't need to change it with a GUI, just replace the commandline with my own.

Regards
McCauley

[Sharktooth]

the 1st pass "commandline" is not saved. megui just save the "turbo" option status and changes the 1st pass commandline on the fly.
you cant change it manually. it needs to be changed in the code.

[rberger]

I noticed that when trying to reproduce the cmd lines from the profile xml's to use them on Linux, that some generation logic is part of the MeGUI code proper. So I ended up just copying them out of the x264 config dialog.

Anyway, to be sure to get the correct command line, I recommend choosing the profile from the droplist in the main dialog, than open the x264 config dialog, choose 2st/1nd pass accordingly and copy. The reason I'm saying that is that albeit the x264 config dialog itself also contains a profile dropdown list to choose from, it seemed that the cmd line wasn't updated accurately when picking profiles there.

[MarcioAB]

^ :thanks: so to override it i just add my own? eg: --aq-strength 0.7 --aq-sensitivity 5

Well, I think so ...

Any way, the new x264 variable adaptive Q (or VAQ) rate control is working so good over here.
MeGUI should consider to include those parms in the GUI.

Thanks

[Theliel]

they are working on 0.3 :) so patient.

[unknownsoldierX]

I get this error when I open a m2ts file in the AviSynth Script Creator. The video opens, but then this pops up.

http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/9326/meguini9.th.png (http://img239.imageshack.us/my.php?image=meguini9.png)

[arrirc]

hello

I've used MeGUI for quite some time and used it quite successfully. I have last used it about 1-2 months back. As I tried to start it today, I see that it is not starting. I have even waited for 15mins, but to no effect.

I can see megui.exe in the Process List of the Task Manager and also cvtres.exe, which is incidentally consuming 50% of CPU cycles.

I uninstalled the previous version, downloaded the latest build and restarted the machine. And then I installed it again, but that also did not solve the problem at all.

Please help :confused: :(

Thank you.

[Kurtnoise]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1151017#post1151017

[arrirc]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1151017#post1151017

Ummmmmm.....sorry, but what exactly are you pointing at? Do you think that I should switch to the development build?

:confused:

I have moved this topic here: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1151097#post1151097

[check]

I'd like to see the denoising options in the AVS creator revisited. I think there are newer filters that are more effective than the current set. Maybe a matrix of choices with these arrays: [Light, Medium, Heavy] & [Fast, Normal, Slow]? If the devs think an update is due for the denoising options, I will sketch up a draft set of choices and submit it as a feature request, but I wanted to see if there was interest first.

[Avenger007]

I'd like to see the denoising options in the AVS creator revisited. I think there are newer filters that are more effective than the current set. Maybe a matrix of choices with these arrays: [Light, Medium, Heavy] & [Fast, Normal, Slow]? If the devs think an update is due for the denoising options, I will sketch up a draft set of choices and submit it as a feature request, but I wanted to see if there was interest first.
Don't forget to include MC_Spuds (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=131279) as an Insanely-Slow option. :p
It's so good I think it deserves its own array (for different strengths), or even better, its own GUI. ;)

[Vesi]

I'm getting this error.

http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/1493/52915411rp7.png

Edit: Problem as been solved, was using the wrong UnDot :) which was for Avisynth 2.5 alpha.

[psychosmurf]

Hi,

Anyone know if the meGUI project is accepting donations? Its a good piece of software and I asked a question on the SourceForge page just this past week and the answer was quick and solved my problem quickly and politely, despite the fact it was a problem between the keyboard and chair. I'd like to give a bit to the project.

Thx,
P

[Sharktooth]

we havent set up an account for donations yet.
however you can donate to doom9.org since Doom9 was the starter of the megui project.
link: http://www.doom9.org/donate.htm

[saint-francis]

I'd like to see the denoising options in the AVS creator revisited. I think there are newer filters that are more effective than the current set. Maybe a matrix of choices with these arrays: [Light, Medium, Heavy] & [Fast, Normal, Slow]? If the devs think an update is due for the denoising options, I will sketch up a draft set of choices and submit it as a feature request, but I wanted to see if there was interest first.

Agreed. I think that there should also be sharpening and other options. Oh, and also an MT option since just about everyone encoding video with MeGUI probably has at least a dual core processor.

[psychosmurf]

Thanks, Sharktooth!! I'm on my way. . .

[Atak_Snajpera]

Thanks, Sharktooth!! I'm on my way. . .
Haha! That was good :) Customer thanks for possibility to spend money. This is rather unusall in real world :)

[Sharktooth]

well... he is not a customer... he's just happy with megui and wants to help development.

[rack04]

I just submitted bug report to the MeGUI tracker concerning error when loading "AutoEncode". Can anyone confirm?

[psychosmurf]

That's very true; meGUI is singularly one of the most useful pieces of software I've ever used and I'm very excited about being able to help with its development. The developers do great work and money is how I can contribute.

[rack04]

Using version 0.3.0.1012 I've noticed a significant increase in efficiency using the AviSynth Script Creator. In older versions opening an MKV file containing HD DVD output from eac3to would take several minutes. Now it takes several seconds. Also "autocrop" is much faster. I dont' know what you did by kudos for the great work.

[rack04]

I just submitted bug report to the MeGUI tracker concerning error when loading "AutoEncode". Can anyone confirm?

Problem fixed in latest version. Thanks.

[Sharktooth]

Moving toward 0.3: http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=841660

[Sharktooth]

New stable version is up.
Autoupdate server has been... updated and should automatically warn you.
If you encounter problems after updating, please do a clean install.

Download link: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=156112&package_id=174059&release_id=610828

Changelog: http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?group_id=156112&release_id=610828

[Vesi]

Latest meGUI (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=156112) is not possible to install.

[Sharktooth]

why not? many users have already installed it without problems

[Atak_Snajpera]

Latest meGUI is not possible to install.
Do not use Limited account. use Administrators instead!

