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  1. Can AGK be customized to load a more recent player than the default?

    How would it be installed and what auto run file or whatever has to be modified?

    The Preview gave an error when I tried to run and sample what subtitles would (hopefully) load but I had to proceed blind and hope for the best.

    Does a more recent program like Staxrip offer this feature? I have not installed it yet but keep seeing it in the same program group at VH.
    Last edited by loninappleton; 4th Jun 2014 at 15:16.
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  2. You can update the version of MPC which AutoGK installs. If you want to update it to use MPC-HC, delete all the existing MPC files and replace them with the current MPC-HC files. I think you just need to rename the exe..... I'm going from memory, but I think the original exe is called mplayerc.exe.

    So after you've deleted all the files in the AutoGK/MPC folder (or whatever the folder is called.... I can't remember exactly) and copied all the current MPC-HC files into the same directory, rename mpc-hc.exe as mplayerc.exe and you should be good to go. AutoGK will still open mplayerc.exe for previewing, but it'll really be MPC-HC.

    Mind you I'm not sure how updating the player would fix any previewing problems relating to subtitles. Did the preview error provide any specific details?

    You might want to also manually open MPC-HC and under View/Options/Player, check the "save settings to ini file" option. That way you can have multiple version of MPC-HC running on the same PC using different settings and they won't interfere with each other..... settings-wise.
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  3. VH Wanderer Ai Haibara's Avatar
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    The only thing in the \mpc subdirectory is the old v6.4.9.0 build of MPC (as mplayerc.exe). Just to be safe, it'd probably be better to rename that to something like mplayerc.old, etc., then drop in the new version you want to use and rename that to 'mplayerc.exe'.
    If cameras add ten pounds, why would people want to eat them?
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  4. Greetings again,

    Ok I'll try those things.

    I think the specific error (I'm building a new Win 7 x64 based operating system) was a codec error.

    I've seen any number of things about codec packs. Which is recommended these days? I've seen Klite and CCC or whatevs in the old days but would like the codec pack appropriate for these older tools plus whatever I might need for Staxrip.

    The newer codec packs referenced are:

    Windows 7 Codec Pack


    Any expert advice on this and a good safe download spot will be appreciated. Are these in VH software group?
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  5. Still wondering about codec packs...


    Alright, I have the new MPC which is called a big long name . exe.

    The AGK direcotory has one folder simply called mpc and the Media Player Classic single exe is contained within.

    I renamed the mpc.exe tp mpc.exe.old

    Will, as expected, a renamed Media Player Classic 1.7.5 etc etc changed to mpc.exe
    complete the task?

    I will try that and report back.
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  6. AutoGK doesn't require additional codecs for converting DVDs or MPEG video. It opens AVIs via DirectShow though, so you'd need an appropriate codec.

    Try installing ffdshow. That's all I use. Well.... I also install the Haali Media Splitter as MeGUI requires it for decoding some file types but I don't think it'd be needed for AVI. For Win7 you might also need the Preferred Filter Tweaker.

    You need to rename mpc-hc.exe to mplayerc.exe

    I don't know much about StaxRip. I have it installed but I've rarely used it. It's one of those programs I've never quite got comfortable with..... there's probably nothing wrong with it.... I've just not used it enough to get to know it's quirks.
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  7. On this I got as far as selecting Preview and the player loads. But it doesn't play the old AVI piece I selected and the usual file analysis before the Preview starts went to zero-- zero time spent doing that and there was the end of it. Or I need a TS file to have AGK start in that manner.

    Perhaps someone can do the whole procedure to verify that upgrading is possible.

    Otherwise it may just be a bad idea and I will go on to installing FFdshow on the new OS and Hallii and hope the error drops out. Admittedly I might be missing a step someplace.
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  8. I replaced MPC with MPC-HC when I was using AutoGK without any issue. I no longer have AutoGK installed though. I only convert using Xvid very occasionally now, and I can use MeGUI for that.

    If a file is a vob/mpeg/ts file, AutoGK will index it before displaying a preview. If it's already indexed it probably won't index it a second time. I can't remember exactly. AVIs don't get indexed. They should just open via DirectShow. If they don't, it's probably a DirectShow decoder problem. Hopefully installing ffdshow will fix it.
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  9. I overlooked this reply til now.

