Snow encoding GUI

[Doom9]

MeGUI Snow edition is a mencoder based Snow encoder, offering all the features of the Snow wavelet codec (which means more than ffdshow). This edition is the small brother of MeGUI (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96032) and it offers a straightforward upgrade path (the snow edition is fully compatible with the full edition).

You'll need the following additional software installed:

.NET Framework 1.1 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=262d25e3-f589-4842-8157-034d1e7cf3a3&displaylang=en) Version 2.0 is currently not supported!

Avisynth 2.55 (http://www.doom9.org/Soft21/SupportUtils/AviSynth_255.exe) for video frameserving. Beta versions are NOT!!! supported

A YV12 VfW codec. If you have a recent XviD version installed, that will suffice. If you don't get any preview when opening an AviSynth script, install the Helix YV12 codec (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=56972)

latest version of mencoder (http://www.aziendeassociate.it/cd.asp?dir=/mplayer) (it's part of the mplayer package, pick the version that best matches your CPU)

[Doom9]

A new build is up. Just cosmetical changes really.

[Sirber]

Any screenshots? I don't have .NET.

[edit]

also, rename your topic to: MeGUI Snow edition, which is more appropriate.

[Doom9]

also, rename your topic to: MeGUI Snow edition, which is more appropriate.I don't think you get to tell the admin of any board what he has to do ;) MeGUI doesn't really tell you anything unless you know the software so that title would not best represent what's in it.

VideoHelp has a screenshot of the first tab of MeGUI.. this edition looks just like it except that it is smaller (on audio part). I don't think you need screenshots, if the featureset works for you download it and install the prerequisites, if not, nobody forces your hand..

[Sirber]

I don't think you get to tell the admin of any board what he has to do ;)
Take it as an opinion. I was kinda deceived to find a thread about megui while I was expecting a snow encoder ;)

[Doom9]

well.. without specs how would anyone write another encoder? and I changed the title to reflect the fact that it's a GUI.

Still, "change ... " is an order, "would you consider..", or "wouldn't it be better.." is a polite request ;) c'est le ton qui fait la musique, non?

[chilledoutuk]

I am having trouble encoding some videos with mencoder and this gui the video keeps coming out all washed looking and very small file size.
I have tried a couple versions of mencoder to no avail. I also tried different colour spaces to no avail.

I would very much like to get this working as i like the snow codec from what i have encoded in ffdshow.

[Doom9]

@chilledoutuk: logfiles? and which dgindex version are you using?

[chilledoutuk]

I have tried using a few different versions including the latest 1.4 and even dvd2avi 1.76 to no avail heres the 2passs log file and the end result video

[Doom9]

didn't you forget something? there's no attachment.

I have tried using a few different versions including the latest 1.4 and even dvd2avi 1.76it needs to be 1.21 and obviously your dgdecode.dll needs to match the dgindex.exe version or it won't work.

Also, what settings are you using?

[chilledoutuk]

hmm i did attach some files seems to not have got attached ill upload them to my webspace and get you a link

EDit
ok heres the files

www.chilledoutuk.co.uk/vids/snow.rar

[chilledoutuk]

Ok i just tested 1.21 and the result is the same.

In settings i use pretty much the defaults with automated 2 pass and a 1000 bitrate.

[Doom9]

actually, I'm more interested in the megui logfile.. the one you'll find in the logs subdirectory.

[chilledoutuk]

OK heres the megui log: -

Next job job1-1 is a video job. encoder commandline:
"mencoder.exe" "G:\DVD Music\ga g\new dgindex.avs" -ovc lavc -o NUL: -passlogfile "2pass.log" -lavcopts vcodec=snow:vpass=1:vbitrate=1000:vstrict=-2
successfully set up video encoder and callbacks for job job1-1
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Log for job job1-1


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
job job1-1 has been processed. This job is linked to the next job: job1-2
Next job job1-2 is a video job. encoder commandline:
"mencoder.exe" "G:\DVD Music\ga g\new dgindex.avs" -ovc lavc -passlogfile "2pass.log" -lavcopts vcodec=snow:vpass=2:vbitrate=1000:vstrict=-2 -o "F:\test snow.avi" -of avi -ffourcc SNOW
successfully set up video encoder and callbacks for job job1-2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Log for job job1-2

desired video bitrate of this job: 1000 kbit/s - obtained video bitrate: 126.516566866267 kbit/s
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Doom9]

I finally watched your video.. that's the effect from the bitrate.. if you look at the log, the obtained bitrate is 126.516566866267 kbit/swhich is very low. I'm not sure why you get such a low bitrate instead of the suggested one. I'll go check up on the snow commandlines again but at first glance I don't find anything wrong.

