MeGUI Feature Request Thread

[stax76]

But why would that do any good in this case? It even shouldn't work because there's no signing and you can only installed signed assemblies to the GAC.

Seems to work though I don't notice a speed difference, here is a Process Explorer screenshot: http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/1199/000000012vj.png

[godhead]

And how is MeGUI supposed to know when recording has finished?

Just a guess, but we could probably try to open the TS file with exclusive access and if it fails, that means the .TS is still being written by another application. Once you can open the file with exclusive lock, you know that particular .TS has been completed.

You could use a File System Watcher for this functionality.

*EDIT*: Didn't see your response regarding the PIDs, so nevermind :D

[ChronoCross]

Perhaps.... wouldn't it be better if you design an icon and give it to us, and then we release that as the icon, so everyone has access to it? I said when I implemented the tray icon, that I'm only keeping that icon because I don't have a better one

I'll see what I can do. I've never made a tray icon before but it shouldn't be hard. do you know what the recommended format is for icon implementation in C#?

[John Smith]

Probably I am mistaken to ask for this… Let’s say I want to reuse the stats file in a 2pass-2nd pass scenario, wouldn’t the dialog box say open a stats file instead of save? I know the VFW versions of Xvid and x264 do it like that (open instead of save)

Is there any reason why the stats file is presented as a log file in the configuration-general tab, when there’s already a wonderful page with the log?

Thank you for your hard work :)

[Doom9]

do you know what the recommended format is for icon implementation in C#?ICO will do just fine.

Let’s say I want to reuse the stats file in a 2pass-2nd pass scenario, wouldn’t the dialog box say open a stats file instead of save?It may be a save dialog, but in the end, the filename is just being read from it. And in the first pass or 2 out of 3 pass scenario, the file will be updated.. so it can be both.. so either having only a save or only an open dialog would be wrong.. you'd need to have both to be absolutely true to the meaning of a dialog... but since it doesn't matter.. using either works and neither approach is either right or wrong.

[Morte66]

{self-censored, there's another way to do it}

[asdfsauce]

Bits/(Pixel*Frame) calculation for the general tab in encoder configuration.

Thanks

[berrinam]

I'd like to posit an extension of the "choose your input files and MeGUI does whatever is appropriate" idea. It might be a bit too ambitious, but it would make my dreams come true. :) It would be great if MeGUI could encompass the whole backup chain and do so with all the configuration at the start.

Say I back up four TV episodes from a DVD box set. In DVDShrink or Nero I'd use DVD43/DeCSS to decrypt on the fly and do all the stream selection and encoder configuration at the start -- usually doing it once to apply to all 4 titles -- then walk away after about 3 minutes. For x264/Xvid I kick off Robot4Rip four times to rip/DGIndex/VobSub/etc, then about 40-50 minutes later I set up four video/audio/mux jobs in MeGUI. I have to be around the PC for almost an hour.
What you are talking about sounds most like the One Click Encoder. At the moment, MeGUI can't handle actual DVD sources, and there are difficulties like Doom9 mentioned, that make this sort of thing not a goal of the immediate future. However, your mode of operation seems sub-optimal. What you should really do is this:

1. Rip the DVD with DVDDecrypter, generating a chapter (OGG format) and stream information files.
2. Open the first VOB file with the One Click Encoder. Configure, and press go. (Alternatively, you could take the time beforehand to set up presets for the OneClick Window, so that you could keep your settings for all your encodes).

This means you only need to be at your computer for the duration of the ripping itself.

[berrinam]

Bits/(Pixel*Frame) calculation for the general tab in encoder configuration.

Not likely to happen. The general consensus round here is that the calculation you are talking about is pointless. Compressibility varies so much with your sources that you shouldn't base it on this. Furthermore, if you want some form of constant quality and don't care about filesize, you should look into the constant quality mode of x264, which uses the --crf option.

[berrinam]

MeGUI shouldn't just halt with an unnamed error if there is something wrong with the encoding setup. Its job is to find (and possibly fix) as many errors the user made as possible. That's why it's a frontend. I think there should be checks in MeGUI for a few common problems:
1. Something wrong with the AVS script, causing an error. This can be done using dimzon's AvisynthWrapper, to get the exact error message.
2. Colorspace is wrong. This is normally an error, but sometimes not. Anyway, MeGUI should check whether the colorspace is YV12 before encoding.
3. Check for mod16 and a warning if not (some codecs can handle down to mod2, but it still is not generally a good idea to use it, for compressibility's sake).