[Vesi]

Edit: Everything is fine now. thanks alot Sharktooth & Atak_Snajpera for the replays.

[Vesi]

Any idea why during making D2V after puting the job to queue and start the job the % of making D2V progress stack on nothing? it just show % mark with out any number.

[Sharktooth]

maybe a minor bug. however does it end up creating a correct d2v file?

[MrX]

megui 0.3.0.1014
C:\Program Files (x86)\DVD\megui
With C:\megui too.

WinXP 64bit english (with all updates)

If I use update the following error occurs:
Updating convolution3dyv12. File 21/36.
Updating undot. File 21/35.
Updating fluxsmooth. File 21/34.
Updating eedi2. File 1/13.
Updating decomb. File 1/12.
Updating leakkerneldeint. File 1/11.
Updating tomsmocomp. File 1/10.
Updating tdeint. File 1/9.
Updating tivtc. File 1/8.
Updating dgdecode. File 1/7.
Updating simpleresize. File 1/6.
Updating colormatrix. File 1/5.
Updating nicaudio. File 1/4.
(see megui_error_001.JPG)

[Vesi]

maybe a minor bug. however does it end up creating a correct d2v file?

Will hard to say d2v was created right, as far i played with d2v in Avsp everything was fine, but after finished the encoding i got 200 mb undersized with these settings for 02:45:00 run time, dunno why :confused:

http://maxupload.com/img/4EC8B0EB.png.http://maxupload.com/img/021F20AB.png

[Sharktooth]

@Vesi: the d2v is ok then. The undersize often depends on codec misconfiguration by the user.

@MrX: run MeGUI as an admin.

[Vesi]

The undersize often depends on codec misconfiguration by the user.

How I have to solve this problem?

[weaker]

I just want to give a short notice about what I found strange:
I installed meGUI on a quite freshly installed XP SP3 without any .NET framework components installed. The error message meGUI gave me didn't point me to missing .NET but looked rather like a usual crash (dialog box with red-white X, "application couldn't be initialized" and a hex code IIRC c0000135). Only after a few google searches I found that with another program that error comes from missing .NET.
In the meGUI changelog I read "- (kurtnoise) removed .net framework checking for vista users during the loading. It should be fine now with all apps updated and frankly it's also to avoid to waste some time to upgrade each number indefinitely...;-)"
Perhaps it has to do with that, although I'm on XP.

[check]

weaker, I don't see what point you are trying to make with your post. I'd say MeGUI requires the .NET runtimes to work, but you seem to already know this. Is it a feature request to make the crash reason less obscure?

[Sharktooth]

How I have to solve this problem?
:search:

[Sharktooth]

I just want to give a short notice about what I found strange:
I installed meGUI on a quite freshly installed XP SP3 without any .NET framework components installed. The error message meGUI gave me didn't point me to missing .NET but looked rather like a usual crash (dialog box with red-white X, "application couldn't be initialized" and a hex code IIRC c0000135). Only after a few google searches I found that with another program that error comes from missing .NET.
In the meGUI changelog I read "- (kurtnoise) removed .net framework checking for vista users during the loading. It should be fine now with all apps updated and frankly it's also to avoid to waste some time to upgrade each number indefinitely...;-)"
Perhaps it has to do with that, although I'm on XP.
The error you receive is always the same for ALL .NET framework based apps. It's a standard message.
So, no, it does not depend on us.

[Redsandro]

First post here.
Congrats on an awesome tool!

I was wondering if it's an idea to change that "Your source is RGB and should by YUV. Do you want MeGUI to add ConvertToYV12() to your script"? [yes/no] dialog so you can choose [yes - 601/yes - 709/no], with the middle option adding ConvertToYV12(matrix="Rec709")?

Saves HD people from manually going back.

[Sharktooth]

uhm... could be an idea.
please post it in the megui feature request tracker (here (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=798479&group_id=156112&func=browse))

[MrX]

@MrX: run MeGUI as an admin.

I run it as an admin, but it doesn't work for me.
With the 3.0.1015 too.

[Redsandro]

uhm... could be an idea.
please post it in the megui feature request tracker (here (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=798479&group_id=156112&func=browse))
Thanks for the link, done that.

[Sharktooth]

I run it as an admin, but it doesn't work for me.
With the 3.0.1015 too.
dunno, it says invalid chars but i cant see invalid chars in your path.

[MrX]

I have the errormessage only by the reported "plugins".
All other updates works.
I have reported it to Microsoft. I hope that help to find the failure.

Can I do other things like "megui.exe -debug" to get a debuglog?

[Sharktooth]

uhm.... have you installed avisynth before running megui?
if so, before updating megui check if the avisynth plugins path is correct (in megui settings->program paths->other). if not, just correct it then run the update.

[MrX]

I first installed AviSynth in "C:\Program Files (x86)\DVD\AviSynth"
Now I have installed it in "C:\DVD\AviSynth" and it works now.

Thanks

[Sharktooth]

glad it works. vista is weird, so, please have some patience :)

[MrX]

Not Vista, WinXP 64bit with SP2 and all Updates.
I can't understand, why Microsoft use such a bad path "C:\Program Files (x86)" for the 32bit Programms.
In Vista the Path is the same. And some other WinXP bugs are in Vista too :-(

[Booji Boy]

Intermediate step AVS->AVI with MEncoder uses only one core...

Isn't MEncoder capable of multi-threading? Or is AviSynth the bottleneck here?

[check]

Intermediate step AVS->AVI with MEncoder uses only one core...

Isn't MEncoder capable of multi-threading? Or is AviSynth the bottleneck here?You mean encoding to huffyuv? avisynth is always single-threaded, unless you use the reasonable unstable MT version of it. mencoder can be multithreaded, but is not (AFAIK) for this operation with MeGUI.

