EclCCE: Adds ECL support to CCE 2.66/2.67 trial

[Holomatrix]

If you use this app with DVD2SVCD are the new features going to be available through one the the DVD2SVCD tabs? or am I missing somthing here?
Thanks

[RB]

No, none of them are currently "available" in DVD2SVCD. The only useful feature would be the Bitrate Tweaking, anyway. The last I heard about support for this from DVD2SVCD was "I'll consider it" :)

[JimBryce]

Just wanted to let you know that I've been using your "EclCCE" for the last few jobs I did and it works wonderfully-problems of any kind!

I especially love the ability to "minimize" CCE!

:)Keep up the good work:)

[tylo]

Originally posted by RB
No, none of them are currently "available" in DVD2SVCD. The only useful feature would be the Bitrate Tweaking, anyway. The last I heard about support for this from DVD2SVCD was "I'll consider it" :)

If you are interested, I think I could write up an AutoIt app in an hour or two, that does the Bitrate Tweaking automatically in DVD2SVCD. It would use similar techniques as the D2Sroba plugin: http://home.no.net/tylo/

Thanks for making EclCCE, and the other plugins.

Regards,
tylo

[RB]

Thanks for the offer tylo, but it will be difficult. The problem is that before the bitrate tweaking, the transcoding process dialog closes which makes DVD2SVCD believe that encoding has finished so it wants to continue on with muxing and cutting.

[Fotis_Greece]

(I posted it again but I thought this is the right place)
Let's say I have two .ecls (movie1.ecl and movie2.ecl)
How can I start CCE in batch mode and encode these two projects together.
Thanks in advance

[RB]

It's easiest to merge the two ECL files together. Open any of the ECL files in Notepad and paste the content of the other at the bottom. Then start CCE manually, load the combined ECL and start encoding or use the command line facilities described in the EclCCE manual.

[new_age]

Hello!

Softwares:

DVD2SVCD 1.1.3 Build 2
CCE 2.67.00.10
EclCCE 1.4b

Bug: (I suspect EclCCE rather than DVD2SVCD)

In AVI2SVCD mode when Process Priority is set to IDLE in DVD2SVCD and when DVD2SVCD starts EclCCE I get this error:

---------------------------------------------------
CCE did not finish initializing in a timely manner!
Error 126: The specified module could not be found.
---------------------------------------------------

After restarting DVD2SVCD and using recovery to continue video encoding, EclCCE this time can run CCE.

This problem doesn't present if Process Priority is set to NORMAL in DVD2SVCD.

This problem also doesn't present if I use EclCCE 1.3

In EclCCE 1.4b I use default settings.

regards,

NA

[JimBryce]

I've had the same error when launching "EclCCE". If you say "Okay" to that error, "CCE" launches normally. What I've done is exit and re-launch "EclCCE". It doesn't happen on the 2nd launch (regardless of priority IMHO). "CCE" and "EclCCE" seem to work normally, despite the message.

I had inadvertently delete the "PATH" statement from my system variables and think the problem might have been related to that since I haven't had the problem since I restored the "PATH" variable.

[new_age]

Today I converted a larger avi to svcd with dvd2svcd. The process priority was normal and I get the same EclCCE error message.

I guess the CCE startup timeout should be much longer or manually set up in options tab.

NA

[RB]

I have just uploaded v1.4c. History:
12/05/2003 v1.4c

- Fixed the "CCE did not finish initializing in a timely manner"
error

Well, I have hopefully fixed it. Use the new version and let me know how it goes.

[new_age]

Hello!

Thanks for the update. Now it works fine for me.

NA

[Eyes`Only]

This tool is so good it should be a sticky thread, IMO!

Thanks for this tool, RB.

One small request for something that is a 'standard-feature-of-CCE'. Could you make it to where the job window accepts drag n' dropped .ecls like CCE does? Also, if it's not too much work, a 'beyone-the-standards-of-CCE' features such as ability to drag n' drop more than one ecl and have them appended? CCE can only take one ecl at a time, so this would be yet another cool thing your app does that CinemaCraft didn't bother to include!

[RB]

Originally posted by Eyes`Only
This tool is so good it should be a sticky thread, IMO!
Thanks :) Having it stick would be good, but it appears this forum does not currently have a moderator.

And blast, never noticed you can drag and drop an .ECL into the job list! Thanks for pointing this out, I'll try to fix that in the next version. About the append feature, that shouldn't be too difficult to do, I'll look into it.

[rui]

Originally posted by RB
Thanks :) Having it stick would be good, but it appears this forum does not currently have a moderator.

