StaxRip x86 (development for x86 has been stopped)

[laserfan]

CBR or VBR audio ?Well, AutoGK defaults to VBR, but my Sigma Xvid players *hate* VBR audio, so I stay away from it--causes stuttering on playback as if the Sigma chip doesn't know how to deal with it. Dunno about your Philips player tho.

[laserfan]

A long-time annoyance for me and still apparently in 1.0.0.1 which I just installed: I open source files using DGindex, which demuxes the audio, produces a .d2v, and generates a .log file, after which the StaxRip window reappears. Sample:

---------- Preparing ----------

Preparer: Extract audio and index MPEG-2 using DGIndex
Command line: "C:\Program Files\DGMPGDec\DGIndex.exe" -IF[D:\Legacy.ts] -IA=2 -FO=0 -YR=1 -TN=1 -OM=2 -DRC=2 -DSD=0 -DSA=0 -OF=[D:\Legacy] -exit
Start time: 3:55:02 PM
End time: 3:59:58 PM
Duration: 00:04:56

But then I make some settings changes and Start the Job, and at the end a new .log file is generated and the original is over-written. Thus I lose the above info.

Is this a bug or is there a setting somewhere that I've overlooked?

[dalihrp]

dalihrp, first, try foobar2000 for audio information. It reports more accurate technical info than most players/tools. Check both AC3 and AAC info via foobar2000. Maybe MPC is wrong...


HI, I've tried foobar2000, and it reports 6 channel AAC.
:thanks:

[avdw]

Is the StaxRip project still alive ? When can we get an update (Updated DGindex v1.4.9 and some other stuff)

[DocMAX]

why does staxrip write a first pass avi file in xvid mode? for further processing it just needs the .pass file, which is created while analyzing the first pass.

in x264 mode it does not do this, just creates the .stats file.

[kidwicked]

i am new to this program tried it when i had a problem with megui works fine on normal dolby 2 channel but when i try to use it on a 5.1 dolby encodeed sat rip the audio drops out sometimes it can be halfway threw the rip or it could happen after 10min of the riped file i have tried to use the acc 5.1 selection but it doesnt make a difference any sugestions of what i am doing wrong ?

[laserfan]

When can we get an update (Updated DGindex v1.4.9 and some other stuff)I'm using 1.4.9 no problem. You can use anything you want with it, all you have to do is tell Staxrip to stop complaining about the version...

[LRN]

why does staxrip write a first pass avi file in xvid mode? for further processing it just needs the .pass file, which is created while analyzing the first pass.

in x264 mode it does not do this, just creates the .stats file./quote]Because in x264 mode it is explicitly specified that output stream is null. In xvid mode all encoding is handled by VDub+XviD(VFW). It is (probably) possible to add something like that into VDub script, but since generation of this script is hardcoded into StaxRip, you can't change anything...

[quote]i am new to this program tried it when i had a problem with megui works fine on normal dolby 2 channel but when i try to use it on a 5.1 dolby encodeed sat rip the audio drops out sometimes it can be halfway threw the rip or it could happen after 10min of the riped file i have tried to use the acc 5.1 selection but it doesnt make a difference any sugestions of what i am doing wrong ?
For your info, there is a keys '.' and ',', both residing near right 'shift' on your keyboard. They also have funny '<' and '>' marks on them. Using these keys will bring your messages MUCH closer to standarts of English language, which is essential for compatibility with some readers, who implement only a subset of a whole standart.
On your audio problem: 'drops out' means 'disappears and never appears again' or 'disappears for a while'? Anyways, try to look at source file, at intermediate AAC audio output file (mp4), and compare this with what MeGUI produces. I don't know how MeGUI encodes audio. You could try encoding audio separately in MeGUI or BeHappy.

[avdw]

I'm using 1.4.9 no problem. You can use anything you want with it, all you have to do is tell Staxrip to stop complaining about the version...

I'll do that, thanks !

[dvd_maniac]

Getting really fustrated here...
I have had issues with .avi (Xvid/MP3) files that I'm trying to convert to .mp4 (X264/AAC).
Most of them have the audio missing for the last minute or so.
The audio is not out of sync, it just cuts off at the end.
I have tried both .mp4 and .mkv containers.
I have reformatted XP and even tried them on Vista.
What can I do to try and troubleshoot this?