[reallango]

https://forum.doom9.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=8611&stc=1&d=1215925866

I've been haveing this problem ever since megui went to official version 0.3.0.1014 It happens when I try useing the one click encode. I think it may have to do with the D2V Status error that also showed up in this release. I'm running Win xp home sp3 and it wasn't doing this with the beta release I was running before the update. As you can see from the error it seems like the D2V creator isn't passing the information back to megui after the idx file is created. although the audio is correctly demuxed and the idx file is correctly created. I have tried a complete reinstall of megui with no diffrence. I have 0.3.0.1015 installed and it is still haveing the same issue.

Thanks in advance for any help with this problem.
And also for such a usefull little program.

[Booji Boy]

You mean encoding to huffyuv? avisynth is always single-threaded, unless you use the reasonable unstable MT version of it. mencoder can be multithreaded, but is not (AFAIK) for this operation with MeGUI.
Yeah, that step it is I was referring to. So avisynth is the culprit here.

Anyone knows whether there are plans on making megui fully multi-core capable. Is this even possible with its current design of its process chain?

[check]

Yeah, that step it is I was referring to. So avisynth is the culprit here.No, the culprit is mencoder not threading the input video, which would let you use at least 2 cores partially.

Anyone knows whether there are plans on making megui fully multi-core capable. Is this even possible with its current design of its process chain?It already is. You can run arbitrary numbers of jobs using one of the many multi-threaded encoders included. Your question here is probably intended to "are there plans to make this particular function work on more cores?", the answer is "if there's a feature request on the MeGUI tracker, then maybe".

[Nozomi]

Sorry for a maybe stupid question... isn't it possible to have MeGUI to encode 23.97fps input to a say, 12fps output so as to save hopefully half of the encoding time? Of course sound track of the output video should be in sync during playback. The reason I asked is due to from time to time I would like to encode some non-PSP compatible movies and watch them on the road then delete after watched. I don't need perfect quality on those watch and delete kind of media but a super quick way to encode with MP4AVC is the most important and by reducing half number of frames shouldn't affect too much of picture quality at all?!

[Ryu77]

Sorry for a maybe stupid question... isn't it possible to have MeGUI to encode 23.97fps input to a say, 12fps output so as to save hopefully half of the encoding time? Of course sound track of the output video should be in sync during playback. The reason I asked is due to from time to time I would like to encode some non-PSP compatible movies and watch them on the road then delete after watched. I don't need perfect quality on those watch and delete kind of media but a super quick way to encode with MP4AVC is the most important and by reducing half number of frames shouldn't affect too much of picture quality at all?!

Use the AVIsynth command... ChangeFPS(12)

[Nozomi]

To my surprise, the result is not too promising... overall processing time is 30% faster but the processing rate is in fact slower maybe due to ChangeFPS(12) actually slow down the frame serving. Also to my surprise is that size of the resulting clip are exactly the same even if number of fps being cut to half.

Processing Rate
23fps Clip = 11.98 FPS
12fps Clip = 9.12 FPS

Processing Time
23fps Clip = 00:08:45
12fps Clip = 00:06:00

Source Clip
Format : RealMedia
File size : 22.7 MB
Duration : 4mn 33s
Overall bit rate : 682 Kbps
Width : 704 pixels
Height : 396 pixels
Frame rate : 23 fps
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.096

Output Clip (23fps)
Format : AVC
Duration : 4mn 33s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 405 Kbps
Nominal bit rate : 400 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 1424 Kbps
Width : 480 pixels
Height : 272 pixels
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.000 fps
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.135
Stream size : 13.2 MiB (100%)

Output Clip (12fps)
Video
Format : AVC
Duration : 4mn 33s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 404 Kbps
Nominal bit rate : 400 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 1252 Kbps
Width : 480 pixels
Height : 272 pixels
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 12.000 fps
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.258
Stream size : 13.2 MiB (100%)

[check]

The filesize is the same problably because you left the bitrate the same... ;)

[Nozomi]

Oh, you're right... but never mind, file size is not my main concern, ideas on further reduce processing time without giving up too much on picture quality are welcome. Below is encoding setting for reference:

Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x1:0x111 / me=umh / subme=6 / rdcmp=psy / brdo=1 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=1 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=0 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / bime=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / rc=cbr / bitrate=400 / ratetol=1.0 / rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' / qcomp=1.00 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=2000 / vbv_bufsize=500 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=2:1.00

[reallango]

is any body else useing the one click encoder and if so is it working in the new version.

[ZombiePimp]

is any body else useing the one click encoder and if so is it working in the new version.

I would be using the one click encoder if it worked :p

Yeah, still broken for me, just as described on the bug tracker.

[Sharktooth]

one click encoder is broken due to the dgindex update.
please use d2vcreator (only for dvd or mpeg2 sources)->avisynth script creator->autoencode as a substitute until we fix it.

[reallango]

one click encoder is broken due to the dgindex update.
please us d2vcreator (inly for dvd or mpeg2 sources)->avisynth script creator->autoencoe as a substitute until we fix it.

So is it possible for me to just use an older version of dgindex untill the problem is solved and if so do we know what version of dgindex still worked.

Edit: I did some reading and testing and it seems that useing the dgmpgdec 1.4.8 (AKA: dgindex) solves the problem. Although I'm not sure yet if you need to use the DGDecode.dll version 1.4.8 for avisyth plugin or not. Will test more later and post results.

Edit 2: Yes it looks as though booth programs dgindex and dgdecode must be down converted to version 1.4.8 in order to solve the problem. http://neuron2.net/dgmpgdec/dgmpgdec148.zip just download that and replace all files in the /megui/tools/dgindex folder. Then replace the dgdecode.dll file in you avisynth plugin folder with the one from the zip. If you do this after udateing to version 1.5.1 Megui will think it is up to date until a new version is released that hopefully fixes the problem.

