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Old 28th May 2004, 22:45   #21  |  Link
freelock7
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I see.
But Tmpgenc seems to work better with this codec (faster).
Helix is it able to perform a better color conversion in RGB than another codec?
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Old 28th May 2004, 23:34   #22  |  Link
t_2
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Wow, this is great. Already found a use for it. Elsewhere in this forum found the following link where a sample video can be downloaded.

http://www.geocities.com/alex_j_jordan/

When I tried to open it with the latest Xvid codec I got a mess after the first frame, after installing ffvfw and turning off Xvid with vswap, I got the message that no YV12 decoder could be found on the computer so installed Helix YV12, set ffvfw to decode DivX and no more problems. Thanks! I have already run into several decoding problems with the latest Xvid (It even has trouble decoding at least one earlier build of Xvid) so this new Codec is great!

Last edited by t_2; 28th May 2004 at 23:36.
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Old 29th May 2004, 10:55   #23  |  Link
Wilbert
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set ffvfw to decode DivX and no more problems.
I guess you mean "Helix YV12" instead of DivX?
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Old 30th May 2004, 12:18   #24  |  Link
t_2
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@Wilbert

I have a real neat Radix PCI protector card on this computer which allows me to experiment a lot without ruining my system, so everytime I log on I have to install AviSynth, Xvid, etc. It just takes a minute and I highly reccommend it, because many of these media codecs are very stuborn when it comes to removing them.

Anyway, the only MPEG4 decoder I had on my system was Xvid. The file I wanted to open was DivX. Xvid opened it in VirtualDub but after the first frame it was a mess. So I installed ffvfw and set it to decode DivX, but after turning Xvid off ( in Vswap) I could no longer open the file because ffvfw evidently couldn't decode the YVI2, but after installing the Helix codec not only could I open it with ffvfw, but that codec did a good job of decoding the MPEG4.

I didn't realize ffvfw could be set to decode Helix YV12, or maybe I just don't understand your question and what you are trying to point out. Please clarify, Thanks.

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Old 30th May 2004, 13:05   #25  |  Link
Wilbert
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I though you used DivX to decode that chroma.avi. Sorry, I misunderstood what you were saying.

Btw, DivX5 decodes it also correctly.
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Old 1st December 2005, 09:38   #26  |  Link
Alain2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Poutnik
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alain2
What about Helix codec 1.2 ? Don't know if it handles interlaced video though
I am afraid this codec support YV12 in non uncompressed way,
or I recall badly....
Can you confirm wether the helix YV12 codec 1.2, when used with vdubmod to compress to yv12, is lossless or not? I was using it for avs script treatment before my 3 x264 passes encoding thinking it was lossless, but Poutnik comment makes me wonder...

Thanks
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Old 1st December 2005, 12:06   #27  |  Link
ariga
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alain2
I was using it for avs script treatment before my 3 x264 passes encoding thinking it was lossless, but Poutnik comment makes me wonder...
You are confused.

The "Compression..." setting in VDub determines which codec to use. How much compression really happens and the type of compression depends on the codec you choose. The codec may decide to throw away some information to reduce the size (lossy compressed), retain all information and still reduce the size (lossless compressed) or store all the information as is (lossless uncompressed).

Last edited by ariga; 1st December 2005 at 15:46.
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Old 1st December 2005, 12:12   #28  |  Link
Wilbert
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I guess you are confused. First it compresses. Second, i don't know whether it is lossless or not. Karl doesn't say anything about it in his announcement post. I guess best is to send him a pm to find out.

edit: reading Leak's response in the other thread, i see i'm wrong here. Sorry about that. It looks like it's just a colorspace converter.

Last edited by Wilbert; 1st December 2005 at 12:34.
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Old 1st December 2005, 18:23   #29  |  Link
karl_lillevold
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It is not really a "compressor". It is a color convertor. If you choose "Fast recompress" in VdubMod, and the input format is a 'YUV' format, it is lossless, i.e. the conversion does not go via RGB. If you choose "Normal recompress" for "Full Processing mode", the input will be RGB, and the conversion will not be completely lossless, in the sense of rounding errors.

In general though, after I discovered Avisynth a few years ago, I rarely use these codecs to convert to YV12 or I420. Instead I use Avisynth directly.

Alain2: why do you use it to convert (compress) to YV12?
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Old 1st December 2005, 19:08   #30  |  Link
Alain2
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Well it's not that I am really confused, it's just that I didn't know all that ^^ The idea was : I have an avs script which takes hours to compile (there is some deen, fft3dfilter, dehalo_alpha in it), so the idea was to do a lossless uncompressed pass of this script, and then compress the result with 3-pass x264, that way I use the script only once instead of the 3 passes, so it speeds up things on particularly long scripts.

YV12 because my avisynth script is outputting YV12, so for the lossless temp clip I wanted to keep the same format. But i didn't know the trick of fast recompress versus normal / full processing. I never use vdub, i decided to use it only a few days ago to do my lossless yv12 clip, but I made the mistake of choosing full processing... Does the same apply for the other lossless codecs that are mentionned in ariga's thread?

If you know of a better way for me to do an uncompressed lossless clip out of an avisynth yv12 clip, please shoot

btw i checked, i have lost a lot between my avs output and the yv12 raw file obtained with the full processing parameter so as this Helix codec can do lossless only for yuy format, i need to use another codec for yv12 -> yv12 lossless, like ffdshow ? The name "yuv-codecs-1.2.exe" somehow confused me, probably because i didn't know about yuv format ^^

Last edited by Alain2; 1st December 2005 at 19:18.
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Old 1st December 2005, 19:20   #31  |  Link
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Why don't you just use Vdubmod "Direct Stream Copy"? The output of Avisynth will then be YV12. No need to use the YV12 compressor at all.

