AVISynth won't work with x264 or avs2yuv after a clean install of Win7

[Nazgul]

Up until recently I'd been running the 64-bit Win7 RC that I'd upgraded to from Vista Ultimate x64. I was able to use AVISynth and FFDShow to encode .avi and .mkv files with x264.

Since I've done a clean install of retail Win7 Home Premium x64, my encoding jobs won't start. I have a separate profile set up in ffdshow that does no processing, triggered by the executables x264.exe and avs2yuv.exe. I have the same version of AVISynth installed with the same plugins as before. I've stripped the .avs file down to just the DirectShowSource line. If I open the .avs file in MPC-HC, it opens and plays. but if I try to call that .avs file from x264.exe or avs2yuv.exe, the program just sits there doing nothing, as if it can't read the file.

Here's the really weird part. I have another computer I've used for encoding that was running 32-bit Vista Home Basic. I did an in-place upgrade on that machine to 32-bit Win7 Home Premium, and that machine is still able to run encodes.

Can anyone help me figure out what might be missing on my x64 box? Did I forget to install something?

[osgZach]

I'm running Win7 x64 and the only time I had a problem with x264 unable to load files, was trying to use the 64-bit version. I am guessing because my entire chain was not 64-bit.

If you are using the x64 version, try using the x32 instead.

I can open AVS files, encode to x264 no problem, using CCCP, Avisynth, Vdub, MeGui etc..

edit: not too sure - but I think this is the page I got my x32 build from.. (had that dumb error with MeGUI and oudated "up to date" x264 which prompted me to look for a new one to work with the profiles properly)

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=130364&page=117

[Nazgul]

I'd been using the x64 version of the Win7 RC, as well as Vista Ultimate x64 using the same AVISynth/x264 chain with no problems.

I eventually got this current issue fixed though, but I'm not 100% sure of what fixed it. I uninstalled all my encoding-related files, including ffdshow and Avisynth, put things back in a piece at a time, making sure to get fresh copies of everything, and after a few stupid typos in my test script, things are working now. It may be a simple as not grabbing the updated DirectShowSource .dll when I downloaded Avisynth 2.5.8, I may have only had 2.5.7 installed before.

Are there solid x64 versions of Avisynth and ffdshow available out there these days? I wouldn't mind using a full x64 encoding path on that machine, provided the performance is there.

[osgZach]

I'd like to know as well. I haven't been able to find a really clear guide on even getting things to work with a mix.. But if there was a clear step by step on what to grab, what version, what to install / update / replace and in what order to get a full x64 pipe, that would be awesome..

I've heard of performance gains around 10%, which I guess would be a lot with x264 vs other codecs?

In any case.. I have Avisynth 2.5.8.. whats the deal with the updated Dsource DLL ? would that do anything significant?

[Blue_MiSfit]

There are versions of x64 AviSynth (heroically made by Squid_80 beginning back in '05 if memory serves), but I'd suggest staying away.

There are recent builds of x64 ffdshow-tryouts, but I'd also avoid the latter for simplicity's sake.

My suggestion is to use Lord_Mulder's simple GUI, which easily allows 32 bit AviSynth (and 32 bit ffdshow if you're mucking around with DirectShowSource or DSS2) to pipe its output to 64 bit x264.

I usually use a fresh clean install of AviSynth 2.5.8, and then install the most recent build of 2.5.8 MT to enable multithreading. Note this requires replacing the avisynth.dll file in syswow64, and installing the mt.dll plugin into your avisynth plugins folder.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=144140

Also, DSS2 seems to work better than DirectShowSource for me. I'm comforted by the fact that it's supposedly frame accurate. You can use DSS2 if you have Haali Media Splitter. Just dig around in its program folder for "avss.dll", and move this to your Avisynth plugins folder.