FAVC - v1.07 (Auto Menu Generation) (19/06/08)

[rendez2k]

Thats my one good idea for this year then!

[rendez2k]

One other thought, not sure if its too advanced... would it be possible to have a few basic text alignment options - maybe some presets which put text across the bottom in a line (handy for some background images with graphics). Can the coloured selection strip be changed also?

[Grumpy Troll]

FAVC 1.0 is just what I've been looking for. Encodes with HC beautifully. Re encoding audio to AC3 is amazing. Now menus? Durn it. It works for me! Hasve to re do all of my videos I had. :thanks:

I really like it. Tried one conversion with 2 part movie. It was amazingly simple to set up and came out perfectly.

Read in prior post about getting more features added to menu creation. If it happens please keep it simple too.

Is there someone who could write a "help" file where someone like me can find answers without searching every post in the forum? Would help.

Thanks,
Grumpy

[damian_dimitri]

good morning,

thank you for the new release.
For simple people like me this is a dream come through

I have a noob request..lol.
Is it possible to add a resize option for the movie files? Soemthing like an input option for % resize.
I have no clue if it is much work or difficult, but i thought i just ask.

kind regards

D.

[r0lZ]

Thanks for this wonderful program! It is simple but powerful (especially thanks to the Advanced Scripting tab.)

Some suggestions:
- Support for 16:9 titles and menu. (The AR can be different for each title!)
- Shutdown when finished checkbox.
- Save and Load project. (Useful to do a first version of the DVD optimized for speed, and when the result is good, relaunch FAVC optimized for quality.)
- Option to generate the menu with thumbnails instead of titles.

And a question:
What's the meaning of "FAVC" ? ;)

[Mr_Odwin]

Thanks for this wonderful program! It is simple but powerful (especially thanks to the Advanced Scripting tab.)


High praise from the PgcEdit daemon! I didn't realise how great PgcEdit was until I started adding menu support and had to play around with buttons/color schemes/menu files.


Some suggestions:
- Support for 16:9 titles and menu. (The AR can be different for each title!)

Mixed title support should be working fine for Full-D1 encodes. the aspect ratio is picked up by Mediainfo and if it's greater than 1.74 a 16:9 ratio is used. However, 16:9 menus are not yet included. This should be changed in the future.


- Shutdown when finished checkbox.
- Save and Load project. (Useful to do a first version of the DVD optimized for speed, and when the result is good, relaunch FAVC optimized for quality.)
- Option to generate the menu with thumbnails instead of titles.


The first two should be easy enough to implement, the last one a little more difficult and time consuming, but doable. Of course, for now, you can do it yourself by editing the menu.avs and the relevant buttons.mnu file. (But this would be quite tedious for you too.)


What's the meaning of "FAVC" ? ;)

I originally started working on FAVC because I was using WinAVI Video Converter, and although it was fast and simple to use, the quality was lacking somewhat. I decided to make FAVC using only freely available applications to replace my use of WinAVI Video Converter. FAVC originally stood for "FreeAVI Video Converter". Now I think of it as "A Free AVI->DVD Video Converter".
I'm glad I made it because I use it for all of my encoding these days.

[r0lZ]

High praise from the PgcEdit daemon! I didn't realise how great PgcEdit was until I started adding menu support and had to play around with buttons/color schemes/menu files.Thanks!
(BTW, I've noticed the Buttons.mnu files in the installation folder! I wonder how you use them!)

Mixed title support should be working fine for Full-D1 encodes. the aspect ratio is picked up by Mediainfo and if it's greater than 1.74 a 16:9 ratio is used. However, 16:9 menus are not yet included. This should be changed in the future.OK, so I haven't tested your program with 16:9 source material yet. I'll do it soon.

The first two should be easy enough to implement, the last one a little more difficult and time consuming, but doable. Of course, for now, you can do it yourself by editing the menu.avs and the relevant buttons.mnu file. (But this would be quite tedious for you too.)I know, implementing the last request is time consuming, especially if you want to provide a GUI to select the thumbnail directly in the input file. I'm glad you consider doing it, but honestly it's not very important.

[Mr_Odwin]

(BTW, I've noticed the Buttons.mnu files in the installation folder! I wonder how you use them!)


