AViSynth GUI

[neily]

Ok, I know I still have some tidying up to do, but I think it is functional enough to release.


http://www.neily.demon.co.uk


If it proves helpful, could someone that can kindly fix ShowFrameNumber so that the 6th digit isn't clipped at the right. 99999 frames is only 55 mins worth of video. Being able to alter it's position on screen, (top/bottom, left/centre/right) and have just a single count, without having to use layers would also be handy.

[Dreassica]

Nice work!! Just checked it, i dont seem to be able to open d2v files, get error message: there is no function called mpeg2source. probably overlooked something, AVI source function works fine though. The layout is a bit messy though.

[neily]

To open a .d2v file, you have to have specified where the MPEG2Dec/2/3.dll is located. Go to Options..Paths and specify where the plugin directory is.

As to being messy, well yes. I could possibly get rid of the tabs in the main window, an just bring up parameter pages when a filter is selected. I could tidy up the video window also possibly. Smaller buttons, or more stuff hidden away in menus. I felt that even with everything available though, the preview windows were not too small.

This is a first release, and I'm sure things can be changed about a bit if the program is deemed useful at all, and enough people suggest the same things.

[RadicalEd]

still, its pretty damn cool :D
especially compared to all of the other avisynth gui attempts i've seen which usually will just put in a video load script and maybe a crop and make you do the rest yourself

[mkanel]

neily,

Wow nice work neily, or more appropriately nice lots of work.

I've found just one minor bug when setting the parameters for TemporalSoften I select radius, luma, and chroma, but all the parameters display as the value I give to radius. For example if I select radius=3, luma=10, and chroma=15 it shows TemporalSoften (3,3,3).

Thanks for the free program, as an expression of my gratitude I have a few suggestions, which is just a devious way of making requests. :)

I like your user selectable advance buttons on the video window. Could you make them repeatable if I click and hold on a given window? So that if I click and hold on 100> it zips through the video showing one frame of every 100, that's a good way to look for dead spaces or ads. Maybe a keyboard shortcut would be easier.

Could you use the video window to select parts of the video to cut or retain. Maybe some way to designate a start and an end to multiple sections, the selected sections would be cut or retained and a line would be inserted into the AVS script like this Trim(100,200) ++ Trim(300,700) ++ Trim(1001,10000) etc.

If this catches on maybe there could be some standard information text file that plugin writers could include with their filters that would include something like the number of parameters, the parameter names and their upper and lower limits. The main window filter selection tabs are a bit crowded, and would become more so if you add more plugins, perhaps you could select which tabs are displayed with a right mouse click or through the options menu.

Thanks for your generosity in putting this together and for sharing it. Mike.

[neily]

mkanel,

Thanks for your feedback. The temporal soften bug was easy to fix. Sorry about that. I am surprised it got through, as TemporalSoften is one of my mainstays. I'll post an update tonight.

I do appreciate you letting me know. For every filter used, I have to store the state of the filter and it's parameters to a fairly loose data structure, and be able to read it back. Only in this way could I allow a filter to be used more than once in a script. The parameters then have to be parsed to generate the script. Thus there are 3 places where errors can occur, and with so many filters and parameters, I had to do a lot of cutting and pasting. I'm sure other bugs like this exist.

As for your trim idea, to allow the possibility in the future to read an existing script in, I think in general I should not use compound statements. The only exception to this is ConvertToXXX on the Video Source filters. Trimming and other frame-based activities can be done from the video window. This I think is one of the best features of the program. If the active panel has Trim selected, right-clicking over the source or target trackbar area will allow you to mark in and out sections. If this is done for multiple regions, each region can be named, ie vid01=Trim(a,b), vid02=Trim(c,d) and then they can be joined with one of the splice options. I realise there are slight problems with this approach, as if each trim is checked, the output cannot be displayed until the splice is performed. Thus each trim would have to be set, disabled, then enabled prior to the splice. You can always tidy up scripts by using the 'Edit and Save' option.

Your idea for repeating buttons is interesting. I have never employed repeating buttons before. I could look into it. I do have material of an episodic nature, hence the inclusion of the source window spinedit for advancing a specified amount. This is normally quite effective for searching for adverts etc. Double clicking advances a relative amount, right-clicking allows advancing a relative amount and an absoulte amount. I'll see what I can do. The simplest approach I can think is to squeeze in another button, or another right-click option to repeatedly seek the amount set in the spinedit, with perhaps a delay option configurable.

Finally, tidying up the tabs. I'd like to do this. I don't think it would be trivial to be able to select individual sets of filters. I will probably implement the option to not show them at all and just go to the filter pages via a hierarchical menu independent of the one shown by right clicking over the filter line panels. I did also think about having just one filter per page. But I can see advantages of being able to browse all the filters as easily as possible for people who are not familiar with what is on offer, including myself. And besides, with the approach that I have taken, horizontal screen real estate is currently more of a problem than vertical screen real estate. Maybe I can have the option to get rid of the tabs and have the parameters pages above the filter selection area, above a displayed script area. I would like to try to iron out the bugs first though.

