New Version of Avi.net

[Jacquers]

I guess things like that are very subjective anyway... what is the default that avi.NET uses? I assume it's balanced?

ps. I assume that your DivX codec is Pro & is registered. If it's the community / unregistered some settings are disabled and you will actually only encode in Balanced mode I think.

[iNFO-DVD]

I assume it's balanced?Yes

I assume that your DivX codec is Pro & is registered.Yes

[Jacquers]

Thx for all your hard work on avi.NET lately, it's nice to have it back - alive and kicking.

All this talk about percieved quality on tv pc has made me think:
Have you ever thought about adding a 1pass bitrate based option? Half the encoding time and on a normal tv it would still be better than vhs quality

I know there is the 1 pass q based - the quality is good, but the filesize is unpredictable...

[audioman]

In what way? VHQ to 4-wide search?

yes exactly :)

How did you guess that ?

The xvid preset in AVI.NET is VHQ 1 or VHQ 4 ?

[ricardo.santos]

Well I've been doing some tests, encoding some clips with DivX balanced and DivX Extreme, I've been looking at the frames, zooming and comparing on the PC monitor...... I see not one single bit of difference......


some months ago i also done some tests and couldnt see any difference, everyone was "saying: extreme mode gives better quality", but i couldnt see any difference and because im a newbie in this area i decided not say anything. my tests were right then.

FEATURE REQUEST

I´ve made this request some months but you stopped working on avi.Net and since youre back im gonna request it again:
taken from avi.Net homepage
I was unhappy with the current programs that were available for AVI conversion. I felt it important to make an AVI that was SAP(StandAlone Player) Friendly.

any chance of enabling xsub creation? since all standart cerified divx players play xsub it would be a good idea.

[iNFO-DVD]

Subtitles isn't something I know too much about or use much, only when I have to (forced). xsubs..... hmmm, gonna do some searching and reading find out what they are, lol.

Don't xsubs get muxed in with the A/V in a .divx file, isn't this just compatible with players that are DivX6 compatible???????

[ricardo.santos]

Don't xsubs get muxed in with the A/V in a .divx file, isn't this just compatible with players that are DivX6 compatible???????

yes, compatible with standart certified divx players, not to be confused with ultra certified.

instead of having burned in subs, why not have selectable xsubs? for example i understand english but my family needs subs, xsubs is the perfect backup solution, on for the family off for me like in a normal dvd.

i was thinking more like: extract the subs to sub/idx and then at the end use divxmux.exe to mux them into the video.

[iNFO-DVD]

compatible with standard certified divx playersIs that definate? Are you telling me an AVI file with the .divx extension containing xsubs will play on pretty much all divx standalones?????? There's just something about this that gives me an uneasy feeling......
extract the subs to sub/idx and then at the end use divxmux.exe to mux them into the videoWell, that sounds fine but the realities of it are not so easy. I can't include 'divxmux.exe' along with my package, I already asked DivX Networks, as I wanted to use it to mux instead of what I now do which means users would have to download it seperately from DivX Networks. This may sound easy enough but have you any idea how that would just 'blow the mind' of some users....... or telling/explaining to someone how to rename a file from .divx to .avi, believe me, I couldn't take all the emails trying to explain the most basic things to users, I have limits :D

[audioman]

Lots of people here deal with divx codec

I have some xvid movies with artefacts concerning fog scenes , water or even dark scenes . The image gets noisy when the codec has to deal with this kind of scenes

What about the divx codec ? is it better ?

