HC Encoder v0.19 released

[ljpp]

Hank315 has just released the latest HCEnc for public distribution.

Major changes:

supports latest DGDecode/DGIndex (fileversion 13)
some tweaks to improve fades and reduce blockyness
more RD optimization (only for best profile)
improved autogop function
minor GUI changes
as usual some bug fixes


Go get it: http://hcencoder.bitburners.com

[winny]

Thank you :D

[linx05]

Thank you very much!

But what does this mean:

more RD optimization (only for best profile)
improved autogop function

EDIT: Is there any way to donate? I think I rememer Hank315 saying he didn't take donations but it might have changed.

[ljpp]

EDIT: Is there any way to donate? I think I rememer Hank315 saying he didn't take donations but it might have changed.
How about the PayPal button on the Hc homepage?

[linx05]

Maybe I am blind, but I don't see it at all.

EDIT: Also, since you look like someone important from the Bitburners website, the link on the download page is wrong: http://www.bitburners.com/Software/Download/Video_Codecs_and_Encoders/HC_Encoder/HC_Encoder_v0.19/

[ljpp]

You are not blind. You are on the download page, not the HC homepage. :cool:

http://hcencoder.bitburners.com

[linx05]

I checked there too. Seems to be the fault of my ad remover. Fixed now thanks. I will donate to a worthy program.

[hank315]

But what does this mean:
more RD optimization (only for best profile)
improved autogop function

Here's some more info about the changes in HC019.
The compression curve has been changed so fades and parts with a low bitrate are given more bits now.
The autogop option normally switched between IBBPBBPBB.. and IBPBPB.. gops depending on the action in that gop,
for scenes with a *lot* of action it will now output IPPPPP.. gops also.
Some small tweaks in the RD optimization, especially for intra/inter MB decision, this is now also implemented for B-frames.
Because it has a negative effect on encoding speed it's only used with BEST profile.

[Pookie]

Thanks Hank - you rock :)

[Tropican]

Hank you're the greatest. One little bug, nothing major. When HC starts up, "preview" rechecks itself despite it not being in HC.ini

I'm loving the DGDecode 13 support by the way.

[dialysis1]

Thanks Hank! I'm in the middle of doing a movie with 0.18. As soon as it's done, I'll try 0.19.

[Chainmax]

This is great news :). I wish a comparison between HC, QuEnc, CCE Basic and TMPG was made on the main site though :(.

[twinkysaurus]

Best news of the week for me. Thanks Hank :D

[Ebobtron]

:thanks:
@ ljpp, Thanks a lot.
@ Hank, congratulations again.:thanks:

[Adub]

muchos gracias Hank!

I, like those few above, am in the middle of encoding a movie with 18 which I will change to 19 as soon as it is fininshed.

Again, Much Thanks!

[dirio49]

thanks

[Sounddude]

Can't wait to try it out!!

Thanks for all your hard work Hank !

[Sagittaire]

HD support (MP@HL) for the next build can be really usefull ... :)

[EpheMeroN]

I've been testing the new HC on some HD material that I am converting to DVD. So far with just using the default MPEG Matrix and an average of 3300 and max of 9000 the quality is quite superb!! Great job Hank!!!

Are there any matrices included that can possibly soften the hd macroblock noise while encoding? Or should I stick to AviSynth filters for this?

[Audionut]

Thankyou.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Indeed HD support would be fantastic. HC is a great encoder, a tremendous resource! Thanks hank315!

~MiSfit

[Asmodeus]

ERROR, can't process ini file: *CQ

Although ini file looks the same as for HC018 :(

*INFILE d:\z.avs
*OUTFILE d:\z.m2v
*MAXBITRATE 8000
*FRAMES 0 60797
*PROFILE best
*ASPECT 4:3
*GOP 18 2
*CQ_MAXBITRATE 3.000
*CQ_PFACTOR 1.50
*CQ_BFACTOR 3.00
*CLOSEDGOPS
*PULLDOWN
*LASTIFRAME
*PREVIEW
*MATRIX hvsbest

[sh0dan]

*CQ_BFACTOR

is broken in 0.19

[hank315]

I did change something in the parser because *CQ was broken in 018 if there was a tab behind it instead of a space.
Thanks for reporting it, will be fixed soon.

About HD support: it will be in the next release, MP@HL (1920x1152)

[Pookie]

About HD support: it will be in the next release, MP@HL (1920x1152)

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/1222/applause3sp.jpg

[NormanBates]

@hank315: Thank you for this amazing piece of software! I use it very often.

[Trahald]

About HD support: it will be in the next release, MP@HL (1920x1152)Excellent!!! :thanks: :D

[Asmodeus]

*CQ_BFACTOR
is broken in 0.19

Rats :mad:

Thanks for reporting it, will be fixed soon.
Nice :)

[Boulder]

From the v0.18 thread:
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...
I got this error message on my last encode. The script is very simple:LoadPlugin("c:\progra~1\dvd-rb pro\dgdecode.dll")
MPEG2Source("tombraider.d2v",idct=6,cpu=4)
vbw1=MVAnalyse(isb=true,truemotion=true,delta=1,pel=2,chroma=false,blksize=16,idx=1,sharp=2)
vfw1=MVAnalyse(isb=false,truemotion=true,delta=1,pel=2,chroma=false,blksize=16,idx=1,sharp=2)
MVDegrain1(last,vbw1,vfw1,thSAD=200,idx=1)
Limiter()
The source is a DVB capture run through DGIndex v1.1.0 (to be able to use NaN's DGDecode.dll).