    Ok, that explains why it wouldn't index it for playback. I will get on the job of installing FFDshow again, I thought it loaded with another prog I was using. Are there any install instructions or file associations needed? I mean does FFDshow nned to be installed in a specific directory.

    How is the MeGUI coming along? It seemed stalled in releases when I was following it. I gather you are converting in h264 or 265?

    Also could there be a dedicated topic for MeGUI? I have the how- to/ docs but my organization of them was not the best. I need printed copies rather than trying to view screens on computers.
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  10. ffdshow can decode all the common formats. If a codec isn't enabled by default and you need it, you can always enable it. You can install ffdshow anywhere.

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    MeGUI is still being updated. Not necessarily to a regular time-frame.... I guess it depends how busy the developer is. Yeah I'm still x264 encoding. x265 isn't ready for prime time yet, and none of the hardware players in the house can decode it. Plus I don't think the newer versions support XP, and I still haven't upgraded.

    There's several MeGUI guides on the internet but I'm yet to see one which isn't horribly outdated. They seem to be created and then left as they are, yet MeGUI slowly changes as it's updated.
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  11. Yes thanks for update on on things.

    Doom9 as I recall has some MeGUI info but I just never got used to using them.

    As to XP I am here to say don't move off it until necessary. My experiments with Win7 x64 have not been going well for simple screen setup. As I recall you said you were using a refresh rate of 75hz. That is the setting that defaults in x64. But my agk with screen settings that make things a bit larger is useless in AGK since the dialog box spills off screen. Then going back to what they call 125% makes a lot of type close to unreadable. There's no happy medium.

    I have the Goldwave program which is now only updated in Win7 for x64. I knew setup of a new OS would be tedious and a rocky road.
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  12. I'll be upgrading this PC soon, or at least replacing the MB/CPU. They'll get moved to an old case and continue running XP, but I guess this PC is headed for Win7 pretty soon (no XP drivers for the MB I want).

    I actually use a 85Hz refresh rate, but the desktop can display at different sizes, depending on the refresh rate. Your monitor should have settings to resize it back to full screen dimensions if need be after you've changed the refresh rate. I assume you're using a CRT?
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  13. Ok I might see if I can retry the refresh rate in the Win 7 software.

    Recently I have found the help site called Windowsbbs. For those noob problems in setting up Win 7 like I have had and anything else , I can recommend their expertise and courtesy for the full line of M$ product and problems.

    http://www.windowsbbs.com/

    Of the (outdated) guides you've seen for MeGUI do you have any favorite?
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  14. I've never really read through a full guide, but I've seen one or two which are so old the screenshots look like they're from a different program. I'm not sure any have been updated since the changes were made to MeGUI's resizing capabilities a year or so ago.

    I'd probably avoid any guides unless you find a very recent one. If a guide doesn't properly describe the way MeGUI works now it can possibly be midleading. The last couple I looked at refer to using the old sharktooth encoder presets which are very out of date. Just use the File/Open menu to open the first vob file in a set and let MeGUI index it and extract the audio. From there the script creator window will open so you can set up your desired cropping and resizing etc. Once that's done, you just save the script and encode it.
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  15. Alright, you talked me into it. You can be my 'guide.'

    I don't know if this needs a fresh thread: previously we had a long tutorial on audio. The audio had to be demuxed, the audio processed by Goldwave and a program called The Levelator (free) and then put back together.

    How can I start with my MKV to do what Auto GK would do to get the audio file separated (demuxed) and AVIsynth to remux (if I have that all straight yet) in MeGUI?

    I recall a prog. called MKV merge but what would be the first step in getting my audio? I'll make a new thread if it's easier or if there's something like this already please point it out.
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  16. It probably wouldn't hurt to start a new thread but maybe we can wait and see. If it turns into an epic, maybe you could start a new one and copy and paste the existing posts into it.

    Edit: I didn't read your post correctly and assumed we were talking about converting DVDs. Not that it matters. The process is exactly the same as when using an MKV as the source file. The only effective difference, is MeGUI should default to using the ffms indexer for MKVs instead of DGIndex, but it'll still work the same way. You can use the File Indexer method I've described in this post for extracting MKV audio, and also the HD Streams Extractor method I've decribed in the following post.