[dansus]

Since the recent updates, my encoding speed has dropped by 25% on x264.

Nothing else has changed, same scripts, settings, hardware ect. Im using 901 and have tested below and above to 914 with the latest stable build.

Any thoughts on why this might be? I dont even know where to start on this one.

[Sharktooth]

not due to megui.
maybe some profiles changes, or x264 updates.

[Dark Shikari]

Since the recent updates, my encoding speed has dropped by 25% on x264.

Nothing else has changed, same scripts, settings, hardware ect. Im using 901 and have tested below and above to 914 with the latest stable build.

Any thoughts on why this might be? I dont even know where to start on this one.I'm going to guess that its because someone started patching the MeGUI build with Psy RDO, which increases quality (but decreases speed). I'm not sure if they have tossed in version 0.5 of the patch yet, which cuts the speed decrease in half.

[dansus]

I'm going to guess that its because someone started patching the MeGUI build with Psy RDO, which increases quality (but decreases speed). I'm not sure if they have tossed in version 0.5 of the patch yet, which cuts the speed decrease in half.

Hoping that might be the case and not my cpu fading.

I will look into that, thanks.

[dansus]

I will look into that, thanks.


I get back about 5% with 880-889.

Im using the ps3-360 profile in default, did that profile change in the update?


--------

[LOGiC]

Hi there all,

I am a complete newbie to x264 and to re-encoding, but I am very interested in this. I bought a Blu-Ray Standalone Player some days ago which is capable of AVCHD. Unfortunately the supported bitrate is just about 15mbits, so I would like to do some re-encoding of my stuff. I would like to use MeGui to reach the best possible quality.

Are there any guides available which figures to use, which checks to make in which field etc. to achieve good results ? Would be happy for every tip about how to start off.

Thank you guys in advance.

Best regards,

Andy.

[Sharktooth]

the word "best" and this forum are not compatible coz best is a subjective concept.
:readrule:

[Sharktooth]

I'm going to guess that its because someone started patching the MeGUI build with Psy RDO, which increases quality (but decreases speed). I'm not sure if they have tossed in version 0.5 of the patch yet, which cuts the speed decrease in half.

true, 0.5 patched build will be up on the autoupdate as soon as bobor will build it.
also, the theory is, if you want speed thou shall not use RDO.
if you use RDO modes then you dont care about the speed....

[LOGiC]

@Sharktooth

that was meant to be the best for myself. I am fully aware of the fact, that everything is subjective and people have other interpretations for the word "best". I just would like to have a point to pick up and start off.

[Sharktooth]

avc-hd and blu-ray have the same specs for h.264 except the bitrates.
if you know the values, you can create a new profile starting from the blu-ray ones and change the VBV parameters (18mbps as max bitrate for DVD medium and 15mbps as buffer) according to the AVC-HD specs (http://www.avchd-info.org/format/index.html).
if you would like to have an AVC-HD profile by default, ill include it in the next profiles update.

[LOGiC]

An AVC-HD profile by default would be great Sir.

Nevertheless, I will start reading about all the specs and trying to move around in the program. Maybe I can set something up.

Thank you.

[Sharktooth]

ok, working on it. in the meanwhile i updated the xvid profiles.

[smok3]

would it be very hard if megui would look for neroaacenc on system %path%?

[Sharktooth]

no, post a feature request in the megui feature request tracker (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=798479&group_id=156112&func=browse).
it may take a while since we're all (devs) more or less busy.

[smok3]

ok, posted under 'nobody' for some reason...

[Sharktooth]

coz you dont have a SF account or didnt log in.
we dont care though. when the idea is good AND we have time to implement it, we'll do...

[JPSiemer]

I'm using the latest 0.3.0.1017 release of MeGUI and I cannot get 5.1 OGG encoding to work. My source is a 5.1 DTS and I am telling MeGUI to "Keep Original Channels", but every time I end up with a 2 channel file. I think this is a bug that needs fixing!

[Sharktooth]

report it in the megui bug tracker on megui's sourceforge project page.

[Archibald NME]

I'm using the latest 0.3.0.1017 release of MeGUI and I cannot get 5.1 OGG encoding to work. My source is a 5.1 DTS and I am telling MeGUI to "Keep Original Channels", but every time I end up with a 2 channel file. I think this is a bug that needs fixing!

This is OK for me on latest version. I just checked. Output is proper 6ch Vorbis.

[JPSiemer]

Figured out the 6CH OGG thing. AC3Filter was messing up the output.

I found another problem though, and I'm wondering if there is a fix for this...

If an AVS file references a media file that has a "»" character in it, then MeGUI will not open this AVS file. MeGUI will add an additional garbage character of "Â" before the "»", resulting in MeGUI not being able to open the file correctly.

I know I could just rename the file to something else, but I figured that this is a bug that you guys do not know about.

[Sharktooth]

do NOT use spaces or special chars in filenames/paths. windows doesnt support unicode filenames (Vista does but many other programs dont... so it's basically the same...).
simply avoid it to avoid problems.

[rkalwaitis]

Anyone,

Hello hope all is well. I really love Megui. It Rocks! By far!! Of course I have been waiting to play with snow codec. So I was all over the scratch pad for it. And Megui gave her hell too. But the process never is allowed to complete. Some of my project is encoded and then Im forced to close due to an error. Which I immediately snagged and am presenting to the smart folks. "You guys :)" It seems to be an MPlayer issue, which seems odd as I can not find MPLAYER in my version packet (0.3.1017). Anyways here it is.