FAVC uses BatchMux, which in turn uses Muxman for authoring. From the author of Batchmux, Sir Didymus:

For the static menus, assets needed are:
- one background image (.bmp)
- one menu description file (PgcEdit format for exported menus)
- one hilight asset (compiled, in the ifoedit sup format, or in the Scenarist sst format)


The buttons.mnu files are required by Batchmux, so I've had to examine them a little bit. I don't understand everything, but I understand how to move the buttons around, which is what I really needed to know. :)

[r0lZ]

Honestly, I don't know Batchmux. I learn every day how PgcEdit is used! Thanks.
And now, back to your work! You have much to do! ;)

[Sharikon]

I love this program. I have been using it exclusively now to build DVDs to watch on my portable player next to my computer while I "work".

I am learning as I go but I was wondering why it will only encode 16:9 if it's set at Full-D1. I would love to have 16:9 in half-d1 so I can fit as much as possible on a DVD. Since my DVD player only has a 7" screen it really doesn't matter much if it's half or full D1.

I tried to fix this myself so I didn't have to bug anyone. I debugged the vb code and that is where I found the half-d1 check before writing 4:3. I eliminated this code and told it to do 16:9 anyway but the result didn't end up being 16:9 . I think it's something to do with the FAVCResize2 function but since I don't know anything about AVSI I'm not getting very far.

Is this a hopeless quest? :)

[Pookie]

Mr Odwin - Great stuff. The app keeps getting better and better. Much better encoder than ConvertX as well.

Perhaps I'm doing something wrong (or I overlooked the answer in the thread), but I'm wondering about the timing for the "Batch File Has Been Created for You" popup. For a newbie, it might be confusing.

[rack04]

I have a very strange problem using the latest FAVC release. The output DVD only has audio for approximatly the first 1 minute of each epiosode. I'm in the process of another encode and will report results.

Update: Actually when I tried the conversion again using two episodes I only get 1 minute 16 seconds of AC3 audio for each episode. I have FAVC to set to "retain AC3" from both files, which are MKV container with AVC video and AC3 audio. Accoring to MPC the demuxed AC3 files are only 3:48 long but playback is faster than realtime. The files size of Title0ex and Tile1ex are 3,563 KB each. Sorry if I not explaining this well, but I'm will to provide all that is needed to get this fixed. Thanks.

[rendez2k]

I had this problem - not sure what cured it, but I re-installed FAVC.....

I have a very strange problem using the latest FAVC release. The output DVD only has audio for approximatly the first 1 minute of each epiosode. I'm in the process of another encode and will report results.

Update: Actually when I tried the conversion again using two episodes I only get 1 minute 16 seconds of AC3 audio for each episode. I have FAVC to set to "retain AC3" from both files, which are MKV container with AVC video and AC3 audio. Accoring to MPC the demuxed AC3 files are only 3:48 long but playback is faster than realtime. The files size of Title0ex and Tile1ex are 3,563 KB each. Sorry if I not explaining this well, but I'm will to provide all that is needed to get this fixed. Thanks.

[Mr_Odwin]

I love this program. I have been using it exclusively now to build DVDs to watch on my portable player next to my computer while I "work".

I am learning as I go but I was wondering why it will only encode 16:9 if it's set at Full-D1. I would love to have 16:9 in half-d1 so I can fit as much as possible on a DVD. Since my DVD player only has a 7" screen it really doesn't matter much if it's half or full D1.

I tried to fix this myself so I didn't have to bug anyone. I debugged the vb code and that is where I found the half-d1 check before writing 4:3. I eliminated this code and told it to do 16:9 anyway but the result didn't end up being 16:9 . I think it's something to do with the FAVCResize2 function but since I don't know anything about AVSI I'm not getting very far.

Is this a hopeless quest? :)

I'm afraid so! 16:9 is only dvd compliant in Full-D1. Using 16:9 anywhere else will cause Muxman to reject the file.
For 16:9 half-d1 you'd have to change the encoder aspect ratio commands and "FAVCResize2" to "FAVCResize" in the avs files. But then you'd have to use a different muxer as Muxman/Batchmux won't do it.



Perhaps I'm doing something wrong (or I overlooked the answer in the thread), but I'm wondering about the timing for the "Batch File Has Been Created for You" popup. For a newbie, it might be confusing.

The timing? What should happen when you click "Generate DVD" is:

1. A quick analysis pass
2. All needed files generated
3. Batch file (.bat file) started
4. Pop up announces this

If the terminology I use is confusing, or if it doesn't happen in the order above then please let me know and I'll attempt to rectify.

