Issues converting files in VirtualDubMod

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Issues converting files in VirtualDubMod

Postby madboyv1 » Fri Jul 28, 2006 8:53 pm

So I have a VOB file. I run it through DGIndex, okay. I open up VirtualDubMod and I apply Smooth and SmoothIQ, two filters listed in that working with DVD's guide (which help phenomenally). Okay, here comes the issue. I decided to use the DivX 6.2.5 codec not knowing better. I used the following options: Unconstrained, Multipass, 1 pass at a bitrate of 1500 kbps. Encoding mode is balanced, adaptive single consecutive for bidirectional coding, Quantization is set to H.263 Optimized with light noise reduction.

When I tried to run the conversion (save as AVI) I got the following error after 8 hours of work:

I/O thread has not cycled for 30 seconds -- possible livelock

So I looked to the virtualdbu community, and noticed I didn't have teh most recent version, so I updated my copy and tried again. Didn't get an error, but the same result, a 700k sized file that doesn't work.

I haven't tried saving the file without the filters, as they make that much of a difference, so if anyone wants to point me in the right direction, that would be great.

I hate asking so many questions, but its unavoidable I suppose.
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Postby oceanangel2you » Fri Jul 28, 2006 10:59 pm

I am sure I will get some smart comment to this, but have you tried skipping that first part and just changing the vob to mpeg and running through vdub with the filters that way :wink:
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Postby Kariudo » Fri Jul 28, 2006 11:25 pm

well, you're right about getting someone to comment...
mpeg is lossy, which should be avoided if possible (even divx/xvid is better)
the thing about running it through the other programs is that it makes:
a: better quality footage (assuming you contimue to part b...and know what you're doing with the footage)
b: easier to work with in programs such as AviSynth (which could take care of the filtering instead of vdub)

I have a few questions...

1: are you just working with 1 .vob? (from 1 episode, ~25min) with just 2 filters, it shouldn't take 8 hours to transcode*, or are you transcoding vobs from a movie/many vob files put together with dgindex?
*this statement depends on question 2

2: what are your computer's specs?

now for some suggestions.
I would reccomend transcoding your vob/d2v files with a lossless codec such as lagarith or huffyuv...but this takes up a lot of space.
if you don't have that much space, I'd reccomend transcoding with xvid (1 pass, highest quality) (as opposed to divx) until you take clips.

*instead of importing entire episodes, I reccomend taking clips in vdub(/mod) and encoding them with lagarith/huffy and importing the clips.
this allows you to store the episodes in a space-efficient manner and use them later for editing, while retaining most of the image quality

you might loose a little quality by doing it this way, and there are other ways of prepping footage while reatining all of the quality (see ErMaC and Destiny child's guide to all things audio and video)
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Postby madboyv1 » Sat Jul 29, 2006 11:11 am

Kariudo wrote:well, you're right about getting someone to comment...
mpeg is lossy, which should be avoided if possible (even divx/xvid is better)
the thing about running it through the other programs is that it makes:
a: better quality footage (assuming you contimue to part b...and know what you're doing with the footage)
b: easier to work with in programs such as AviSynth (which could take care of the filtering instead of vdub)

If AviSynth has code that can replace the two filters that I am using, I'd like to be pointed in that direction.

Kariudo wrote:I have a few questions...

1: are you just working with 1 .vob? (from 1 episode, ~25min) with just 2 filters, it shouldn't take 8 hours to transcode*, or are you transcoding vobs from a movie/many vob files put together with dgindex?
*this statement depends on question 2

I am using 1 .vob, about 20 minutes long.

Kariudo wrote:2: what are your computer's specs?

Since my laptop is faster than my desktop, I'll list that.
  • Intel Pentium M "Centrino", specs speed: 2Ghz, effective speed (what its equivilant to): 2.76 Ghz
  • 1024 MB (1 GB) of DDR 4200 SDRAM
  • 256 MB ATI Mobile FireGL V3200 video card
  • Audigy 2 ZS PCMCIA card
  • 80 GB 4200 RPM ATA/6 Hardrive
  • Microsoft XP Professional SP2
  • VirualDub v1.6.15 and VirualDubMod v1.5.4.1 (would the difference in version change anything?)
  • Adobe Premier Pro v7
Kariudo wrote:now for some suggestions.
I would reccomend transcoding your vob/d2v files with a lossless codec such as lagarith or huffyuv...but this takes up a lot of space.
if you don't have that much space, I'd reccomend transcoding with xvid (1 pass, highest quality) (as opposed to divx) until you take clips.