-[Information] Log for job1 (video, Monty Walsh.avs -> Monty Walsh.avi)
--[Information] [8/6/2008 8:38:40 AM] Started handling job
--[Information] [8/6/2008 8:38:44 AM] Preprocessing
--[NoImage] Job commandline: "C:\Program Files\megui\tools\mencoder\mencoder.exe" "C:\Users\Baba\Downloads\Monty Walsh\Monty Walsh.avs" -ovc lavc -nosound -lavcopts vcodec=snow:vbitrate=690:vstrict=-2 -o "C:\Users\Baba\Downloads\Monty Walsh\Monty Walsh.avi" -of avi -ffourcc SNOW
--[Information] [8/6/2008 8:38:46 AM] Encoding started
--[NoImage] Standard output stream
---[NoImage] MEncoder dev-SVN-r23107-4.3.0 (C) 2000-2007 MPlayer Team
---[NoImage] CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ (Family: 15, Model: 75, Stepping: 2)
---[NoImage] CPUflags: Type: 15 MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 0 SSE2: 0
---[NoImage] Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
---[NoImage] success: format: 0 data: 0x0 - 0xf4
---[NoImage] AVS file format detected.
---[NoImage] VIDEO: [YV12] 640x352 12bpp 23.976 fps 0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
---[NoImage] [V] filefmt:38 fourcc:0x32315659 size:640x352 fps:23.98 ftime:=0.0417
---[NoImage] Opening video filter: [expand osd=1]
---[NoImage] Expand: -1 x -1, -1 ; -1, osd: 1, aspect: 0.000000, round: 1
---[NoImage] ==========================================================================
---[NoImage] Opening video decoder: [raw] RAW Uncompressed Video
---[NoImage] VDec: vo config request - 640 x 352 (preferred colorspace: Planar YV12)
---[NoImage] VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
---[NoImage] Movie-Aspect is undefined - no prescaling applied.
---[NoImage] videocodec: libavcodec (640x352 fourcc=574f4e53 [SNOW])
---[NoImage] Selected video codec: [rawyv12] vfm: raw (RAW YV12)
---[NoImage] ==========================================================================
---[NoImage] Forcing output FourCC to 574f4e53 [SNOW].
---[NoImage] Writing header...
---[NoImage] ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header.
---[NoImage] Writing header...
---[NoImage] ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header.
--[NoImage] Standard error stream
---[NoImage] New_Face failed. Maybe the font path is wrong.
---[NoImage] Please supply the text font file (~/.mplayer/subfont.ttf).
---[NoImage] subtitle font: load_sub_face failed.
---[NoImage] Assertion failed: iscore >= 0, file snow.c, line 2169
---[NoImage] This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
---[NoImage] Please contact the application's support team for more information.
--[Information] [8/6/2008 9:08:58 AM] Job completed
-[Information] Log for job2 (video, Monty Walsh.avs -> Monty Walsh.avi)
--[Information] [8/6/2008 9:12:28 AM] Started handling job
--[Information] [8/6/2008 9:12:29 AM] Preprocessing
--[NoImage] Job commandline: "C:\Program Files\megui\tools\mencoder\mencoder.exe" "C:\Users\Baba\Downloads\Monty Walsh\Monty Walsh.avs" -ovc lavc -nosound -lavcopts vcodec=snow:vbitrate=400:pred=2:vstrict=-2 -o "C:\Users\Baba\Downloads\Monty Walsh\Monty Walsh.avi" -of avi -ffourcc SNOW
--[Information] [8/6/2008 9:12:31 AM] Encoding started
--[NoImage] Standard output stream
---[NoImage] MEncoder dev-SVN-r23107-4.3.0 (C) 2000-2007 MPlayer Team
---[NoImage] CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ (Family: 15, Model: 75, Stepping: 2)
---[NoImage] CPUflags: Type: 15 MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 0 SSE2: 0
---[NoImage] Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
---[NoImage] success: format: 0 data: 0x0 - 0xf4
---[NoImage] AVS file format detected.
---[NoImage] VIDEO: [YV12] 640x352 12bpp 23.976 fps 0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
---[NoImage] [V] filefmt:38 fourcc:0x32315659 size:640x352 fps:23.98 ftime:=0.0417
---[NoImage] Opening video filter: [expand osd=1]
---[NoImage] Expand: -1 x -1, -1 ; -1, osd: 1, aspect: 0.000000, round: 1
---[NoImage] ==========================================================================
---[NoImage] Opening video decoder: [raw] RAW Uncompressed Video
---[NoImage] VDec: vo config request - 640 x 352 (preferred colorspace: Planar YV12)
---[NoImage] VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
---[NoImage] Movie-Aspect is undefined - no prescaling applied.
---[NoImage] videocodec: libavcodec (640x352 fourcc=574f4e53 [SNOW])
---[NoImage] Selected video codec: [rawyv12] vfm: raw (RAW YV12)
---[NoImage] ==========================================================================
---[NoImage] Forcing output FourCC to 574f4e53 [SNOW].
---[NoImage] Writing header...
---[NoImage] ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header.
---[NoImage] Writing header...
---[NoImage] ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header.
--[NoImage] Standard error stream
---[NoImage] New_Face failed. Maybe the font path is wrong.
---[NoImage] Please supply the text font file (~/.mplayer/subfont.ttf).
---[NoImage] subtitle font: load_sub_face failed.
---[NoImage] Assertion failed: iscore >= 0, file snow.c, line 2169
---[NoImage] This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
---[NoImage] Please contact the application's support team for more information.

Megui didnt crash, she let me shut her down nice and easy.

Thanks K

[rkalwaitis]

oh what was encoded with snow looked very promising.

thanks k

[check]

It looks like a crash in the Snow encoder. Snow is a highly experimental (and basically untouched for the past few years) codec, I wouldnt recommend you spend much time with it.

[rkalwaitis]

The new specification codes for snow were drafted this year. I hope they don't give up on it. It seems to be working fine (as I type) with mencoder. Perhaps the fix for Megui is an easy one.

Thanks K

[Sharktooth]

let megui auto-update... if you dont get the updates you wont get mplayer...

[rkalwaitis]

okay ill try that, thanks!!!

