Strange AutoGK output files

[bennyboy371]

http://i29.tinypic.com/xepgfc.jpg

This is a screenshot of an xvid video I made with AutoGK. I have previously ripped these DVDs before with no problem, and they play just fine in my video player, dvd player, etc. I even did a clean install of AutoGK before posting on here, and I reripped the episode, and it still made this garbled output all the way through. I don't understand why it would behave this way. Is there anything I can do to fix this?

[manono]

Pretty strange, all right. Do you have a log file for that one?

[bennyboy371]

Yeah here's the log. Before I didn't use the beta version, this time I did, so the results are the same both ways.

Edit: Oh, and the audio seemed sped up. It looks like it took a wrong FPS and brutalized the quality, but I'm not sure. If I knew more about this, I wouldn't be using something with "Auto" in its name.

[3/13/2008 12:17:16 AM] AutoGK 2.48b
[3/13/2008 12:17:16 AM] OS: WinXP (5.1.2600).2
[3/13/2008 12:17:16 AM] Job started.
[3/13/2008 12:17:16 AM] Input file: I:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_1.VOB
[3/13/2008 12:17:16 AM] Output file: D:\TV\Firefly\01 - Serenity.avi
[3/13/2008 12:17:16 AM] Output codec: XviD
[3/13/2008 12:17:16 AM] Audio 1: Audio Stream 0 AC3 
[3/13/2008 12:17:16 AM] Subtitles: none
[3/13/2008 12:17:16 AM] Format: AVI
[3/13/2008 12:17:16 AM] Target size: 700Mb
[3/13/2008 12:17:16 AM] Custom resolution settings: fixed width of 640 pixels
[3/13/2008 12:17:16 AM] Audio 1 settings: Auto
[3/13/2008 12:17:16 AM] Started encoding.
[3/13/2008 12:17:16 AM] Demuxing and indexing.
[3/13/2008 12:25:17 AM] Processing file: I:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_1.VOB
[3/13/2008 12:25:17 AM] Processing file: I:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_2.VOB
[3/13/2008 12:25:17 AM] Processing file: I:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_3.VOB
[3/13/2008 12:25:17 AM] Processing file: I:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_4.VOB
[3/13/2008 12:25:17 AM] Source resolution: 720x480
[3/13/2008 12:25:17 AM] Found NTSC source.
[3/13/2008 12:25:17 AM] Source aspect ratio: 16:9
[3/13/2008 12:25:17 AM] Analyzing source.
[3/13/2008 12:28:32 AM] Source has percentage of interlacing in motion areas: 99.15
[3/13/2008 12:28:32 AM] Source has percentage of telecined patterns: 0.34
[3/13/2008 12:28:32 AM] Source has percentage of progressive patterns: 0.00
[3/13/2008 12:28:32 AM] Source has percentage of interlaced patterns: 99.66
[3/13/2008 12:28:32 AM] Source is considered to be interlaced.
[3/13/2008 12:28:32 AM] Output will contain 93371 frames
[3/13/2008 12:28:32 AM] Decoding audio.
[3/13/2008 12:29:30 AM] Normalizing audio.
[3/13/2008 12:30:09 AM] Encoding audio.
[3/13/2008 12:37:09 AM] Audio1 size: 35,896,176 bytes (34.23 Mb)
[3/13/2008 12:37:09 AM] Overhead: 3,734,784 bytes (3.56 Mb)
[3/13/2008 12:37:09 AM] Video size: 694,372,240 bytes (662.20 Mb)
[3/13/2008 12:37:09 AM] Running compressibility test.
[3/13/2008 12:37:09 AM] Writing the following script to D:\TV\Firefly\agk_tmp\01 - Serenity_comptest.avs
===========================================================
LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\AutoGK\DGMPGDec\DGDecode.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\AutoGK\filters\autocrop.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\AutoGK\filters\RemoveGrainSSE3.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\AutoGK\filters\leakkerneldeint.dll")