[ricardo.santos]

Is that definate? Are you telling me an AVI file with the .divx extension containing xsubs will play on pretty much all divx standalones?????? There's just something about this that gives me an uneasy feeling......
yes, i dont understand why people are so "ceptical" about xsubs, unlike srt subs all divx certified SAP plays them the same way, srt format might play centered on one SAP and more to left on another, subtitle size also changes from player to player let alone the color

Well, that sounds fine but the realities of it are not so easy. I can't include 'divxmux.exe' along with my package, I already asked DivX Networks, as I wanted to use it to mux instead of what I now do which means users would have to download it seperately from DivX Networks. This may sound easy enough but have you any idea how that would just 'blow the mind' of some users....... or telling/explaining to someone how to rename a file from .divx to .avi, believe me, I couldn't take all the emails trying to explain the most basic things to users, I have limits :D
i understand your reasoning, u could always try StaxRip aproach(downloads divxmux/instals separately automatically to the right location)

and i think xsubs work with xvid aswell(HT profile on xvid) altough i havent tested it

[iNFO-DVD]

Lots of people here deal with divx codec. I have some xvid movies with artefacts concerning fog scenes , water or even dark scenes . The image gets noisy when the codec has to deal with this kind of scenes. What about the divx codec ? is it better ?

You used the dreaded word 'better', lol. Actually, on the whole, I would say that the people on the doom9 forums use XVID more than DIVX, though I may be wrong, being 'free' may have something to do with that.

As for XVID movies with artefacts I would guess that it's probably not down to the codec so much but the way it was encoded originally, using the same method with the DIVX codec may well have given you the same result. I would guess it's more down to the settings used, the filters and bitrates for example. Also, the quality of the source can also have an impact. What programs and settings did you used?

Just get the section in question from the source, example, just rip the chapter from DVD and work on in with both codecs and different settings to see if you can come up with something that is more pleasing to you.

[iNFO-DVD]

i dont understand why people are so "sceptical" about xsubsWell it's not just the xsubs that I'm sceptical about..... As avi.NET's prime function is to be standalone compatible (all standalones) I have to be careful when adding anything that could break this.

I'm happy to add any settings/functions as long as they stay within the confines of standalone compatibility.

If you come up with any more ideas/suggestions then let me know, as for xsubs I'll still have a play anyway so all is not lost, I've never tried them on my players so will have a test.

[audioman]

I would guess it's more down to the settings used, the filters and bitrates for example. Also, the quality of the source can also have an impact. What programs and settings did you used?

I used AVI.NET to encode the movie lol :D

The movie is 2H15mn
Is the lenght of the movie a problem ?
The bitrate used for the movie is quite high and Qbit pixel around 0.33 for a 640 resolution

[iNFO-DVD]

I used AVI.NET to encode the movie lol :Dlol, I asked for that :D

The bitrate used for the movie is quite high and Qbit pixel around 0.33 for a 640 resolutionThat sounds fine, if it *IS* down to an XVID codec settings I wonder if the fact I turned Trellis off in the last version may have something to do with it....... Though when the encode was quite good it didn't seem to have an effect, but when the resulting conversion looked like it needed something extra the Trellis setting seemed to kick in where it was needed. I done some tests earlier, look at this thread:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=862440#post862440

Obviously Trellis will be re-enabled in the next release of avi.NET, which will be very soon as I've changed quite a few things.(today).

How did you get on with DIVX?

[audioman]

thanks for the answer

Good job on the TRELLIS post , it is quite efficient
I will do some further tests in the future avi.net version

I read the article " xvid presets - preliminary thoughts " and I was quite impressed by Teegedeck
He seems to know lots of things regarding xvid image quality

How about integrating xvid matrices in avi.net ? maybe it would be a great idea no ?

[iNFO-DVD]

How about integrating xvid matrices in avi.net ? maybe it would be a great idea no ?Can't.... Standalone compatibility....

[audioman]

Ok then I will have a try on the further avi.net release

[iNFO-DVD]

Concerning your post about FOG scenes I done some further test, I used quite a low bitrate for the picture size, equated to about 0.14 b/p. I done a few tests with both XVID and DIVX, the XVID encodes where fine, DIVX not.

Obviously playing was OK, I'm refering to viewing the individual frames.

I used chapter 11 from the movie 'THE OTHERS', what a film, which starts with a fog scene where she sees her husband, even at these low bitrates the quality of the XVID was excellent, no problem on the FOG at all. DIVX was another matter, very blocky indeed.

