MeGUI Feature Request Thread

[Kayaker]

I totally agree with a former post of b9AcE that I miss a lot some metrics display ( bpp or a better one if you like ) while resizing.
So I have something to play with to know how much to resize down.
It doesn't matter if I later aim at a specific filesize or with a constant quality.

If there any chance that you could add something like that ? Some metric while resizing ?

Also I don't quiet understand why vorbis support is rejected. ( In red in the first page )
Maybe I'm kinda lost here, but for two channel enconding is the best I've found so far.

Thanks a lot guys, MEGui rulez ;-)

[ChronoCross]

I do believe that vorbis support will be added to the current revisions. once some of the other post-refacro bugs are fixed. It's on the list.

[foxyshadis]

One way to do a comp check in a reasonable time might be to run it while making adjustments to the video, as a background thread. It could continuously update the compressibility and confidence as the results of each 200 frame segment show up, chosen in a totally random order. The longer you let it run the more confidence you have!

But whether to do it in xvid or x264. Hmm, I guess whichever is selected, even if they select another afterward it'll still give a reasonable approximation for all but the lower bitrates.

Perhaps too much effort, however.

[Sharktooth]

compressibilty with modern codecs depends too much on settings, so a compressibility test would require the knowledge on how to use it...
ironically that knowledge is exactly the same that you require to choose how much to resize and what bitrate/quantizer to use to get a good quality backup.
so, im sorry but it will be useless for half of the video codecs supported by MeGUI and that's enough to not consider it at all.

[ChronoCross]

are there any plans to allow more than two audio streams?

[quake74]

are there any plans to allow more than two audio streams?

I tried already http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=764833#post764833

[foxyshadis]

Also, now that the ultimate refactor is in and ready for prime time, will it be easy to swap out a codec with another executable without big upheavals or hacks? I'm referring to integrating ELDER. Not directly, as the commandlines are different, but through a small wrapper, so only the exe name would change and the extra parameter of # of segments (could be zero as a default, when you enable elder it gets set to the real default, and back to 0 if disabled, so the codec commandline isnt tweaked out). Right now it's mp4 joining only, but it could be extended to support mkvmerge internally easily, so no need for hacks around that.

If this is the case I may give it a crack myself, then perhaps try for a minimalist x-platform gui.

[berrinam]

It is now quite easy to add extra video and audio encoders (which elder would be classed as). However, there is ATM no management for multiple encoders for the one codec (there is SOME infrastructure, but the GUI itself is not aware of it.... it was way too annoying when we had mencoder AND x264.exe for x264 encoding, so we removed it).

It shouldn't be too hard to integrate ELDER into MeGUI, but the main problem would be working out the pausing/restarting and all of the advanced job management ELDER does. I haven't used it, so I don't actually know what it is capable of, but I'm assuming one of the main reasons for including it in MeGUI would be for its safe stopping function (ie you can stop and restart later without losing anything).

ATM MeGUI assumes that jobs can be Started, Abortted, or Paused -- there is no support for the safe stopping that ELDER is designed for.

To add support for safe stopping is not infeasible, but it requires:
A stop button (or perhaps you could override the Abort function for ELDER with safe stopping)
Another job status indicating stopped, but can be restarted.
Adding a restart function, and adding something in the job settings to indicate how much has been completed, etc

Not directly, as the commandlines are different, but through a small wrapper, so only the exe name would change and the extra parameter of # of segments (could be zero as a default, when you enable elder it gets set to the real default, and back to 0 if disabled, so the codec commandline isnt tweaked out). Right now it's mp4 joining only, but it could be extended to support mkvmerge internally easily, so no need for hacks around that.I don't understand this bit. What do segments refer to in ELDER? Does ELDER also manage appending the completed files?

[foxyshadis]

It does all the hard work of splitting it into n pieces and parceling them out to cpus (on the machine or network), and remerging them all, so that the input and output looks identical to x264's.

Starting and stopping would be quite cool, definitely. Do you have a general design you'd like it to follow, code-wise?

[kurt]

You mean open a cmd window and type it out just as soon as I see windows shutting down ? :confused: The shutdown completes even before I can open a command window. I would need to learn the five point palm-abort shutdown technique from sensei Pai Mei to move any faster :p
hehe, didn't try this out with megui - but I believe you :)
so a delay of maybe 10seconds before shutting down windows would be nice. Then there is no need for the five point palm-abort shutdown technique :p

[berrinam]

It does all the hard work of splitting it into n pieces and parceling them out to cpus (on the machine or network), and remerging them all, so that the input and output looks identical to x264's.Do you mean to include this in MeGUI? I imagine that this could be done transparently, so I suppose this is what you were talking about earlier?

Starting and stopping would be quite cool, definitely. Do you have a general design you'd like it to follow, code-wise?I would say that the IVideoEncoder should have a new function added:
ISafeStopData safe_stop(out string);
and also
bool CanDoSafeStop(); // this is used to en/disable the button mentioned below
both of whose implementations are obvious enough. Then, VideoJob also gets a SafeStopData property, and there is a button added to the queue tab, whose event handler calls safe_stop, and saves the results in SafeStopData. The status is then changed to the new status called, eg, safe_stopped, and the queue is stopped.