@edit: upon studying the supported commandline parameters posted in the snow thread, I don't find anything funny with your commandline. However, I encoded in two pass mode earlier today and the result was a big but black video. Now I've tried CQ mode and that seems to work out as it's supposed to. I'm now also trying another automated 2pass, with all the suggested settings by the authors (the 3 mbcomp modes at SSD, no m4v (that's a real speed killer.. I get 3 fps with, 11 fps without it), default prediction mode. I'll report again when I'm done.

[Doom9]

well, something is fishy here.. when I encode from the commandline, the first pass completes as it should, but the second pass starts with a few hundred lines of QP<=0.0, which makes no sense to me. Also, encoding is faster than the first pass, I'd expect it to be slower. In the end, I got a very small file that is just gray. I'll try some other settings but I think that the bitrate based mode may not work properly in snow for now.

[Doom9]

I'm trying and trying but two pass just doesn't work for me.. at least it appears not to be my fault :/

[Doom9]

alright, the problem and solution has been described here: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=84593&goto=lastpost

I guess there aren't too many snow users. I'll probably implement that workaround but it's no ideal solution, because the first pass quantizer should ideally match the average quantizer during the second pass.. and since you can't derive a quantizer from a bitrate, it'll always be inaccurate.

[Doom9]

alright, the new release contains a workaround to make two/three pass encoding usable.

[sugala]

Could someone tell me what the quality of the snow encoding be like?

[MeteorRain]

Any introduction about 'snow'? what's the features?
interesting about this codec ;)

regards!

[hellfred]

Any introduction about 'snow'? what's the features?
interesting about this codec ;)

regards!
Snow is a wavelet-based video codec created by Michael Niedermayer, the main programmer of ffmpeg. Wavelet-based video codecs, snow and dirac are open source codecs of this kind - are supposed to have no blocking issues. The manpage of mplayer/mencoder (available at www.mplayerhq.hu under documentation as html or text file) has a description of all parameters, that can be used to encode with snow. Another short introduction to the snow codec can be found in mplayer sources (main/DOCS/tech/snow.txt). You can browse the cvs here (http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/main/?cvsroot=MPlayer&sortby=date)

Hellfred

[Doom9]

@sugala: you have the GUI, why don't you see for yourself?

[MeteorRain]

Next job job15-1 is a video job. encoder commandline:
"H:\mp4\mplayer2005.06.09.Athlon-64\mencoder.exe" "H:\subgroup\final approach\ncop\VTS_01_1.avs" -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=snow:vqscale=5:cmp=1:subcmp=1:mbcmp=1:qpel:vstrict=-2 -o "H:\subgroup\final approach\ncop\VTS_01_1.avi" -of avi -ffourcc SNOW
successfully set up video encoder and callbacks for job job15-1
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Log for job job15-1

============ Sorry, this file format is not recognized/supported =============
=== If this file is an AVI, ASF or MPEG stream, please contact the author! ===
Cannot open demuxer.
Output file should exist but was not found. Something went wrong while encoding
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


i'm encoding an avs file (from dvdrip), but seems it don't support avs input? :o confused


EDIT==========
NO P/B frame supported???
i decode it using ffdshow, but i only see that all the frams are I frame... what's wrong? :( :(

[Doom9]

uh, first you report a complete failure (most likely completely unrelated to the GUI but a mencoder issue and those belong someplace else), then you have an encoded file?
And then job15-1.. that signifies a subsequent job, yet your commandline looks like a CQ job, so that doesn't make sense.