Just out of interest, DIVX has a complete problem with this movie, must be all the dark scenes or something, it's very undersized.

[audioman]

thanks info

could you post just a little part of the avi fog scene so that i could check by myself :) ( rapidshare for ex )

did you use the trellis mode ?

I had problems at the beginning of the movie " world of narnia " where there is a fade and a foggy scene

:thanks:

[iNFO-DVD]

Here's some more screenshots of the movie chapter in question. This chapter did actually cause problems for both codecs on default settings:

XVID: Whilst using a bitrate of 732 for the 640x272 encode XVID handled this well and gave a finished video file of bitrate: 732. Using a higher bitrate of 1406 on the same clip caused XVID to go haywire and massively over size the file, bitrate was something like 3500, can't remember exactly. Tweaking the 'Overflow treatment' settings was able to bring it back in line across the board. All was well.

DIVX: Whilst using a bitrate of 732 for the 640x272 encode DIVX handled this well (as in as far as the bitrate) and gave a finished video file of bitrate: 732. Using a higher bitrate of 1406 on the same clip caused DIVX to constantly give me an undersized file, or should I say under bitrate value file. To get the clips I tested I had to use a bitrate of about 1950 to get an actual encode of 1406.

No matter what setting I used, within the confines of standalone compatibility, I could not get the desired bitrate I fed to the DIVX codec for this chapter 11 dark foggy scene of the movie, 'The Others'. I know I've gone off track a bit as the original question was concerning fog scenes not how DIVX and XVID fluff on the bitrates. I just felt it was interesting in my tests.

Now to the screenshots, even when I eventually got the required bitrates you'll see that XVID handles these scenes much better, even the higher bitrate DIVX screens are far worse in quality compared to the lower bitrate XVID shots.

SCENE 1A: 732 kb/s (DIVX TOP | XVID BOTTOM)

http://www.dvduk.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/__img/_forum/1_732.png

As you can see the top DIVX screen is quite poor with lots of blocks. I'd say the bottom XVID shot is fine, quite sharp.

SCENE 1B: 1406 kb/s (DIVX TOP | XVID BOTTOM)

http://www.dvduk.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/__img/_forum/1_1406.png

Same frame using the higher bitrates. DIVX is better but still not on par with XVID.

The next set of screens just validate my same conclusion to the above.

SCENE 2A: 732 kb/s (DIVX TOP | XVID BOTTOM)

http://www.dvduk.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/__img/_forum/2_732.png

SCENE 2B: 1406 kb/s (DIVX TOP | XVID BOTTOM)

http://www.dvduk.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/__img/_forum/2_1406.png

SCENE 3A: 732 kb/s (DIVX TOP | XVID BOTTOM)

http://www.dvduk.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/__img/_forum/3_732.png

SCENE 3B: 1406 kb/s (DIVX TOP | XVID BOTTOM)

http://www.dvduk.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/__img/_forum/3_1406.png

So whether it's just this movie, or whether it's dark foggy or low contrast scenes in general DIVX does not handle this very well, going to look through my collection to see whether I can find something with a foggy chapter and do further tests. I used to prefer the DIVX codec, don't know why, just did, but I am turning now towards XVID as been doing lots of frame by frame tests the last week or so, just checking and tweaking various options, and am begining to really fall for XVID. ;-)

If Doom9 happens to read this then maybe you could include this chapter 11 of 'The Others' movie in with your next 'Codec Shootout'. It has an excellent foggy scene and would be great to see how different codecs deal with it.

[Jacquers]

Cool to see a comparison like that. I'm a DivX fan as well, but I have to admit that XviD does look better in these examples. Without getting into too much of an argument of which codec is better, I'm willing to bet that DivX was faster than XviD though. Maybe worth the extra minutes of encoding if you are a quality freak.

And as you said in a previous post, tweaking the DivX to use "better" or "extreme" didnt really help...

What about settings like noise reduction, pshycovisual enhancements, enhance texture etc?