And you are right: in Full Processing Mode, Vdubmod will convert YV12 to RGB and feed that to the YV12 compressor, which will then convert RGB back to YV12. This is not lossless. So use Direct Stream Copy; and you don't need the YV12 compressor...
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Old 1st December 2005, 23:55   #32  |  Link
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I think sometimes I miss the obvious ^^ Thank you Karl
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Old 8th August 2006, 15:59   #33  |  Link
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What is the licensing of these codecs? Free, Free for non-commercial use, or open source? I don't need the source but I'd like to be sure that I can install them on a computer at work.
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Old 8th August 2006, 22:41   #34  |  Link
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If Helix codec 1.2 is used in VirtualDubMod for opening avisynth scripts, there seems to be a bug if width is only a multiple of 4: The image is slightly darker. This doesn't happen for multiples of 8 or 16.
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Old 8th August 2006, 23:06   #35  |  Link
karl_lillevold
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Quote:
Originally Posted by smokeslikeapoet
What is the licensing of these codecs? Free, Free for non-commercial use, or open source? I don't need the source but I'd like to be sure that I can install them on a computer at work.
Free for all kinds of use, but not open source.
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Old 8th August 2006, 23:10   #36  |  Link
karl_lillevold
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rig_veda
If Helix codec 1.2 is used in VirtualDubMod for opening avisynth scripts, there seems to be a bug if width is only a multiple of 4: The image is slightly darker. This doesn't happen for multiples of 8 or 16.
Very strange. I can not reproduce it though. I opened two scripts side-by-side, both referencing the same source AVI, one 352x288, one resized to 348x284. I could not see any difference.
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Old 9th August 2006, 01:41   #37  |  Link
rig_veda
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Quote:
Originally Posted by karl_lillevold
Very strange. I can not reproduce it though. I opened two scripts side-by-side, both referencing the same source AVI, one 352x288, one resized to 348x284. I could not see any difference.
I could observe it via

mpeg2source("Laputa.d2v")
TFM(PP=0,display=false,input="Laputa_auto_TFM.txt")
TDecimate(noblend=true,input="Laputa_auto_TDecimate.txt")
Lanczos4Resize(860,484)
Crop(24,8,-24,-12)

versus

mpeg2source("Laputa.d2v")
TFM(PP=0,display=false,input="Laputa_auto_TFM.txt")
TDecimate(noblend=true,input="Laputa_auto_TDecimate.txt")
Lanczos4Resize(860,484)
Crop(26,8,-26,-12)

when i placed two instances of VdubMod on top of each other and switched between those windows via taskbar. I don't know if it's noticable when the windows are next to each other, since it's only a small difference, but it's noticable. I made screenshots and checked the diff in paint shop: it's around 2-4 in each of the 3 color channels; It's present in the whole image, and it's influenced by the image, so it might be rounding errors, but why and of what? Is there a different calculation going on in one of the cases or VdubMod accessing helix differently? Pretty weird. o_O
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Old 9th August 2006, 18:55   #38  |  Link
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So what I tried next was the following:
Video 1:
Rawsource("foremn_c.yuv",352,288,"I420").AssumeFPS(30.0).Crop(2,2,-2,-2)
resulting in 348x284 video. I saved 10 frames, using Direct Stream Copy. Then I added back borders:
AVISource("f_crop.avi").AddBorders(2,2,2,2)
Again saved using Direct Stream Copy.

Then I compared this with the original video, and the only pixels that differed, were the ones within the 2 pixel border around the edge.
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Old 9th August 2006, 20:31   #39  |  Link
rig_veda
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Quote:
Originally Posted by karl_lillevold
So what I tried next was the following:
Video 1:
Rawsource("foremn_c.yuv",352,288,"I420").AssumeFPS(30.0).Crop(2,2,-2,-2)
resulting in 348x284 video. I saved 10 frames, using Direct Stream Copy. Then I added back borders:
AVISource("f_crop.avi").AddBorders(2,2,2,2)
Again saved using Direct Stream Copy.

Then I compared this with the original video, and the only pixels that differed, were the ones within the 2 pixel border around the edge.
Did some tests got the same result here, too. The final video looks identical to the original source in VdubMod, so nothing gets changed on the encoding/decoding side. But when I fed it cropped source without restoring the borders to give it it's original width back, it still looked darker though, so i guess the presumed bug must be in the YV12->RGB conversion for preview section of VdubMod. Fast recompress or direct stream copy isn't affected, but according to my tests full processing is. Anyway, this is the wrong thread for this, i'm heading over to VdubMod.
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Old 14th August 2006, 14:23   #40  |  Link
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However, one possibility to feed YV12 directly into CCE is some external codec that decodes YV12 data for it. This seems to work reliably only with CCE-SP 2.67.00.10 and newer, both DivX and XviD should do the job, as well as the lite version of the ffvfw codec included in the latest AVISynth 2.5 installers. In my tests however (using the ffvfw codec) and others, there seems to be not any difference in speed or even decreased speed compared to a ConvertToYUY2() in AVISynth. Also, the externals codecs may assume progressive video (at least DivX and XviD do) and mess up chroma for interlaced video for reasons outlined above. So for the time being, my advice is to stick to the conversion in AVISynth, eliminating another source for possible problems by minimizing the number of video processors involved.
This is from the CCE FAQ, and up to now I used the ConvertToYUY2() command in AviSynth. But recently I noticed that I do get a slightly better speed when I let the Helix codec do the conversion.
Question: Does the Helix codec handle interlaced content correctly, or will it also mess up chroma like DivX and XviD?

Cheers
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