Requesting some demystification...

[Kionon]

For the moment, put AvsP aside. Let's just make sure AviSynth is working properly. Try opening your .avs file in VirtualDub and see if it works. Then we'll go from there.

[Gaelstrom]

That does seem to be working, the colorbars.avs from the guide at least. That's the only avs file I've got right now.

[Kionon]

*facepalm*

Use the .AVS file that DGIndex made. If it did NOT make one, follow Hatt's and Zarxrax's directions and create one with a path to your source .d2v. Then try that inside VDub.

[Gaelstrom]

Umm... I did, and above I wrote what was happening. It wasn't working. That's why I was asking what I was missing.

I'm not a stupid person, but my mind just tends to shut off with programming, even simpler stuff like this. Would you be kind enough to explain how AviSynth and AvsP are supposed to... I don't know, communicate, use one another, I don't quite know what their relationship is to one another. It's that aspect that seems to be causing a misunderstanding. DGIndex doesn't spit out a .avs file, and if it's supposed to I don't understand why it wouldn't.

[Mister Hatt]

AvsP is a standalone avisynth script editor with basic syntax highlighting capabilities. It doesn't use avisynth, and avisynth doesn't communicate with it in any way. If you have DGIndex, you should have DGDecode too, although if you installed it manually you might not have copied the dgdecode.dll file to your avs plugins folder.

Above you said you have Avisynth 2.5, there is nothing wrong with that, the latest stable version is 2.5.8, and although it might seem strange, the 2.6 alpha also uses the 2.5 plugins directory. Autoloading plugins is generally a bad idea IMO, only source plugins should really autoload, and other broken plugins in your folder could cause all kinda of issues with things they don't interact with in any way.

[Gaelstrom]

Okay, well, I have the dgdecode.dll in the correct folder as you mentioned. So I guess I'll just start from scratch really: where should I begin? I have this footage, a VOB file still if necessary. I know it's tedious, and I apologize, but would you be willing to walk me through how to get this VOB deinterlaced? I mean the confusion seems to that I just don't understand when/how AVISynth works. I know that it can be done in text files or whatever but I guess my issue is there are so MANY different options that I just don't get what is the more appropriate one.

So from VOB to DeInterlaced footage, what can I do to make this a streamlined process? It's the Ghost in the Shell Special Edition movie BTW if that's at all important to know. I can't quite tell what form of interlaced footage it has.

[Mister Hatt]

Avisynth is a scripting language for manipulating raw video frames. It uses a source plugin to create the frames, then it will do various operations to it depending on what functions you use, much like a programming language, and then it outputs the frames in sequence to a VFW interface, which almost any VFW based application can use, be it a media player like WMP, or a video editor like VirtualDub. If a program uses VFW, it will read the avs file as if it was any other video file, because it connects to VFW and VFW knows what to do with it already. All avs files are just text, and AvsP is just a text editor designed to make writing them easier, it has syntax highlighting and a little display window down the bottom to preview stuff in, although personally I have a lot of dislike for the program.

I have no idea what the R1 for GITS was like so I can't really tell you, you'd have to check it out yourself. Here is a basic process for the indexing and avs creation though:

Open DGIndex. Open your VOB files in it. Then hit file -> save project. The file will index and in the display panel that pops up, it will tell you if your content is FILM or NTSC, and it will give a percentage. I'm just going to assume it's the standard fully telecined footage but if it isn't you would need to do different things.

Once you have your d2v file done, you can open your favourite text editor and start writing your avs file:
DGDecode_Mpeg2Source("whatever you called your d2v file.d2v")
TFM(mode=1,pp=5,slow=2,micmatching=2,clip2=TDeint(mode=2,type=3,edeint=nnedi2(),emask=TMM())).TDecimate()
#do your cropping/resizing/postprocessing here. You can trim here too, or do the trimming before the TFM line if you like

Save that as a plaintext file with the extension .avs in the same folder as your d2v file, and then you can open it in VirtualDub. For the above string, you need dgdecode.dll, tivtc.dll, tdeint.dll, nnedi2.dll, and tmm.dll, however you can really leave out the edeint/emask stuff if the source is decent enough and/or they give you problems or are hard to find. Even the clip2 bit is optional.

[Gaelstrom]

All right, I uninstalled and installed the up-to-date version of AVISynth from the pack, as well as the AVSPluginPack. Just to get things cleared. That made me need to install the new DGIndex, but in the end, I got the text-turned-AVS file into VirtualDubMod (still usin' mod).

Unfortunately that didn't take care of the interlacing, and I will wholeheartedly admit... I don't understand anything of that line of code you did. I'll try to use the guide's descriptions of the scripts now that they're at least opening in VDM, but since your version uses the Telecine method, I'll have to assume this one may be hybrid. I need some sleep though, I'll be back tomorrow if I have any issues.

I think I understand a bit more of what and why now though. I am certain I was screwing up somewhere, but hopefully knowing a correct way now will make this not happen again.

Thanks a lot for your time and help, all of you. For now I'm going to attempt to see if I can figure out this part myself so it remains in my mind longer

[Mister Hatt]

Stop using mod. I'm not going to give a good reason for it other than "myself and the few other people who know their stuff will refuse to help vdubmod users."

What do you mean it doesn't take care of the interlacing, is the entire clip bad now, or just parts of it? I HIGHLY doubt it's hybrid, more likely it's just VFR. What did DGIndex say in the log file? 99% FILM or what?

[Gaelstrom]

I went ahead and installed VirtualDub as you suggested. Only real reason I wasn't installing anything more than I needed was the guide suggested never to change AMVApp versions during a project, but I just considered I hadn't done anything particularly specific yet.

Anyway, the footage was still interlaced, it just seemed a little better in some way. But either way I went ahead and just used AMVIVTC(mode=1) to try it out and that took care of it. There is a little bit of a minuscule jitter that shows up here and there among single frames, but nothing bad. I'm not sure if it's something that can be handled with any more scripts, but it's not particularly necessary as it's barely noticeable. If you have any ideas what would be happening there I'd like to hear them, but it's not particularly important I would think.

What was the intent with all the more complex stuff you had me use before the initial guide's version? I didn't recognize most of that code from the guide, I'm just curious.