But can't anyone that is a MOD, even from other forums, stick this thread?

Originally posted by RB
About the append feature, that shouldn't be too difficult to do, I'll look into it.

GREAT! :)

[Doom9]

@rui: you apparently don't understand moderator powers. Only the people listed as moderators have that power, in the forum in which they are listed. Only admins and super moderators (of which we currently have none) have global powers.

[rui]

Ok, sorry for the mistake.

[tylo]

Originally posted by RB
Thanks for the offer tylo, but it will be difficult. The problem is that before the bitrate tweaking, the transcoding process dialog closes which makes DVD2SVCD believe that encoding has finished so it wants to continue on with muxing and cutting.

Ok, finally made it. Download D2Sroba 2.0 with automatic bitrate tweaking here: http://home.no.net/tylo/
I think the GUI is much more intutitve now - you tell me. I guess I should announce this version in a separate thread, or you may add links to it in from the EclCCE page...

Two small issues:

1. How can you specify a relative time to the CCE timecode 01:00:00:00. You only allow six digit timecodes? It works correct for me only when setting the CCE timecode to 00:00:00:00
2. The create_new_vaf in the ecl file seem to have flipped logic? (0 = true). If you fix this, I must update too.

Greetings
tylo

[RB]

Thanks! Not sure I can look at it anytime soon, I'm using DVD2SVCD rarely these days.

About the time code: well, like I wrote in the manual, the credits start time is relative to the CCE time code. That is, if you know that the credits start at 1h 40min 3sec in "human time" and CCE time code is set to 01:00:00:00 (hh:mm:ss:ff), then what you need to write to the ECL is 02:40:03 (in hex). And I simply left off the frame number from the credits time code because I felt this was accurate enough :) and saves some typing.

As for create_new_vaf: it's based on the GUI layout :), made it easier for me. There are two radio buttons in CCE that control this, button 0 (the upper one) says create new VAF and button 1 (the bottom one) says use existing VAF.

[tylo]

Yeah, I guess SVCD is not the hottest format anylonger
(but, I have to get rid of them piles of empty CDR's on my shelf).

I think what confused me with the credits timecodes was that they are shifted two digits down compared to the cce timecodes (cce 0x01000000 == credits 0x010000). Anyway, my plugin should work ok then. (I may change to specify absolute (human) time for the release version.)

Thanks again,
tylo

[brashquido]

OK, I put my hand up for doing the dumbest thing :rolleyes: . Upon opening EclCCE 1.4c where it asks you for the CCE Trial executable, for some reason I got distracted and put the EclCCE executable in there instead. This resulted in a program loop giving errors that it could'nt find CCE every few seconds, and the only way to get out was to reboot. Because I didn't know what I'd done, everytime I went to start EclCCE after that it resulted in the same loop as the executable was set in the ini. I ended up deleting it all and extracting from the zip again. Very silly thing to do, but perhaps not allowing EclCCE to be selected might be an idea?

[rasta21]

...lol...yeah i did the same thing and the result is a eclcce start loop. i used the taskmanager and killed the hmmm `bout 50-60 error messages. good alternative to windows mineweeper....thanx RB :D ;)

[RB]

OK, OK mates, someone else (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53455) also bumped into this recently ... :D It will be fixed in the next release.

[tylo]

On the assumption that most people install CCE in the default folder, you could also check those paths (newest CCE ver first) and auto setup the ini path if found (otherwise let user browse for it). Remember to search relative to the value of the reg key: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ProgramFilesDir
e.g.
Custom Technology\CCE SP Trial Version\cctspt.exe
Custom Technology\Cinema Craft Encoder SP Trial\cctspt.exe
.... etc.

Just a thought.

[RB]

OK, v1.5 with requested new features is out. History:

22/05/2003 v1.5

- Fixed: dragging and dropping ECL files into the CCE window was not
possible (trial version limitation)
- Added support for loading of multiple ECL files simultaneously
- It is no longer possible to accidentally select EclCCE.exe for the
CCE-SP executable when EclCCE runs for the first time.


@tylo: I simply left it as it is. External programs using EclCCE can always precreate/modify the INI file to point to the desired CCE.

[new_age]

Hello!

A fresh 1.5 bug. The programs are the same that I've mentioned before (dvd2svcd converting avi, etc).

I _always_ get this error message: The above filename is invalid.

regards,

NA

[RB]

"The above filename is invalid" is not an EclCCE error message (it is not anywhere in my code). Is that the exact error message? Maybe that's a DVD2SVCD error message? What is the caption of the error message box?

[new_age]

1.4c works well so it is 1.5 bug. My opinion.