I have a very strange problem using the latest FAVC release. The output DVD only has audio for approximatly the first 1 minute of each epiosode. I'm in the process of another encode and will report results.

Update: Actually when I tried the conversion again using two episodes I only get 1 minute 16 seconds of AC3 audio for each episode. I have FAVC to set to "retain AC3" from both files, which are MKV container with AVC video and AC3 audio. Accoring to MPC the demuxed AC3 files are only 3:48 long but playback is faster than realtime. The files size of Title0ex and Tile1ex are 3,563 KB each. Sorry if I not explaining this well, but I'm will to provide all that is needed to get this fixed. Thanks.

Hmmm. It seems from your post and a previous post by rendez2k that there may be a problem with ac3 audio retention in mkv files. FAVC uses Mencoder to extract ac3 from mkvs. Is there a known issue with this?

[r0lZ]

I would love to have 16:9 in half-d1 so I can fit as much as possible on a DVD.
You might try to encode in half-D1, and modify the domain stream attributes of the final DVD with PgcEdit. (Right-click on any title of the titleset to modify, and select "Domain stream attributes".)
Of course, since 16:9 half-D1 is illegal, the result is not guaranteed!

[rendez2k]

rack04, you could also try re-installing your codecs. I'm currently using K-Lite, but the Community Codec Pack was my previous one.

[Mr_Odwin]

I've been playing around a bit this morning and I can confirm that the current way that Mencoder is used to extract ac3 from mkv causes issues.
The cli used to extract audio is

"Mencoder.exe" "xvid_ac3.mkv" -ovc copy -oac copy -of rawaudio -quiet -o "Title1Ex.ac3"

This seems to cause problems. I'll try different Mencoder builds to see if this has any effect. Otherwise, I'll use mkvmerge/mkvextract.

[rack04]

This seems to cause problems. I'll try different Mencoder builds to see if this has any effect. Otherwise, I'll use mkvmerge/mkvextract.

So can I just use mkvmerge/mkvextract to get the entire AC3 stream and run the mux again without having to process the whole encode?

EDIT: I used mkvmerg/mkvextract to extract the AC3 in each episode. I renamed the files to match the Mencoder AC3 extract (Title0Ex, Title1Ex). I modified the title.bat file to fix the audio but I can't get the title.bat to run. Any ideas?

@Echo off
Echo.
Echo *********************************************************
Echo ******************** Fixing Audio 0 *********************
Echo *********************************************************
Echo.
"C:\Program Files\FAVC\AC3Fix\ac3fix.exe" "C:\Temp\Test\Title0Ex.ac3" "C:\Temp\Test\Title0.ac3"
Del "C:\Temp\Test\Title0Ex.ac3"
Echo.
Echo *********************************************************
Echo ******************** Fixing Audio 1 *********************
Echo *********************************************************
Echo.
"C:\Program Files\FAVC\AC3Fix\ac3fix.exe" "C:\Temp\Test\Title1Ex.ac3" "C:\Temp\Test\Title1.ac3"
Del "C:\Temp\Test\Title1Ex.ac3"
Echo.
Echo *********************************************************
Echo ******************** Fixing Audio 2 *********************
Echo *********************************************************
Echo.
"C:\Program Files\FAVC\AC3Fix\ac3fix.exe" "C:\Temp\Test\Title2Ex.ac3" "C:\Temp\Test\Title2.ac3"
Del "C:\Temp\Test\Title2Ex.ac3"
Echo.
Echo *********************************************************
Echo ******************** Fixing Audio 3 *********************
Echo *********************************************************
Echo.
"C:\Program Files\FAVC\AC3Fix\ac3fix.exe" "C:\Temp\Test\Title3Ex.ac3" "C:\Temp\Test\Title3.ac3"
Del "C:\Temp\Test\Title3Ex.ac3"
Echo.
Echo *********************************************************
Echo ******************** Fixing Audio 4 *********************
Echo *********************************************************
Echo.
"C:\Program Files\FAVC\AC3Fix\ac3fix.exe" "C:\Temp\Test\Title4Ex.ac3" "C:\Temp\Test\Title4.ac3"
Del "C:\Temp\Test\Title4Ex.ac3"
Echo.

[Mr_Odwin]

What happens when you try to run it? It looks fine to me. Except, obviously, the authoring step is omitted.
The "fixing audio" step is minor really. If you rename your Title#Ex.ac3 audio files to Title#.ac3 then run the authoring step it will probably work fine.

