ECLmencode

[Amenophis]

ECLmencode is basically a mencoder handler which will take your ECL file and encode everything within.You need nothing more that any valid ECL file (from DVD-RB. DoItFast4U or any other application) and a suitable mencoder build.

It's very easy to use, you've just to load any of your ECL files and press the orange encode button. ECLmencode will read all of the needed information out of the ECL. Commandline support has been added too.

http://keeper.movie2digital.de/pics/ECLmencode01.png


get it here -> http://keeper.movie2digital.de

[Amenophis]

first update is here:

- will drop a warning if outputfile is still not present after encode
- number of frames will be shown
- application will close after processing all files, if no warnings are present

additionally i have changed the commandline support, so that it's takes the same commands CCE wants. in DVD-RB you can set the path to ECLmencode instead of the path to CCE Basic, so all files will get automatically processed with mencoder. (tested with 0.54)

[Amnon82]

Am I right if I say you coded the free CCE?

Your little amp translate the ECL-file into a mencoder-setting-file and all will be encoded with MEncoder.

Well, I'll try it with QCCE CE and tell You if it works.

[Paced]

Heya Amenophis, just popped by to say thanks for this neat tool, it has worked great on the test runs I've done so far. But, I think I've found one issue that might need to be addressed:

Firstly, I encoded one test clip (the ECL file was created by DVD-RB) twice, once with CCE 2.67 (SP), and again with ECLmencode (with mencoderAVS). Then, when I was comparing both files (CCE/ECLmencode) in VirtualDubMod, I noticed that the ECLmencode output had a less frame count than CCE's output (ECLmencode's output was missing approximately 3 or 4 frames). Then, I discovered that these 'dropped' frames were evident right at the beginning of ECLmencode's output file - the first frame was intact, but then the following 3 frames after that were missing (when compared to CCE's output).

At first, I thought this was a 'once-off' thing, but then I proceeded to do more test clips, which always resulted in approximately 3 missing frames from ECLmencode's output, everytime (and always at the beginning of the file). I'm not sure if this is a glitch with mencoderAVS, or something to do with ECLmencode, but I thought I would just report it to you. In addition, I would imagine if people used this with DVD-RB, alot of dropped frames would be evident, therefore resulting in a #0006 error (I think) during the rebuild phase. Then again, it could just be me that's experiencing this "bug." :confused:

//Edit

After a few more tests, ECLmencode's output is still dropping 3 frames everytime, but it seems to be in random places (sometimes it can be right at the beginning, or even at the end of the clip - the frame drops happen one after the other). It's probably best to skip to the end of the clip (in VirtualDubMod or something) to look at the frame count; I can almost guarantee that it will be 3 frames less than the original.

[Amenophis]

@Amnon82:

thanks for testing. but i wouldn't compare ECLmencode with CCE, because mine is just a kind of GUI, and not a complete encoder.

@Paced:

thanks for finding out this. i've taken a look at my m2v files and there 3 frames are missing, too. Nevertheless during this week i've already rebuilded some encodes i created this way, and at least i got no errors and they have played fine on my dvd player. But i will have a closer look to that problem, maybe there is a way to avoid this framedrop. Since there are some frames missing too in QuEnc, it seems to be a general problem with the libav codec, the mpeg2dec version we are using or something like this.

[Paced]

Originally posted by Amenophis
@Paced:

thanks for finding out this. i've taken a look at my m2v files and there 3 frames are missing, too. Nevertheless during this week i've already rebuilded some encodes i created this way, and at least i got no errors and they have played fine on my dvd player. But i will have a closer look to that problem, maybe there is a way to avoid this framedrop. Since there are some frames missing too in QuEnc, it seems to be a general problem with the libav codec, the mpeg2dec version we are using or something like this.

Thanks for the reply, I'm glad it's not just me. Regarding your comment on QuEnc, I just tested it on several clips, and I did not get one dropped frame; they were all intact. So I don't think it's the libav codec / mpeg2dec that is causing these dropped frames - maybe it's one of the settings ECLmencode is using? I'm not familiar with the mencoder commands / settings, so that previous comment was just a guess :)

[JDay]

There was a problem with dropping frames a few versions ago in QuEnc (only when using b-frames) after I pointed this out, Nic quickly fixed it. You might want to contact him for details.

[Amenophis]

the problem with the missing frames is (hopefully) fixed. apart from that, only some more warnings messages are new in this version (0.3)

[Paced]

I think your Web host is down; I'll try the latest version (.3) as soon as it comes back up. Additionally, I'm not sure if this is an issue or not, but I'm unable to use ECLmencode on files which were originally encoded with XviD - I get this error:

--------------------------------------------------------------------

SwScaler: BICUBIC scaler, from Packed YUY2 to Planar YV12 using MMX2
videocodec: libavcodec (480x480 fourcc=3267706d [mpg2])
High quality encoding selected (non real time)!
[mpeg2video @ 00782468]MPEG1/2 doesnt support 2997/125 fps
Could not open codec.
FATAL: Cannot initialize video driver.
VDecoder init failed :(
Cannot find codec matching selected -vo and video format 0x32595559.
Read DOCS/HTML/en/codecs.html!
====================================================================
Exiting...

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The source is NTSC Film (23.976 fps).

[Amenophis]

how did you serve your xvid to ECLmencode? directly or with avisynth? if you just want encode a single xvid file to mpeg2, it would be better to use a 'real' mencoder GUI which has also support for resizing, filters, and audio processing. maybe packshot would be a good solution for that. ECLmencode is just ment as a simple and free alternative to encode ecl files, like they are created by DVD-RB, ReAuthorist, DVD2DVDR or similar tools.

[Paced]

Originally posted by Amenophis
how did you serve your xvid to ECLmencode? directly or with avisynth? if you just want encode a single xvid file to mpeg2, it would be better to use a 'real' mencoder GUI which has also support for resizing, filters, and audio processing. maybe packshot would be a good solution for that. ECLmencode is just ment as a simple and free alternative to encode ecl files, like they are created by DVD-RB, ReAuthorist, DVD2DVDR or similar tools.

I served it with AviSynth (ie. created the script, loaded it in CCE, set the appropriate settings, then saved the ECL file). But yeah, I can understand where you're coming from on those last few comments; thanks for the reply anyway.

[Amenophis]

new version (0.4) is ready:

improvements:
- Settings files are no more needed. You can set all parameters in the GUI, they are automatically saved.
- some more usability improvements

btw, the source code is also available, so it would be easy to port this to an tmpeg handler, procoder handler or whatever.