That's the design that's most obvious to me, but also mention this on the dev thread and see if Doom9 or dimzon suggest any other ideas. I am very interested in easily being able to start/stop x264 encodes.

EDIT: I looked through the ELDER thread and it seems that the parallel part of ELDER could be added very easily to MeGUI (even without modifying MeGUI! just by making a new x264.exe which wraps ELDER). The start/stop functionality is a different issue and could be dealt with later (like when we have decided on a way of dealing with multiple encoder apps for a single codec).

[cc979]

excuse for posting here, but what is this ELDER ?

[dimzon]

I looked through the ELDER thread and it seems that the parallel part of ELDER could be added very easily to MeGUI (even without modifying MeGUI! just by making a new x264.exe which wraps ELDER).
Fine idea!

[cc979]

just tested the auto-update works well, if on the first use could there be a choice where to install the external apps, eg in a subfolder 'tools' instead of the root of megui

[berrinam]

just tested the auto-update works well, if on the first use could there be a choice where to install the external apps, eg in a subfolder 'tools' instead of the root of megui
I'm looking for ideas as to how this should be managed. You see, what it currently does is checks if the file exists in the location where the settings currently says it should. If not, then it installs it to meguiroot/appname/appname.exe. It would be easy to change that to meguiroot/tools/appname/appname.exe (and I will do that), but there might be a better way of managing it.

[cc979]

I'm looking for ideas as to how this should be managed. You see, what it currently does is checks if the file exists in the location where the settings currently says it should. If not, then it installs it to meguiroot/appname/appname.exe. It would be easy to change that to meguiroot/tools/appname/appname.exe (and I will do that), but there might be a better way of managing it.

maybe set it up like

tools/audio-tools
tools/video-tools
tools/muxer-tools

or something

[berrinam]

Anyone interested in MeGUI supporting VC-1? Nic's WMNicEnc (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=111385) could perhaps be integrated into MeGUI if someone is interested in adding a CLI.

[Doom9]

hmm... VC-1 means WMV and WMA so it's another video and audio codec, and having to worry about yet another muxer.

[berrinam]

hmm... VC-1 means WMV and WMA so it's another video and audio codec, and having to worry about yet another muxer.
But all of the new muxpathfinding means that this can be done in stages, without breaking anything. It is actually really easy to add. Even though I don't plan to use it, it is probably the easiest way to test the new codecs.

[chipzoller]

How about 'unlocking' the deinterlace feature of the avisynth script generator for those that are aware of the source type and wish to choose the deinterlace method? I agree that this could potentially be a problem for inexperienced users, so perhaps it would be possible to enable a popup message box when selecting a deinterlace method without doing an analysis pass warning the user this is generally not recommended.

I find it annoying having to do an analysis of the source (which is 2 passes) when 90% of the time the fields need to be blended. Megui is powerful enough now to cater to both the inexperienced and experienced users, and I think this is a needed feature.

[berrinam]

How about 'unlocking' the deinterlace feature of the avisynth script generator for those that are aware of the source type and wish to choose the deinterlace method? I agree that this could potentially be a problem for inexperienced users, so perhaps it would be possible to enable a popup message box when selecting a deinterlace method without doing an analysis pass warning the user this is generally not recommended.

I find it annoying having to do an analysis of the source (which is 2 passes) when 90% of the time the fields need to be blended. Megui is powerful enough now to cater to both the inexperienced and experienced users, and I think this is a needed feature.
There are many different source types:

(Each of these can also be anime/non-anime, and TFF/BFF/variable)
Progressive
Pure Interlaced
Pure Film
Hybrid Film/other, mostly film
Hybrid other/film, mostly other

This means it would need a checkbox for anime, a dropdown for TFF/BFF/variable, a dropdown for source type, and a dropdown for the filter itself. That takes up a lot of space.

Granted, it is worth thinking about, but it still needs that: to be thought about (and worked out).

[check]

Hi, I've checked the last three pages of this thread and I couldnt see the question..etc etc
On managing the files installed with the autoupdater, an option to download optional components such as alternate / standalone GUIs or related components would be extremely useful. An "optional downloads" section where you can download additional files such as mplayer, the mmg.exe help file (mkvmerge-gui.hlp) and so on to go in with the programs they are paired with that are part of meGUI. I suggest this because it will be a useful addition. You could even let people add in their own tools hosted on external servers, a la Steam.
This would be for files that are not directly related to meGUI, but somewhat related. Sorry this got so wordy, I can't seem to make it more compact without cutting detail.

Also, I've no doubt this was mentioned before, so please just add my vote to the pile: using ctrl-a to open the AVS window has caused far more harm than good :P

EDIT: rewritten for clarity

[berrinam]

On managing the files installed with the autoupdater, an option to download optional components so you can use the standalone files would be extremely useful.I don't understand you.

[check]

updated previous post, sorry about the confusion.

