Guides and AMVapp Public Alpha/Beta Test

[AbsoluteDestiny]

Hello all!

In order to accelerate development of the guides and the new amvapp to their ultimate conclusion I'm making things more public.

Read ErMaC & AbsoluteDestiny's Friendly AMV Guides Guide Updates

This also contains a beta of the latest AMVapp release.

Important Notes:

The amvapp is for testing purposes only. Although I think all the software is in a useable state at the moment, things may go wrong. Also, any d2v files made with this release will need to be remade when the final amvapp is released as new versions of DGMPEGDec (formerly dvd2avi) require d2v files to be remade.

Furthermore, the guides are by no means complete, and are missing the following:

- Export guides
- New Cleanup Guides
- Container Guides
- Convention file preparation guides.

I also haven't touch any of the audio stuff. It's the quickest to update and least essential so I'm leaving that until later.

Even a lot of the "new" pages still need a lot of work, so have patience. I'm expecting very quick progress now though.

How you can help

Point out issues either with the amvapp or the guide. There are many simple errors with the guide as they are hosted at the moment, including incorrect links. Often these are due to pages that are mid update.

Most importantly I'd like feedback on the new methods and how the amvapp works for you. Readability of the guides is also important, so feedback on that is going to be important too.

Finally, try and keep this thread on topic. Thanks.

AD

[EDIT: Moved to local hosting]

[AbsoluteDestiny]

w00t! first amvapp bug.

Doing a silent update - should be ready in 5 mins.

[trythil]

Random stuff:

There's a link error on the guide index page: "Indexing your DVD footage with DGIndex" points to a link on your local filesystem. I'd guess you know about this but it's safer to not reveal anything about the layout of your machine to the public :)

There's a grammatical error in the aspect ratio page (http://amvs.34sp.com/guides/video1.htm#4):

So for all intensive purposes we can say that the theoretically visual portion of an NTSC picture is 720x480.

I'm guessing that the post-processing page (http://amvs.34sp.com/guides/avspostqual.html) will eventually be updated to change VirtualDubAVS to VirtualDubMod?

Also, on a related note, how beneficial would it be to put some more words in about doing all cleaning and image enhancement operations as preprocessing rather than in postprocessing? From experience, the former method seems to work much, much better.

[AbsoluteDestiny]

Thanks for the bug report.

As for preprocessing, I considered it but I'm not going to. I may make the paragraph I have on "it's a good idea" more verbose but I'm not going to have a preprocessing section. Actually I'm not sure if I have that paragraph in all 3 methods - it's in the clip making method right now.

I'm just going to link to the not yet written post processing section and those who want to get into what is in my opinion an advanved method can try it there.

So yes, I debated it but decided against it.

[AbsoluteDestiny]

OK, I've added cleanup as part of the regular chain now (which is getting pretty long).

Everything goes in order but I'm worried about making things too complicated for folks who just want to get the footage and get editing... but then I guess it's those folks who make the most mistakes.

Thoughts so far anyone?

[Corran]

From http://amvs.34sp.com/guides/amvappavisynth.html refering for to make extensions visible in explorer.

Go to Tools in your directory window and choose folder options... and deselect "Hide file extenstions for known file types". This should allow you to see the file as "New Text Document.txt"

In my version of windows I have to click the 'view' tab after going to folder options. I'm pretty sure it is like that in the other versions also.


Also I recommend having people select "Display full path in the address bar" while they are in the folder options as it makes the copy and pasting of file locations much easier when creating avisynth scripts.

[AbsoluteDestiny]

Good point, thanks.

[WilLoW :--)]

Just wanted to say that I hate you, Ian. I even haven't finished translating the old one

Nice work anyway, should we start translating it ?

[AbsoluteDestiny]

I'm changing stuff all the time... maybe in a week?

[godix]

Just a quick note. On the Ripping DVD Footage page you say:
<blockquote>2) FlaskMPEG. This one is simple, do not use FlaskMPEG. It's slower than method 4 (below), it has many bugs, lots of its extra features are ugly and don't work properly and it's just not very good. <b>It may seem simple, but the extra speed, accuracy and flexibility of method 4.</b></blockquote>
The bolded part is not a complete sentance.

