VirtualDubMod constantly rendering and won't stop

[Gaelstrom]

I... appreciate the sentiment, but I also asked for some reasoning behind it. dgindex was like staring at a wall to me, as that just didn't seem to work. AVISynth is the biggest one that I lack any real understanding of. The guide was virtually no help to me on that one, I followed instructions just fine, then none of the things I wanted to do afterward seemed to work. The process seemed straight-forward enough, but outside the tutorial, nothing made any sense to me. The list of instructions it directed me to, I wasn't even aware what did what due to lack of description.

I attempted once to fix interlacing following instructions a while ago, but that... well nothing happened honestly, I'm not sure what happened. I would love to know how to simply plug those scripts in and not return errors on me, but that's not the case. All documentation I've seen thus far seems to assume a lot of understanding and I've yet to find a bridge to that knowledge gap. I just assumed the guide spoke of XP and I'm on Vista, and hence I just chalked that up to nothing seeming to work the way it was supposed to on programs designed for XP.

I'm not an unintelligent person, and I'm a 3D animator so technical things aren't foreign to me, but I'm just not a scripter. Certain things in the guide were clear as day, and others were too convoluted for me. It may also be related to the newer versions of programs available fixing some things, I don't know, this isn't what I was trained in.

Maybe somewhere buried in the boards there's something more straight-forward regarding dgindex, avisynth and scripting?

[Phantasmagoriat]

Just FYI, here are The Guides for reference, and here is a Glossary

Summary/Explanation [as best as I can put it]
-after ripping a DVD, you have a .VOB file(s) that contains your footage
-unfortunately these cannot be read quickly or accurately unless we have extra information about the footage
-dgindex does this by scanning the .VOB ahead of time and gathers information into a .d2v index
-it's like making the index to a textbook (you'd need one to find anything quick and accurately)
-this index is gibberish to most programs except avisynth

-now, avisynth is tricky to explain because it is not a typical program with a GUI (like a window with buttons).
It runs in the background of your computer, and

• 1.Takes input video/information/footage
  2.Interprets the video information
  3.Manipulates the footage how you want
  4.Serves the manipulated footage to another program (like VirtualDub or AvsP)

So... you never really get to see avisynth,
but you can see the manipulated footage it produces in another program.
The Guide's explanation can be found here:
AviSynth and AvsP - What they are, and why you need to use them too!

Here are some ways avisynth can manipulate your footage and prepare it properly before you edit:

• deinterlacing (with the help of the info. from dgindex)
• decimate; change frame rate for smooth motion
• crop black borders off footage
• resize your footage to the proper aspect ratio
• clean your footage of artifacts, grain, macroblocks, aliasing, halo's, rainbowing, etc. (if needed)
• much much more...

-avisynth achieves this by applying various filters to the footage;
-the filters you choose are determined by the lines you type into an avisynth script;
-a script is basically just a text file with the extension changed from .txt to .avs
-vdub (VirtualDub/Mod) or AvsP are common programs used to open these .avs scripts so you can see if avisynth is doing what you want it to do
-They are also the programs that use various codecs to compress your filtered footage to a format that can be read by your editor.
-After going through this process, you can edit with the best footage possible

This information is all in The Guides.
read AbsoluteDestiny & ErMaC's Technical Guides to All Things Audio and Video,
it just requires a lot of time and reading

Granted, they could probably use better organization, but if you click that link you'll see that it is kind of difficult to organize that amount of information without over-generalizing concepts. And it would require an even bigger overhaul than The Guides have already gone through.
... you just have to give it some time. LOTS of Time.

If you need any further explanations feel free to ask.

Specific Questions are good.

~Phan

[Gaelstrom]

I appreciate the breakdown, and it helped me better understand the assistance I think I need most.

First off, I did read the guides, nearly from start to finish a while ago. What's interesting is I have no memory of this AvsP in there, so I'm prompted to say it is new to me even having read it. It appears to somehow organize the scripts as an HTML assistant would, but I'm not sure after having just glanced.

The thing I ran into which caused the most ills was I attempted to index some footage and deinterlace it, but also attempted to clean it up a bit, but I couldn't find any scripts that easily identified themselves. I don't know if there's a descriptive list somewhere that indexes itself as "Clean up your video? here's a grouping of potential scripts that might correspond to what you want to do" as a general starting ground, because that's partially what I seem to need to know what I'm doing with the scripts. Does AvsP have something akin to that?

Second it seems I almost need a visual representation of the order in which I do things. In the guides when you install one of the programs, you're supposed to run a test and video will come up with color bars, and that didn't work at all for some reason, and I never figured out why. I think that was part of setting up AVIsynth correctly, but it's been a while so I don't know. I'm a visual learner so it's difficult for me to tell where in a block of text I lose my way, or if it's simply some incompatibility.