    First you need to rip your DVD and prepare it for encoding just as you would when using AutoGK. You need a single set of sequentially numbered vob files for a movie or per episode etc. Use MeGUI's File/Open menu to open the first vob file in a set (instead of opening the corresponding ifo file as you can with AutoGK). The rest of the vob files in the set will be automatically included.

    When you open the vob file MeGUI should offer to index it with DGIndex and it'll provide a list of audio tracks so you can choose which ones to extract, or extract them all etc. You can specify where to save the output files if you want to change that and/or rename the index file etc (the extracted audio will be named accordingly). Add the indexing job to the queue by clicking on the queue button, switch to the queue tab in MeGUI's main window and run the indexing job.

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    When it's finished the selected audio stream(s) will have been extracted to the specified location and they should be automatically loaded into MeGUI's audio section for encoding. The script creator should also open with a preview for creating a script for the video encoding but forgetting the video side for the moment.... you can just leave the script creator open or close it.

    In the audio section the audio tracks should be loaded. If there's more than one they should be listed under tabs (Track 1, Track 2 etc). For each audio track you can specify which encoder to use and a particular encoder preset etc (you can create and save your own), or you can simply load the extracted audio directly into Goldwave and not use MeGUI for the audio at this stage if that's what you'd normally do (I'm not sure).
    If you need to get the audio into the form of a stereo wave file...... unfortunately wave is one type MeGUI's audio encoder won't output..... I'd convert it to flac instead (as it's lossless). I assume Goldwave will open flac files. If it won't, my next post contains a different method which will give you a wave file.

    Select "Flac: scratchpad" from the dropdown list in the audio section, click on the Config button, load the defaults, select "downmix to stereo" (if required) and check "normalise peaks". Save that as a Flac preset if you like and close the encoder configuration. Click on the queue button in the audio section, switch to the queue tab and run the job. When it's finished you should have a normalised stereo flac file you can load into Goldwave, process as you normally would, export as wave and finally load into Levelator.

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    Once you've finished processing the audio with Levelator you can load it's output wave file into MeGUI's audio section and convert it to whichever format your heart desires (well..... most of the common ones.... MP3, AAC AC3 etc). You'd do it the same way as you converted the extracted DVD audio except there'd be no need to select the downmix to stereo or normalise options when configuring the audio encoder.

    Once you've done all that you'd move onto the video encoding job, and you get MeGUI to automatically output an MKV containing the encoded video and re-encoded Levelated audio etc, but maybe have a play around with the audio first and that can be the subject of a future post.
    Last edited by hello_hello; 6th Jul 2014 at 08:23.
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  17. Method 2:

    The method in my previous post would be the one I'd normally use as it indexes the video and gets you on the way to setting up the video encode while extracted the audio etc, but here's the "extract and convert only the audio method" which will give you a wave file for the output. If you absolutely need a stereo wave file (rather than flac) you can do it this way.
    I'm pretty sure it won't work for a set of vob files as the File Indexer does. I'll need to play around with it myself later but I'm pretty sure you'd need to prepare the DVD so you have one large vob file per movie or one vob file per episode etc. You can do that with DVDShrink by telling it not to split vob files into 1GB chunks.

    Under MeGUI's Tools menu, open the HD Streams Extractor (it's a GUI for eac3to which comes as a standalone program and is also built into MeGUI).
    Select "file as input" and open the vob file. It'll take a little bit for the HD Streams Extractor to do it's thing, then a list of streams will appear. De-select everything but the audio streams you want to use. Next to the audio stream(s), choose "wav" for the output. The Options box needs to be used to tell eac3to to downmix to stereo and normalise. For future reference, here's the full list of eac3to commandline options:
    http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Eac3to/How_to_Use#Command_Line_Syntax
    In order to get eac3to to downmix and normalise, you need to add the following (without the quotes): "-downStereo -normalize"

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    Click on the queue button, switch to MeGUI's queue tab, run the job and when it's done you should have a downmixed to stereo, normalised wave file you can load into Goldwave and/or Levelator etc.
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  18. Method 3:

    Simply extract the audio from an MKV "as-is" and load it into any program for processing/re-encoding (MeGUI if you like). I prefer either MKVCleaver or gMKVExtractGUI. Just open an MKV with either program and extract away. Both programs use MKVToolNix for the actual extracting and therefore require MKVToolNix to be installed. You can just download the portable version of MKVToolNix, extract it somewhere, and tell MKVCleaver/gMKVExtractGUI where to find it. Or MeGUI keeps MKVToolNix in the "MeGUI\tools\mkvmerge folder".
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  19. As always a very thorough and logical step through the procedure from you. It gets me on the way to becoming a full time user of MeGui. How would I start a new thread with these posts included unless it's just pasting text in a new post?

