Good Encoder GUI meGUI, Staxrip and MJPG problems

[tim2000]

Hey yall,

I know that this question might annoy some of you. But almost a your ago I tried meGUI, because it seems to be the reference GUI in this forum. I really read a lot and once set up it should work quite easy. But I faced some problems with the one click encode. My objective is to easily encode videos from my digital photo camera to Xvid or some x264 format. I used AutoGK before but I'm planning to switch over to x264 which is not supported. So I was looking for a new tool. Since meGUI didn't work I used Staxrip which did a good job. But somehow I deleted all profiles and so I have to start all over again.
What I didn’t like about meGUI is that you have to perform a couple of manual steps to get a result. Staxrip can be set up and you just select the input file and it runs. On the other hand meGUI is much better for updating and using the newest versions of the "embedded" tools. Super2000, handbrake, mediacode a nice all-in-one solutions.
Which tool would you recommend? What are the pros and downsides of the tools?
Thanks for your help in advance.

[Pulp Catalyst]

your right this is going to annoy some people,

your best bet is to try the programs yourself,

you said you have used MeGUI, and Staxrip,

you should be able to answer your own question, ultimately it's what you think that matters,

10 people, 20 50 could all answer this question and you would still not have a clear answer....... it's what you think that matters..... not what someone else thinks.

try handbrake, and then you would have tried all three programs you have mentioned.


"Which tool would you recommend?" whatever tool you think works for you

"What are the pros and downsides of the tools?" many, but what i may consider a downside could be interpreted as a good thing by you,

all three programs you have mentioned (meGUI, Staxrip, Handbrake) have a strong following of users, and are considered to be top applications in there field,

[yetanotherid]

I switched from AutoGK to MeGUI myself.... well for x264 anyway.... and like you it bothered me initially that it took a bit more work to set up encodes than AutoGK does. I've now come to appreciate doing it that way though... even to the extent where I sometimes open a video with MeGUI just so I can gbet the cropping right before encoding to XviD with AutoGK.

I've never got along with Staxrip or Handbrake myself. HDConvertToX is another program I sometimes use. Especially when resizing and encoding with square pixels as I like the way it calculates the aspect ratio distortion while you crop to enable you to keep it at a minumum.

[tim2000]

Hey,

thanks for your answers. As I like the advanced feature of MeGUI and Staxrip I decided to get both running and chose afterwards. Both UI will probably need more time to understand, but once you get familiar with it, I think it gives you more opportunities than the “all in one tools”.
For Staxrip I’ve read the whole “Brother Johns Encodingwissen” and setup some profiles. For MeGUI I use “MeGui Essentials by Selur”. I used two video files of my IXUS digital camera and on DVD for samples. But I ran into some issues and hopefully you can help me.
IXUS files: Video MJPG; Audio PCM; Container AVI
Staxrip: When trying to open the files as source, two error messages appear. One recommending installing Haali Media Splitter and the other one “AVISource: couldn't locate a decompressor for fourcc mjpg”. Do I need to install Haali and what does it do?
MeGUI: I first used AVS Script Creator and opened as Video Input the same file as above. Then I clicked auto crop which seemed to work. Afterwards I used the “Analyse” button at deinterlacing which resulted in the same error message as in Staxrip “AVISource: couldn't locate a decompressor for fourcc mjpg”. I also changed AviSource("filename") to DirectShowSource("filename") manually in the script, but it always changes back. Once I didn’t change, but then I get the same error after choosing the avi file as video input.
After I’ve searched the forum I set both MJPG options in the VfW of ffdshow x64 to libavcodec. But no luck here.
Since I’m using Win7 x64 I also downloaded Win7DSFilterTweaker_4_0.exe, but I don’t know if I need it and what setting are important.
I would appreciate if someone could help me to get both tools running, so I can chose the one that suits me best.

[Sharktooth]

your right this is going to annoy some people
well, im the first to recommend other programs intead of megui if a user doesnt like it/finds it too much "complex".
recently im not actively developing megui (due to free time constraints), but still i contributed to it in the past and i can assure you open source developers are much less "jealous" of others "products", when those sort of things happen, than payware developers... or at least it should be like that.
however, try the OneClick encoder (tools menu) and see if you like it.
to fix your problem you need to install ffdshow and enable the VFW mjpeg decoder (in the VFW configuration). also you may have to run the win7 filter tweaker to ensure ffdshow is enabled to decode mjpeg (for playback) and some other decoders like h.264/avc.