[berrinam]

Make more use of "Don't show me this again" in dialogs. The reset all dialogs button was added in the Settings window to make this easier, and there is also a dialogsettings class which should be used to keep track of the user's decisions.

[berrinam]

Sorry about the 5 consecutive posts. I just keep on missing things which I want to post.

However, your mode of operation seems sub-optimal. What you should really do is this:

1. Rip the DVD with DVDDecrypter, generating a chapter (OGG format) and stream information files.
2. Open the first VOB file with the One Click Encoder. Configure, and press go. (Alternatively, you could take the time beforehand to set up presets for the OneClick Window, so that you could keep your settings for all your encodes).

This means you only need to be at your computer for the duration of the ripping itself.
Actually, another idea occurs to me -- perhaps MeGUI could run DVDDecrypter? This could really make One Click mode live up to its name. It would also mean that the rips could be controlled to give the correct sort of output for all the modes. I know that DVDDecrypter can be run by commandline, so perhaps it is worth looking at the Robot4Rip sourcecode for some examples. Of course, this would be a lot of work to add, as all new dependancies are.

EDIT:
1. Robot4Rip is not open source, so looking at its source code is not an option.
2. To properly integrate DVD sources into MeGUI, some way of MeGUI knowing what's what would be required (ie, IFO parsing). Perhaps the vStrip or mediainfo dlls would be appropriate? I know this is adding more and more dependancies, but dlls could be distributed with MeGUI, so it isn't really much more for the user to set up, and they then get the benefit of automation straight from the DVD, and also being able to use sources which don't have Stream Information.txt

[Morte66]

What you are talking about sounds most like the One Click Encoder. [..] your mode of operation seems sub-optimal.

Methinks you may be right. I'll give that a whirl once the queue clears (ETA 35 hours).

Cool, thanks.

{edit P.S. I spent ten minutes googling for this "One Click Encoder" tool that I'd never heard of as an alternative to MeGUI, StaxRip, GordianKnot et al. It wasn't until I did a Doom9 forum search that I realised it's an option on the MeGUI menu. Jeez, I need to get my head in gear.}

[Morte66]

This is not a standard option in video encoding tools I've seen, but I think it would be a useful feature:

I'd like to add an overall job option for "PAL 25 to FILM 24". This would take a PAL source (probably DVD or TV rip), redefine the video as 24fps, slow down the audio (slowing tempo and dropping pitch) with a "-rate -4" option to BeSweet, and retime chapters/subtitles. I could do this as multiple tasks in multiple tools, so hopefully the code/expertise is out there. But it would be very nice to have it built into MeGUI as a single checkbox on the "Automatic Encode" and "One Click Encode" screens.

My rationale is that the results look and sound better than the original. The video matches creative intent, the orchestra isn't playing out of key, and hi-fi nuts everywhere in PALworld can stop itching because "the bass is a bit wrong" and voices are sibilant.

Quite a lot of people play back their MPEG4 on computers using displays with variable refresh rates. I see no reason other than habit for these people to encode film for TV sets slaved to a 50Hz electrical supply.

[Richard Berg]

{edit P.S. I spent ten minutes googling for this "One Click Encoder" tool that I'd never heard of as an alternative to MeGUI, StaxRip, GordianKnot et al. It wasn't until I did a Doom9 forum search that I realised it's an option on the MeGUI menu. Jeez, I need to get my head in gear.}
A lot of users say similar things. At some point, we should add a toolbar with buttons for the actual common tools, then split the various "settings" dialogs onto their own part of the menu (or maybe their own menu).

[Richard Berg]

I can provide webhosting for auto-update. I can also register megui.org if nobody has yet...

[Doom9]

Would this need CC?What's CC? Credit Card? ClearCase?
I'm not even sure how it should work considering that sometimes erratic x264 builds, problematic mp4box builds and encraw where there's nothing in terms of distribution at all.

[Richard Berg]

How about create a webfolder http://megui.org/meguirequirements that ~5 people have write access to, and occasionally upload new working builds there? It's not the "coolest" solution, but it's better than what we have now.