Thanks
K

[Sharktooth]

also 0.3.0.1017 is not the latest version. we do not support old versions.

[rkalwaitis]

okay ill go get the newest version

thanks again

[rkalwaitis]

Source forge has that as the latest version (0 3 0 1017) as of 23 Jul 08. Where is the latest build?

[Sharktooth]

autoupdate.
you dont need to download it from SF... megui can update itself (in the menu: Options->Update)

[rkalwaitis]

I autoupdated as per your guidance and no mplayer that I can see. In fact it autoupdated twice.

[rkalwaitis]

I autoupdated as per your guidance, infact it updated once on its own. But still no mplayer.

[Sharktooth]

megui install folder\tools ... and sorry i meant mencoder... today im a bit confused.

[rkalwaitis]

Mencoder is there. The only things that didnt update where besplit and nero, which I downloaded seperately as per instructions.

Do I need to replace the mencoder with another?

[Sharktooth]

uhm... i will publish a mencoder update in the megui autoupdate server shortly (in the next few days). so if you want you can do it by yourself (get a sherpya or celtic druid build most recent build) or just wait for the update.

[rkalwaitis]

ill try to snag it on my own. If not Ill watch for your update, thanks a lot for helping me. At least I know where to look. Do I need to put mplayer with the mencoder file?

[Sharktooth]

np, ill do it right now... i found some free time (5 minutes... should be enough).

[rkalwaitis]

Dude I didnt mean to rush you, Im retired and have too much time on my hands :)

[rkalwaitis]

If you guys ever need any help doing anything just ask :)

[Sharktooth]

ok.... files are up in the megui.org auto-update mirror.

edit: im from italy too.
edit2: i updated ffmpeg too.

[rkalwaitis]

so need for the mplayer at all?

[Sharktooth]

check the log if there's still this problem:
---[NoImage] Please supply the text font file (~/.mplayer/subfont.ttf).
---[NoImage] subtitle font: load_sub_face failed.
---[NoImage] Assertion failed: iscore >= 0, file snow.c, line 2169
---[NoImage] This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.

[rkalwaitis]

okay she is a screaming at a whole 7.68fps... ill let you no if it worked or didnt work,thanks again

ciao

[Sharktooth]

ok... in the meantime im re-updating mencoder. i added the missing font. it should be up in few minutes (it's up).

[rkalwaitis]

cause you da man!!!

[Sharktooth]

if it still doenst work then we have to include the configuration files... what a PITA...

[rkalwaitis]

Well it did not fail due to the last error, in fact it completed the process and gave me an file with no video that I could at least see. Before the fix, I was getting a varily nice picture it just would not finish. Im gonna play around with it and see what happens. But I can not think of anything I changed as far as the snow codec goes.

K

[Sharktooth]

are you sure you have a recent snow decoder installed?

[rkalwaitis]

If it didnt come with megui, Then I guess not. Where do I get it?

[Sharktooth]

uhm try mplayer: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=205275&package_id=248631&release_id=614242
it is the same revision and build from where i took mencoder to add it to the megui auto-update.
get the mplayer GUI for a graphical interface.

[rkalwaitis]

okay i installed the latest of lord M's ill try yours.

Ill let you know, thanks

[Sharktooth]

ah ok... hope it works hehe

[rkalwaitis]

I used the original mencoder and your text font fix, and it worked. Played fine in VLC. Thanks for the help. Im gonna try a real test now.

Your the bomb.

[rkalwaitis]

no dice, im gonna clean everything up and start from scratch, I hate vista :( but I can't find the I Hate My Vista OS here on doom. The lmp4 looked interesting too. Are the scratchpad settings the best settings?

[Sharktooth]

what happened?

[rkalwaitis]

Sharktooth,

No Dice again.

-[Information] Log for job3 (video, quick.avs -> quick.avi)
--[Information] [8/8/2008 9:03:01 AM] Started handling job
--[Information] [8/8/2008 9:03:03 AM] Preprocessing
--[NoImage] Job commandline: "C:\Program Files\megui\tools\mencoder\mencoder.exe" "C:\Users\Baba-Nator\Downloads\Quick and the Dead\quick.avs" -ovc lavc -nosound -lavcopts vcodec=snow:vbitrate=700:vstrict=-2 -o "C:\Users\Baba-Nator\Downloads\Quick and the Dead\quick.avi" -of avi -ffourcc SNOW
--[Information] [8/8/2008 9:03:05 AM] Encoding started
--[NoImage] Standard output stream
---[NoImage] MEncoder Sherpya-SVN-r27323-4.2.4 (C) 2000-2008 MPlayer Team
---[NoImage] CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ (Family: 15, Model: 75, Stepping: 2)
---[NoImage] CPUflags: Type: 15 MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
---[NoImage] Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
---[NoImage] success: format: 0 data: 0x0 - 0xd3
---[NoImage] AVS file format detected.
---[NoImage] VIDEO: [YV12] 640x352 12bpp 23.976 fps 0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
---[NoImage] [V] filefmt:38 fourcc:0x32315659 size:640x352 fps:23.976 ftime:=0.0417
---[NoImage] Opening video filter: [expand osd=1]
---[NoImage] Expand: -1 x -1, -1 ; -1, osd: 1, aspect: 0.000000, round: 1
---[NoImage] ==========================================================================
---[NoImage] Opening video decoder: [raw] RAW Uncompressed Video
---[NoImage] VDec: vo config request - 640 x 352 (preferred colorspace: Planar YV12)
---[NoImage] VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
---[NoImage] Movie-Aspect is undefined - no prescaling applied.
---[NoImage] videocodec: libavcodec (640x352 fourcc=574f4e53 [SNOW])
---[NoImage] Selected video codec: [rawyv12] vfm: raw (RAW YV12)
---[NoImage] ==========================================================================
---[NoImage] Forcing output FourCC to 574f4e53 [SNOW].
---[NoImage] Writing header...
---[NoImage] ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header.
---[NoImage] Writing header...
---[NoImage] ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header.
--[NoImage] Standard error stream
--[Information] [8/8/2008 9:03:17 AM] Job completed


not sure what i dorked up.

i did clean up the computer and start from scratch so Im lost.