[Lighto]

To be honest I use lots of GUIs including, MeGUI, RipBot264, StaxRip, HandBrake, AVIDemux, VirtualDub and WinFF.
Useful when handling different task.:)

[tim2000]

however, try the OneClick encoder (tools menu) and see if you like it.

Thank you for your honest answer. I tried the "One-Click Encoder" already, and it seems that this is the thing I might need. But - at least on my computer - it doesn't accept .avi as input file.

to fix your problem you need to install ffdshow and enable the VFW mjpeg decoder (in the VFW configuration). also you may have to run the win7 filter tweaker to ensure ffdshow is enabled to decode mjpeg (for playback) and some other decoders like h.264/avc.
I have ffdshow installed. But the x64. Do you think that is the problem? Should I use the x86 version?
As described I set both MJPG options in the VfW of ffdshow x64 to libavcodec. But that didn't work.
And I also used Win7DSFilterTweaker_4_0.exe as win7 filter tweaker. But I don't find any MJPG filter option. Any hints?

[Sharktooth]

the next megui version will accept avi as input in oneclick encoder. if you want to try that feature you can switch to the development builds (in options) coz it's already implemented.
also remember your software "chain" must be ALL 32 bits or ALL 64 bits. maybe that is the problem.

[tim2000]

Thanks a lot, Sharktooth :thanks: That works. I had Avisynth and ffdshow all in x64 and MeGUI in 32bit. I re-installed all in 32bit again and it works. Also the One-Click encoder with avi.
Now I need to play a little bit around with the settings and create some avs scripts. If there are more questions, I'll come back to you guys. :thanks:

[tim2000]

Hey, me again. Finally I had some time and played around with MeGUI and the OneClick Encoder. I also searched the forums. As I understood, the integrated presets for x264 and Xvid are good for standard encoding. But is there an overview or matrix explaining/guiding a newbie to decide which preset to use.
I know that the setting should be individually chosen depending on the input file and the expected output. But in the first step I would like to encode the videos of my digital camera. Which are always similar and quite big:
General
Format: AVI
Format/Info: Audio Video Interleave
File size: 37.6 MiB
Overall bit rate: 15.8 Mbps

Video
Format: M-JPEG
Codec ID: MJPG
Duration: 20s 33ms
Bit rate: 15.0 Mbps
Width: 640 pixels
Height: 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio: 4:3
Frame rate: 30.000 fps
Color space: YUV
Chroma subsampling: 4:2:0
Bit depth: 8 bits
Scan type: Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame): 1.632
Stream size: 35.9 MiB (95%)

Audio
Format: PCM
Format settings, Endianness: Little
Format settings, Sign: Signed
Codec ID: 1
Codec ID/Hint: Microsoft
Duration: 20s 33ms
Bit rate mode: Constant
Bit rate: 705.6 Kbps
Channel(s): 1 channel
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Stream size: 1.69 MiB (4%)
Interleave, duration: 954 ms (28.62 video frames)
Interleave, preload duration: 1000 ms

I was thinking to use "MP3-64ABR-Mono" and "Xvid: Cont. Quantizer 2 Balanced". Or is there a good rule of thumb to decide which presets to use?

[Sharktooth]

what formats are supported by your digital camera?

[tim2000]

Do you mean video formats? Then I guess only the one named above.

[Sharktooth]

well, the first thing to do when encoding videos is to ensure the source quality is the highest possible (that's why i asked for what formats you cam supports).
however, since you cant get better than that i'd suggest you to try some presets on small clips to see the result. keep in mind, with constant Q presets the higher the settings (i mean slower settings) the smaller will be the filesize with close-to-zero video quality gain.
with 2-passes presets, however, with a fixed a bitrate or filesize, the higher the settings the higher will be the quality... until a certain limit (all frames cant be of lower Q... hence a Q 2 encoding will look the same).