Once I have a clearer distinction of what script does what, I have a strong feeling I can feel more comfortable moving forward, but one thing I truly need assistance with is the steps from .vob to getting the script functioning on that footage and showing up in VirtualDub/VDMod or whatever. Thanks to this thread I have a much stronger understanding of getting a decent-sized and quality footage render with those settings above, even if I don't quite understand why. If you're willing, I'd appreciate some help in understanding the scripting more and what some of the more useful/common commands are and how they can be applied to footage and brought up in VDMod.

And thanks for all the assistance thus far, one way or another. This was incredibly daunting last year, but I found ways around things that took longer than they needed to, I'd like to streamline the process as best I can.

[Mister Hatt]

DGDecode (the decoder inside DGIndex) isn't the only MPEG2-PS (VOB) indexer. For DVD footage, Mpeg2Dec3 is a better decoder/indexer to use. DGIndex was primarily made and renamed from a fork of mpeg2dec to handle MPEG2-TS video which is entirely irrelevant to the skillset of every single person here, as well as anyone who cares about DVD only.

On the side, you're all wrong about VDubMod, it was made to open ogm files, everything else was bolted on later.

[Zarxrax]

The current description of how to deinterlace in the guide is really crappy, because I tried to dumb it down way too much. When I update the guide again it will be better.

There is a page about cleaning up your footage: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/ ... -qual.html

[Mister Hatt]

Best advice anyone can give you for cleaning your footage: Don't clean your footage, it doesn't need it and you are blind.

[Phantasmagoriat]

I am referencing the new guides.

The old guides did not have AvsP. Basically, it does what vdub does but with a different interface.
For useful avisynth scripts, there are simply too many to do a comprehensive guide.
You will see this just by doing a google search. But here are some relevant lists:

• http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Internal_filters
  http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/External_filters
  http://avisynth.org/warpenterprises/
  http://www.aquilinestudios.org/avsfilters/

maybe even check youtube for an avisynth video tutorial
to install any of these functions simply download, unzip (if needed), and put into your avisynth plugins folder:

• C:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins

This is also the place where you can see which plugins (.dll's and .avsi's) you already have.
Some plugins won't be there because they are internal to avisynth (see internal filters above)
And I would echo what Mister Hatt said about filtering:
You don't need to filter much these days... on newer footage anyways (maybe some limitedsharpen at desired settings)
But older footage might need some.

A simple script for deinterlacing would look like this:

Code: Select all

mpeg2source("path\your_index_file.d2v", cpu=6)
tfm()
tdecimate()

but you would have to read the author's documentation for these filters to specify extra parameters, like:

Code: Select all

tfm(order=-1, mode=0, pp=2)  # just as an example

If I'm not mistaken, the AMVapp tests don't work in Vista.
I'm not even sure if they are part of the App anymore since you have to download everything separately anyway.


@Zarxrax: Wasn't there a Video Tutorial for avisynth at some point? or was that just dgindex?

@Mister Hatt: That's useful information to know, but I haven't had any problems
with the programs I'm using, or need any extra features, so I'm pretty content.
But I may have to check out Mpeg2Dec3.

[Mister Hatt]

Your script for "deinterlacing" is incorrect. Firstly, multiple plugins provide mpeg2source, so you need a specifier in all example scripts. in the case of DGDecode, it would be DGDecode_Mpeg2Source(), and the cpu argument is unnecessary. Secondly, that script is actually for inverse telecine, not deinterlacing. TFM is Tritical's Field Matcher and TDecimate is Tritical's Decimate. Field matching calculates which frames match with which and then binds them via hints to an external deinterlacer with correct fieldswhile decimating removes the resulting duplicate. Actual deinterlacing is done purely with the same frame alternate field. A better string and probably the best IVTC you can do without using YATTA would be TFM(mode=1,pp=5,slow=2,micmatching=2,clip2=TDeint(mode=2,type=3)).TDecimate()

I love semantics. I do intend at some stage to finish making the video tutorials for ripping and filtering and cleaning that I promised mirko.

[Gaelstrom]

I do appreciate all your assistance in attempting to clarify this stuff. At this point, I get the feeling I won't be able to figure out anymore without trying it once again, even if I dread it, or a video tutorial -_- I have until May 1st to finish the project(s) I'm working on, so hopefully I have enough time. For the time being I'll use my other methods, annoying thought they may be. Sadly the most time consuming aspect is FINDING the footage. This is the last time I attempt to do anything with One Piece unless I have a friggan team.

[Phantasmagoriat]

lol @ Mister Hatt for calling me out on that one.
I wasn't even going to attempt explaining the difference between deinterlacing and IVTC
since most amv'ers treat them synonymously. Just trying to keep it simple.
Although, why is the cpu argument unnecessary?
I've found it to be a very quick and easy way to avoid macroblocks, and crappy quality from some sources...

oh, and a Video Tutorial would be awesome! *pokes*

@ Gaelstrom: There is a way of speeding up the process by editing with proxies in your editor;
aka the Bait and Switch technique... or whatever you want to call it. It is outlined here:
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/ ... meth3.html
Keep in mind it involves a very good grasp of avisynth, so just do one hurdle at a time,
and maybe you'll give it a try at some point.