    Ok for that I'll see what transpires.

    Your third option seems to be the best currently since my MKV has been downsized with Handbrake from
    6 gb to 1.2 gb at 33 Constant Quality and looks to be fine for viewing on a CRT. That means just the
    audio has to be adjusted. There are the usual live performance problems I have with louds and softs, voice and big instruments.

    You describe the Extract, but what method is used to remux back together unless it's VirtualDub mod (which I mistakenly called AviSynth above.) I will see which program MKVCleaver or gMKVExtractGUI is must current in the Videohelp software section.
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  20. MKVCleaver and gMKVExtractGUI both work fine. MKVCkeaver will batch extract. gMKVExtractGUI won't. gMKVExtractGUI checks for any audio delay and writes it to the file name when extracting (as DGIndex does when extracting DVD audio). MKVCleaver doesn't. If you want to be sure you remux with a correct delay when using MKVCleaver you need to check for any audio delay manually with MediaInfo. If there is one, it'll be listed as "delay relative to video" in the audio section (you need to use HTML or Text view with MediaInfo to see it). If there's no delay, nothing will be shown.

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    Edit: If you use MeGUI's file indexer to extract the audio it'll also write any audio delay in the original MKV to the file name of the extracted audio.

    I have shortcuts to both MKVCleaver and gMKVExtractGUI in the Windows Sento menu so I can right click and send to either program. MKVCleaver has an option to automatically add a shortcut to the Sendto menu. gMKVExtractGUI doesn't.

    MKVMergeGUI can be used for replacing the existing audio and remuxing MKVs. It's part of MKVToolNix. It's very easy to use. MeGUI keeps it in the "MeGUI\tools\mkvmerge folder", and it's called mmg.exe, or you can put it somewhere else if you like. There's an installer and a portable version.

    MeGUI has it's own muxers under the Tools menu. For MKV it uses mkvmerge to do the actual work. I prefer using MKVMergeGUI myself. Once again I've put a shortcut to mmg.exe in the Windows Sendto menu so I can right click on an MKV and send to MKVMergeGUI. You can also open other file types with it, such as MP4 and AVI, but the output will always be MKV.

    The latest version of MKVMerge creates tags for tracks which appear in the track list when opening an MKV for muxing (older MKVs may not have them). Those tags are created for programs to read (although MediaInfo doesn't know how to read them properly yet). If you happen to see tracks labelled as tags when opening an MKV don't worry about it. You can de-select them if you like and MKVMerege will create new tags when creating a new MKV.
    Last edited by hello_hello; 6th Jul 2014 at 17:52.
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  21. Given you use a PC for playback (I assume as you referred to a PC monitor) why not keep the audio as-is and compress it on playback? I use ffdshow for the audio decoding with a winamp plugin compressing.
    https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/364801-Any-VST-plugin-%28or-%29-to-automatically-an...=1#post2323759

    You could also try the same method when converting though (see post #15). I don't know how it'd compare to using Levelator but it'd have to be faster because it'd downmix, compress and convert to your desired format in a single operation. As long as DirectShow (and therefore ffdshow) can be used for decoding and it's setup correctly in advance. MeGUI can use directShow for audio decoding. Just a thought....
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  22. Nothing compares with the Levelator. (grin)

    So far I have found the correct x64 versions where available plus MKX toolnix since I didn't know it would be included in one of these. I am now doing a backup to a clone disk so as not to lose any of the work. Had to do some other x64 housecleaning and backup for my motherboard as well.

    This will take some time and I go in small steps.
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  23. Originally Posted by loninappleton View Post
    Nothing compares with the Levelator. (grin)
    Did you have to go and say that, because it meant I had to try it out and I really should have been doing other things....

