weird vfapi problem

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weird vfapi problem

Postby hanitizer » Sun Feb 11, 2007 7:07 am

to make scripts work in vegas i followed the instructions here: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/phpBB/v ... 251#760251 so that i wouldn't need to convert vobs in vdubmod anymore (mpeg2 to lagarith or huffyuv). everything worked fine and i was able to make a few fake avis with it. the weird thing is that a few days later, i tried to make some new scripts for different vobs to make more fake avis then all of a sudden vfapi wouldn't accept the scripts. so i thought that maybe i just did something wrong with my script so i tried to load my older scripts which worked in vfapi a few days ago, they didn't work o_O...

now vfapi only accepts .d2v files. it doesn't want to accept any avisynth script i try to put in it. :?

do any of you guys know what the problem is or how to solve this problem?
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Postby Purge » Sun Feb 11, 2007 9:29 am

try reinstalling if you haven't done so
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Postby Zarxrax » Sun Feb 11, 2007 10:12 am

In dgindex, make sure the "vfapi plugin" is selected under the help menu. Also make sure "DGVfapi.vfp" is in the folder with dgindex.
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Postby hanitizer » Sun Feb 11, 2007 10:55 am

i have tried re-installing vfapi, i actually tried re-downloading it from other sites and using those versions too. nothing worked.

i even tried re-installing avisynth just to make sure that that's not the problem. it still didn't work. i tried to test my scripts if they were ok by loading them into vdubmod, they did work but vfapi would still not accept them. even the scripts that i made a few days ago which succesfully converted into fake avis were not accepted by vfapi... :(

@Zarxax

the vfapi plugin is selected and DGVfapi.vfp is also inside the same folder as dgindex... that's why i've been able to make a few fake avis with vfapi a few days ago. the thing is, for some reason that i don't know, it won't work now... O_o

anyway, i'll try to play with dgindex and make new .d2v files and make scripts out of those.

thanks for the help anyways
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Postby Up In Flamez » Sun Feb 11, 2007 5:54 pm

is the vfapi that different from FFdshow's MakeAvis?

you could try just using the latest FFDshow, because that works for me in AE and Vegas
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Postby hanitizer » Mon Feb 12, 2007 10:30 am

i haven't tried FFdshow's MakeAvis yet so i wouldn't know... thanks for the advice anyway
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Postby hanitizer » Mon Feb 12, 2007 1:13 pm

i tried playing with dgindex a little more and tried to put some scripts into vfapi again and then it suddenly worked :D

i don't know what the hell was the problem with it before. i mean i didn't even tinker around with any of the settings of dgindex nor did i create a new .d2v file. it just worked again just the same way it didn't want to work a few days ago. o_O

anyway thanks for the replies and thanks for the help

by the way, how does the vfapi codec work anyway? does importing fake avis mean that i'm actually importing the vobs (being compressed with the mpeg2 codec right...?) with only the fake avis working as dummies for the scripts to work or is it really a totally different codec on its own (like xvid, divx, h264 etc...)?

if so, can i use this to make "fake" avis of xvid/divx compressed files (which are bad for editing because they are meant for distibution and not for editing), then load those "fake" avis into my preffered editing program?

here's the process i was thinking of:

1. get your desired divx/xvid/h264 compressed .avi file
2. change the extension name of the file into .mpeg (although i'm not sure if you need to do this but i guess you do. doesn't vfapi only read/recognize mpeg files?)
3. make a script together with whatever filters you want to use. use directshowsource(file) or the other one for mpeg source (sorry i can't quite remember the syntax right now for the mpegsource thingy >_<4>_<)
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Postby hanitizer » Mon Feb 12, 2007 1:18 pm

continuation:

4. load those scripts into vfapi and convert those into fake avis
5. load those avis into your desired editing program

anyway, i'm really quite a noob to all of this stuff. i was only basing my ideas from logic and the little i know about avisynth, compression etc... it's just a suggestion, i hope you guys look into it. i'll try doing it tomorrow morning when i get up (it's already too late right now here from where i come from >_<)
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Postby Zarxrax » Mon Feb 12, 2007 7:09 pm

VFAPI can convert any avisynth script into a fake avi, no matter what the content is. The whole bit about renaming stuff to .mpeg or whatever is just bad and wrong though. If you leave off your step 2, you should be good.
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Postby x_rex30 » Mon Feb 12, 2007 8:59 pm

If you use a different dgindex it could cause all your fake avis created from vfapi stop working. I've installed new versions of dgindex before and it caused all scripts I made to not upload into vfapi and all the ones I already made stopped working. Use one, if it works, stop updating dgindex, I've had all sorts of problems from using new ones and replacing the old ones. The one I have works perfectly and I'm not going to change it unless I'm planning on replacing all the vfapi files I've currently made, and I've made over a hundred so no way in hell am I going to do that unless I want to start from scratch for some reason. Hope that helps, might be wrong on how this works I'm just telling you based on my experience.
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Postby hanitizer » Tue Feb 13, 2007 1:24 am

i've already tried converting divx compressed avis into fake avis via vfapi. it worked :D

@Zarxrax or anyone else out there ^^

so would this process be as good as changing xvid/divx/h264 clips to lagarith or huffyuv first?

@x_rex30

i'll take note of what you said ^_^
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Postby Zarxrax » Tue Feb 13, 2007 10:23 am

Is it as good, no way. It will probably *work*, but it will be slow as hell. Depending on the video, you might have up to about 300 or so frames in between keyframes. This means if you want to seek to a certain frame, you have to sit there and wait while it decodes a couple hundred other frames before it can display the one you want. You basically can't scrub the timeline backwards, and going forwards is slow too.
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Postby hanitizer » Tue Feb 13, 2007 12:21 pm

well, i tried importing those fake avis from the divx footage i've made. apparently it wasn't really slow. actually it was just about as fast as using Vobs directly into Vegas (like the vobs of macross zero and yuyu hakusho i used from the dvds) ^_^. i was actually able to use 9 layers (10 including the sound file) and made it play on the preview window smoothly after several tries (which i haven't been able to do using vobs yet) ^_^

but the downside to making fake avis out of divx compressed footage is that the fake avis were as big as the divx compressed files vis a vis the fake avis from the .d2v files when getting the source from dvds. but i guess 200+megs for one complete episode is still a lot smaller than a few minutes using lagarith or huffyuv...
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