Thanks K

[rkalwaitis]

lmp4 and x254 worked fine. thanks

[rkalwaitis]

may have been an issue between mencoder and avisyth. Ive updated to the latest version of AviSynth_080730 and appears to be working as it should. I will let you know more when test is done.

[rkalwaitis]

Well Ive got it to play back, lets see if it will finish a job. Looks like it will be a small file, i picked 5.00 constant quality. Ill let you know how it looks and works out, thanks for the help Sharktooth your the man!!!!!!!

[Sharktooth]

keep in mind snow is experimental, rhe way to enable the decoder (libavcodec, the same fthat mplayer and vlc use) was also removed from ffdshow coz it was incomplete/borked...

[rkalwaitis]

The latest vlc doesnt play the file. Im using MPlayer-1.0rc2-gui (gmplayer).

[rkalwaitis]

This has tons of potential, its a shame they dont work on it. Still trying to figure out the settings. To bad Megui doesnt have a command line to add to the choices. It seems much easier on my processor too, when compared to x264. Files are much smaller as well. I need to refine what I select to help me improve quality. But your default for snow produced a file that was 2029kb compared to x264 1 pass good quality of 33mbs. Can you give me something that helps explain the options better. Im sure the x264 will be of better quality, but I think I can get close to it with a much smaller file.


Thanks

[Dark Shikari]

This has tons of potential, its a shame they dont work on it. Still trying to figure out the settings. To bad Megui doesnt have a command line to add to the choices. It seems much easier on my processor too, when compared to x264.Um, what? As an OBMC/wavelet codec, Snow is MUCH slower than x264, both for encoding and decoding.

[rkalwaitis]

i didnt say it was fast, i got anywhere from 10-12fps with snow and slightly faster with x264. But Im not sure if I put the screws to the snow codec, still trying to figure out the various settings and what they really mean. What I have seen so far looks nice, if not as nice as the x264, id say better than xvid. ill red0the tests and post my the speeds. But x264 is faster, but the x264 pulled more of my computers resources. It may because I used the 1 past good quality default. Try it on yours and see.

K

[rkalwaitis]

But if your counting on me to give some kind of high tech report I cant. Im playing with it cause it was part of megui and I wanted to see it work. I have no real way to compare the two other than how they look and the size of the files. Sorry. I can do no filters and same Bitrates and so on, but snow seems strange when trying to judge its capabilities based on how another codec like x264 or xvid may produce something at a given bitrate. I played with the CQ today and 2.50 and 2.25 gave good looking clips in small sizes. The above default mentioned above the 2mb file looked bad. But it was the default given by the program and a place to start. Maybe you can give me a couple of hints of how to do a test and I can try again.

[rkalwaitis]

Sharktooth the bitrate option doesnt seem to work. In other words the file produced is extremely small and unviewable no matter how mut of a bitrate I choose.
the CQ mode rocks!! How do I fix the bitrate option, is it trying to do a two pass by default.

K

[rkalwaitis]

Sharktooth, I think I figured out why it is like that. Ive been reading about the codec a bit and it says that all passes are internal.

So when a pass number is added to the command line vpass (ex. vpass=2) its not quite the same as lets say with xvid or x264. The way I understood it was lets say I picked 1pass. To snow 1 pass is CBR and I must supply the bitrate. If I pick 2 pass it is ABR and must provide the bitrate again. But if Im not mistaken I will not see the typical two pass as I would with xvid. As they are done within the codec. The default for snow is 800kbit/s.

Does this make sense or do I sound crazy?

thanks, I appreciate your wisdom :)

[Sharktooth]

sorry but im not able to code right now.
i annunced my megui dev possible retirement in the megui private forums on SF, unless my health conditions start to improve significantly.
if you know what multiple sclerosis is you will understand.

[rkalwaitis]

Very sorry by best to you.

[magic144]

wonder if anyone can help with this one

I'm brand new to x264 encoding and MeGUI, but not to encoding in general.

I have been trying to encode the same movie file now 3 times. Each time I use the same MeGUI 'jobs' and each time I get a very slight variation in output file size, as well as small variations in some of the logged info from x264 (see below at end of this message - the variations seem to appear in the 2nd pass of each run - the 1st pass logging output is identical so I haven't included it here for now).

Can anybody explain such variations? The profile and source files used were exactly the same - in effect, I just turned the handle a 2nd time and got a different result. Is h.264 encoding not strictly determinstic, or should I be looking at something in particular for a problem? The reason I'm asking is because the first time I tried this, I noticed a tiny glitch in playback (the screen goes fully white for a very few frames - am using ZP, Haali, CoreAVC) on both of my Core 2 Duo PCs. I did NOT see this glitch (at least not in the same place) on the 2nd and 3rd encoding attempts.