Since it's us doing the updating, that also means we can create our own naming convention. Something like
x264-2006-xx-xx.rar
mp4box-2006-xx-xx.rar
etc.
Then it's very easy for the MeGUI client to see what the latest version of everything is.

[Mutant_Fruit]

About the autoupgrade of the components. What exactly are ye looking for in this feature?

Are you looking for a way to get the latest and greatest from the developers website, or do you want it only to get the latest version from what we upload to our webspace?

I think easiest (and safest compatibility-wise) would be to have webspace where we manually upload the latest versions of each DLL/exe that MeGUI uses that are safe for use. That way if there is a dodgy build we can not release it to the webspace.

Then, MeGUI could be set to poll that webspace to see what the latest versions are as compared to the versions on the computer (can be done by checking filenames or using an XML file).

EDIT: By CC i meant conditional compiling :p I deleted that post as i was writing this new longer one, with a lot more details in it :p

[Dayvon]

Hey guys!!

Wondering if the Bitrate Calculator can go up higher. Like say, to 24hrs of recording?

I've got a 11hr18min encode that I'd like to have on a DVDDL, and the bitrate calculator only goes up to about 6 hrs. :( I'm able to get around it by using 1/2 the time and DVD5, which is about spot on. But it'd be cool for you to add more time, and DVD-DL, DVDR9.

Thanks!

[Doom9]

I've got a 11hr18min encode that I'd like to have on a DVDDLWhat in god's name is that?

[dimzon]

What in god's name is that?
I propose - some season of futurama or something like it ;)
It's definitly better to encode it as one file to allow better bitrate distributuion ;)

[Doom9]

I propose - some season of futurama or something like itI have all seasons of Futurama.. and they come on several DVDs with a number of hours per disc that the calculator has no problem with.

[dimzon]

I have all seasons of Futurama.. and they come on several DVDs with a number of hours per disc that the calculator has no problem with.
as i said - something like it, isn't it?
Anycase even if you have multiple original dvd's you can concatenate video via AviSynth:

return season1 + season2 + season3 ... seasonN

And encode it to one file with chapters. Using such metod will allow you to achive better bitrate distribution along full movies and achive same quality @ all seasons, isn't it

[Doom9]

And encode it to one file with chapters. Using such metod will allow you to achive better bitrate distribution along full movies and achive same quality @ all seasons, isn't itI dare venture that the difference in between encoding DVD by DVD and encoding the entire season is not visible.
Plus then there's we have the nice details of audio delays.. you can't just concatenate the audio streams if you have delays.

[ChronoCross]

I dare venture that the difference in between encoding DVD by DVD and encoding the entire season is not visible.
Plus then there's we have the nice details of audio delays.. you can't just concatenate the audio streams if you have delays.

I may be wrong but if it's off DVD then you could do it through DGINDEX. I've never done anything this large before but I think that the audio would be adjusted properly.

YOu could do the additonal painful step of encoding each audio seperately and using avisynth to combine the audio through the concatenation same as the videos.

But even so this is not a practical way to encode something. 1 episode. If he were to encode it he would most certainly would take 3-4 days to properly encode it (filtering, high backup settings(xvid or x264)). There is no guarantee it wouldn't fail halfway through.

[dimzon]

you can't just concatenate the audio streams if you have delays.
I can do it via AviSynth too ;)

[The Link]

Add support for Ogg Vorbis encoding
Description: It's the only good free low bitrate codec at the moment (FAAC isn't tuned and afaik generally worse than Vorbis and the Nero AAC codec isn't free. Itunes AAC codec is for free and quite good imho but not very well supported via cli.). The obvious drawback: You can only sanely use it in mkv.
Status : The audio part is currently frozen pending a redesign/move to AviSynth.
Just wanted to bring this up again since the move to avisynth is done. Either a final rejection or a general acceptance would be fine.

[Doom9]

I may be wrong but if it's off DVD then you could do it through DGINDEX. I've never done anything this large before but I think that the audio would be adjusted properly.Unless you've tried, I'd be very sceptical of such statements.. it's not like VOB2 has another delay and VOB3 another, etc.. it's VOB1 has a certain delay and in between VOBs things are seamless.. so if you add another VOB which once again has a delay.. what is DGIndex supposed to do? Say it's a positive delay.. DGIndex can't append empty AC3 frames to fill the blank (afaik), so it would append the next AC3 frame, thus causing a sudden mismatch when the video goes from movie 1 to movie 2 or disc1 to disc 2.