- DVD2SVCD starts EclCCE 1.5 (CCE 2.67.00.10)
- DVD2SVCD adds xxxx.avs
- DVD2SVCD saves yyyyy.ecl
- DVD2SVCD changes yyyyy.ecl
- the error occures when DVD2SVCD starts opening changed yyyyy.ecl

The open dialog I can see the filename begins with a space and X:\xxxx\CCE_Project_file.ecl.
And then the error dialog:

Title:
"Open"
Text:
" X:\xxxx\CCE_Project_file.ecl"
"The above file name is invalid."

I'm sure if you try you will get the same error.

NA

[BBWoof]

I've noticed that with versions 1.4c and 1.5 that commandline support for CCE 2.50 no longer works. It will create the vaf during the first pass for a RoBa encode, but during the second pass it stops after making a 4 byte mpv file.

I reinstalled 1.4b and using the same code in DoCCE4U the process works perfectly.

BBWoof

[RB]

@new_age: It's not a bug, it's a feature :) Reason is that the new version allows for selecting multiple ECL files in that Open dialog. As a result, it is no longer possible to enter a full path name there like DVD2SVCD does. This is a Windows "feature" I missed (the error message is generated by Windows). I'll release a new version where this new feature is optional (default off) and needs to be turned on in the EclCCE settings. Stick to 1.4c for the time being.

@BBWoof: Oops. I'll figure out where I broke support for the older CCE versions.

I'll work on both issues over the weekend.

[DDogg]

Not to put too fine a point on it at all, but technically the ONLY person who can declare a "bug" is the developer. All the rest of us should refer to it as a problem or an anomaly. :p [maybe, "Hey, bubba, ya screwed the pooch!" might be ok :)]

[BBWoof]

Originally posted by RB
@BBWoof: Oops. I'll figure out where I broke support for the older CCE versions.


Thanks RB!!!

BBWoof

[new_age]

Originally posted by RB
@new_age: It's not a bug, it's a feature :)

Oh I see. :D

OK, switched back to 1.4c. Anyway: this tool is great!

NA

[Eyes`Only]

RB:

Putting a filename within quotes is kind of a normal way of operation for CLI. Instead of creating an option to turn the code that is failing with it on and off, why not parse CLI to where you ignore delimiters within quotes until the next quote is reached?

Just a suggestion. By the way I actually had to use that drag/drop multiple ecls feature the other day and it worked beautifully!

Eyes`Only

[tylo]

Just another small, cosmetic, but puzzling issue:

When opening EclCCE, the "Working in Background" mouse pointer remains for about 5 seconds. I take it that no background work is done during this period? Reason: when starting EclCCE from a console window, this artifact does not appear...

Thanks for your :cool: work, RB.

[JimBryce]

To: RB

Everyone seems to be so busy "giving you constructive criticism for possible improvements" (read: bitching about problems:D ) that I thought I'd take a moment and let you know that I just installed v1.5, used the "drag & drop" feature to add two ecl's, then saved them as one ecl, opened and closed all 3 ecls via the menu and drag and drop without a problem. It also ran fine, encoding 2 separate full length "movies" one after the other, allowing me to minimize it, change its priority and have 7 other applications open and in use at the same time (sorta' at the same time) on my ol' PIII-933 (no o/c) & 512MB SDRAM:) !

So, IMHO it works great! Thank you!

BTW, with v1.0.5 of MPEG2Dec3 and CCE v2.67.00.10 and NO "YV12toYUY2()" running in the background at "below normal" priority, CCE is running at .66~.70 which is a decent improvement from .55~.60 that I was getting.

[RB]

@Eyes`Only:
that's exactly what I'm doing :). The problem new_age was pointing out is a different one and has nothing to do with CLI. DVD2SVCD automates CCE by simulating user input. It brings up the CCE Open Project dialog to open an ECL and enters the full file name to the ECL in the edit control. This does not work if the Open File dialog accepts multiple selections (OFN_ALLOWMULTISELECT) like in 1.5.

@tylo:
I noticed this myself. Nothing I can do about this, appears to be connected to setting a Windows hook in CCE.

@JimBryce:
You are welcome, many thanks :) Do you see a similar increase in speed when not using ConvertToYUY2() but running CCE at normal process priority?

Anyway, v1.5a is out. You must now explicitly enable an option in the EclCCE settings (see PDF) to have the Open Project dialog accept multiple selections. Support for loading multiple ECLs is not affected. Also fixed the bug BBWoof was reporting.