BTW, I created the 3 MeGUI jobs (pass1, pass2, mux) in Auto-Encode mode with a target size of DVD9.
MeGUI version is 0.3.0.1020
x264 version used here was 936 (though since these tests, I have progressed to 937)

================
1st Run
================
--[Information] [2008-08-16 22:31:39] Started handling job
--[Information] [2008-08-16 22:31:39] Preprocessing
--[NoImage] Job commandline: "C:\Program Files\megui\tools\x264\x264.exe" --pass 2 --bitrate 11158 --stats "G:\_compressed\my_movie.stats" --keyint 240 --min-keyint 24 --ref 5 --mixed-refs --no-fast-pskip --bframes 2 --b-pyramid --b-rdo --bime --weightb --direct auto --nf --subme 6 --trellis 1 --partitions p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --me umh --threads auto --thread-input --sar 99:100 --progress --no-dct-decimate --no-psnr --no-ssim --output "G:\_compressed\my_movie.mkv" "G:\_compressed\my_movie.avs"
--[Information] [2008-08-16 22:31:41] Encoding started
--[NoImage] Standard output stream
--[NoImage] Standard error stream
---[NoImage] avis [info]: 1280x528 @ 23.98 fps (136449 frames)
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: using SAR=99/100
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 PHADD SSE4 Cache64
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: slice I:1406 Avg QP:15.92 size:112917
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: slice P:68248 Avg QP:16.55 size: 79484
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: slice B:66795 Avg QP:18.75 size: 35251
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: consecutive B-frames: 16.6% 36.9% 46.5%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: mb I I16..4: 5.6% 78.3% 16.1%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: mb P I16..4: 1.1% 15.7% 2.0% P16..4: 30.8% 26.1% 21.5% 0.0% 0.0% skip: 2.8%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: mb B I16..4: 0.1% 3.1% 0.3% B16..8: 36.9% 2.6% 4.2% direct: 7.7% skip:45.1% L0:40.6% L1:27.4% BI:32.0%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: 8x8 transform intra:83.8% inter:53.3%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: direct mvs spatial:92.7% temporal:7.3%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: ref P L0 40.7% 24.5% 13.7% 11.2% 9.9%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: ref B L0 47.7% 30.2% 13.8% 8.4%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: ref B L1 91.2% 8.8%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: kb/s:11158.5


================
2nd Run
================
--[Information] [2008-08-17 06:20:18] Started handling job
--[Information] [2008-08-17 06:20:18] Preprocessing
--[NoImage] Job commandline: "C:\Program Files\megui\tools\x264\x264.exe" --pass 2 --bitrate 11158 --stats "G:\_compressed\my_movie.stats" --keyint 240 --min-keyint 24 --ref 5 --mixed-refs --no-fast-pskip --bframes 2 --b-pyramid --b-rdo --bime --weightb --direct auto --nf --subme 6 --trellis 1 --partitions p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --me umh --threads auto --thread-input --sar 99:100 --progress --no-dct-decimate --no-psnr --no-ssim --output "G:\_compressed\my_movie.mkv" "G:\_compressed\my_movie.avs"
--[Information] [2008-08-17 06:20:20] Encoding started
--[NoImage] Standard output stream
--[NoImage] Standard error stream
---[NoImage] avis [info]: 1280x528 @ 23.98 fps (136449 frames)
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: using SAR=99/100
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 PHADD SSE4 Cache64
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: slice I:1406 Avg QP:15.92 size:112947
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: slice P:68248 Avg QP:16.55 size: 79485
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: slice B:66795 Avg QP:18.75 size: 35249
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: consecutive B-frames: 16.6% 36.9% 46.5%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: mb I I16..4: 5.6% 78.2% 16.2%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: mb P I16..4: 1.1% 15.8% 2.0% P16..4: 30.8% 26.1% 21.5% 0.0% 0.0% skip: 2.8%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: mb B I16..4: 0.1% 3.1% 0.3% B16..8: 36.9% 2.6% 4.2% direct: 7.7% skip:45.1% L0:40.6% L1:27.4% BI:32.0%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: 8x8 transform intra:83.8% inter:53.3%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: direct mvs spatial:92.7% temporal:7.3%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: ref P L0 40.7% 24.5% 13.7% 11.2% 9.9%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: ref B L0 47.6% 30.2% 13.8% 8.3%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: ref B L1 91.2% 8.8%
---[NoImage] x264 [info]: kb/s:11158.5

[czerro]

A size difference of 3k? It could be that the first pass size results are simply an efficient estimate of the actual output give or take 2kbytes whereas the size reports in second pass are actual size-on-disk reports. This makes sense if you consider the I frame data size was the same in both passes. Could be an artifact caused by the decoder in the second pass. The real test is to perform the test several times with the same first pass stats and see if the 2nd-pass results are identical in all cases.

[magic144]

thanks czerro, tho I'm not quite sure I follow your logic for the discrepancy...

I will try the same 2nd pass run a couple of times by using the initial STATS file and see what the result is there.

I've just updated to the newest x264 .exe and am now using the DXVA-HD-HQ profile with 2 minor mods (No DCT Decimation and No Fast Pskip both set)

I don't know how the white-screen glitch happened, but I *really* hope that's not a regular occurrence!

By the way, there's no ffdshow side-effects that can interfere here are there? I believe the encoding is only loading Haali & CoreAVC, but how can I be sure?

[Sharktooth]

ehrr... could you please open a discussion in the AVC forum?
this issue is not related to megui, but the encoder. thanks.

[magic144]

sure thing Sharktooth - I wasn't sure myself, but it does seem to be down to x264 at this point...

fyi all, the thread is now here
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1171658

[check]

for future reference: x264 should, but is not, yet fully deterministic.

[Sharktooth]

it is with default settings. but some settings may brake the determinism (threads > 1 for example).

[magic144]

Hi again Sharktooth...

this is probably more MeGUI related!
When I updated my user-modified (basically a copy of DVXA-HD-HQ) profile to have threads=1, this does seem to have updated the profile .xml file OK, but it doesn't transfer across into the jobN.xml file (for some reason the jobN.xml file always has NbThreads set to 0).

I am creating the jobs using AutoEncode.
Please let me know if I'm doing something wrong here or if this is a bug.

Thanks,
m

[Sharktooth]

did you update the profile AFTER enqueing the job?

[magic144]

no, in fact I exited MeGUI after I updated the profile to make sure the profile was updated,

then I restarted MeGUI and enqueued the 3 jobs (pass1, pass2, mux)

other profile params seem to have been successfully copied to the jobs, just not NbThreads for some reason

[Sharktooth]

ensure to unset "Automatically set number of threads" in the options