[LRN]

As usual:

check intermediate AAC (before muxing).
If this AAC cuts off at the end, then
begin
check source MP3 (before converting).
If this MP3 cuts off at the end, then
begin
Raise exception - broken source file
end
else
begin
check MP3->AAC conversion procedure.
Try using different converter (BeHappy, MeGUI internal converter, ffmpeg, etc).
Try using partial conversion:not mp3->(besweet+nero)->aac, but mp3->(besweet)->wav->(nero)->aac
Check intermediate results
if no error found then
begin
Raise exception - unknown error: audio cuts off. Ask your system administrator or ask on Doom9.org forum to get support.
end
end
end
else
begin
check mp4box for errors.
try newer/older version of mp4box
if this does not helps, then
begin
Raise exception - fatal error: mp4box is broken, report to GPAC developers team
end
end


Since you tried both mkv and mp4box, then it's definitely conversion error...

[dvd_maniac]

I can't believe I forgot this...
I had to change the settings in VirtualDubMod to NOT correct MPEG Layer III audio streams.
That's why some were encoding fine and others not. Some videos had VBR MP3 audio and some did not.
It has been so long since I wiped my system and re-installed everything from scratch that I forgot this simple little step.
Didn't notice this until I viewed the intermediate audio file...

Thanx LRN for pointing me in the right direction.

[Zorrander]

I was poking around on staxrip and noticed an x264 profile for lossless encoding. After reading up on it a bit I tried it on a test vob that was about 12 minutes long and 340MB in size. Stax is producing a file about 1.5GB in size at the end of encoding. Am I missing something here or do you think the settings are incorrect for the encoder? I figured at worst I'd get a file around 300MB but not this. :)

[LRN]

VOB (MPEG2) is lossy. x264 in lossless mode is lossless. Lossless codecs produce bigger files than lossy.
Example: try saving lossy JPEG (120 kilobytes) image as a lossless BMP image. No loss <-> no compression <-> bigger file size.

[Zorrander]

Makes sense, thanks for clearing it up for me.

[LRN]

No problems.
And remember Wizard's Tenth Rule: "Willfully turning aside from the truth is treason to one's self". You should know better, Zorander (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeddicus_Zu'l_Zorander) :)

[avdw]

1) Is there any way we could add "ColorMatrix(hints=true)" to the Filters ?

2) Also, there seems to be a bug in the crop routine, opening the Crop window automatically Autocrops, but if you change one crop value, the file won't get cropped at all.

[LRN]

1) Is there any way we could add "ColorMatrix(hints=true)" to the Filters ?
Right click, add misc converttorgb, right click, edit, change converttorgb to ColorMatrix(hints=true)

Crop issue sounds weird. This is normal use of Crop - use autocrop, then adjust the results. It worked for me every time i tried to use it...

[dalihrp]

How to add brightness and more color saturation with Staxrip, is it possible?

thanks

[avdw]

Right click, add misc converttorgb, right click, edit, change converttorgb to ColorMatrix(hints=true)

Crop issue sounds weird. This is normal use of Crop - use autocrop, then adjust the results. It worked for me every time i tried to use it...
Thanks LRN. You suggest we edit an existing filter ? Is there an option to actually ADD a filter ?

[LRN]

right click, profiles, scroll down to the end, press 'enter', type in a new profile...IIRC. I don't really pay attention to details, it (mostly) works natural and obviously.

[LRN]

dalihrp, the question is "How to add brightness and more color saturation in AviSynth?", because StaxRip can do anything AviSynth can. In this forum thread this question is off topic.

[laserfan]

Is there an option to actually ADD a filter ?The nice thing about staxrip is you can do (and automate) just about every aspect of it. The not-so-nice thing about staxrip is that it isn't always obvious how to do it! It's all doable if you are persistent with exploring menus & dialogs...and Help files!

[duckdown]

I'm trying to make an x264 encode but DGIndex is demuxing to .mpa format audio (MPEG Audio, something I don't see often.. Usually it is AC3) and I cannot find a suitable AUDIO TRACK option to just leave the audio uncompressed.

I cannot choose AC3 - Use existing file, and same goes for MP3, so what am I supposed to do here? The audio track keeps appearing in ORANGE because I can't choose how to handle it and StaxRip wont let me proceed into the encode part.

Help!

[LRN]

I think it because StaxRip does not knows 'mpa' audio format (neither do i...).
I'm not even sure it is permissible to mux mpa into mp4 (you're making mp4, right?).
If you're sure you want to do it, try to encode without audio (adjust the file size accordingly), and after that mux audio file into result file manually.