movie = mpeg2source("D:\TV\Firefly\agk_tmp\01 - Serenity.d2v")
cropclip = autocrop(movie,mode=0,wmultof=4,hmultof=4,samples=10,aspect=0,threshold=34,samplestartframe=0,leftadd=0,rightadd=0,topadd=0,bottomadd=0)
fixed_aspect = 1.18518518518519
c_width = width(cropclip)
c_height = round(height(cropclip) / fixed_aspect)
input_par = float(c_width)/float(c_height)
input_par = (input_par > 1.4) || (input_par < 1.25) ? input_par : (4.0/3.0)
out_width = 640
out_height = round(float(out_width) / input_par)
hmod = out_height - (floor(out_height / 16 ) * 16)
out_height = (hmod > 4) ? (out_height + (16 - hmod)) : (out_height - hmod)
new_aspect = (float(out_width) / float(out_height)) / fixed_aspect
LeakKernelDeInt(movie,order=1,sharp=true)
autocrop(mode=0,wmultof=4,hmultof=4,samples=10,aspect=new_aspect,threshold=34,samplestartframe=0,leftadd=0,rightadd=0,topadd=0,bottomadd=0)
LanczosResize(out_width,out_height)
RemoveGrain(mode=2)
SelectRangeEvery(300,15)
===========================================================
[3/13/2008 12:40:37 AM] Duration was: 3 minutes 27 seconds
[3/13/2008 12:40:37 AM] Speed was: 22.54 fps.
[3/13/2008 12:40:37 AM] Compressibility percentage is: 22.81
[3/13/2008 12:40:37 AM] Using softer resizer.
[3/13/2008 12:40:37 AM] Chosen resolution is: 640x368 ( AR: 1.74 )
[3/13/2008 12:40:37 AM] Predicted comptest value is: 23.66%
[3/13/2008 12:40:37 AM] Running first pass.
[3/13/2008 12:40:37 AM] Writing the following script to D:\TV\Firefly\agk_tmp\01 - Serenity_movie.avs
===========================================================
LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\AutoGK\DGMPGDec\DGDecode.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\AutoGK\filters\autocrop.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\AutoGK\filters\RemoveGrainSSE3.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\AutoGK\filters\leakkerneldeint.dll")

movie = mpeg2source("D:\TV\Firefly\agk_tmp\01 - Serenity.d2v")
cropclip = autocrop(movie,mode=0,wmultof=4,hmultof=4,samples=10,aspect=0,threshold=34,samplestartframe=0,leftadd=0,rightadd=0,topadd=0,bottomadd=0)
fixed_aspect = 1.18518518518519
c_width = width(cropclip)
c_height = round(height(cropclip) / fixed_aspect)
input_par = float(c_width)/float(c_height)
input_par = (input_par > 1.4) || (input_par < 1.25) ? input_par : (4.0/3.0)
out_width = 640
out_height = round(float(out_width) / input_par)
hmod = out_height - (floor(out_height / 16 ) * 16)
out_height = (hmod > 4) ? (out_height + (16 - hmod)) : (out_height - hmod)
new_aspect = (float(out_width) / float(out_height)) / fixed_aspect
LeakKernelDeInt(movie,order=1,sharp=true)
autocrop(mode=0,wmultof=4,hmultof=4,samples=10,aspect=new_aspect,threshold=34,samplestartframe=0,leftadd=0,rightadd=0,topadd=0,bottomadd=0)
BicubicResize(out_width,out_height,0,0.5)
RemoveGrain(mode=2)
===========================================================
[3/13/2008 1:16:18 AM] Duration was: 35 minutes 40 seconds
[3/13/2008 1:16:18 AM] Speed was: 43.61 fps.
[3/13/2008 1:16:18 AM] Warning! Found different number of frames: 104809
[3/13/2008 1:16:18 AM] Audio1 size: 35,896,176 bytes (34.23 Mb)
[3/13/2008 1:16:18 AM] Overhead: 4,192,384 bytes (4.00 Mb)
[3/13/2008 1:16:18 AM] Video size: 693,914,640 bytes (661.77 Mb)
[3/13/2008 1:16:18 AM] Expected quality of first pass size: 21.23%
[3/13/2008 1:16:18 AM] Running second pass.
[3/13/2008 2:05:54 AM] Duration was: 49 minutes 35 seconds
[3/13/2008 2:05:54 AM] Speed was: 35.23 fps.
[3/13/2008 2:05:54 AM] Job finished. Total time: 1 hour, 48 minutes 38 seconds