[rack04]

What happens when you try to run it? It looks fine to me. Except, obviously, the authoring step is omitted.
The "fixing audio" step is minor really. If you rename your Title#Ex.ac3 audio files to Title#.ac3 then run the authoring step it will probably work fine.

The command window pops up and then immediatly closes. The only thing I can think of it that there is a typo in the file names. I've been known to do that in the past. I'll check when I get home. Thanks.

[Sharikon]

Mr_Odwin,

I believe I found a small error that hopefully is easy to fix. If you have a video that is 27:00 minutes long and you tell it to insert chapters every 3 minutes the MuxScript.mxp file will put a scene at 27:00 which causes it to crash. I've tried this on several files so I believe it isn't a problem with a particular file. If I delete the last scene in muxscript.mxp and rerun the batchmux command it works.

Item=Scene
{
Name=Seg1_Scn10
Scene Time=00:27:00:00
Uop=00000000
}

Here is the logfile error:

Reference to non-existant scene "Seg1_Scn10" from PGC "VTS01_Ttn1_Pgc1"

I made a change in the code that creates the titles and this seems to work pretty good. It just chops off the last minute in the calculation to ensure that it never inserts a chapter at the end of a movie.

For i = (NumericUpDown11.Value * 60) To ((Math.Floor(TitleFramecount(j) / TitleFramerate(j))) - 60) Step (NumericUpDown11.Value * 60)

If you like this solution then maybe you can release it into the next version.

[Mr_Odwin]

If you like this solution then maybe you can release it into the next version.

A problem, and the code to fix it - that's very nice of you.
:thanks:
It'll certainly make it into the next release.

(P.S. Congrats on understanding the mess that is the FAVC source code!)

[danielk68]

first i want to congratulate you, for this very nice and well
done application.

i have 3 questions / requests

1. where can i manage my subtitles style? like color, font
characterset ,position, etc..

2.there is any option now(or in the future) to manage
the titles styles of the menus/titles? bold, color ,underline etc...

3. if i have a 2 parts movies, does it join them to 1 part
or to 2 deferents parts with 2 menus entry?

if there are no options now, I'll be very glad if you could implement them in the future.

if you are going to work on the menus issue, it'll be nice to
think about the right to left position titles on the screen too.

as said before, a preview button will be very useful.
i have read somewhere that via the avs scrips it's possible
to manage subtitles and colors issues, but i don't know how
to do it.

thanks in advanced, and keep your wonderful work.
Daniel

[Hubbabub]

1. where can i manage my subtitles style? like color, font
characterset ,position, etc..

Maybe you can use DVDSubEdit to edit your subtitles
after FAVC have made the DVD files
http://download.videohelp.com/DVDSubEdit/


3. if i have a 2 parts movies, does it join them to i part
or to 2 deferents parts with 2 menus entry?

if there are no options now, I'll be very glad if you could implement then in the future.
I would also like to have that option :)

[Sir Didymus]

Honestly, I don't know Batchmux...


That's my fault, r0lZ, not yours...

BatchMux is a simple (sic...) wrapper application used to build a MuxMan script starting from a set of command line arguments, and to launch MuxMan with such script.

Many of the BatchMux arguments are based on parameters complying with the "PgcEdit standard" (e.g. the format of files describing menus, buttons, color schemes...).

I simply did not ask to you in advance if you had any objection in order to let me use the same file formats for some of the features adopted in PgcEdit.

Hem... At this stage of development... I really hope you haven't... :cool:

Seriously, please accept my apologies for that!

I though it was OK to adopt the formats you have defined in PgcEdit for many good reasons: your application is a real standard for Ifo (and Menu...) editing; the adopted file formats are completely open and easy to interpret; the file contents are then very easy to edit based on user's needs.

Cheers,
SD

[r0lZ]

No problem, Sir! You can use freely any part of PgcEdit, including the files it generates (as long as the file you distribute are not protected by copyright lows.)

However, although you consider that the files are complying with the "PgcEdit standard", I must confess that I haven't programmed PgcEdit with a real standard in mind. The format of some output file could be modified in future releases. I could, for example, add the information about multiple sets of menu buttons in the output. Anyway, for future compatibility, I should still support the current version, and the variables currently defined should still be present. Therefore, as long as you do not assume that the file format is completely rigid, everything should be fine. For example, do not assume that the lines will still be in the same order, as some new lines might be added in the future.