[MeteorRain]

job15-2 is a mkv-muxing job....
i feed a good avs file to the encoder, and it don't work.
but i feed a wmv9 avi file, it works.
so it doesn't support avs? =. =

i test it in command console:
AVS input:
D:\Documents and Settings\MeteorRain>"H:\mp4\mplayer2005.06.09.Athlon-64\mencode
r.exe" "H:\subgroup\final approach\ncop\VTS_01_1.avs" -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec
=snow:vqscale=1.00:qpel:v4mv:vstrict=-2 -o "H:\subgroup\final approach\ncop\VTS_
01.avi" -of avi -ffourcc SNOW -nosound
MEncoder dev-CVS-050609-00:54-3.4.4 (C) 2000-2005 MPlayer Team
CPU: Advanced Micro Devices (Family: 8, Stepping: 0)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: Type: 8 MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 0 SSE2: 0
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 3DNow 3DNowEx SSE SSE2

85 audio & 199 video codecs
File not found: 'frameno.avi'
Failed to open frameno.avi
success: format: 0 data: 0x0 - 0x112
============ Sorry, this file format is not recognized/supported =============
=== If this file is an AVI, ASF or MPEG stream, please contact the author! ===
Cannot open demuxer.

Exiting...


And for avi input:D:\Documents and Settings\MeteorRain>"H:\mp4\mplayer2005.06.09.Athlon-64\mencode
r.exe" "H:\subgroup\final approach\ncop\ncop.avi" -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=sno
w:vqscale=1.00:qpel:v4mv:vstrict=-2 -o "H:\subgroup\final approach\ncop\VTS_01_.
avi" -of avi -ffourcc SNOW -nosound
MEncoder dev-CVS-050609-00:54-3.4.4 (C) 2000-2005 MPlayer Team
CPU: Advanced Micro Devices (Family: 8, Stepping: 0)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: Type: 8 MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 0 SSE2: 0
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 3DNow 3DNowEx SSE SSE2

85 audio & 199 video codecs
File not found: 'frameno.avi'
Failed to open frameno.avi
success: format: 0 data: 0x0 - 0x4921000
AVI file format detected.
AVI_NI: No audio stream found -> no sound.
VIDEO: [WMV3] 640x480 24bpp 23.976 fps 7125.1 kbps (869.8 kbyte/s)
[V] filefmt:3 fourcc:0x33564D57 size:640x480 fps:23.98 ftime:=0.0417
Opening video filter: [expand osd=1]
Expand: -1 x -1, -1 ; -1 (-1=autodetect) osd: 1
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [dmo] DMO video codecs
IMediaObject ERROR: 00AF9A40 could not open DMO DLL (0x0 : 0)
Failed to create DMO filter
ERROR: Could not open required DirectShow codec wmv9dmod.dll.
You need to upgrade/install the binary codecs package.
Go to http://mplayerhq.hu/homepage/dload.html
VDecoder init failed :(
Opening video decoder: [dmo] DMO video codecs
DMO dll supports VO Optimizations 0 1
DMO dll might use previous sample when requested
GetOutput r=0x0 size:921600 align:1
StreamCount r=0x0 1 1
Decoder supports the following formats: YV12 YUY2 UYVY YVYU RGB8 RGB555 RGB565 R
GB24 RGB32
Decoder is capable of YUV output (flags 0x1b)
VDec: vo config request - 640 x 480 (preferred csp: Packed YUY2)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is undefined - no prescaling applied.
videocodec: libavcodec (640x480 fourcc=574f4e53 [SNOW])
Using constant qscale = 1.000000 (VBR)
Selected video codec: [wmvdmo] vfm:dmo (Windows Media Video DMO)
==========================================================================
Forcing output fourcc to 574f4e53 [SNOW]
Writing AVI header...
ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp h
eader.
ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp h
eader.

regards!

[Doom9]

job15-2 is a mkv-muxing job....Uh, there is no matroska support in MeGUI snow edition ;) All the tests I did (see previous posts and links) were done with avisynth files.. clearly something is wrong with yours, but since you didn't post it or tested it in any other applications, the ball is fully in your court...

I'm using the http://www.aziendeassociate.it/cd//mplayer/mplayer2005.08.13.Athlon-64.7z mencoder build by the way.

[MeteorRain]

nvm, i'm using the full version LOL
and it was a misclick, so i just deleted the mkv muxing job before the encode ;)

and then, what should i post?

and now, i'm downloading the version you give, and 'll try.

[Doom9]

and then, what should i post?AviSynth script, and test the script in VirtualDub. Does the same script work for x264.exe? These are really basic error reporting things, they should be mandatory for a first post.