[dragongodz]

for anyone that missed it HC 0.19.1 was released.
http://www.bitburners.com/HC_Encoder/

Changes from version v0.19:
* *CQ_PFACTOR and *CQ_BFACTOR were broken, fixed
* preview in GUI reset to default (off)

[linx05]

Thank you for the heads up dragongodz!

[Asmodeus]

CQ is probably fixed, cause I did encode, but...
With this settings

*INFILE d:\z.avs
*OUTFILE d:\z.m2v
*MAXBITRATE 8000
*FRAMES 0 60797
*PROFILE best
*ASPECT 4:3
*GOP 18 2
*CQ_MAXBITRATE 3.000
*CQ_PFACTOR 1.50
*CQ_BFACTOR 3.00
*CLOSEDGOPS
*PULLDOWN
*LASTIFRAME
*PREVIEW
*MATRIX hvsbest

m2v from 0.19.1 is almost 2 times larger than from 0.18, and it's not valid to be muxed by muxman.
Multiplex operation failed.
Probably caused by excessive bitrate

[EpheMeroN]

With the new bugfix release of HC Encoder, was the pulldown issue also fixed? Or should I still resort to DGPulldown for now?

[tom942]

Just to say that you are doing a little great piece of software :).

I hope you know to excuse me for bother you with the stuttering problem that at the end it was a little bug in rebuilder engine. I hope you don´t have wasted a lot of time with that think.

Thanks :).

[Chainmax]

Will a CBR mode be implemented in the near future? I do most of my recent encodes at 8000kbps CBR as standalones here don't seem to like higher bitrates even for short spikes.

[buzzqw]

for cbr encoding i use a Q 2 encoding with max bitrate capped at 8000 (in your case)

BHH

[Chainmax]

I see, thanks for the recommendation. What about dual core support, is it planned for sometime in the future? Maybe x264's "Number of Threads" code could be grafted onto HC.
Also, I currently have a couyple of small clips taken from a digicam I'm going to convert to DVD, the Avisynth script is also processing the audio and I was wondering if HC can pick up on that and return an MPEG2 file with the WAV sound so I can directly feed that to the authoring program.

[foxyshadis]

There's no way to graft x264's code into HC, although mpeg-2 does have slices; for one, HC is written in an entirely different language. There was an hcenc^n project that fizzled, but there's also DVD-RB Pro, and DualDVDRB (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=144742), which can both run multiple instances of HC in parallel.

[Chainmax]

What about my second question? Will I have to process the audio separately?

[Mr_Odwin]

HC doesn't do anything with audio. Though it shouldn't be much more effort to use avs2wav - just drag and drop the avs file onto the avs2wav executable. You'll get a wav file which you can feed with the m2v into your authoring program.

[Chainmax]

Will do, thanks for the tip.

[Heini011]

Hi,

i encoded a very long movie: 3h, 39min with hc encoder 0.19.1 and build a (dual layer size) dvd with dvd-lab. playback was fine until 2h 56min, after that playback gets very jerky. i compiled the dvd only with the video stream and without any audio. playback is fine until 2h 56min then playback runs with full decoding speed instead of 25 fps. same result with muxman 0.15p instead of dvd-lab.

i'am testing with hc encoder 0.18 now.

[Heini011]

the same problem with hc encoder 0.18 !

so i can't go ahead with that big movie on my hdd... :(

[johnnyquid]

Are you checking the playback on the PC or on a burnt disc? If on a burnt disc, this sounds like a media (disc burning) problem.

[Boulder]

build a (dual layer size) dvd with dvd-lab. playback was fine until 2h 56min, after that playback gets very jerky.Dual layer discs are not very stable IMO so you might have a bad disc as johnnyquid suggested.

[Heini011]

i had tested playback from dvd image on hdd, of course.

and playback with max. decoding speed would be wrong anyway.

greetings, Heini.

[Heini011]

very strange...

i divided the video into 2 parts: i cut off the first half from the old encode and build the second part with hc encoder new. finally i joined the 2 parts with mpeg2schnitt and build a dvd with dvdlab 2.20 without audio-track. but the problem remains the same!?

Result without any audio: Power DVD plays the last minutes in full decoding playback. VLC stopped playing at 3h 20m 20s, time in display runs further, but image is frozen.

if i encode the whole video in cce no problem occurs! but i don't like the results. image quality in hc is better.

greetings, Heini.

[Boulder]

Have you tried loading the m2v file in VDubMod and checking whether the video looks OK there?

[Heini011]

Hi Boulder,

the original .m2v file works fine in any player.

only if i build a dvd with dvd-lab pro 2.20, dvd-lab pro 1.53 or muxman 0.15p with or without audio and i open the entire dvd-project in power dvd 6 or vlc, playback becomes jerky/fullspeed or is frozen at the last chapters.

if i open only the last .vob file in the compiled dvd directory, playback is fine again...

greetings

[hank315]

Just tested a long movie (3h 41 min), and yes I can replicate it with the same settings Heini used.
At approx. 2h 57 min the video starts to get jerky, some stuttering every 5-10 seconds when played with PowerDVD.

the original .m2v file works fine in any player.
if i open only the last .vob file in the compiled dvd directory, playback is fine again...
Same here, only starting the VIDEO_TS.IFO shows this jerky playback.
Muxing with Muxman and IfoEdit shows about the same, using IfoEdit playback was more smooth but it's still not good.

Will run more tests, nasty thing is every test takes a long time :(
So it might take some time to solve it...