[Sir Didymus]

No problem, Sir!

...
However, although you consider that the files are complying with the "PgcEdit standard", I must confess that I haven't programmed PgcEdit with a real standard in mind.
...

That's how the best standards start up...


The format of some output file could be modified in future releases...

...for example, do not assume that the lines will still be in the same order, as some new lines might be added in the future.
of course, of course...

OFF TOPIC - SORRY FOR THE LITTLE DIGRESSION...


I could, for example, add the information about multiple sets of menu buttons in the output.

multiple set of buttons ?
animations ?
:rolleyes:
I will be absolutely happy of changing whatever parts of BatchMux when such feature will be in! I still have some unsolved needs to do some customisations to an old copy of Spiderman 2...

Cheers,
SD

[r0lZ]

multiple set of buttons ?
animations ?
:rolleyes:Well, unfortunately, I have NOT the intention to support multiple sets of buttons for now. This was only an example.
As I've said in another thread, supporting multiple sets of buttons is really not easy, from the programmer's point of view, but also for the user. There might be thousands of different sets in a single cell! How is it possible to manually edit them all?

OFF TOPIC - SORRY FOR THE LITTLE DIGRESSION...You're right. Sorry for squatting your thread, Mr_Odwin! I will not do it again! :)

[Mr_Odwin]

first i want to congratulate you, for this very nice and well
done application.

i have 3 questions / requests

1. where can i manage my subtitles style? like color, font
characterset ,position, etc..

2.there is any option now(or in the future) to manage
the titles styles of the menus/titles? bold, color ,underline etc...

3. if i have a 2 parts movies, does it join them to 1 part
or to 2 deferents parts with 2 menus entry?

if there are no options now, I'll be very glad if you could implement them in the future.

if you are going to work on the menus issue, it'll be nice to
think about the right to left position titles on the screen too.

as said before, a preview button will be very useful.
i have read somewhere that via the avs scrips it's possible
to manage subtitles and colors issues, but i don't know how
to do it.

thanks in advanced, and keep your wonderful work.
Daniel

I wrote this to you earlier in the thread. It's all I know.

The colors that are used for subtitles by FAVC are saved in two files - FAVCPalette.ifo and FAVCPalette.mxp, both in the SubtitleCreator folder. These files were created by exporting palettes from Subtitle Creator and they can be replaced by you with custom ones by using Subtitle Creator (File>Export Palette, and the colours option in at the top right of the form). Note that both files must contain the same palette and both files must not be renamed.
The script option is a font issue - find a font that supports what you need. A quick search through the fonts that I have there revealed that I had some Arabic ones. I assume that'll work. Try one of these fonts:
http://www.student.northpark.edu/pemente/hebfonts.htm

If that doesn't work then try asking in the subtitle forum, as I'm out of ideas.

As for your other questions. A small amount of menu customisation will be introduced. Not loads though. FAVC makes simple menus, and it has no aspirations to make fancy-pants ones!

If you have a two part movie then it will create 2 menu entries. This behaviour will not be changed anytime soon. A workaround for you would be to merge the avis using an external application like Virtualdub or create an avisynth script (and avs file) that merges them for you. Something like:

AVISource("Vid1") ++ AVISource("Vid2")

Then feed it to FAVC.

[manusse]

One question:
Do you publish your source code somewhere?

Cheers
Manusse

[Mr_Odwin]

One question:
Do you publish your source code somewhere?

Cheers
Manusse

Hi there. You can download the source here:
http://download.videohelp.com/favc/

Hope it's not too much of a mess for you. :)

[shadowhaze]

Mr Odwin - great program! :thanks: I've tried several different ones and I like this one the best.

Despite a lot of time reading articles, guides & forums, I'm having a hard time w/ avisynth & using it w/ FAVC. Please see the attache JPEG of the last FAVC tab. I think the scripts are correct, but I don't know where to put the Import command (should it be w/ the plugins directory?) or if I'm missing anything else. In fact, I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with the two new screens that now pop up after I hit "generate dvd".

I do know that what I have now doesn't work. I would very much appreciate your (or any one else's) help on this. Please keep in mind that when it comes to software (esp. editing batch files, ini files, etc), I'm a complete newbie.