[buzzqw]

mpa is mpeg 1 audio layer 2..the audio of svcd...

and yes.. is muxable into mp4 BUT must be ranamed .mp2

BHH

[Poopoo]

Hi, is this program still in development, since it's the only program that is able to calculate the best resize value, and from the whole bunch of programs, Staxrip clearly gives the overall best quality encodings, definately the most cleverly programed converter of them all.

It would be a shame if this program would be abandoned. :(

[LRN]

I found MeGUI to be, well, mostly as good as StaxRip, and in some field even better.
StaxRip is good for newbies and for simple encodings, because it's so automatized and easy to use. But the more elaborate things you need to do, the less easy is to do them in StaxRip, eventually you have to do some things manually.
MeGUI is less automatic in most cases, but it gives you a bit more possibilities, and is highly modular.
It's like Opera vs Firefox. Both are good, but in different ways.

[laserfan]

Although I still use AutoGK and Fairuse Wizard occasionally, I graduated to StaxRip and so far it's done everything I want; I don't worry about "future development" cuz I haven't hit any walls with it yet.

I tried MeGUI recently and it's a bit more complicated, but I can see that as I become more learn-ed about conversion I will likely go to MeGUI first in the future.

Kudos and high&low-fives to the developers for giving us so many outstanding tools!!!

:thanks:

[duckdown]

How can I make a completely custom commandline for my x264 encoding?

All I can get it to do is "Show commandline" under the Tools dropdown box, but nowhere to physically customize it 100%

Thanks

[LRN]

You can add additional commandline arguments in codec settings. So, if you want 100% customization, clear all checkboxes and write everything by hand :)

[duckdown]

You can add additional commandline arguments in codec settings. So, if you want 100% customization, clear all checkboxes and write everything by hand :)

Hi , thanks, I tried this but it still makes the command ridiculously long even when I clear all checkboxes.

It has some kind of stupid built-in presets that can't be eliminated.. I don't get it

[duckdown]

Also, can someone tell me how to ADD BORDERS when I crop instead of actually making the frame size smaller?

Like if I have recorded 1280*720 content, and theres a line of white noise at the top of screen, if I crop it out using StaxRip it changes the frame size to something like 1270*720 , how can I just get it to add black to cover it up without actually changing the frame size?

I don't want to have to resize the show just because of the one imperfection, but want to maintain 1280*720 resolution

Thanks

[stax76]

Hi all,
I'm sorry for being in silent mode for so long, as a sign of life I've released some minor fixes (http://www.planetdvb.net/filebrowser/staxrip/download/binary?sort=desc&order=Name) lately :)

@duckdown

I don't know if there is a better way other than adding borders after cropping. You can make a filter profile (right-click filters and select 'Profiles...') but don't put it in the 'Crop' category since StaxRip would calculate and display the cropped image size otherwise, use the 'Misc' category for instance. Now you can use your new filter profile instead of the crop filter.

[Misc]
Borders = Crop(%crop_left%,%crop_top%,-%crop_right%,-%crop_bottom%)%newline%AddBorders(%crop_left%,%crop_top%,%crop_right%,%crop_bottom%)


StaxRip had MPA defined as stream type but there wasn't a audio mux profile for it and it wasn't possible to create one. The MP4 muxer didn't except that stream type either. You can download a hotfix (http://www.planetdvb.net/non_drupal/staxrip/StaxRip_Hotfix.exe)which addresses these issues. You have to create a audio profile for it in the audio profiles dialog, click 'Add' and select 'Misc/MPA - Add Existing File'.

[laserfan]

I've released some minor fixes (http://www.planetdvb.net/filebrowser/staxrip/download/binary?sort=desc&order=Name) lately :)Many Thanks! Hey Stax, the download is 50% bigger, but only "minor fixes"? I can't find a change list--did you make one?

:thanks:

P.S. Oops, I should add that I haven't dl'ed & installed (maybe the changes are listed there), but I don't like to do that before I know what's in a release.

[Deinorius]

You need now the whole .NET Framework 3.5. There's a difference of nearly 10 times with the installations file. (Don't really want to know the difference after install. *shock*)

What advantages do we get from this new framework?

Can someone post the changelog of the newest version? I don't really know, if I want to install 3.5 (It's quite huge. How many Bytes does it need on the harddrive after install?), if these minor fixes are big enough.