[Jacquers]

Ever thought about adding input support for other filetypes other than DVD and mpeg? For example: existing avi files that are not SAP friendly.

And if for some insane reason I want to turn of cropping, is this possible? I have a DVD that has hardcoded subtitles, that when you crop, the bottom of the subs get cut off. In that case I would prefer not to crop the input.

[DaltonX22]

Hello INFO.DVD,

is it possible to add as upgrade the possibility to choose the start and the end of the film we want to encode. This would allow to cut the introduction and the end (actor name list) in the aim to improve the bitrate when encoding to fit 1CD.

For example in the Fantastic four movie we can easily remove 10minute from the film which is alot and affect the bitrate level.

thank in advance for your answer.

[iNFO-DVD]

Without getting into too much of an argument of which codec is better, I'm willing to bet that DivX was faster than XviD though.

And as you said in a previous post, tweaking the DivX to use "better" or "extreme" didnt really help... What about settings like noise reduction, pshycovisual enhancements, enhance texture etc?I agree, let's not get into a 'which codec is better' debate, been done hundreds of times, and it'll only bring the wraith of the forum down on us ;-)

You are right, DivX was faster, and I must admit, I was only unhappy with it mainly during the scenes I spoke about, definately a problem area for it, the rest of movie was better, and whilst playing there doesn't seems to be that much difference if at all.

I did try all the other settings, texture/psycho e.t.c., I could make a slight improvement, and I mean very slight, the time taken was at least double and it still didn't come close to XviD. It would be nice if they could concentrate on this for a future release.

Ever thought about adding input support for other filetypes other than DVD and mpeg? For example: existing avi files that are not SAP friendly.I wasn't going too but have had a few ideas the last couple of days so I'll look into it after I release v2.1.7.0.

And if for some insane reason I want to turn of cropping, is this possible? I have a DVD that has hardcoded subtitles, that when you crop, the bottom of the subs get cut off. In that case I would prefer not to crop the input.Didn't know you could get DVD's with hard-coded subs. Again, I'll look into it.

is it possible to add as upgrade the possibility to choose the start and the end of the film we want to encode. This would allow to cut the introduction and the end (actor name list) in the aim to improve the bitrate when encoding to fit 1CDHmmm, I'll see if I can find a way to do it.

[DaltonX22]

Your answer give the feeling that it might be difficult to do it but anyhow thanks to think about it whatever will be the conclusion.

Avi.net is a great sofware, I am happy of your recents AVi.net upgrades and wish you good luck for the nexts.

BR

[audioman]

Thank you very very much INFO :)
Again an update of your software with many improvements ( 2.1.7.0 )

have you activated trellis on the last release ?

I want to thank you for all the screenshots
again , xvid codec is sharper and less blocky than divx codec
I will post my avi file as soon as I go back home to let you understand my problem on the " narnia movie "

Several ideas to give you for further releases :

- Why not integrating matrices as other programs do ( Gk or Megui )

- choose a start and end of the film ( possible ? )

- possibility to choose VHQ 4 ?

thanks again for your hard work :)

[ricardo.santos]

Why not integrating matrices as other programs do ( Gk or Megui )


Can't.... Standalone compatibility....
.....

[iNFO-DVD]

Thanks :D

[audioman]

Ok guys sorry :)


How about the other questions regarding trellis and VHQ4

[iNFO-DVD]

How about the other questions regarding trellis and VHQ4Yes, after my tests that I did, Trellis is on. As for VHQ4, I did test upon test, frame by frame analysis, I could see no difference, and it took twice as long, I couldn't justify it's use.

[audioman]

I really agree with you

VHQ 4 is very long to encode ( up to 6 hours on my computer )
Glad to have the trellis on again:)

[audioman]

Hi again INFO

Just a question ?

Do we really have to do a compressibility test to encode movies with AVI.NET ?

In that case , which software would you use to do it in complement to avi.net

[iNFO-DVD]

Don't understand your question, avi.NET doesn't do a compress test.