Also, I have a couple requests as well. First, as someone else mentioned, please put a "shut down when finished" option. Second, please include some sort of easy to understand (i.e. step by step) manual for the avisynth/last tab options & other options. For example, I'd rather know how to change the current TV overscan setting myself than ask you for a dedicated menu options, but I just can't figure out what needs to be changed even after looking at the FAVC program files. [Where's the "banging your head against the desk" smily?]

Thanks again for the program and I look forward to your reply.

[Mr_Odwin]

Mr Odwin - great program! :thanks: I've tried several different ones and I like this one the best.

Despite a lot of time reading articles, guides & forums, I'm having a hard time w/ avisynth & using it w/ FAVC. Please see the attache JPEG of the last FAVC tab. I think the scripts are correct, but I don't know where to put the Import command (should it be w/ the plugins directory?) or if I'm missing anything else. In fact, I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with the two new screens that now pop up after I hit "generate dvd".

I do know that what I have now doesn't work. I would very much appreciate your (or any one else's) help on this. Please keep in mind that when it comes to software (esp. editing batch files, ini files, etc), I'm a complete newbie.

Also, I have a couple requests as well. First, as someone else mentioned, please put a "shut down when finished" option. Second, please include some sort of easy to understand (i.e. step by step) manual for the avisynth/last tab options & other options. For example, I'd rather know how to change the current TV overscan setting myself than ask you for a dedicated menu options, but I just can't figure out what needs to be changed even after looking at the FAVC program files. [Where's the "banging your head against the desk" smily?]

Thanks again for the program and I look forward to your reply.

The best way to show how FAVC uses the advanced scripting tab is to give an example script.
If you were to put "#Insert 1" in the top box, "#Insert 2" in the next box, "#Insert 3" in the next box, and so on. The following script would be produced (with slight variations for different input).


LoadPlugin("C:\Documents and Settings\JAMES PIKE\My Documents\FAVC\Avisynth Plugins\Decomb.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\Documents and Settings\JAMES PIKE\My Documents\FAVC\Avisynth Plugins\QTSource.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\Documents and Settings\JAMES PIKE\My Documents\FAVC\Avisynth Plugins\VSFilter.dll")
Import("C:\Documents and Settings\JAMES PIKE\My Documents\FAVC\Avisynth Plugins\FAVCResize.avsi")
Import("C:\Documents and Settings\JAMES PIKE\My Documents\FAVC\Avisynth Plugins\FAVCStereo.avsi")
Import("C:\Documents and Settings\JAMES PIKE\My Documents\FAVC\Avisynth Plugins\FAVCFPS.avsi")
Import("C:\Documents and Settings\JAMES PIKE\My Documents\FAVC\Avisynth Plugins\FAVCSize.avsi")
#Insert 1
Try {
AVISource("C:\Video Samples\2min_ac3.avi").EnsureVBRMP3Sync()
FAVCStereo(Last,Last)
}
Catch(Err_Msg) {
DirectShowSource("C:\Video Samples\2min_ac3.avi",FPS=23.976,ConvertFPS=True).EnsureVBRMP3Sync()
FAVCStereoDSS(Last,Last)
}
FAVCSize()
ConvertToYV12()
#Insert 2
ChangeFPS(24000,1001)
#Insert 3
FAVCResize(Last,"NTSC",0,1667)
#Insert 4


Hope this helps.

[Mr_Odwin]

Version 1.01 has been released - check the first post!
MKV AC3 extraction should be fixed, and there's a preview button for the menu.

[rendez2k]

Menu preview works well! Will test MKV's on my next encode.

[rack04]

Version 1.01 has been released - check the first post!
MKV AC3 extraction should be fixed, and there's a preview button for the menu.

Thanks for the update. I will test the MKV AC3 extraction when I get home.

[rack04]

Well I can testify that MKV AC3 extraction works. Did you abandon Mencoder for the extraction of ac3 from mkv?

[Mr_Odwin]

Yes. FAVC now employs the use of mkvextract/mkvmerge.

[rack04]

On my last encode I noticed a typo in the menu heading. I found this entry in the menu.avs file so I changed it to what I had intended. When I re-ran the DVD autoring using a modified title.bat the menu heading remains unchanged. Am I missing something?

[Mr_Odwin]

You need to run the menu generation part of the title.bat again too. Or just open the menu.avs in Media Player Classic or Vdub. The menu bmp file needs to be over written.