Many filter writers do include info about data type, and min/max values. And yes, I agree this should be a pre-requisite. There are very few absolute min/max values for the internal filters, except for Blur / Sharpen, and I did have to peek into the source code for some info. I did have to specify min/max values for all the parameters to enable some basic error checking. I just hope I specified sensible ones.

[mkanel]

neily,

I missed the mark-in/mark-out option on the video screen. That's great and makes the program much more useful to me. You're right I can manually fix up the script very easily after selecting the regions to cut.

To get an idea of what I was hoping for with holding down the mouse button you can try VirtualDub, select the trackbar at the bottom and then use Alt and left arrow/Alt and right arrow. It passes very quickly through the video, 50 frames at a time in the case of VirtualDub. As it turns out the same thing happens in VD if you hold down the left mouse button either to the left or right of the position marker but I just realized that using the mouse is much slower. Maybe shortcut keys associated with the forward and reverse arrow would be more effective/easier?

Thanks for your consideration, and turning me on to a feature that I had missed.

Mike.

[neily]

mkanel,

I've just put up build 15, which addresses most of your issues. See the changelog.

AVSGenie Homepage (http://www.neily.demon.co.uk)

[neily]

OK,

Put up build 16 which has a few minor fixes. Gone through the code as best I can yet again. Don't think I'll go looking for bugs for a while, but of course if any transpire, I'll happily fix them. Once everything seems stable, I'd like to try to sort out either saving/reloading state, or parsing in scripts.

AVSGenie Homepage (http://www.neily.demon.co.uk)

[stickboy]

Instead of using a zillion tabs, maybe you could use a tree (e.g. like in the config dialogs to Mozilla, TextPad, and WinAmp). Then you could categorize filters too.

[neily]

stickboy,

In the latest build, one can limit the tabs to a single scrollable line in general options. The tabbed control acts as a container for the filter parameter pages, so I can't easily get rid of them all together, but I don't think a single line is that obtrusive. Filter pages can also now be selected from a hierarchical menu on the main menu, and can also be set by means of a hierarchical menu by right-clicking from the filter panels.

Though I think that this tidy up is worthwhile, I still think some levels of users would like to have an idea of all the filters on offer in a more immediate fashion.

[mkanel]

Neily,

I'm an idiot, I hope you didn't spend too much time looking for ways to accommodate my request concerning "click and hold". After experimenting with your latest release I discovered what I had been looking for and it was there all along. In the video window if I click once on any arowwed button, 100>, 10>, etc. That arrow becomes active and I can then just press and hold the enter key for repeat action. My home videos have many one or two second gaps and I find this useful for locating them.

Thanks for the new features, I'd like to push my luck one more time with a suggestion to simplify cutting unwanted video with the trim tab and video window. Currently if I want to cut 1000 frames from the middle of a video I need to select trim, specify a starting and ending frame (say 0,26500) and then select an out video (vid00), then select a new filter line, select trim again (27500,54000) and an out video (vid01), then selct another filter line, unaligned splice, and enter the clips (vid00, vid01).

Would you consider allowing multiple trim entries on the trim tab? They could automatically be joined with the shorthand for unaligned splice, (+). The trim tab could have multiple first and last frame number boxes. The script output for this line would look like this for my previous example. Trim(0,26500) ++ Trim(27500,54000). It could go on and on. You could select an out video (vid00) or do without it. I don't think their would be a need for an aligned splice (+) with trim but I might be wrong.

Thanks again for the free gift, and for considering my suggestions.

Mike.

[neily]

mkanel,

I don't think I will be able to satisfy your trim desires, certainly not in the immediate future. You know how it is. You write something that is useful to yourself, but fairly specific to your own way of working, then think that others may find it useful and make it available, and it is not always possible to satisfy everyone's desires. The 'too many tabs' issue is something I am currently addressing with a thorough interface reworking. It is looking good so far, and am glad of the feedback in this respect, even though I was sceptical at first.

My main recent experiences have been with editing stuff for putting on VCD's/SVCD's, where keeping the clips seperate is more useful, otherwise you can't do proper previous/next navigation.

Though I appreciate your desire to perform a specific task, I have tried to keep the program internals relatively simple. The main problem is just the sheer bulk of house-keeping. This means a linear approach to script generation. When I get round to trying to parse in scripts, too many deviations from this linear approach is likely to lead to complications. It would also make it very difficult for the source and target trackbars to keep some sort of meaningful alignment. There may be a way round it, a seperate edit list perhaps, but I'm going to be busy for a few days debugging the new main window first.

Thanks for your interest and feedback.

[mkanel]

neily,

No problem on the trim issue, your program is quite useful as it is.

Thanks.