[Kalium]

Going through The Guide:

Nowadays we have 100GB RAID arrays being common in not-so-expensive consumer setups. 10 years ago, 10GB was an ENORMOUS amount of space!!

I feel compelled to add a footnote: on HDs only. Tape drives, then and now, hold a lot more datd.

In lossless compression, are you going to address Lagarith for space issues?

(although this can be variable throughout the file depending on if you use what's called variable titrate)

O_o
I thought this was a relatively dry subject matter. Seems I was wrong.

Anyway, in the XviD section, shouldn't there be links to both the XviD guide (someone should ask SysKin to help with that) and to Koepi's page? Oh yes: remember that XviD isn't in alpha stage anymore.

DVD Analysis page:
What is this DGIndex, offhand? I think it's a reference to something in DVD2AVI, but I'm not sure.

With the contrasting pictures, it might be a good idea to circle what you're talking about. Otherwise, it can be hard to tell unless you know exactly what you're looking for (good vs. bad chroma pictures being case in point).

In the discussion of interlacing methods, it's not well expmained how to tell visually in each case. Also, "a picture is worth a thousand word" is very true. (On a side note, someone should start compiling a database of this stuff. Make all our lives simpler, except for the DB admin.)

this is one of the reasons that despite liking in the UK

I hate typos.

[NicholasDWolfwood]

DGIndex is a newer version of DVD2AVIdg.

Ian, I've not looked at the guide yet, but I'll look at it tomorrow.

[AbsoluteDestiny]

In lossless compression, are you going to address Lagarith for space issues?

It's not particularly quick to edit with, though.

Anyway, in the XviD section, shouldn't there be links to both the XviD guide (someone should ask SysKin to help with that) and to Koepi's page?

I don't see the need to link to an external XviD guide - mine has everything the amv creator needs (although a footnote about trellis in 1.0 is required). Koepi's page, yes that needs linking.

DVD Analysis page:
What is this DGIndex, offhand? I think it's a reference to something in DVD2AVI, but I'm not sure.

Like NDW said.

With the contrasting pictures, it might be a good idea to circle what you're talking about. Otherwise, it can be hard to tell unless you know exactly what you're looking for (good vs. bad chroma pictures being case in point).

Exactly what could I circle in those pictures?

In the discussion of interlacing methods, it's not well expmained how to tell visually in each case.

You are going to have to give me examples. Other than blended fields (which I already have pictures for) I don't see how I could give any extra informatoin about interlacing types with a still.

Also, in the future can people refer to specific file names when reporting typos, please, as it makes my job much easier.

[Corran]

Concerning AMVapp

By default the plugins remain during the uninstallation. If they get an error saying "Mpeg2Source: Couldn't open file" durring the Avisynth tests tell them to remove the previous version of mpeg2dec from their plugin directory. Either that of or tell them to delete the plugin folder alltogether and to reinstall the plugins from the AMVapp.

[Kalium]

Just to illustrate. I know that the first time I looked at that, I spent about five minutes trying to figure out what I was supposed to be seeing.

It's not particularly quick to edit with, though.

This is true. It is also true that sometimes HD space is a larger concern than speed.

I don't see the need to link to an external XviD guide - mine has everything the amv creator needs (although a footnote about trellis in 1.0 is required)

That's what I meant (yours being the XviD guide I had in mind). I just thought that it should be linked along with the main discussion of XviD. Come to think of it, xvid.org should be linked too.

You are going to have to give me examples. Other than blended fields (which I already have pictures for) I don't see how I could give any extra informatoin about interlacing types with a still.

OK, so you've got me there. My major problem is that from your descriptions I can't tell exactly how any given DVD on my shelf is interlaced (which, I think, is the idea). I think specific things to look for and examples would be ideal. A set of criteria, (tests, if you will) to determine the interlacing method. There is discussion of the methods, as well as how they are done, but exactly what they looks like is a little hazy. I read the section on pure interlacing, and thought "so, I tell this apart from telecine & pulldown how, exactly?". There has to be a better way than researching the actual production of the show.

As for using stills, you might be able to use short GIFs to illustrate. That, or a series of stills.