[~bT~]

I have some .mkv files which I would like to convert to DVD.

Format : Matroska
Length : 700 MiB for 1h 14mn 48s 393ms

Video #0 : MPEG-4 AVC
Aspect : 672 x 288 (2.333) at 23.976 fps

Audio #0 : AC3
Infos : 6 channels, 48 KHz
Language : hi

Text #0 : UTF-8

Chapters #0 : chapters

After FAVC has done the analysis, its throwing an error that I don't have the codecs installed, but I do; CoreAVC & AC3Filter. The files can be played in MPC too.

Does anyone know what the problem may be?

[rack04]

Do you have Haali Media Splitter installed?

[Mr_Odwin]

Do you have Haali Media Splitter installed?

That would have been my question.

FAVC trys to open MKVs with DirectShowSource(). If it can't, then it throws an error. If you can successfully open your MKV with directshowsource() then there's something else going on. Let me know bEnGaLi tHuG.

[~bT~]

I cant open the .mkv file using DirectShowSource().

Should I install Haali Media Splitter?? Will it conflict with anything I already have installed?

EDIT: I installed the splitter, its opening the file using DirectShowSource(). Lets see if FAVC will convert it now :)

[~bT~]

After the analysis has been done. Does one need to close the command prompt window?
Reason I ask is, it was stuck on that window and didn't start encoding until I closed it.

Lets see if if the encode turns out OK now..

EDIT: Turned out beautiful! Cheers Mr_Odwin!

[holio]

Does FAVC support mp4? I read in another thread that it doesn't, but in the first post here mp4 is listed and I haven't found it mentioned after that.

[Mr_Odwin]

FAVC supports mp4. It's a recent development so that's why you may have read elsewhere that it doesn't.

[holio]

When I load an mp4 and click generate dvd, a popup tells me that favc is unable to process the file. I have version 2.57 of avisynth, and that's the only suggestion given as to what might be wrong.
I've been able to convert the mpeg's to dvd files using dvdflick, and then to compress them with dvdshrink so that I can fit 3-4 hours of footage on a dvd-5 (the poor resolution isn't noticeably degraded). This method works well enough for me, but I'd especially like the ability to add a menu and to have the files loop back to the first title after playing the last. If I can't get these files to work in favc, then can I still get those two features using the programs contained in the favc folder?

[Mr_Odwin]

With mp4 files you need the correct directshow decoders for whatever video/audio is present eg. xvid/mp3, x264/aac (I use ffdshow), and you need an mp4 splitter (I use Haali's Media Splitter).
You can achieve what you want with the programs in the FAVC folder - but it's not a trivial exercise, as there would be lots of command line writing to do.

[shadowhaze]

The best way to show how FAVC uses the advanced scripting tab is to give an example script.
If you were to put "#Insert 1" in the top box, "#Insert 2" in the next box, "#Insert 3" in the next box, and so on. The following script would be produced (with slight variations for different input).



Hope this helps.

:thanks: It did help.
I meant to reply earlier, but I'm still struggling with avisynth scripts & filters (though I do have preliminary working script). Still I'd appreciate your thoughts on a couple of issues/questions.

1) Using the current script, encoding is painfully SLOW. I normally use the HC "quality" setting w/ "quality of encoding" set back to normal. With that (no resize or avisynth filters), the 1st pass avg. FPS is about 65 & takes about 9min for a 24 min avi. With my aviscript, it takes over 2 hours for the 1st pass at 4-5 FPS! Using the script in Virtual Dub & re-encoding back to avi, the process takes 5 times as long as it it did with just MSharpen in VD - so I know it's not FAVC. My system isn't the best (i.e. quad core duo 2 oc'd to 3.5GHz or even 4Ghz), but it's not bad: AMD AM2 Brisbane @ 2.93Ghz, 1GB of DDR2 @ 840Mhz using XP home.

My question is whether I should filter w/ Virtual Dub (source & output XVid) & then use FAVC, or would I get better quality using avisynth in FAVC? I'm also going to see if I can find better (faster) avisynth filters.

2) Right now my script has ConvertToYV12() before the smoothing and resharpening. Do I need that when using FAVC, does FAVC do that automatically, or do I even need that since I believe avi files are already in YV12?

3) Do you prefer HC or QuEnc for encoding (i.e. which do you think does a better job)?

Thanks again for the great program and all of your help.

P.S. Please don't forget about adding a "shut down when finished" option.