HC018 released

[Mug Funky]

(I have found that 8000 is generally a good maximum bitrate for DVD because sometimes some encoders peaks above maximum)

HC tends not to do that... though there's 1 isolated case i've heard of (interlaced scenechange i think, though i've fed hundreds of these to HC with no problem).

constant quant=1 with max bitrate is quite good. for a max of 8500 you'll be looking at an average bitrate of about 7500, but never exceeding the max. so you might be able to fit a little more on the disc.

[dragongodz]

i should mention hank315 is currently away on holidays. so anyone hoping for an update or new HC etc etc etc will have to wait for a little while. :)

[Ebobtron]

i should mention hank315 is currently away on holidays.

I was just going to ask him a question.
Darn, I was going to thank him as well, for passing emails to you when my system was down.

Thanks Hank, I'll catch up with you later. :)

[dragongodz]

well he should be back towards the end of the month so its not really that big a wait. :)

[Heini011]

hi,

maybe a little offtopic, but...

is there any equipment compatibility reason for the circumstance, that no build-in interframe matrix has an dc-coefficient smaller than 16 ? or can i use a smaller value in a custom matrix ?

greetings.

[Mug Funky]

down to 8 is fine... possibly even lower (though i wouldn't try it).

[Audionut]

Star Wars ep3 had values as low as 5 IIRC.

But I agree with Mug Funky.

[dragongodz]

interframe matrix
you of course mean the non-intra part since all built-in matrices actually do start with 8 for the intra part.

i agree you could go down to 8 but really a minimum of 16 is the norm. the only reason you would want to go down lower is if you wanted to create something like a ridiculously high bitrate matrix IMHO.

[Freakazoidalmaniac]

Hello Guys,

I wonder if you could demystify this for me? I have a whole whack of AVI's that I would like to put onto a DVD. I have also heard great things about the quality of this HC encoder. What I would like to do is:

1. Setup AVISYNTH to do whatever I need to do to go from AVI to DVD(not sure of yv12, pulldown etc n stuff i.e. no idea what I need to do).

2. Setup HC to do a multipass on the AVI.

3. Extract / Encode Audio.

4. Mux all back together / burn

Is there a simple way of doing this similar to divxtodvd but using HC Encoder?

Any guidance is truly appreciated. Links to articles etc I should read are welcomed. I have scoured the forums but can't seem to find the answers.

Thanks

Freak...

[smok3]

Freakazoidalmaniac, quick overview of what i do:
1. basic script is just converttoyv12() - i do encode progresive DV a lot, so this works for me in 99% of the cases
2. should be simple enough (there is a way to write batch encoding script even, check http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=762717 )
3. you can use vdub to extract audio and encode using your favorite ac3 encoder (or just leave the pcm version) - it must be 48kHZ (again you could automatize that using some batch script)
4. free way: muxman, not so free way: dvdlab(pro); burn: i just use nero, but there are free alternatives as well

lf there is something not very clear, just ask.

And thanks to hank for this great encoder.

[Mug Funky]

hank: would it be possible to have HC preserve the case of input/output file names? at the moment everything output is lowercase.

certainly not a big deal.

[Mr. Monte]

Is there new user manual for the HC018?

I wanted to know what I haev to do to implement the new adaptive feature (using RB-Pro)

[warrenc@greatsoft.co.za]

Hi Guys -> Firstly thanks to Hank315 for a superb Encoder - I've been using it since the initial release and dumped everything else.

A question to you great guru's here ( Interpret as sucking up ). A have The Matrix on Region 1 NTSC DVD and I extract the movie out with DVDShrink and use DGIndex to feed to AviSynth with in turn gets fed to HC.

However I like to PanAndScan my video before creating my DVD. Fine for Progressive video but not Interlace.

My script currently looks like this.
LoadPlugins ( DGDecode.DLL and DeComb.DLL )
mpeg2source( "E:\The Matrix.d2v" )
FieldDeInterlace( Blend=False )
# Here comes the PanAndScan
LanczosResize( 960,480 )
Crop( 120,0,-120,0 )

This is perfect for PAL -> It seems to make quick motion scenes very jerky. Even without the pan and scan section

Any ideas you wonderful people ?

[Boulder]

The Matrix is telecined so you should IVTC it, not deinterlace.