I can do it via AviSynth too I know you'd say that.. but most people can't. Unless something comes my way that I would have to manually split up because megui's calculator doesn't go that high, I have no intention of removing that limitation (and risk breaking the calculator again).

[Doom9]

Status : The audio part is currently frozen pending a redesign/move to AviSynth.Now it's "pending refactoring".. it depends on how the whole audio part turns out.. if it gets easy enough to accept / reject configured streams based on the container selected, it may be an option, but it's not an option to bring it up now because the audio code is all over the place and all but pretty.

[The Link]

... accept / reject configured streams based on the container selected ...
That would be great and all I want in the end.
... but it's not an option to bring it up now because the audio code is all over the place and all but pretty.
I'll wait.

[berrinam]

I can provide webhosting for auto-update. I can also register megui.org if nobody has yet...
Sounds good, but it takes me no effort to say that. It's up to you, as far as I'm concerned.
How about create a webfolder http://megui.org/meguirequirements that ~5 people have write access to, and occasionally upload new working builds there? It's not the "coolest" solution, but it's better than what we have now.

Since it's us doing the updating, that also means we can create our own naming convention. Something like
x264-2006-xx-xx.rar
mp4box-2006-xx-xx.rar
etc.
Then it's very easy for the MeGUI client to see what the latest version of everything is.
Yes, that is the most reliable/easiest method.

[Mutant_Fruit]

I'm just planning my way through the AutoUpdate section of the program, and here's what i have in mind.


The program starts up as per normal, and does a background check for newer versions of the files.
If new versions are found, a dialog pops up telling the user newer versions of the files have been found and asks if they want to upgrade.
If they click "Yes" a new window pops up showing what files have new versions, and allowing the user to select one/all of them to upgrade.
They click "Upgrade" and the new files are downloaded and installed. Update progress is displayed on the window.
The AutoUpgrade will be set to check at 3-7 day intervals (user selectable) with a Check Now button in order to reduce bandwidth usage on server side by the program checking every time it starts up.


Also, do you want the AutoUpgrade to check for newer versions of MeGUI stored on the server? Or will we just check for new versions of the utility programs that it uses?

I was thinking on the serverside, we store the files like this:
AppName-incrementing_integer.zip. C# has a Gzip library built in, so we could zip the files up to save a bit of bandwidth. Basically, every time we put a new version on the server, just increase that integer by 1. This makes it easy for me to tell a new version is there, rather than trying to parse out a version number from something like this: Besweet3.2_Beta263.

How does that sound? If anyone else has any ideas, gimme a shout.

[Doom9]

he program starts up as per normal, and does a background check for newer versions of the files.Make that optional please.. I don't want to hear the phone home litany and I personally never want to use that feature.

[stax76]

C# has a Gzip library built in

IIRC zip != gzip so unless somebody implements zip we are forced to use #ziplib.

[Mutant_Fruit]

IIRC zip != gzip so unless somebody implements zip we are forced to use #ziplib.
Thats a very good point. I'll look into that.

[foxyshadis]

It'd probably be best to set it to only update with more stable versions, when known bugs are few and not much code reworking is going on. Maybe an option for bleeding edge builds. I know it's going to be a while before the codebase is stable, and if people autoupdate and the new one breaks things people are going to be unhappy.

[Richard Berg]

It's up to you, as far as I'm concerned.
It would be kinda rude for me to go register megui.org without asking Doom9 -- it's his name, and his program. He seemed ok with it in the other thread, though, so I'll start the process. We can figure out exactly what to do with it as time goes on. Hopefully you guys trust me not to turn it into a pr0n site or anything ;)

[JarrettH]

Do you think you could have MeGUI rename the output file if it is about to overwrite it? So often I'll forget to rename the output file when I'm experimenting with settings and I end up losing my previous files. Just stick a sequential number after the name or something.:D

[Mutant_Fruit]

Yup, i'll definately be backing up the previous versions before i replace em. There'll be a "rollback" button to restore a previous version if something does go wrong.

[Doom9]

Yup, i'll definately be backing up the previous versions before i replace em. There'll be a "rollback" button to restore a previous version if something does go wrong.I think he was refering to video/audio output.. and I don't like the idea.. it definitely doesn't make the 80/20 cut.