[manono]

Hi-

When you said, ...and it still made this garbled output all the way through, did you mean that every frame looks like this, or that every once in a while all the way through the video you get a frame that looks like this? The reason I ask is that I once had videos that had garbage frames like that, but only every once in a while. I eventually diagnosed the problem as resulting from a bad stick of RAM, and switching out the bad stick fixed it. If you have any reason to suspect any hardware problems as being the cause, I would suggest first running Memtest86 to be sure your memory is OK:

http://www.memtest86.com/
http://www.memtest.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memtest86

Have you done any other encodes, with AutoGK or using other programs, before or since? Any problems with them? I don't know if this is the problem or not, but the log points to a very bad quality encode:

[3/13/2008 1:16:18 AM] Expected quality of first pass size: 21.23%

You crippled AutoGK's ability to give you decent results by forcing it to use a 640 width. That, combined with a 1 CD size, results in a lousy looking encode. I don't think the kind of thing in the pic would be the result, though, but it's worth a try to make it look better. I might suggest either making a 2 CD encode, lowering the width a lot, or setting it to Auto and letting AutoGK choose the resolution.

There are some other peculiarities that I can't explain. If this is the Serenity movie, it should be progressive and I'm not sure why AutoGK says it's interlaced and chose to deinterlace it. And you mentioned the speeded up audio.

[bennyboy371]

Well, I haven't used AutoGK in a very long time, but the settings I've used are very similar. It's actually the first episode of the Firefly series, so the 1 CD size should be fine. I will reencode as two CDs as a test and set it to auto width. and I have done rips of each episode before with great results. I've also done similar rips forcing the width with good results as well, but I haven't done any rips in months upon months so I can't attest to such things. I realized that I had DriveSpeed running, so I'll test without crippling the drive, it may have had a large impact.

Oh, and each frame is messed up, not the exact same frame.

[manono]

It's actually the first episode of the Firefly series, so the 1 CD size should be fine.

OK, the first episode of the TV series. That explains the interlaced source. But the 1 CD size for a 640 width and 29.97fps is definitely not fine. You want to look for compression test results of 60-80% or so. But as I said, I don't think that would explain those artifacts in the picture.

I realized that I had DriveSpeed running...

I don't know what that is, although I suppose I could look it up. If it's something that was fighting with VDubMod for CPU time, then that could very well explain it, I guess. Good luck with the retry.

[bennyboy371]

DriveSpeed was set to slow the drive a bit to make it quieter.

But I feel like an idiot.

I had mentioned it has been months since I've done this, correct? Well, I forgot to bypass the copy protection. I forgot I didn't have DVD43 running in the background at startup anymore (which seems to work great as a freeware alternative to AnyDVD) so I started it up, hit the preview button (even with the forced width) and the output was spectacular even with the settings I'd used, I couldn't see many artifacts.

Thanks for humoring my stupid for a while. :P

[manono]

Hehe, I've never put them on the hard drive without removing the protection, so I didn't know that's what it looked like. So, I suppose if you had even played the source VOBs you'd have seen the same thing?

OK, the result of the reencode after decrypting it properly might have had a higher percentage. Unless you're trained to know what to look for, you might not at first glance be able to tell a good encode from a bad one. The kinds of things to look for in a bad encode are a general blurriness, mosquito noise along sharp edges (lots of little black dots along lines or other sharp edges), color smearing during movement, and, worst of all, macroblocks during movment and especially heavy action. These are square blocks in the video that tell you that the video doesn't have a high enough bitrate. You'll have to pause the video to spot these things clearly. Of course, when watching your video you don't pause it and examine it all the time, but the net effect during full speed playback will be a less clear and detailed video than you might otherwise have had you given it a higher bitrate.

But at least you've sorted out the problem. Good going.