VirtualDub 1.6.3 released; is VirtualDubMod still alive?!

[LigH]

Looks like VirtualDub 1.6.3 has very interesting news, especially for capturers (I can tell you - so many users asked for "how to switch TV channels from VirtualDub": now it shall work with WDM drivers).

So after several months of development, there may be a question allowed: Is there still someone merging the news in VirtualDub (and other development and modification branches?) into VirtualDubMod? Or shall we call its state "suspended"?

[stephanV]

yes we shall :)

[hippoth]

Originally posted by stephanV
yes we shall :)
Do you know some more? :sly:

[stephanV]

Just that Cyrius has currently stopped developing it...

To be honest, I don't consider it a too big loss... encoding wise, VirtualDubMod offers nothing more than VirtualDub besides a few extra bugs perhaps. The Matroska support would need some serious updating, but considering the base and framework its using it would probably be better to write a whole new editor all together for that... (but yeah, who has time enough to do that?). In this state I think VirtualDubMod is currently doing more harm to Matroska than good. So that leaves VirtualDubMod only useful for people who use OGM... and on that, I will not comment any further.

It's been a very useful tool for quite a while, though. Only most extra feautures it offers over VirtualDub are now much better implemented in other tools.

[Josip Tosic]

Oh, come on... plain-vanilla VirtualDub doesn't even open MP3 files. VirtualDubMod might not be the best coded app but it'll have to do. Unless Avery implements import plug-ins... [Starts daydreaming.] :)

[stephanV]

like i said: other tools. no one *needs* to import mp3 in VirtualDub and you actually can if you add a wav-header to it.

[Inc]

To be honest, I don't consider it a too big loss... encoding wise, VirtualDubMod offers nothing more than VirtualDub besides a few extra bugs perhaps.
What about VdubMod's Avisynth support? Ok there does exist vcf2avs but I really like that "Import Framesets as Trims" Command in the Script editor and some other nice things.

Or is it already also included in the latest experimantal release of Vdub? I haven't tested it yet.

[stephanV]

ive never used that, but you can pretty much assume that most things added by VDM guys will not be added by phaeron

im not saying everything extra on VDM is useless, but for me such things are rather minor.

but yeah, everybody is free to pick up the project :)

[kurt]

Originally posted by stephanV
Just that Cyrius has currently stopped developing it...

The Matroska support would need some serious updating, but considering the base and framework its using it would probably be better to write a whole new editor all together for that... (but yeah, who has time enough to do that?). In this state I think VirtualDubMod is currently doing more harm to Matroska than good...

so what harm do you mean? i've done more than 30 DVD-backups with VDM and Matroska (using XviD) ... what would be an alternative since Vdub does not support mkv?

[stephanV]

people are getting frustrated that they cant open certain Matroska files they downloaded from the net in VirtualDubMod. VobSubs, RealVideo, MPEG1 and 2 in MKV now, those are all things that are not really supported in VirtualDubMod. While Matroska has moved on, VDM stood right there on its place. This is ok if you are familiar with the tools, but for a beginner who thinks VDM just works all Matroska files? In the future this will only get worse: DVD menus, native AVC. Things that are very unlikely to work in VirtualDubMod. People who want their files to be compatible with VirtualDubMod, or are limiting themselves to that, are missing out on a whole lot.

Also: if you want XviD in Matroska, you really could do without VirtualDubMod. There are two great muxing tools for that: AVIMUX GUI and MKVtoolnix.

Matroska in VirtualDubMod is basically nothing more than AVI+Vorbis+SRT+chapters... but Matroska is much more than that.

[kurt]

thanks for your explanation!
so far i encoded in VDM directly to mkv over VfW (XviD) and avisynth-script ... after that i muxed in mkvtoolnix the audiostream(s)... is that what you mean with XviD in mkv without VDM?

[stephanV]

yes, you could just as easily encode XviD to AVI if you remux with MKVtoolnix anyway... I'd have to test this but this might actually be faster and it certainly wont be slower encoding wise.

[Cyberman]

Originally posted by stephanV
In this state I think VirtualDubMod is currently doing more harm to Matroska than good.

That alone should be reason enough to overwork it. People will continue to use VDM with MKV, only to be frustrated because it doesn´t work.

Besides, it´s a bit wearying to create an AVI file just to mux it into MKV - it´d be easier if that could be done in one step.

[stephanV]

Originally posted by Cyberman
That alone should be reason enough to overwork it. People will continue to use VDM with MKV, only to be frustrated because it doesn´t work.

Go ahead and overwork it :)


Besides, it´s a bit wearying to create an AVI file just to mux it into MKV - it´d be easier if that could be done in one step.

Not just, some people want to add vobsubs or i dont know what else. Just not possible with VDM.

VDM was an intermediate step and did a good job in promoting MKV in the beginning. Now, it is just too far behind: it is AVI/VFW bound on one side (which it will always be until phaeron gets in a real good mood) and as muxing app it is not good enough on the other.

Upgrading VirtualDubMod to the current state of Matroska will take a little more than just adding a few patches.

[eb]

VirtualDubMod is very useful for processing records from sattv, no problem with mpeg2. VDM1.5.4.2 in my case is playing back video+audio from these records so it is easy to set correct audio delay simply by tests, and to compress audio to mp3 at the same time with video.
It will take long time to set VDM to the side track.

eb

[Prettz]

I use VDM to encode to an mkv file from an avisynth script and simultaneously mux in 2 ogg vorbis streams while setting the video frame rate to match the audio length (I usually need to encode straight to an mkv with all the audio in it so I can immediately gauge if the file is the correct size). I have to use mkvmerge to then add an SSA stream and chapters to the mkv. But after that I have to go back to VDM to cut the result into 3 seperate mkv files, and I rely on VDM to correctly cut the audio streams and especially SSA stream and the chapters to the 3 subsets.

What other program can I use to accomplish this?

[Guest]

Originally posted by eb
VirtualDubMod is very useful for processing records from sattv, no problem with mpeg2. Only in PAL land! It never honored the RFF flags and doesn't bother to warn you about it. I can't count the newbies that have gone astray because of that.