BENCOS - Windows and Linux batch encoder GUI

[Sirber]

Bencos is an easy to use Graphical User Interface (GUI) for Windows and Linux to convert big video files into smaller files using standard codecs. It's mainly aimed for japanese animated content (anime) but it can encode general files too.

http://www.detritus.qc.ca
http://code.google.com/p/bencos

[killerhex]

does this software can encode to asp without any sync problems

avc to mpeg4 asp

[Sirber]

sure. It doesn't have the delay problem RA4 and bellow had.
Be sure to set the right FPS in the Settings tab. *

* now automatic

[killerhex]

thanx

one bug

coudn't open input audio.wav using FAAC

[Kayser]

Cool, I'll try it and post feedback tomorrow :)... Thanks for the work Sirber, Damrod and Sharktooth.

[Sirber]

coudn't open input audio.wav using FAACSource?

please post more infos when you report bugs. Just saying that doesn't help.

[killerhex]

source

mkv[AVC]720x480 16/9 anamorphic
[dual audio]audio vorbis 2ch 48hz
english
japanese

im encoding to mpeg4 asp+AAC LC 128kbps preferred audio :english

and why does bencos has both

enhAacPlusEnc
faac

[Sirber]

Where can I get your source? And what was your settings?

enhaacplusenc = AAC HE+PS
faac = AAC LC

[Sirber]

found bugs regarding to subtitles.

http://www.detritus.qc.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=17#p17

[mael]

my version: 2006-12-26

i get the error "Couldn't open input file audio.wav" on encoding a .mov file when AAC LC is selected with uncompressed audio. from the logfile:
Opening audio decoder: [pcm] Uncompressed PCM audio decoder
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16be, 1411.2 kbit/100.00% (ratio: 176400->176400)
Selected audio codec: [pcm] afm: pcm (Uncompressed PCM)

AAC HS+PS works fine, but 32kbit/s is not enough

also, the "about" tab is empty

it would be very nice, if bencos would find out the FPS itsself

what about support for audio with more than 2 channels?

[Sirber]

my version: 2006-12-26

i get the error "Couldn't open input file audio.wav" on encoding a .mov file when AAC LC is selected with uncompressed audio. from the logfile:
Opening audio decoder: [pcm] Uncompressed PCM audio decoder
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16be, 1411.2 kbit/100.00% (ratio: 176400->176400)
Selected audio codec: [pcm] afm: pcm (Uncompressed PCM)

AAC HS+PS works fine, but 32kbit/s is not enoughI'll look about LC problem.

also, the "about" tab is emptyLater :)

it would be very nice, if bencos would find out the FPS itsselfLater :) This is a preview release.

what about support for audio with more than 2 channels?Nope. I don't have any encoder for that.

[mael]

thanks for the support

maybe take a look at the nero digital aac encoder, it's free:
http://www.nero.com/nerodigital/eng/Nero_Digital_Audio.html

[Sirber]

free to use, not free to bundle and doesn't work on linux.

[mael]

okay, you win ;)

[Sirber]

okay, you win ;)
and linux ;)

[Sirber]

I'm gonna have to remove MPEG4 ASP and AAC LC for compatibility reasons.

mencoder outputs PCM, not wave, and faac.exe don't handle PCM like enhaacplusenc does.
mencoder using lavf crash in access violation.

:(

[killerhex]

what no more
MPEG4 ASP

[Sirber]

no more xvid and aac lc due to incompatibility with encoders.
I did not manage to get the encoding chain working with faac.exe, and xvid + he-aac+ps don't make much sense...

[killerhex]

how about adding xvid+vorbis

[Sirber]

nope. I'm sticking with standards.

[Kayser]

I ran a test with a 23.97 source, normal profile + aac he+ps 32kbps and the encoding process itself went great. The problem was that the output was totally out of sync. The output fps was set with 23.976. Any ideas of what could've gone wrong?

[Sharktooth]

@sirber: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.audio.pro/browse_thread/thread/e392339f21c51e6a

[Sirber]

I ran a test with a 23.97 source, normal profile + aac he+ps 32kbps and the encoding process itself went great. The problem was that the output was totally out of sync. The output fps was set with 23.976. Any ideas of what could've gone wrong?

Was your source 48kHz?

@Sharktooth

I cannot compile. Also, I think it's a great oportunity to drop old codecs :)

[Sirber]

new test release out

http://www.detritus.qc.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=26#p26

[Kayser]

Yes, the source is 48KHz, and I was reading in your forums that BENCOS has trouble with those so don't mind :)... I'll try the new build.
And sorry for the delay... For some reason it timed out every time I tried to post yesterday.