*instead of importing entire episodes, I reccomend taking clips in vdub(/mod) and encoding them with lagarith/huffy and importing the clips.
this allows you to store the episodes in a space-efficient manner and use them later for editing, while retaining most of the image quality

you might loose a little quality by doing it this way, and there are other ways of prepping footage while reatining all of the quality (see ErMaC and Destiny child's guide to all things audio and video)


I figured to encode the entire episode, for that though I know what I want to do, The footage is coming to me as I go along, so having the footage already available would make things easier. I also wanted to go with lossless codecs, but when I tried one and the resulting file was 118 GB for a single episode (that was on my desktop which has the space, but a lot slower in processing terms) I figured, not only did I do something wrong, but if I did right, then I couldn't be editing on my laptop due to HDD space constraints. I'll try xvid, but the amount of time it takes worries me, and my laptop isn't that much of a push over. :?
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Postby Melanchthon » Sat Jul 29, 2006 12:31 pm

Just one little comment...

madboyv1 wrote:I also wanted to go with lossless codecs, but when I tried one and the resulting file was 118 GB for a single episode (that was on my desktop which has the space, but a lot slower in processing terms) I figured, not only did I do something wrong, but if I did right, then I couldn't be editing on my laptop due to HDD space constraints.

118GB for a twenty-minute video? That sounds more like uncompressed to me. 10GB an episode is about right for Huffyuv, and less for Lagarith.

You can use VirtualDub filters in AviSynth by using LoadVirtualDubPlugin. More info on that here.
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Postby madboyv1 » Sat Jul 29, 2006 1:03 pm

Melanchthon wrote:Just one little comment...

madboyv1 wrote:I also wanted to go with lossless codecs, but when I tried one and the resulting file was 118 GB for a single episode (that was on my desktop which has the space, but a lot slower in processing terms) I figured, not only did I do something wrong, but if I did right, then I couldn't be editing on my laptop due to HDD space constraints.

118GB for a twenty-minute video? That sounds more like uncompressed to me. 10GB an episode is about right for Huffyuv, and less for Lagarith.

You can use VirtualDub filters in AviSynth by using LoadVirtualDubPlugin. More info on that here.


I'm pretty sure I double checked when saving it was not on uncompressed RGB, but alas, I could have screwed up. Anyways, I'll look into the link you included. :o
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Postby madboyv1 » Sat Jul 29, 2006 2:11 pm

well at least xvid is working. doing the conversion with the filters being done in aviSynth or having Vdubmod doing it makes no difference in time . and the estimated total time atm is 7 or so hours... Something ain't right.

At this rate I may decide to try and use my vob's that have been run through DGIndex and had the VdubMod filters run in AVISynth, rather than struggling with this, and I'd rather not do that if I can get better quality otherwise.
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Postby Melanchthon » Sat Jul 29, 2006 7:20 pm

madboyv1 wrote:doing the conversion with the filters being done in aviSynth or having Vdubmod doing it makes no difference in time . and the estimated total time atm is 7 or so hours... Something ain't right.

That depends what filters you're using. What's your script?
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Postby madboyv1 » Sat Jul 29, 2006 8:49 pm

well there is this one:
Code: Select all
mpeg2source("C:\goddess_rip\OMG - 04.dvs)
KillAudio()
Telecide(post=1, order=0, guide=1, blend=true)
Decimate(quality=3)


That one I apply the filters in VDubMod. The one with them done in AviSynth (which it doesn't do SmoothIQ as well) is as follows:
Code: Select all
LoadVirtualDubPlugin("smooth.vdf", "Smooth", 3)
LoadVirtualDubPlugin("smoothIQ.vdf", "SmoothIQ", 3)
mpeg2source("C:\goddess_rip\OMG - 04.dvs)
KillAudio()
Telecide(post=1, order=0, guide=1, blend=true)
Decimate(quality=3)
ConvertToRGB()
Smooth()
SmoothIQ()
SmoothIQ()
ConvertToYUY2()