[asdfsauce]

Couple requests here-

Instead of only being able to load AV scripts, wouldn’t it be better if you could load any file and have MeGUI go to d2v generation, AVS generation, “video preview” or whatever depending on the file type? I think audio should be just the same. Load audio, generate AV script and then load the script for job config.

Second request,

Add an option to the job queue’s right-click context menu to open a job’s output directory.

Thanks guys.

[Doom9]

Instead of only being able to load AV scripts, wouldn’t it be better if you could load any file and have MeGUI go to d2v generation,That has been possible for ages.. try the power of drag&drop. It's just that nobody has ever bothered to adopt the video input field to offer the same kind of functionality.
Add an option to the job queue’s right-click context menu to open a job’s output directory.And why would that be so useful as to consider it?

[dimzon]

Add an option to the job queue’s right-click context menu to open a job’s output directory.
Really usefull trick, let's add it (for fast navigation, when I want to view encoding output after finished)
I really like such function in fb2k!

[asdfsauce]

It's just that nobody has ever bothered to adopt the video input field to offer the same kind of functionality.

Well then, that's my feature request. :-)

And, will audio ever be able to accept avis scripts?

And why would that be so useful as to consider it?

So you can get to your encodes more easily when they're finished.

[dimzon]

And, will audio ever be able to accept avis scripts?
Yes. Actually there just absent *.avs in fileOpenDialog only but if you open AVS it will be encoded properly ;)

[asdfsauce]

Yes. Actually there just absent *.avs in fileOpenDialog only but if you open AVS it will be encoded properly ;)

Oh, Okay, I thought I tried that. :P

Thanks.

[berrinam]

Many more input files were supported before the refactor (and MeGUI would in fact send the files to the correct places), but the refactor introduced a different way of managing input files, so I left it that way.

[cc979]

i got a couple feature requests if possible

when auto updating have tick box on the settings tab to delete the backup files, and a shut down count down

cheers

[Doom9]

For the autoupdater: a "Check/uncheck all" right click menu. I don't mind it updating filters but I want to remain in charge of all video encoders without having to uncheck each one manually..

[fields_g]

1) I mentioned something in another conversation that might be useful for this discussion. It has to do with allowing access to changelogs.
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=831822#post831822

2) By going too fast, I noticed that there is no way to reinstall/redownload something that has been already updated.
When I got to the ST video profiles, I accidently selected only one. In order to get the others, I had to open the XML file and erase the current version and it then did a reinstall. How about something in the right-click menu, or just allowing someone to manually check something that has already been updated?

[berrinam]

For the autoupdater: a "Check/uncheck all" right click menu. I don't mind it updating filters but I want to remain in charge of all video encoders without having to uncheck each one manually..
Shift-select them all, right-click, uncheck.

[cc979]

i got suggestion for avs script preview have video preview have the same preview as the on the main preview with 'show PAR' - it might be handy for some folks

[check]

Process status window:
The 'projected filesize' is a useful display, but for larger files it would be nice to see it measured in mb or gb. Failing some sort of intelligent mechanism to swap between them, is it possible to make the fields in the window selectable?

[berrinam]

Failing some sort of intelligent mechanism to swap between them, is it possible to make the fields in the window selectable?It is no more work to add a GUI component than to add an intelligent display mechanism.

[check]

is that a yes? ;)

[berrinam]

No, it's an annoying comment so I can avoid committing to anything.;)

[fields_g]

I have a issue issue that can be fixed it two ways.

1) Get a better system (This will be done by the end of the summer) with a more stable OS (once it works on Linux).

OR

2) Have an additional megui feature that saves me A LOT of work.

My computer seems to want to lock up occasionally. This is really noticed when I'm pushing my computer hard for hours at a time (eg. Encoding). If I have a sizeable queue built up, it's lost after a restart. Is there any way that you can make queue status update between processes so that if the program crashes, the queue list could be reloaded and the process that the system crashed on could be immediatly restarted and the rest of the list preserved?

Thanks

[Carpo]

is your pc overclocked ? or poss you should check the mem - these are 2 things which can cause lockups when encoding

[fields_g]

I'm pretty sure it is sub-standard memory.

Even if there wasn't issues with my box, these problems happen and that fix would save lots of time.

[Morte66]

If I have a sizeable queue built up, it's lost after a restart. Is there any way that you can make queue status update between processes so that if the program crashes, the queue list could be reloaded and the process that the system crashed on could be immediatly restarted and the rest of the list preserved?

This would be gosh-darned useful.

[check]

No new feature requests for over a day! What's happening to the world?
Request: bitrate calculator! :>

[Morte66]

No new feature requests for over a day! What's happening to the world?

They rejected or ignored all mine so I quit. ;)

[Carpo]

Request: bitrate calculator! :>

i asked for that and think i got ignored :p

[Kostarum Rex Persia]

I wont tell anything about ignoring people requests, but that not good for MeGUI.

[foxyshadis]

They're probably working on stabilizing core features and fixing major bugs atm (harping on the bitrate calc isn't going to get it done faster). Once that happens it'll be open season on new requests again, but not much point until the core is solid.

[jellysandwich]

Would it be possible to add an option to automatically minimize MeGUI to the system tray? I'm pretty lazy. :)

js