Option to save progress / pause encoding ?

[gozu]

I have been using the wonderful VirtualDub and some of it's most famous derivatives (nandub, VdubMod) for a few years now and while I am constantly awed by it's versatility and functionality, I have always yearned for a certain little feature that would really make my day:

I wish I could just interrupt it in the middle of an encoding job, turn the computer off, turn it on again some time later and simply resume that job (and any others pending). And if I am allowed to dream for a little longer, it would be even better if it incorporated some kind of error recovery function. Let's say it would save it's progress every X minutes so that if a crash occurs , I could simply resume from the last state and be on my merry way.


I also wonder if this could not be done externally by some specialized program. I'm no programmer but it seems to me this could be done by exclusively saving the memory state of VirtualDubMod.exe/ virtualdub.exe/ nandub.exe periodically to the hard drive.

Then again, maybe I am just ignorant and this can already be done.

If anyone has anything to share on the topic, I would be most interested to hear it.

Thanks for your time

Gozu

PS: I am aware that I can lower the priority of any windows program through the task manager. That's not what this is about :) .

[Tuning]

Pause while encoding was the topic of this thread :looking for a pause button for you encoding? (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64058&highlight=pause) I wish I could just interrupt it in the middle of an encoding job, turn the computer off, turn it on again some time later and simply resume that job (and any others pending)

This can be done by hibernating. You have to use Windows XP or Windows 2000 with sp2. After resuming entire process will be started from where you stopped. Here the encoding time ( both encoded and estimated ) will be added up with the time during the PC was off.:)

-Tuning-

[Suiryc]

There are many reasons making what you want (pause the encoding, quit the program and restart later) impossible. The 2 main ones being :

1. The way VirtualDub(Mod) dub. It is done in 2 threads (one that read data from the input, and one that compress/recompress them before muxing). It wouldn't be impossible to pause the dubbing, but it wouldn't be easy at all :p
2. Many codecs (such as DivX and XviD) keep in mind what they have encoded so far (for bitrate modulation). No need to say that there is no way to make a codec remember those information without restarting the encoding from the beginning.

[Tuning]

Originally posted by Suiryc
2. Many codecs (such as DivX and XviD) keep in mind what they have encoded so far (for bitrate modulation). No need to say that there is no way to make a codec remember those information without restarting the encoding from the beginning.

Is this condition also applicable to hibernating ?. I have tried hibernating in the middle and could not find any problem to video. Only one is the time as above mentioned.:)

[Suiryc]

Originally posted by Tuning
Is this condition also applicable to hibernating ?. I have tried hibernating in the middle and could not find any problem to video. Only one is the time as above mentioned.:)
Nope. Hibernating is fine because it saves the whole computer status (including memory, which means the state of the codec).

The problem is when you quit the program.

[dimitrius]

you could also use standby. As far as I understand there are two methods of standby selectable in cmos setup. S1 and S3, in S1 my computer when going to standby seems to kind of switch off but all the fans still keep working. In S3 it seems (at least on my motherboard) everything get's switched off except for volatile parts (RAM and caches). On my motherboard I have this little LED that shows when the RAM has current going through it. In S3 standby that LED is on but everything else looks switched off including the fans. So from the outside the computer looks switched off.

This is a bit faster than going to hibernation and doesn't require extra harddrive storage. The disadvantage of course is if you actually switch off the power the data is gone. Neither hybernation nor standby methods interupt vdub(mod) on my system.