I did Smooth IQ twice because AviSynth uses the default values (I don't know how to change it in AviSynth), which are a lot lower than I use in VDubMod.
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Postby madboyv1 » Sat Jul 29, 2006 10:21 pm

also, I just finished converting one my my episodes, and originally I was under the impression it was telecined, but comparing the footage in VLC player with the converted episode in WMP, it looks like the footage was pure interlaced... but even with the guides I'm not exactly sure. If I put up a screen cap, would someone be able to help me in that aspect?
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Postby Kariudo » Sat Jul 29, 2006 11:46 pm

concerning an earlier post
I'd have to look at what smoothIQ does...but judging by the name, I'd say that deen should do the trick

regarding your last post, if you set blend=true, you will get a smoother looking picture (smooth motion)...but unfortunately it becomes quite visible when the video is slowed down.

I found this out in my current project...but the motion didn't look right without it (using Gundam Seed)...but for OMG, it shouldn't be neccessary

usually to change values of a filter in avisynth, you exlpicitly set the values in the function call
an example is telecide()
you are telling the function telecide to use the values 1,0,1 and 1 (respectively...and true evaluates to 1 in most computer/scripting languages)
all you need to do is look for the guide/readme that came with smoothIQ() and find out what values you can change (and the range that they can be in...usually 0-100 or 0-255)

decimate also has a value called mode...to speicfy it, simply put mode=int (where int is any positive integer) inside the parenthesis
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Postby madboyv1 » Sun Jul 30, 2006 12:12 am

SmoothIQ is "a filter performs structure-preserving smoothing (blurring) on the I/Q (chrominance or colour) information of the image, leaving Y (luminance) intact. It was created in an attempt to reduce the appearance of "rainbows" (cross-colour artifacts) near lines in some cel animation. It is based on Donald Graft's Smart Smoother filter, which operates in RGB space." quoted from readme

From what I can tell from the filter in VdubMod, It has 3 parameters, if its called as a function: int diameter, int strength, boolean interlaced (true if source is interlaced). I've tried calling them after loading them in avisynth, like Smooth(diameter=11, strength=300, interlaced=false) and Smooth(11, 300, false), and neither work. (11 and 300 are the max values shown in VdubMod for diameter and strength respectively). I noticed in the readme though, that the larger the diameter the longer it takes to run the filter... that might be one reason for why things are taking so long.

In regards to that, Premiere and After Effects can't read my Xvid AVI, but other editors (WMM and Pinnacle Studio)and media players can. Any ideas?

Kariudo wrote:regarding your last post, if you set blend=true, you will get a smoother looking picture (smooth motion)...but unfortunately it becomes quite visible when the video is slowed down.

That's good to know. However, what I am seeing is at regular running speed, where half the lines of the next frame (and sometimes the previous frame) is visible in the current frame.
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Postby BasharOfTheAges » Sun Jul 30, 2006 1:42 am

madboyv1 wrote:In regards to that, Premiere and After Effects can't read my Xvid AVI, but other editors (WMM and Pinnacle Studio)and media players can. Any ideas?


That's a known issue. that's why it's advised against doing. Most people either clip in a lossless format (which takes up space and requires, you know, work) or they import using an avs script (which can result in random crashing, problems exporting, etc.). If you're dead set against clipping, take your chances with the scripting - just don't complain if it doesn't always work that well. :lol:
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Postby Kariudo » Sun Jul 30, 2006 1:46 am

found this on the doom9 forums
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?threadid=36434

this [can] also explains why your transcodes are taking 7 hours...
I'd look into getting deen, a filter/function for avisynth.

it requires footage to be in yv12 colorspace, and has both spatial and temporal smoothers (depending on which you call), so it should be able to replace smoothIQ
read more at the amvwiki page

this explains why divx won't work in editing programs such as premiere (Non Linear Editing program...or just NLE)

Kariudo wrote:see ErMaC and Abolute Destiny's guide to all things audio and video
messed this one up...oops (long night at work) meant to correct this earlier
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Postby madboyv1 » Mon Jul 31, 2006 5:29 pm

sorry for the late response.

I'm not dead set against clipping, if that's what I need to do then so be it.

As for deen, I'll look into it, I'll probably pick up CNR2 for the same guy too. I'll let you all know how it turns out when I get some time.
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