[Sirber]

last version didn't have the code for 44khz. I'll post a new one tomorrow.

[Sirber]

http://www.detritus.qc.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=31#p31

should be good now :)

[Amnon82]

When will be a first linux build ready?

[Sirber]

I need to mod it to be able to specify mencoder path. Then it should work. Sharktooth may have time to compile and play with it after the new year.

[Sirber]

another update, tries to fix the audio delay again...

download same place as usual :p

[Sharktooth]

When will be a first linux build ready?
Soon.
I'll try to make .deb and .rpm packages and maybe ebuilds... (at least i hope...)
In the meanwhile i committed the source type management code to the SVN.

[Sirber]

Made a build

Infos:
http://www.detritus.qc.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=40#p40

Download:
http://www.detritus.qc.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?id=10

[Sirber]

New release.

- Settings / FPS
+ Getting FPS from mencoder's logs (inc IVTC fix)
+ Added 48 kbps option (audio)
* Tweaked Source type profiles
* Fixed some minor GUI glitches

Infos:
http://www.detritus.qc.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=45#p45

Download:
http://www.detritus.qc.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?id=10

[Kurtnoise]

Didn't tried yet but

1°/ Did you use the HE-AAC encoder with the pipeline function ?
2°/ Why there are MediaInfo.exe *and* MediaInfo.dll in the same package ?
3°/ Why faac.exe is still there ?
4°/ Just by curiosity, the sources are available somewhere ?

[Sirber]

1. No, mplayer --> wav --> enhaacplusenc
2. GUI calls the EXE, which uses the DLL, to display the output
3. Oups :)
4. svn://svn.detritus.qc.ca/detritus/bencos

[Kurtnoise]

ok...thanks.

For the 1/ :: I can patch the encoder if you want. I should have it somewhere coz I use it with mplayer & mkfifo directly...

[Sirber]

no temp file? could be cool :D

email me when you want to commit, so I make you an account.

[edit]

would that work on linux and windows?

[Sirber]

seems mkfifo is linux only :)

[Weltall]

Hey, this BENCOS is interesting! I'm very curious about it.
I wanted to ask you some things:

About audio:
1- Why did you change nerodigital to aacplus again and if you are using latest version of it (aacplus 8.0.0 I think)? I was using RA Alpha 2 since now cause I don't like nero digital, since I saw its inferiority. aacplus got even better now, with this version. Plus, I don't know how that "enhAacPlusEnc.exe" works. Is it a substitute for Winamp's "enhAacPlusEnc.dll"? I was wondering about that cause I never saw that lib on RA folder, so if a new version is out I can't update. My doubt is where that exe came from and if it's not updated you could do that.

About video:
2- So you will use mencoder now. I would like to know if I could use ffdshow filters, like "levels", since I always have some very wrong levels inputs to deal with. I don't know how to use that properly, so I'm confused about changes. And I saw this on log: Selected video codec: [ffh264] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264), and couldn't find x264.exe on BENCOS folder. So is it using x264 vfw, is that? How can I know where is the encoder and how to update that?

Help me, Sir Sirber!!!

Btw, I've noticed you changed your avatar (obviously). It's just like me, but with the animes (very sad with naruto, very impressed with Luffy). Just saying :D

[Kurtnoise]

seems mkfifo is linux only :)
Yep...doesn't work on Windows plateform.

Here is the HE-AAC encoder (http://kurtnoise.free.fr/index.php?dir=mp4tools/&file=FloatFR_aacPlusenc.zip) (sources included) with some tweakings:


Usage:
enhAacPlusEnc.exe <wav_file> <bitstream_file> [options]
Options:
--cbr <bitrate> - Set bitrate (CBR) to <bitrate> bps. Default is 64000
--force-mono - Force mono encoding for stereo material
--disable-ps - Disable Parametric Stereo encoding
--no-progress - Disable progress display
Example:
enhAacPlusEnc.exe input.wav out.m4a --cbr 56000

WARNING: this encoder can read and encode RAW PCM data from stdin:
use - as input filename
Use additional options:
--samplerate <rate> - Default is 48000
--channel-count <cnt> - Default is 2
--bits-per-sample <bp> - Default is 16
Example:
enhAacPlusEnc.exe - out.m4a --cbr 56000 --samplerate 44100 --channel-count 1


Target bitrates have been also tweaked to go up to 72kbps...

[Kurtnoise]

I was using RA Alpha 2 since now cause I don't like nero digital, since I saw its inferiority.
hey, you have seen its "inferiority" in a crystal ball ?

