suggestions

[jerichar99]

BTW, thanks for the great program! I used to use Dr. Divx, but the output was not as consistant as gk. GK seems to produce great results time after time, and autoGK makes it so simple.

I have a few minor suggestions:

1) Retain advanced settings when upgrading (I like to force mp3 vbr, but when upgrading the audio setting resets to auto) (I am not sure if the other settings, like resolution or codec, have the same issues)

2) Change the input directory and output file text box from read-only to normal. I'm sure the read-only attribute on the text boxes was intentional (perhaps as a way to make sure the directory exists, etc.) However, there are times when I'm merely changing one digit (like encoding c:\episode_1.1 and then encoding to c:\episode_1.2). It's a little annoying to have to browse to the desired directory for each one, especially when there are, say, twenty to encode.

3) Persistant jobs. I recall this was brought up in a previous poll but voted down. I still vote for it, because I like to shut down my computer at night because it's noisy. I hate to have to lose my jobs.

4) In the video info text box (where it says resolution, fps, etc.), is possible to dump out the length of the video? My guess is it's possible, but not readily available (perhaps the vob headers have to be read, or the ifo has to be read). I use the time length of the video to help me choose the output settings sometimes.

Again, the program works great. I just wanted to suggest the above to see if anyone else has any interest in these minor tweaks.

[len0x]

1) I can't see why that is happening. Setting are not reset when upgrading as they are stored in an ini file that is not touched by the installer (And checked - I don't have this problem on my PC)

2) The problem is that AutoGK does lots of parsing/checking upon selecting input directory (not when you add the job). So there is no way parsing can be done during user editing the input directory (unless another button "parse" is introduced, but then interface becomes not that trivial for newbies).

3) Its not trivial thing to do (otherwise it would be done already), but I hope to have it done at some point in the future...

4) You're right. Ifo parsing is required, but AutoGK can't do that (neither can I actually as I know nothing about IFO structure).

[jerichar99]

Thanks for the reply.

1) When I upgrade to next version, I'll look more closely at the advanced settings. It seems that I may have misinterpreted what happened.

2) I wasn't aware it was parsing/checking right then. So you're right; best to keep it as it is.

3) Yeah, I knew it wasn't easy. The trick I've been doing is aborting the current job and having the computer hibernate. That way I only lose one job.

4) No worries about that.

Again, thanks for the program! Keep up the great work.

[fruitcake]

You may remember me. I've only posted one comment on Doom9's forums before, and it was to ask for AutoGK to make multiple-CD splits at chapter breaks. I can't remember how I suggested doing this now. Perhaps the user was supposed to get DVDDecrypter to produce a plain-text chapter information file, such as the Ogg format one. Anyway, I'm not posting to talk about that: I've just made a long comment on one of your surveys on the AGK website, but then I thought that you're probably not in the habit of reading those, so I found this forum and I'm going to repeat it here. (Is that allowed? I hope so. I can't delete it from the other one now anyway, and this place is probably more appropriate.)

I don't know whether anyone's reading this, but what I like about AutoGK most is that it does all the thinking and making decisions for me. It's not that I don't know what a bitrate is, it's just that I don't want to have to think about it. That's why I asked, under the screen name of fruitcake, in the forum on Doom9.net, for AutoGK to split CDs at a chapter break - because, although that's not a very useful feature, it's something the user doesn't have to think about. Perhaps in the future it would be nice to be able to choose between AVI, MP4, OGM and MKV as containers, but users don't need to be bothered with decisions much more detailed than that. (Whether AGK accepts different input sources, of course, is another matter.)

Instead of setting the output file size and resolution, I would like to be able to set the output file size and quality. How could I achieve that, I hear you ask. It's quite simple, really, all you have to do is to run a compressibility test - but when you're taking samples from the source for this, make them each at least a few seconds, otherwise you'll get an unfair number of key frames - and then you can work out what resolution you ought to need to achieve the desired quality percentage. Plug that resolution and target file size into DivX and you're done. The output quality won't be very precise, but that doesn't matter. If you wanted to make it more precise, you could run two compressibility tests, one at either the original size or resized to a width of 640, and one at the size you think it should be having run the first compressibility test. Concentrating again on the interface, as well or instead of being able to specify two out of file size, resolution, and quality (%), you might have the user just specify the target file size, and AutoGK finds a balance between quality and resolution on its own. I know it already has something like this function, but at the moment it just puts the quality at 75%. What it could do (if you had too much time on your hands) is work out the ratio target file size (at any resolution) / max. file size (at full resolution), square root this, and that gives you both the quality and the ratio output no. of pixels per frame / input no. of pixels per frame. Square root that again and it gives you the output width / input width ratio. I think that method would give a better compromise. You could even have a slider with higher resolution on the one side and lower quantizer on the other.

[len0x]

Instead of setting the output file size and resolution, I would like to be able to set the output file size and quality.


This clearly shows how little you know about AutoGK. It was never designed to allow you to set resolution/quality, just the size. It aims for a particular % (55-70 depending on many factors) of comp test reult and chosing the size automatically. The only reason manual resolution settings is there - when you want some other resolution that the one recommened for a good quality encode. And 75% quality that you mention has nothing to do with target size mode at all.

P.S. I find it really amuzing that you're trying to explain principles of comp test to me :)