[smok3]

iam definatelly not an ntsc expert, but where do you do your IVTC?

[warrenc@greatsoft.co.za]

Thanks guys appreciated !!

Can you point me in a direction to get more info please. Maybe some demo AVS Scripts ?

[smok3]

maybe take a look here:
http://www.doom9.org/ivtc-tut.htm#IVTCForNTSC

[Boulder]

The DGMPGDec package includes a good tutorial.

[warrenc@greatsoft.co.za]

Hey, Thanks guys. You guys are all really amazing to be so free to give information out to twits like me !

[grannyGeek]

First-time HCenc user --- please try to be patient with my n00bness.
I wasn't sure whether to post here or to make a new thread.

After using HCenc to successfully encode my first avs-script project, I tried another and got an error message that did not go into the log file.
EDIT ADDED -- This message occurred about 2/3 of the way through the Intermediate Pass--

The window wouldn't let me screen-capture, and closed before I was positive of the wording.

It was something like this
Invoke message AviSynth Environment Error 2.

I searched the aviSynth Wiki for Error 2 with no luck.


both Scripts imported other scripts that filtered small capture segments, and then I concatenated those scripts in the final "master" scripts.

Please, can anyone help me debug my avs script?
If I can learn what Error 2 means, maybe that will help me on my way.


Thanks in advance for any help you might have for me.

[Ebobtron]

Please, can anyone help me debug my avs script?
If I can learn what Error 2 means, maybe that will help me on my way.
Thanks in advance for any help you might have for me.

I don't want to sound rude or incredulous but we need you script to help with it.

[grannyGeek]

thanks for responding ---

Well, I hesitated to post them because this involves hundreds of lines of code.

However, I sould put them in a zip file tonight and post it later, if that would be useful ????

and I don't know if it is germane to the problem, but the "sub" scripts all load with no error into all three VDub apps, and the "master compilation" scripts load with no error in VDub apps and in HCenc. It's just that the second script I tried won't complete the Intermediate Pass.


granny

[Boulder]

Chances are that the script is too complex and something goes wrong because of that. There's the infamous "too many Subtitle calls" that popped up recently in the Avisynth development section, this might be something similar.

[grannyGeek]

Hi boulder - I was kind of afraid of that.

now, do you have any idea what sort of glitch Error#2 might be referencing?

I'm afraid the only way I might be able to troubleshoot this is to spend hours (and hours and hours) encoding each "sub" script and see when it throws the error.
I've avoided it, because HCenc is taking 20 minutes for first-pass encode of 5 minutes of video, but I guess I might just have to bite the bullet.

I want to use HCenc, because it is the only freeware mpeg2 encoder I've located that will let me set frame-exact chapter points.

Anybody have any other thoughts on any of this ???

[Boulder]

(new post email notification's not working..grr)

Maybe you should post a new thread in the Avisynth development subforum, I don't know if the devs happen to read these posts down here. IanB is quick to respond :)

Have you considered going the lossless intermediate file way with VirtualDub?

[grannyGeek]

Hi again boulder,
< I didn't get an email notice either --- growl !!!>

yup, I had already come to the conclusion that the intermediate encode with Huffyuv would be the best way to go.
I really didn't want to spend hours testing each mini-script to see if one had a fixable error.

Better to temporarily lose the hard-drive space than to lose what little sanity I have left :p

As you suggest, I'll post in the development forum, just in case, but hopefully, it's a one-time problem that will fade into the sunset, never to be seen again . . . .

Thanks for your help ---
gG

[hank315]

You probably got this message: 'Avisynth message: invoke environment error - pass 2'
This message is generated by HCenc because Avisynth wasn't able to create a scriptenvironment for the second pass.
Maybe your script is too complex but it can also be codec related, for example wmv can be pretty bad...

[grannyGeek]

Hi, hank315, thank you for posting.
and thank you so much for your encoder!
I've done a couple more small projects, and got great results.

Yes, I think that is the message I got.

The original capture was Huff YUY2, would the de-coder come into play in this scenario?

The final script imported about 15 smaller scripts.
I have a slight suspicion that the script that caused the problem might have been the one that imports a VDub filter and converts to RGB and back to YUY2, but haven't confirmed that.

I was hoping this had a simple solution, but oh well.
I just won't try to "over-script" any more.
as they say --- K I S S


thanks again
gG