    First a movie soundtrack downmixed to stereo and normalised using MeGUI. It was original dts audio remuxed as an MKA (so I could easily open it via DirectShow).
    Number 2 is the same audio downmixed and compressed via DirectShow. ffdshow doing the decoding and downmixing etc and the RockSteady plugin doing the compressing. They're the same settings I use on playback minus the centre channel boost.
    Number 3 is the same as number 2 but with the compressor plugin cranked up a little bit.
    Number 4 is the audio after it was downmixed and normalised in the usual way via MeGUI, then run through Levelator.

    Each downmix was stereo, but for the benefit of a smaller screenshot after loading them into Audacity, in each case I split the stereo channels to dual mono and deleted the right channel.
    Is Levelator normally slow? Compressing the audio with the WinAmp plugin while converting doesn't seem to slow the process down at all but it seemed to take Levelator a fair while to level the wave file. When a say slow..... I didn't actually time it. A couple of minutes maybe? And it seemed to progress in stages. It'd sit on a certain percentage for a while then suddenly jump a few percent etc. Is that normal?

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    I'll have to listen to them properly later as what they sound like is what's important, but it's interesting to see where there's a quiet part, Levelator seemed to increase the volume more than the compressor plugin (around the 15 minute point) but where the audio was louder (just after the 45 minute point) Levelator seemed to reduce it a bit relative to everything else. I did have a quick listen to that section. It's full of gunshots and the difference between the compressor and Levelator is obvious. I won't pass judgement yet till I've come back for another listen later. I might even upload a few little samples when I do.

    Originally Posted by loninappleton View Post
    So far I have found the correct x64 versions where available plus MKX toolnix since I didn't know it would be included in one of these. I am now doing a backup to a clone disk so as not to lose any of the work. Had to do some other x64 housecleaning and backup for my motherboard as well.

    This will take some time and I go in small steps.
    I'm supposed to be pulling this PC apart and upgrading it today. I was supposed to buy the parts yesterday but I managed to successfully procrastinate until the computer shop was closed. I guess I'm trying to do the same today. I want a faster PC so I want to upgrade it, but I'm so over installing drivers and software and getting things to work, and I've got to build up my Win7 tolerance considerably. My other half has a Win7 laptop. Being a laptop it's even more annoying..... I think I manage 15 minute sessions on it before I need to put it down or throw it. Maybe I should have used it as much as possible over the last week to build up my Win7 stamina?
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  24. So..... 2 minutes of audio. I converted the entire soundtrack each time and cut out a 2 minute section to use as a sample.

    1: Normal stereo mixdown.
    2: DirectShow conversion with mixdown and compression
    3: DirectShow conversion with mixdown, centre channel boosted by 75% and compression (it's how I normally do it and I wanted to see if that makes me silly..... the centre channel boost doesn't seem to make much difference).
    4: Normal stereo mixdown run through Levelator.

    It's the same section of audio each time...... speech with a little background noise followed by some action with gunshots etc.
    I couldn't decide how to make comparing them as fair as possible, but in the end I ran ReplayGain on each sample and re-encoded them to the same volume according to ReplayGain. The standard downmix version still sounds a lot quieter at the beginning but that's to be expected as it's not compressed. I kept them in a lossless format right up to the final conversion to AAC..... which I did to make the file sizes smaller for uploading, and lossy compression doesn't matter for the sake of the exercise. Same VBR quality setting each time.

    Listening to the samples, I don't like Levelator. It "compresses" quite a bit, which is a good thing, but it either compresses too much for me or it's not doing a particularly good job (although in fairness, this sort of thing isn't what it's designed for). Just listening to the first 5 seconds or so put me off Levelator..... the way the volume of the background music goes up and down. That sort of thing would drive me nuts. I much prefer the RockSteady compression I normally use on playback (sample 3). Plus it's much faster if you want to compress when you encode as you can compress, downmix and encode in a single operation.

    Anyway.... have a listen to the samples and let me know what you think. I've posted a link to this post in an "audio compression" thread, so if you want to continue discussing that topic, maybe we can do it there, so as not to take this thread in too many different directions.
    https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/364801-Any-VST-plugin-%28or-%29-to-automatically-an...-dynamic-range
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    Last edited by hello_hello; 20th Aug 2014 at 00:37.
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  25. For the sake of completeness, here's what the samples in the post above look like. It's not overly informative though. The picture being worth a thousand words adage/proverb/thingy..... this one's possibly an exception (once again it's only the left channel each time).