[stax76]

@laserfan

The filesize increase is caused by the setup which checks for the required .NET Framework. Changes for the latest version and hotfix are:


1.0.0.3 (2008-??-??)
Muxing audio profiles are now editable from the audio profiles dialog in order to edit the stream type
MPA and MP2 were added to be valid stream types for the MP4Box muxer
Warning added to be shown when trying to open files containing character in the filename the command line parser of DGIndex can't cope with

1.0.0.2 (2008-01-06)
StaxRip is now distributed with a installer checking if .NET framework 3.5 is installed. Unfortunately it wasn't possible to make the auto updater of the old version beware of setup versions so the first setup version has to be downloaded manually
The following external applications were updated: NeroAACEnc, DGMPEGDEC, DivX, MP4Box, XviD, x264, VirtualDub, MKVtoolnix. Furthermore more applications are hosted by myself since my webspace now has unlimited traffic
A bug was fixed causing a crash using the 'Edit' feature in the profiles dialog
A bug was fixed regarding the setup, settings location, local and roaming application data directory
A bug was fixed with the turkish and maybe other locales causing a crash while encoding
A bug was fixed causing StaxRip to auto resize the image size even when this feature was disabled
A bug was fixed not allowing to define the escape key as shortcut in the menu editor
The 'Deblock' filter of DGIndex was added to the profile defaults
On a crash StaxRip now saves the active project silently instead of showing a dialog asking to save which had a recursion issue. On next startup the crashed project gets loaded automatically


@Deinorius

I didn't know 3.5 don't install on w2k and people would mind install it on XP/Vista. Much likely I can go back to 2.0 (or at least 3.0) as currently it still compiles against 2.0 anyway (IIRC the new Visual Studio version updated it to 3.5 automatically).

If I would develop more I would want to use new features rather sooner than later because there are a lot of exciting new features like WPF and LinQ but since development is slow anyway there isn't such a big need for it.

[Deinorius]

WPF and LinQ? What could I use it for?

I just saw, that update from 3.0 to 3.5 on a Vista Simulation needs nearly 300 MB. Oh my God! O_O
I don't know, if I want to know the difference between 2.0 to 3.5.

[foxyshadis]

WPF and LinQ? What could I use it for?

I just saw, that update from 3.0 to 3.5 on a Vista Simulation needs nearly 300 MB. Oh my God! O_O
I don't know, if I want to know the difference between 2.0 to 3.5.

It only needs 10 megs download here, 25 installed. Must be something screwy in yours?

[Poopoo]

It's no so merely the harddisk space it needs (.Net Framework 3.5), but rather the goddamn CPU cycles it constantly eats.

Why for christs sake, do we need to install this thing in the first place ?

Lucky enough, Staxrip itself is a joy to use and gives great results.

Stax, just one question, how do we know which dimensions to resize to, to give the best results when converting from DVD to AVI ? I've run the Compressions Check, but it always results in red colored Quality or Aspect Ratio Errors.:stupid:

[Deinorius]

It only needs 10 megs download here, 25 installed. Must be something screwy in yours? Really? Its just a vLite modified Vista Simulation with VirtualPC.
Ich will test an install of 3.5 on a clean WinXP on my new Laptop, I will get next week. Then I will see the real difference. (I have no real interests in Vista, especially when I think, that Windows 7 shall come 2009.)

[s3rious]

hi stax,
i have a feature request whether it will be possible to have scrolling bars for selecting audio bit rate instead of the custom defined profiles. it would be easier for amateurs like me instead of messing with the command line options

[stax76]

I forgot to change the compile options for my general library, that compiles only with 3.5 because it implements Extension Methods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extension_method) with about 100 references in the solution. I've missed such a feature badly since .NET 1.0 so 3.5 is the requirement now.

will be possible to have scrolling bars for selecting audio bit rate instead of the custom defined profiles.

For which dialog?

how do we know which dimensions to resize to, to give the best results when converting from DVD to AVI ?

I don't know your requirements and preferences, you could crop the sides a little bit more for instance.

All I can get it to do is "Show commandline" under the Tools dropdown box, but nowhere to physically customize it 100%

It's not popular and might have limitations but what about 'Profiles/Encoder/Misc/Command Line Example'?

[weaver4]

Since 3.5 is now required what version of Visual Studio is needed to modify the source code?