[chilledoutuk]

Hi doom do you plan to implement the 2 pass workaround or are you just going to wait for snow to be fixed?

[MeteorRain]

AviSynth script, and test the script in VirtualDub. Does the same script work for x264.exe? These are really basic error reporting things, they should be mandatory for a first post.
LoadPlugin("g:\dgmpgdec140b2\DGDecode.dll")
LoadPlugin("g:\avs\it.dll")
loadplugin("g:\avs\Convolution3D.dll")
MPEG2Source("VTS_01_1.d2v")
IT(fps=24,ref="TOP",blend=false,diMode=1)
bicubicresize(640,480,0.3333,0.3333)
Convolution3D(preset="AnimeHQ")
it works very well under any other condition, either in VDMod, or for x264.

and i used the new version of mencoder, and still don't work :o

[Doom9]

@chilledoutuk: I think you missed the new version.. the workaround is already implemented, and it worked well in my tests :)

mpeg2source("D:\DVDs\DVDVolume\VIDEO_TS\re-trailer.d2v")
crop(18,82,684,412)
LanczosResize(640,352)
Works just fine for me.. so you should a) try to reduce your script to find the offending line, then open a new thread with a title like "mencoder doesn't like avisynth input with xyz" (where xyz is the culprit you found), and make sure you put all pertinents facts in that thread (script, culprit, avisynth version, the fact that x264 works, and that you've tested it in VirtualDub (iirc it should be VirtualDub not VDubMod, there's a bit of a difference that seems to matter (check the main megui thread, berrinam once pointed it out)).

[MeteorRain]

avisource("tsq_re.avi", false).trim(0,100)even this DOESN'T work!!!
orz...........

[Doom9]

a new build is out. It contains improvements and fixes in the bitrate calculator.

[Koti]

Hi doom do you plan to implement the 2 pass workaround or are you just going to wait for snow to be fixed?

Possibly a 2 pass error in MeGui Snow Edition

1st pass generated by MeGuiSnow "C:\Program Files\Snow Encoder\mencoder.exe" "N:\DVD 1\History .avs" -ovc lavc -o NUL: -passlogfile "2pass.log" -lavcopts vcodec=snow:vqscale=5:vstrict=-2

Missing from 1st pass CLI sent to mencoder is the switch "vpass=1" . This caused the logfile never to be output explaining the 2nd pass failing. :(

[Doom9]

indeed, you are correct. I guess I must've had a valid logfile in my megui directory all along when I tested.

P.S. a few suggestions for your settings: SSD in all cases except for SAD, and don't use m4v.. it kills your speed and doesn't yield useful results at this point. And keep the number of predictors from previous frames at 0.. I think that about covers it (the author suggests those things for optimal results).

[Koti]

Pass 1 is set at a fixed value of vqscale=5 , would it be possible to allow adjustment of this as to get closer to the actual target quant on the 1st pass ?

Don't use it for 1st pass as CBR isn't implemented yet,use vqscale instead, and set it to a quantizer near the target average quant of the final encode.

thx :)

[Doom9]

Pass 1 is set at a fixed value of vqscale=5 , would it be possible to allow adjustment of this as to get closer to the actual target quant on the 1st pass ?It is only a temporary workaround until libavcodec gets fixed. It's a two line thing.. changing the GUI isn't a two liner, plus then there's the problem with automated 2/3 pass (where there's only a bitrate). And since you don't really know which quantizer you'll get until you have encoded the second pass, I'll stick to what I have and revert back to the proper code when libavcodec gets fixed.

[Doom9]

a new build is up, incorporating the hopefully final fix to get the 2/3 pass workaround working. A full changelog can be found here: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=674495#post674495

[Doom9]

the 0.2.2.3a build contains nothing new, but it's compiled using csc so it's smaller. I'll leave the VS.NET build up for a few days to see if there are no problems with this new build.

[Doom9]

a new release it out. as usual, the details can be found in the main megui thread.

[Doom9]

new build is up. enjoy

[Doom9]

a new build is out. Only bugfixes as far as the Snow edition is concerned

[Doom9]

and another build. Nothing major, just the sorting of profiles alphabetically.

[Koti]

"Attached Files" missing at start of thread
Thx :)

[Doom9]

it's up now. sorry