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    Last edited by hello_hello; 7th Jul 2014 at 05:44.
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  26. Boy that's a lot of work. shows all the expertise I do not have plus laying out for a time and not keeping up.

    You may be doing other listening applications than what Levelator specifically was designed to do. This is all at the Levelator site or someplace. It was designed at NPR or someplace for free to use with podcasts. It was designed to emphasize voice where a number of different mics and levels were used all at the same time-- to bring all that maximally forward. I've used it for live theatre tapings of Shakespeare where military drum is a main feature (like the ones you see in 1776 pictures-- loud as a tympani. Also I think that the sound mixer at one of these events has the musicians close to him and so the volume of the drums announcing an entrance or highlighting a battle is way over the top. Then there's the actors who are using a lot of voice dynamics loud and soft (stage whispers etc) where the mic is not picking up all that it should.

    But we have to rmeember I was using AGK which does a normalizing as part of its processing-- then put it through the Levelator to make it practically flat for voice range.

    If there's an equivalent for this in using MeGui or other tools perhaps you can break it down into a number of steps.

    Today I found that I misspoke about my content. Handbrake made an MKV encode to mp4 and MKVCleaver etc is not designed to work with that. I'm redoing the MKV made from a 6 gb 2 hour video in Handbrake down to 1.2 gb at 33 Constant quality. I took that MP4 of 1.2gb and put it in Handbrake for output as MKV.
    Then I can practice with MKV Cleaver, get my audio and try to remux the whole works. But one thing at a time.

    And yes Windows 7 is a PITA for rearranging virtually anything one had become familiar with in XP. So far as I can tell rearranging is all that was done plus a bit of indexing to make Search faster. I don't even want to get into making an old style workgroup on my homenet between my two machines function. There is an unique 'homegroup' available in Win 7 that does not talk to a XP workgroup.

    But for all these things, good answers can be had at Windowsbbs.com and Sevenforums.

    http://www.sevenforums.com/
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  27. Quite a bit of progress.

    I used the gMKVextractGUI program to get my audio. It ran with no errors as did MKVCleaver which could not find MKV Toolnix (it may have to be installed in a special folder, I don't know)

    The audio appeared to be AAC (all of these files are still mysterious to me.)

    In Goldwave I converted the AAC to .WAV

    That done, I put the .WAV into Levelator

    Levelator appends the file name as Myfile(output).wav

    I then return to Goldwave to convert the *output.wav to AAC.

    But that file conversion is not offered.

    Can M4v or other be used to remux my audio or what is the next step to convert a .wav audio file for MKV?

    Which program brings audio and video back together? In Virtual Dub Mod, the new audio stream is brought in and the old audio stream is deleted followed by Remuxing-- putting audio and video together.

    And (because of the problem above with MKVCleaver) what are all the dependencies (supplementary programs) for MeGUI?
    Last edited by loninappleton; 7th Jul 2014 at 16:42.
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  28. I'm just replying to some of the things you posted, so if you wonder why I'm jumping from one point to the next.....

    Did you listen to the samples? You don't have to agree with me, I'm just curious what you think.

    Levelator was no doubt designed to compress, and/or to increase the volume of the quiet bits, which isn't exactly what a compressor does, and it probably doesn't work the same way as the RockSteady DSP, but the end result should be the same as compressing and normalising. Obviously Levelator wasn't designed to do what you're using it for (it's intended to level the volume of speech alone), but that doesn't mean it can't level out a movie soundtrack. It can. The question for me would be does it do it the best possible way and for me the answer seems to be no.

    The thing I dislike (judging from a single encode) is hearing the volume of background sounds go up and down. Or the volume of speech go up and down (which seems to happen a bit with Levelator) although it's not something unusual as such, it's a standard side effect of compression. The more you compress, the more you risk "pumping" of the volume. My TV has a few different "night modes". The one which compresses the most results in "pumping" sometimes, but it's not bad and apparently I'm the only one who notices.

