inexplicable crashes

[florinandrei]

I used to convert video using AviSynth, MeGUI and x264 without problems for quite some time.

A while ago, things started to crash inexplicably. I'm not yet sure which component is at fault, but I want to work them out one by one.

I'm using AviSynth 2.5.8. MeGUI and x264 are whatever versions happen to be newest.

The source is usually a 1080p24 MKV created with eac3to, that typically contains a video track and nothing else. From that, using the AVS Script Creator tool in MeGUI, I create an AVS file that will be used with x264. Then, I load up the AVS file in MeGUI, then I create a forced 2-pass job. The x264 profile is normally AVCHD. Then I launch the jobs in MeGUI.

Some times the OS will report that x264 has stopped working. Other times the whole computer crashes and reboots instantly (I run MeGUI with admin privileges).

A typical AVS script looks like this:

DirectShowSource("C:\foobar\video.mkv", fps=23.976, audio=false, convertfps=true).AssumeFPS(24000,1001)
#deinterlace
#crop
#resize
#denoise

If it makes any difference, the computer is an AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core at 2.50 GHz. OS is Vista 32 bit, 4 GB of RAM (2 GB until recently, but it made no difference w.r.t. crashes). The system is otherwise stable, I use it a lot with Adobe Lightroom to develop RAW photos, works great.

What can I do to troubleshoot this situation? Is there any debugging I can enable, to make sure AviSynth is not at fault?

[Usedocne]

It could be that your CPU temps are too high? Check 'em w/ a temp monitor eg: CoreTemp (http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/)

[SubJunk]

Try installing a different version of AviSynth. I recommend SET's 2.6, which you can get from the guide in my signature or search these forums

[johnmeyer]

I used to convert video using AviSynth, MeGUI and x264 without problems for quite some time.

A while ago, things started to crash inexplicably. I'm not yet sure which component is at fault, but I want to work them out one by one.

I'm using AviSynth 2.5.8. MeGUI and x264 are whatever versions happen to be newest.I had the same thing happen, and I have several things to recommend. In my case, it was not one single problem.

First, I will second SubJunk's recommendation to use AVISynth 2.6. That helped me a lot. However, be aware that you may have problems reading native RGB24 video with this release (2.6). However, nhope and I are the only ones who seem to have a problem with this, so it may be due to using a frameserver to create this video. Bottom line, though, is that 2.6 seems more stable with MeGUI than 2.5.8.

Second, are you using SetMTMode? If so, you need to pay very close attention to the number of cores used. The author of the QTGMC script does a very nice job describing the approach needed to ensure stability: basically it entails starting with half the number of cores (e.g., SetMTMode(5,4) if you have an 8-core computer) and then working up from there.

Third -- and I think this is important -- please turn off the automatic updates in MeGUI. IMHO automatic updating on ANY software is an evil practice because, while well-intentioned, it can often break a system that is working just fine. MeGUI is especially nasty because, being an open source project, the updates are not always regression tested, and you are quite likely to have things break. I was having a terrible time getting a reliable, stable workflow until I turned off MeGUI updates. If you don't do this, you are going to constantly be trying to hit a moving target.

So, those are the three things I did, and everything works just fine. I do have some small issues with color shifts under certain circumstances that I'm still trying to work out. These are much more subtle than the things that are usually solved by specifying 709 or 601 in the color conversion statements, or by doing simple level shifts. However, this is OT, since it's not related to stability.