History:25/05/2003 v1.5a

- Added option to prevent accepting multiple selections in the Open
Project dialog to make EclCCE compatible with DVD2SVCD again
(broken in 1.5).
- Fixed bug in command line support for CCE versions prior to
2.66.01.07

[RB]

Anyone using EclCCE with DVD2SVCD, please download v1.5a again. I made another minor change for "DVD2SVCD compatibility reasons". With the previous 1.5a, DVD2SVCD would encode everything twice. IOW, now when you save an ECL and then load the same ECL, the ECL will overwrite the current job list rather than being appended.

[RB]

Sorry for the lately frequent updates, here is another new version.History:30/05/2003 v1.5b

- Fixed issue with Bitrate Tweaking feature that would sometimes
cause CCE to crash after the last pass.

[Eyes`Only]

Are you kidding, bud? Frequent updates are the best! Lets us know you're on the ball and constantly paying attention to user reports!

Thanks for the fix. By the way, I noticed in earlier versions that tweaking bitrate manually on the advanced screen sometimes resulted in weird characters for the output size. Is this an eclcce bug or CCE?

[JimBryce]

@RB,
Sorry for the delay in answering you. Somehow I missed your question.

The short answer is yes:) . I should have been more precise in my wording. There is a significant (or what I consider significant:D ) speed increase (from ".55~60" to ".66~.70" without using "ConvertToYUY2" or "YV12toYUY2" AND "CCE" running at "normal priority" AND it is the foreground application. Of course it does slow down when you reduce its priority and send it to the back (or minimize it). But I did find it to be faster even with reduced priority and in the background (or minimized) unless I had 6 or 7 other apps running (in other words, really:devil: loaded down).

I attrributed the speed increase to 3 things: 1) newer version of "CCE" (v2.67.00.10); 2) not needing to change the colorspace and; 3) refinements in "MPEG2Dec3". "eclcce" has just made it much more convenient and easier to use. And IMO, convenience and ease of use can often be more important than speed!

Keep up the good work and again, Thanks!:)

[RB]

Originally posted by Eyes`Only
Thanks for the fix. By the way, I noticed in earlier versions that tweaking bitrate manually on the advanced screen sometimes resulted in weird characters for the output size. Is this an eclcce bug or CCE?
I have seen this myself, but it is definitely not an EclCCE bug. Happens also when you don't run CCE via EclCCE. But IIRC I have seen it also when not fiddling with the bitrates in the advanced screen, it seems to be related to the final stream size, maybe a "2 GB barrier" problem.

[RB]

@JimBryce: no problem, thanks for the info, this is interesting. I'd like to know what codec decompresses the YV12 data on your machine. Please load an AVISynth script that does not use an ConvertToYUY2() conversion in VirtualDub, then click File - File Information. What is the "Decompressor"?

[DDogg]

Ah, it is Milan's ffVFW Mpeg 4 codec that is now doing the decompression. That explains why there is now a negligible difference in speed whereas before using DIVX as decompresser the speed dif was quite noticeable. I have a feeling this is already well known and I am behind the curve on the subject, but thought I would throw it in here for completeness.

[JimBryce]

@"RB"

Sorry for the delay :D ... The video decompressor is "DivX 5.0.5". I thought it should be since, following the instructions of an earlier thread, I'd put "VIDC.YV12"="DivX.dll" under the
"[HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Drivers32]" section of the registry.

As a sidenote, I'd previoulsy installed a codec called: "ATI.YV12.Planar.Format.Decoder.v4.10" (I have an ATI video card) which also worked but the video quality was terrible (blurry and jagged).

[RB]

@DDogg, JimBryce: thanks for the info. For me it's ffvfw also and it's not any faster than ConvertToYUY2().

And a new EclCCE v1.5c is out, supporting CCE-SP 2.67.00.11 that was released today.
10/06/2003 v1.5c

- Added support for CCE-SP 2.67.00.11

[Eyes`Only]

Daaaamn, you are quick! :p

[arlsair]

I don`t read the whole thread, sorry, so I don`t know if my problem is still discussed.

I want to use D2Sroba. D2Sroba terminate CCE and DVD2SVCD, but then EclCCE don`t terminate automatic. See here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?goto=lastpost&threadid=28939).

Can you, please, fix this or is there any reason why EclCCE shouldn`t terminate ?

regards
Arlsair

[RB]

Well, EclCCE exits automatically when CCE exits. Are you sure all instances of CCE were gone when this error came up? Maybe there is a slight timing problem with D2SRoba in that it kills CCE and then tries to rerun it "too early". Ask Tylo to put in a delay like 1 second between killing and restarting CCE.

[tylo]

I think you're right, RB. I'll put in a delay (2 secs).