    I actually fiddled with the RockStready plugin a fair bit, and the way I run it seems to be around the maximum compression possible without any audible "pumping"..... 99% of the time. At least that's the best I could come up with. Very occasionally there'll be background music which is quite loud (or has lots of low frequencies) and if there's speech over it I can hear the volume of the speech drop a little sometimes, but it's nothing drastic and doesn't seem to happen often.

    When I downmixed the audio and converted it to flac with MeGUI I enabled normalising in the encoder configuration, so the audio should be the same as if AutoGK made it (well I didn't downmix to Proglogic). I converted the flac to wave to load into Levelator.
    Converting to AAC via DirectShow and the RockSteady plugin doesn't involve much work at all for me. If I hadn't needed to load the audio into Levelator or Audacity I would have converted the DTS directly to AAC. I already have ffdshow and RockSteady configured, so it's simply be a matter of selecting the AAC encoder in MeGUI and setting it to decode via DirectShow. Job done. Having to convert to Flac so I could convert to wave (I did that with foobar2000) so I could load the audio into Levelator and then convert it's output to AAC was a bit more work.

    MKVMergeGUI will open MP4s (and M4A's and M4Vs and AVI and VOB files and probably a few other formats I can't think of right now), so you could have opened the MP4 Handbrake produced with MKVMergeGUI, added the audio and saved them both as MKV. I mentioned that at the end of post #20, but it's a long thread so I won't be upset if you missed it.

    For MKVCleaver there's a "locate MKVToolnix" button at the top right corner of the GUI.

    AAC is fairly common in MKV/MP4 files these days. It's the successor to MP3, although MP3 doesn't seem to be in a hurry to go away (I still use it myself). It supports multi-channel audio so if you want stereo make sure to configure the AAC encoder to downmix to stereo. If you give the LAME encoder multi-channel audio it refuses to encode so it's an effective reminder to downmix.

    AAC is an elementary stream (I think), not a container as such. Just as an AVC video file would be if you extracted the video from and MKV. They need to be in a container most of the time (M4A, MP4, MKV etc) so generally AAC encoders output M4A or MP4 instead of AAC by default. You can open the M4A file with MKVMergeGUI.
    If you need it to, MeGUI will convert wave files (it just won't output wave files). You can manually load a wave file into the audio section and choose/configure your desired encoder. If you want AAC you need to put the NeroAAC encoder in the MeGUI/tools/eac3to folder and enable it in MeGUI's settings if you haven't done so yet (under the external program configuration tab). The output will be either MP4 or M4A (whichever you select) but the actual audio will be AAC.

    MeGUI has a few different muxers under the Tools menu. The MKV muxer uses MKVToolNix to do the work. I use MKVMergeGUI instead of MeGUI's muxer because it's got more options and I can stick a shortcut to it in the Windows Sendto menu.
    MeGUI will also do the muxing for you once it's finished encoding but there's a few different ways to do it, so I'll leave that for another day.

    And (because of the problem above with MKVCleaver) what are all the dependencies (supplementary programs) for MeGUI?
    I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're asking there.
    Last edited by hello_hello; 8th Jul 2014 at 12:54.
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  29. A lot to digest here and what I usually do with your replies is print them out-- something I can only do
    at the public library-- no printer here.

    I will listen to the samples. Today I'm in the process of selling off a bit of speaker drivers.

    For the job at hand (and excuse me if I'm not catching it all) I can use MKVMerge with the 1.3 gb Handbraked MP4 and my Levelated .WAV audio?

    I will look at MKVmerge (whether it's in Toolnix or needs to be downloaded) and see how I can pull these elements together.

    --

    This may get just a bit long but for completeness sake and since I am becoming an old lady with worrying about 'touching something that will break it' here is what I have in MKVMerge which I copied out by hand:


    In the upper pane of MKVMerge I used select to ADD

    1.) The Levelator audio [Myfile] .output.wav
    2.) [Myfile ] Handbraked to constant quality 33.mp4


    In the Lower Pane there are three check boxes

    * PCM audio output.wav
    * MPEG Handbraked [Myfile ] .mp4 (video)
    * AAC (audio I guess) also marked .mp4

    General Track Options pane third down is greyed out

    An Output file name appears at the bottom as [ Myfile ]output.mkv


    If I select check boxes 1 and 3 am I ready to use the Start Muxing button at bottom of page?