[audioman]

Okay

Info, I know AVI.NET does not do a comp test
in order to determine the right Qbit pixel ( Qf ) to use in avi.net, is it necessary to use a second program to determine it more precisely ?

I hope you understood :)

[iNFO-DVD]

No it's not.

[iNFO-DVD]

I been messing around and thought I'd add support for HDTV content.

I don't know whether the next version will allow direct transport stream (.ts) loading as I'm currently just working on bringing the HDTV MPEG files into avi.NET.

Does anyone in this thread use these source files? I ask just incase someone wants to have a test.

To maintain SAP compatibility I would obviously need to bring the frame rate down of the 50/59/60 FPS content. Maybe by selecting just one field, do you think that is acceptable?

Is doing a colour correction for HDTV important? Or should I say, should I definately use it during conversion?

I noticed these HDTV clips really tax your system, previewing a 1920x1080 file, resized to 720 via an AVS script is a killer and my system isn't exactly that old, 3Ghz P4HT. I would have to kill the audio during preview to help with a PC previewing the video, the audio wouldn't be needed for preview anyhow.

[iNFO-DVD]

Wow, I mentioned HDTV and it killed the thread :D

For an update (HDTV) checkout this thread: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=864440#post864440

[audioman]

Thanks again for your updates INFO :)

[audioman]

Hi INFO

No news from you ? Are you on holiday ?

How about some new stuff about avi.net ? :)

[Nrmf]

yes i have been waiting ofr years for avi.net to support .ts files i will test everything and anything

[iNFO-DVD]

I will release a new version later today (Sunday).

[MarkCurly]

AVI.NET does not do a comp test
in order to determine the right Qbit pixel ( Qf ) to use in avi.net, is it necessary to use a second program to determine it more precisely?

No it's not.

I've just finished reading some posts that indicate that a compression test *SHOULD* be used to determine the Qf value.

This thread and posts:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=75421
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=486973#post486973
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=487024#post487024

This thread:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=68753

[AjnabiZ]

Any news on the new version ?

[iNFO-DVD]

I've just finished reading some posts that indicate that a compression test *SHOULD* be used to determine the Qf value.The question I was originally asked was whether a compression test by another program was needed to determine the correct QF in avi.NET.... and I say again, NO. Though he may have meant would it be better if avi.NET had a compression test that's not what was asked. The QF value is a calculation, so again, NO, compression test is NOT needed to determine a QF value.

The links you gave were mainly concerning AutoGK and the way that does it's thing, avi.NET does not work the same way.

[iNFO-DVD]

Any news on the new version ?
As quoted above....
I will release a new version later today (Sunday).

[AjnabiZ]

As quoted above....


ok :thanks:

[audioman]

Thanks INFO for the future version

What kind of new functions will you implement ?

[iNFO-DVD]

just the .ts input support.

[iNFO-DVD]

New version 2.1.8.0 is up.

[MarkCurly]

The question I was originally asked was whether a compression test by another program was needed to determine the correct QF in avi.NET.... and I say again, NO. Though he may have meant would it be better if avi.NET had a compression test that's not what was asked. The QF value is a calculation, so again, NO, compression test is NOT needed to determine a QF value.

The links you gave were mainly concerning AutoGK and the way that does it's thing, avi.NET does not work the same way.

Yes, Qf is a calculation.

But, looking at it another way, Qf and filesize and framesize and bitrate are all inter-related input parameters to the encoder.

I think a compression test is very useful to determine appropriate values for the encoding parameters.

A compression test is useful because some video sources compress better than others.
For example, nature documentaries, with vegetation and much camera movement, need more bits to get an acceptable quality encode.
Anime (for example) does not need as many bits to get an acceptable encode.

I think audioman was also saying the same (perhaps not saying it clearly enough), and was also asking what external program might do a compress test and suggest appropriate parameters for the encode.

I am suggesting that a compression test would be a useful addition to avi.NET.

Thanks!