[burfadel]

For the preview where you can select start & stop points, is it possible to have a faster version of this, since its only definining frame numbers at which to trim the video. For normal use the preview windows is instaneously fast, however there are two scenarios where it is slow.

The first is when you are editing HDTV, 1920x1080 MPEG, for high res content there should be a 'fast but inaccurate' decoder, as with 1920x1080 a loss of resolution will still show you where you need to cut, but be faster & smoother.

The second situation is where you have several filters selected, especially slow filters. Its not a bad thing to see what the output will look like (although the preview isn't as good (slightly) as the actual output picture it seems), just that for editing there's little point in automatically running the filters over it. If you run a slowish filter and 1920x1080 resolution together editing can become quite slow! (even with the filters manually disabled the decoding is a little slowish).

[s3rious]

For which dialog?


The dialog where the bit rate for Audio is selected i.e it is currently in profiles like MP3 CBR 128, but if i have to encode at something below 128 then i have to mess with the command line which sometimes gives good results but sometimes it messes up.it would be easier if staxrip had scrolling bars for changing the audio bit rate like the ones in video resize dialog box where one just has to drag
as per one requirement.IMHO it will be more useful when encoding with AAC codec.

[LRN]

I had the same idea http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1044643#post1044643 (7th)

[stax76]

Since 3.5 is now required what version of Visual Studio is needed to modify the source code?


Visual Studio 2008

is it possible to have a faster version of this

IIRC the code is mostly native platform calls so there is little room for optimisation.

The second situation is where you have several filters selected

As workaround you could make a filter profile using something like:


[Source]
return half mpg source = return MPEG2Source("%source_file%").ReduceBy2


I thought about a way making things more convinient but didn't had a good idea yet on how exactly to do it.

@LRN

It's a big list to cope for me :) Maybe you can remove some not so important items, order by priority and describe more detailed.

@s3rious

If you mean the dialog titled 'Audio Settings', there is a text box called 'Bitrate'.

[LRN]

9 Reasons To Update StaxRip to next version. Revised. Sorted by decreasing priority from top to bottom

*) New software versions. Update all the stuff that comes with StaxRip (filters, codecs, etc). This is top priority.

*) Update x264 (and other encoders) profiles.

*) Support for %track_bitrate% variable that corresponds to value of "bitrate" field in audio profile. At the moment this value is used only to pre-calculate resulting audio track size, actual encoding bitrate is hard-coded into profile commandline.

*) More than 2 audio tracks. I think it is not hard to implement variable number of audio tracks. Or at least 4-8. Two just isn't enough.
Look at MeGUI, it allows you to mux arbitrary number of audio tracks, not just 2.

*) Use subtitles and chapters files size in video bitrate calculation. At the moment StaxRip would ignore 20-megabyte long subtitle file when coming up with video bitrate. This causes miscalculations and as a result - wrong target file size.

*) Resizeable windows. Some controls (these with a lot of text) should scale themselves depending on window size. This may improve usability.

*) More comfortable AviSynth script editor. Current editor is awkward. Like, when you doubleclick on the line to edit it, it unchecks this line (you're clicking NOT on the check box). And one short line is not enough for some scripts. Consider changing these editboxes into multiline editboxes (maybe with auto-resizing, so it would increase it's vertical size when you add new line).

*) Extended logging. It would be good to save some codec's data (besweet, x264 and mp4box console output, and much more). For BeSweet it could be done via -logfile switch. For x264 and mp4box - via stdout redirect.

Include logs from commandline windows of commandline tools and from tools logfiles (from BeSweet, VirtualDub, etc) into StaxRip's logs.
One of the reasons i want this to be - because x264.exe outputs very nice encoding statistics at the end of the encoding, and it is wasted, because StaxRip does not saves x264 output anywhere. x264 may even calculate SSIM metric (some people prefer to switch it off, but from my point of view it does not affects performance THAT much).

*) New AAC profiles for 2-pass encoding. This isn't top priority. On the other hand, it's easy (just add two more filters by default, you don't really need to change StaxRip code).

[s3rious]

*) Support for %track_bitrate% variable that corresponds to value of "bitrate" field in audio profile. At the moment this value is used only to pre-calculate resulting audio track size, actual encoding bitrate is hard-coded into profile commandline.

That is exactly what i wanted to point out . so to hit the perfect file size one has to mess with the BeSweet command line which sometimes gives the required results but sometimes it messes up . if you can somehow fix this i dont mind.