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Old 14th October 2010, 08:49   #1  |  Link
BECK38
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MeGUI New Install Not Working, At an Impasse (re: HELP)

Bear with me a bit, I was on Doom9 in the very early days of DVD recoding, learned (and applied) a lot, and dove into x264 land a few months back with MeGUI, worked great, is still working as I write this (but an older 4core/32bit Vista CPU machine).

I've 'read up' on all the changes and such this last several months in MeGUI world, and wanted/needed to build a new box, dedicated to x264 recoding (have a new SAN I'd like to fill up).

Vista64 machine built, OS runs great, 6core CPU with fast ram and SATA3 drives...downloaded and installed MeGUI and all the ancillary parts. Let it update on first execution. At that point, that's the last bit that worked 100%.

I ran several short tests with different inputs (VC1, Mpeg4/AVC, Mpeg2), in all looked good and the output was okay.

Then started some deeper tests with the old Sharktooth presets, and immediately ran into trouble, lots of blockiness and artifacts. Okay, pull back and try the 'new' built-in stuff folks (even Sharktooth) are raving about.

Nada. I've tried about have of them so far (the fast ones of course), and they get to 99% and die. Just sit there without doing anything more at that point.

Okay, so what's up? I pulled all the s/w packages right off the web, to make sure I got as new as possible, even knowing that the auto-update would yank the package up to the 'newest'.

I went back and re-got the Sharktooth presets (listed here), did a couple long clips, and got the same yucky results. Tried the built-in's again, same result.

I've seen where folks have been told to completely re-load their OS (multiple times...!), and do all other kinds of hoop jumping. What I'd like to know is, what is going wrong? Really, this is nowhere near the rocket science that recoding DVD's were circa 2002-3....

Tia!
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Old 14th October 2010, 14:47   #2  |  Link
Inspector.Gadget
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Delete all profiles and only use the current ones from the development server. The x264 CLI syntax has changed.
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Old 14th October 2010, 15:31   #3  |  Link
BECK38
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Sorry, but that's one of the first things I tried; it helped somewhat (in the fact the x264 'engine' looked from the time it was taking a/b to the older machine), but in the end, the recode had the same problems that lots of others have reported (or at least, their description is) of tons of 'blockiness' and artifacts. I'll try once again (that make the third go at that d/l'ing and installing) but I don't hold out much hope on that solution since it's failed to improve things twice already. But I'll give it another go.
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Old 14th October 2010, 19:14   #4  |  Link
BECK38
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Well, got the 'newest' profiles (seem to be updated every few days according to the files up to v56 now) but no real change.

Encode runs right up to 98+% of completion on the first pass, then just stops (although task continues, cpu drops to zero) and it all just sits there; I've let it sit there for close to an hour, nothing changes.

There are no changes to any of the parameters beyond what the 'slider' sets, this is plain jane testing.
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Old 15th October 2010, 04:18   #5  |  Link
Sharktooth
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what avisynth version are you using?
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Old 15th October 2010, 06:34   #6  |  Link
BECK38
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sharktooth View Post
what avisynth version are you using?
As specified in the original MeGUI docs, 2.58, that's been running perfectly (for several months) in my other Vista machine.

I think I mentioned above, that originally I had problems running your presets on the new, lots of encoding errors (blocking, etc.) (those from Jul08, which again run super-great on the other machine) which led me to try the 'built-ins' which led me into a brick wall.

I've been 'sampling' the various 'newer' 'built-in' presets, it appears all the single pass types work okay (at least they don't appear to come to a stop halfway through), but all the multi-pass ones exhibit as above. Except for your Jul08 ones (which do both passes, even 'insane') but with the encoding problems.

So, I do have a bit of a leg up in that I do have a completely 'operational' setup to A/B against. Except of course it's older, and a bit slower. but if this board had the emoticon where a horse is being beaten.... That's me and this new setup
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Old 15th October 2010, 14:53   #7  |  Link
Sharktooth
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the megui versions do not support the old presets.
dont overwrite them with the old ones. please uninstall megui and then reinstall it to be sure you have a clean installation... and dont forget to get the latest development build since it has a lot of fixes and newer presets.
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Old 15th October 2010, 16:14   #8  |  Link
BECK38
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This is not a 'development' or 'beta' install, all the s/w was from the 'stable', 'pre-June2010' or whatever.

So, this is a 'known good', 'stable', non-beta installation. The 'stable' presets for x264, vr. 40 according to the index. None of the 'built-in' apparently do multipass encodes. And your Jul08 multipass presets work, to a point. So I think things on my problem got off the track by assuming that I was running a non-stable/'new'/beta version. No, I used the same package used originally to set up my older machine, v3.5.

As it sits with the old presets, there are no multipass types with the 'slider'. Only your Jun08 ones appear to be, and they do run (while doing so without any going off the rails), but with various artifacts and such in the final product.

So, if we forget about the little excursion provided by Inspector.Gadget above into beta-land, the original presets (single pass) appear to all work, and the actual problem appears to be the Jun08 preset pack. I can do a series of re-tests with them, as the only scale tests have been with DXvA-HD-Insane, which yielded the artifact laden one, and a DXVA-HD-Fast that I ran as a 'pre-test', and it had the same artifacts (in the same high bitrate spots) that the 'insane' recode did.

BTW, a full 'insane' recode of the same clip on my older machine came out perfect (just took twice as long...). So that's where things sit right now.
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Old 15th October 2010, 16:29   #9  |  Link
Inspector.Gadget
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You've had two people, one a developer, tell you to use the latest development build of MeGUI with the update server set to the development repository. Are you awaiting an engraved invitation?
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Old 15th October 2010, 18:35   #10  |  Link
BECK38
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Inspector.Gadget View Post
You've had two people, one a developer, tell you to use the latest development build of MeGUI with the update server set to the development repository. Are you awaiting an engraved invitation?
No, are you expecting people to immediately use 'development' 'beta' software (I can think of a whole lot of more colorful words to describe it) when a stable, perfectly running, version (which is what I installed) is available...?

Not gonna happen, not on my machine, not on my network, and not recommended to my clients. If you want to use folks as unpaid beta testers and take all the upfront risks in doing so, say so up front, not try to wedge in through the back door.

I have MeGUI working perfectly on a machine, and very simply wanted to get it running, as is, on a newer, dedicated one. Sounds simple. If those 'running' MeGUI development now wish not to support the previous, stable, working, version, then again, say so up front, publicly to everyone.
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Old 15th October 2010, 18:53   #11  |  Link
Inspector.Gadget
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Not gonna happen, not on my machine, not on my network, and not recommended to my clients.
Then I suggest you not use free open source software. MeGUI developers put out a lot of bugfixes in every revision and often some new features. "Development" builds are beta in name only; I haven't had MeGUI crash or otherwise throw a fit in at least a year and I only run the latest build.

Quote:
when a stable, perfectly running, version (which is what I installed) is available...?
Obviously, that version is no longer "perfectly running", at least for you, or you wouldn't be posting. Look, you can keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results or you can try something new.

Quote:
If you want to use folks as unpaid beta testers and take all the upfront risks in doing so, say so up front, not try to wedge in through the back door.
What "risks" have you incurred by using software provided to you for free by MeGUI's developers? I would love to hear you explain why it is anyone else's obligation to improve on things they give you for free, especially when you refuse to follow a suggestion from one of the developers on how you might use another version that fits your needs.
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Old 16th October 2010, 03:53   #12  |  Link
Sharktooth
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the actual megui dev build has less bugs than the stable build. infact we will release a stable build very soon.
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