    These are all new things and it takes time to get used to.

    As to dependencies, a Linux term where one program needs another to work. Specifically you mentioned things like Haali Media Splitter and now Nero AAC (which I had on the old setup.) I have put on FFDshow but do not know if it works in the background or is stand alone just yet.

    That catches me up for today. I'm asking all this because I'm not sure id MKVMerge will take the .wav in the
    upper pane to process.

    Back to you.
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  30. I assume MKVMergeGUI will mux wave files. I'm not 100% sure I ever have myself. Wouldn't it be better to re-encode it in order to reduce the file size, given you're trying to reduce the file size?

    In the upper pane of MKVMerge I used select to ADD
    1.) The Levelator audio [Myfile] .output.wav
    2.) [Myfile ] Handbraked to constant quality 33.mp4
    Sounds correct.

    In the Lower Pane there are three check boxes
    * PCM audio output.wav
    * MPEG Handbraked [Myfile ] .mp4 (video)
    * AAC (audio I guess) also marked .mp4
    General Track Options pane third down is greyed out
    The lower pane shows all the tracks. For example if you opened an MKV which contained video, audio and subtitles, you'd have the single MKV listed in the top pane and the three tracks listed in the lower pane. You can select/deselect whichever ones you want to.
    If you highlight a track in the lower pane the general track options will no longer be greyed out. You can highlight each track and select the correct language etc. You can also re-order the tracks in the lower pane using the up/down buttons. You don't have to, but I always order them video, audio, subtitles. It's an OCD thing.

    Quite often, when you encode AAC audio the output M4A/MP4 file will contain a single chapter, assuming it's just AAC audio without video. In fact it probably should unless the AAC encoder doesn't introduce a delay (most do). You can de-select the chapter when muxing. It's not required.
    For the record, lossy encoders add "padding" to the beginning of the audio which needs to be compensated for when muxing (or it'd be nice if it was). The padding added by the NeroAAC encoder is a little over 50ms, if memory serves me correctly. That's where the single chapter will be. MKVMergeGUI removes as much of the padding as it can (lossy audio can only be removed in "blocks") then it adjusts the audio delay if need be to make up the difference. The upshot of it all is, if you encode AAC using Nero, then check the muxed MKV with MediaInfo, it'll generally display an audio delay relative to the video of 9ms, assuming the delay was 0ms to begin with. That's normal.

    An Output file name appears at the bottom as [ Myfile ]output.mkv
    If I select check boxes 1 and 3 am I ready to use the Start Muxing button at bottom of page?
    Yes. Assuming you want to keep both versions of the audio. It appears Handbrake's MP4 also contains the audio in AAC format. If you only want to keep the Levelator version (which I'd convert to AAC before muxing) you can deselect the AAC track in the Handbrake MP4.

    MeGUI requires the Haali Media Splitter in order to decode some file types using some methods. I can't remember which ones exactly.... MKV via DirectShow might be an example.... so it's a good idea to install it. You need to manually add the NeroAAC encoder to the MeGUI/tools/eac3to folder but I think that's it. MeGUI should download anything else it needs for you..
    If you still have the older version of Avisynth installed (2.5.8 which came with AutoGK) I'd consider upgrading it to version 2.6.0.4). MeGUI supplies it's own portable version of Avisynth (Avisynth+ 2.6.0.5) but it'll use the "installed" Avisynth if you tell it to. The portable version is fine but if the installed version is the old 2.5.8 you might have problems opening the scripts MeGUI creates with a different program such as MPC-HC because some of the Avisynth plugins have changed. And being able to save a script and then open it using MPC-HC is nice and handy. I do it a lot so I can preview the script running fullsreen on my TV as I normally would. MeGUI's preview works fine but it doesn't have a full screen mode. Anyway.... if you're running Avisynth 2.5.8 upgrade it to 2.6.0.4. AutoGK won't mind.

    ffdshow pretty much just works in the background when needed. It decodes audio/video via DirectShow. It'll only decode when a DirectShow player is used and you specifically tell it to use ffdshow (MPC-HC for example), or when you tell MeGUI's audio encoder to decode via DirectShow. That sort of thing.....
    Last edited by hello_hello; 8th Jul 2014 at 19:04.
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