Come on, don't speak about something without proofs...

[Weltall]

hey, you have seen its "inferiority" in a crystal ball ?

Come on, don't speak about something without proofs...Oh... sorry, I didn't want to generalize, I was just saying what is true for me, not for everyone. Sorry if you got me wrong. Personally, I'd exchanged aacplus for nero, because of vbr in PS, so I tought it's better. So, in some of my music conversions, I've noticed something. You were talking about proofs. Well, I have one.

Here http://www.mytempdir.com/1146896 or
here http://www.sendspace.com/file/sdl4t1
there's some conversions of an original mp3 at 192kbps Stereo.

Nero Digital (nd): ABR32kbps, VBR16,32,45kbps
aacplus (ap): CBR16,24,32,40kbps.

First, compare low bitrates. Sound in nd at 16kbps is awful, I could clearly perceive higher quality in ap, see what you think. Even ap 24kbps sound looks better than nd's VBR32kbps. At ~45kbps, nd didn't get ap32kbps sound quality (I could say ap24kbps is better). What you think?

I know I couldn't think something like that just for one test only, but I prefer don't risk.

[Kurtnoise]

You mean that you've transcoded a mp3 file to aac and compared them, right ?

Please, use a lossless source first. Then, we can discuss about that.

[Sirber]

@Weltall

1: I'm using enhaacplusenc, the reference encoder, coz it works under windows and linux. Regarding quality, it's pretty good! About the updates, I do it myself and release new versions of the GUI installer.

2: mencoder has libx264 built in, so no x264.exe needed. Also, mencoder doesn't use ffdshow, but has a similar processing power:

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/man/en/mplayer.1.html#VIDEO%20FILTERS

If you find interresting filters you'd like in BENCOS tell me, and we may add them :)

@Kurtnoise13

Gonna update the GUI for HE+PS and HE, and maby later LC too. Thanks!

[Weltall]

You mean that you've transcoded a mp3 file to aac and compared them, right ?

Please, use a lossless source first. Then, we can discuss about that.It's here http://www.mytempdir.com/1156884 or http://up-file.com/download/ca976936690/Music-test.rar.html
Results are almost same as before (even more noticeable for me, I'd say). Btw, I really don't know why this, since I always use the codecs to encode previously encoded sound (mp3 in my animes and tvshows/movies). Well, wherever.

@Weltall

1: I'm using enhaacplusenc, the reference encoder, coz it works under windows and linux. Regarding quality, it's pretty good! About the updates, I do it myself and release new versions of the GUI installer.

2: mencoder has libx264 built in, so no x264.exe needed. Also, mencoder doesn't use ffdshow, but has a similar processing power:

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/man/en/mplayer.1.html#VIDEO%20FILTERS

If you find interresting filters you'd like in BENCOS tell me, and we may add them :)

@Kurtnoise13

Gonna update the GUI for HE+PS and HE, and maby later LC too. Thanks!I didn't know about that reference encoder. Will you add Kurtnoise's tweaked version of it?

I understood about libx264, but, which x264 version it's using? I mean, it's x264, so there is a way to know that? when mencoder updates, it updates that libx264 along? Just to know.

The only filter I would really enjoy is one that works like level filter in ffdshow, with the following levels:
http://xs411.xs.to/xs411/07016/levels3.png
Corrects gray tone of badly ripped/encoded inputs (almost like tv-->pc avisynth filter), also Didee's YlevelsS don't affect dark areas too much as "original mode" (don't make them more darker). That would be very useful to me, cause I'm dealing with files like this everytime.

Btw, I've encoded a tvshow episode and sound gets very unsynchronized. I suppose cause it's 48khz and encoder waits 44khz, but I'm not so sure. Some animes I've encoded are very nice! What do you think?

One more thing, that profiles are just like megui's? I can use "movies" profile for tvshows and I will have same quality results?? It'd make my life so easy, that wouldn't have fun lol.

Thank you very much for your support Sirber!

[Sharktooth]

Profiles are different from the one you find in megui but x264 settings are set by both Quality and Source options.
Source option will affect the deblocking settings and the number of B and Reference frames while the Quality option will affect the ME algorithm, partitions and subpixel refinement.
For what concerns the desync is something we're still working on... but there's no easy way out...

[Sirber]

For what concerns the desync is something we're still working on... but there's no easy way out...That makes old Sirber cry :(

[Sharktooth]

There's no EASY way out...

[Sirber]

There's no EASY way out...Sirber cries.

[Weltall]

Thanks!

What about that filter, Sirber? Is there something like it on mencoder that could be added in BENCOS?