[Mutant_Fruit]

I think he was refering to video/audio output
Oh right, never mind then :o

[Doom9]

And I think it's necessary to point out that megui isn't overwriting.. it's the user that's overwriting by creating a job with the same output name.. and in the end it's up to the encoder/muxer to decide what happens if the output already exists. Most overwrite, some append (mp4creator for instance adds input streams to the target file if it already exists).

[Mutant_Fruit]

Also, could someone take a look at the patch tracker in SF? Theres a few patches there that havn't been commited to CVS.

My "AviSynth script creator patch" has been commited, but hasn't been closed, but theres still 6 others there.

[Mutant_Fruit]

I've been thinking about this auto-update and i've run into a problem.

What happens when someone manually updates one of the files (such as x264.exe)? Once that happens, i can't tell what version an exe file is, so i don't know whether the one on the server is a newer version or not.

How should i handle this case? Will i just flag the file as being an "unrecognised version" and ignore it unless the user wants to force an update?

[foxyshadis]

Consider using the created/modified date on the file? Perhaps run it and grab the tag ("x264 core:44 svn-408M (built by Sharktooth)")? Hashes might be useful if people could be counted on to never use an unregistered version, but... ;)

[ChronoCross]

1) Any chance of of Being able to specify a folder called AUDIO PLUGINS to put files like bsn.dll the bse files, aac.dll and whatnot in rather than having it in the root folder? It would make the program more organized and easy to use.

2) Also is there anyway for the avisynth script creator to be able to load filters individualy. Like it does for the DGdecode.dll? Even by specifying aavisynth filters folder it doesn't seem to load them. So when you make your scripts your forced to have them in the avisynth root filter directory.

Thanks

[berrinam]

1) Any chance of of Being able to specify a folder called AUDIO PLUGINS to put files like bsn.dll the bse files, aac.dll and whatnot in rather than having it in the root folder? It would make the program more organized and easy to use.Actually, those dlls just need to be put in the same directory as neroraw.exe.

2) Also is there anyway for the avisynth script creator to be able to load filters individualy. Like it does for the DGdecode.dll? Even by specifying aavisynth filters folder it doesn't seem to load them. So when you make your scripts your forced to have them in the avisynth root filter directory.
1.Why not use your avisynth plugins directory anyway? The MeGUI avisynth plugins is now unused, as I said in my guide. If you want all your plugins in one folder, use the AviSynth one (which ISN'T the AviSynth root directory, it's aviroot/plugins)
2. There's the 'Load DLL' button in the edit tab of the AviSynth creator.
3. If, for some reason, you want to load all your plugins in every script, try creating a new AviSynth profile with a template like this:
LoadPlugin("Yourplugin0.dll")
LoadPlugin("Yourplugin1.dll")
...
LoadPlugin("Yourplugin100.dll")

<input>
<deinterlace>
<crop>
<resize>
<denoise>

Some experimenting or reading my guide will make clear how that works.

[Mutant_Fruit]

Consider using the created/modified date on the file? Perhaps run it and grab the tag ("x264 core:44 svn-408M (built by Sharktooth)")? Hashes might be useful if people could be counted on to never use an unregistered version, but... ;)
Thing is, created/modified date is useless unless i want to download ALL the files on the server each time i run a check so that i can tell what date they were originally created.

I could do it using hashes i suppose. But then i'd need an XML file to contain the hashes of the EXE's from each version we put up there. Only problem with that is that i'd need to get a hash of /every/ version ever released into the XML file otherwise there'd be a lot of "unrecognised versions".

As for running the exe and parsing out the version from the output... that might be doable. But it means each of the files (from besweet to encraw) would have to supply me that info. I wasn't sure if all the files would do that. I'll check it later. But this approach won't work for dll files...

[dimzon]

1) Any chance of of Being able to specify a folder called AUDIO PLUGINS to put files like bsn.dll the bse files, aac.dll and whatnot in rather than having it in the root folder? It would make the program more organized and easy to use.

This is not plugins. This files MUST be in same directory with NERORAW.EXE
If You don't like multiple files in MeGUI folder You can create NeroRaw (OR NeroAAC OR as you wish) folder and put neroraw.exe + bsn.dll + ... in it :D