I Can't get Avidemux (2.6 64bit) to work at all.

[Hoover1979]

I don't know what the problem is. I thought my dreams came true finding a conversion program that can resize DVD size videos to 1080p AND use median filters and color level adjustments at once. I wish to make remastered 1080p rips of my DVD collection for my Plex media server to stream to my TV.

I try Avidemux and no matter what settings I use the conversion always hangs at 8% and never progresses. Also right off the bat is says the conversion will take 24hrs and that time increases to about 32hrs by the time it hits the 8% threshold and poops it's pants. (No "Not Responding" or any crash, just hangs forever and has to be quit). The last attempt I am prepared to do did not progress one iota from the 8% mark and after leaving it for 4hrs and seeing no progress was made I ended the conversion and uninstalled Avidemux.

I can use Handbrakes de-block filter at the x264 "Slower" preset and get a single pass conversion done in 7hrs but I have to use format factory to get the 720x576 video to 1920x1080 (16:9) or 1440x1080 (4:3) and that adds 1-2hrs to my time. and I can't adjust brightness/contrast/saturation on either program.

Can someone recommend a program like Avidemux that I might have mor chance of getting working?

Using 4Ghz i7-4790k, 4Gb Gigabyte Geforce GTX970 G1 Gaming, 32Gb Corsair Vengeance Pro 2400 DDR3 RAM, with 64bit Windows 7 Pro

[Baldrick]

Version 2.6.10? 2.6.11 nightly build?

Maybe try an older version like 2.6.8 then. https://www.videohelp.com/software/AviDemux/old-versions#download . Or 32-bit version.

Or try megui with avisynth filters for upscaling.

But "remastered" 1080p from dvds....nope...

[theewizard]

Does the phrase P***ing into the Wind , mean anything to you
What you are trying to do, is a useless gesture, that will not increase the viewing quality

[Hoser Rob]

+1 on upscaling DVD res to 1080p. Totally pointless. You simply cannot put in information that isn't there.

[Hoover1979]

it is to soften the blocky edges, make the colors more vibrant and disguise the MPEG2 compression artifacts (some DVD's I own have more artifacts than a museum). Of course it is not going to add further detail.

It will never look as good as a video in native 1080p But I think is is an improvement (of sorts) to the original DVD.

[Hoover1979]

Version 2.6.10? 2.6.11 nightly build?

Maybe try an older version like 2.6.8 then. https://www.videohelp.com/software/AviDemux/old-versions#download . Or 32-bit version.

Or try megui with avisynth filters for upscaling.

But "remastered" 1080p from dvds....nope...

It is 2.6.10 x64. Would version 2.6.10 r151228 x64 Beta be better? (I normally avoid beta's due to stability issues)

[jagabo]

I find AviDemux too buggy to be useful for anything other than a few cut and paste edits of AVI files. It will never make it through a lengthy encoding.

[theewizard]

it is to soften the blocky edges, make the colors more vibrant and disguise the MPEG2 compression artifacts (some DVD's I own have more artifacts than a museum). Of course it is not going to add further detail.

It will never look as good as a video in native 1080p But I think is is an improvement (of sorts) to the original DVD.

The DVDs I play in my DVD player do not have blocky edges or weak colours on my 1080TV, neither do the DVDs copied to my hard drive and played via computer or Sony media player
Are these ripped converted DVD mkv files? Or complete copied DVD disc folders
Perhaps it is the settings in plex player that is the problem, or the ripped files, over compression, is a quality killer
Trying to up convert something that has already been compressed, is a bad idea
Start again with the original dvd, copy and play do not rip and Convert to a different format

[Hoover1979]

it is to soften the blocky edges, make the colors more vibrant and disguise the MPEG2 compression artifacts (some DVD's I own have more artifacts than a museum). Of course it is not going to add further detail.

It will never look as good as a video in native 1080p But I think is is an improvement (of sorts) to the original DVD.

The DVDs I play in my DVD player do not have blocky edges or weak colours on my 1080TV, neither do the DVDs copied to my hard drive and played via computer or Sony media player
Are these ripped converted DVD mkv files? Or complete copied DVD disc folders
Perhaps it is the settings in plex player that is the problem, or the ripped files, over compression, is a quality killer
Trying to up convert something that has already been compressed, is a bad idea
Start again with the original dvd, copy and play do not rip and Convert to a different format

These are original DVD's that I rip to mkv with MakeMKV (after converting to .ISO) and then convert to either .MKV or .MP4 file container with MP3 stereo audio and H.264 video on "slower" preset in Handbrake to exact bitrate of original MakeMKV output file.
(Which I detect under "Details" on file properties).

I also do this with my Original Blu-Ray discs for my Plex Media Server, but as they are already Full HD they usually don't need to be touched after converting. (Except my blu-ray releases of older movies that have excessive film grain, EG: the first 2 movies from my "Evil Dead" Blu-Ray box set).

Plex can direct play the audio and direct stream the video rather than transcode with those video and audio codecs on my 5Ghz WiFi provided by my ASUS RT-AC68U Router.

I have used ffdshow filters and MPC-HC shaders to do what I intend to do with video editors and streamed them to my Shield Tablet connected to my TV via HDMI with remote access of my PC on Nvidia Gamestream (With 60FPS Frame interpolation provided by Smooth Video Project 4 Pro) and I find some improvement but this is only post processing effects and not hard coded so I can't use this with Plex. (Better visual quality streaming than Nvidia Gamestream).

[theewizard]

is MakeMKV transcoding
or is it just remuxing the original source VOBS/mpeg2

you said rip and mkv, and slow preset..this usually means encoding/converting

i'm talking about copying the DVD structure to hard drive, files and folders
then play that
or take the vobs and merge them together as one MPEG2 file
NO recoding no conversion at all

[Hoover1979]

is MakeMKV transcoding
or is it just remuxing the original source VOBS/mpeg2

you said rip and mkv, and slow preset..this usually means encoding/converting

i'm talking about copying the DVD structure to hard drive, files and folders
then play that
or take the vobs and merge them together as one MPEG2 file
NO recoding no conversion at all

Then Plex needs to transcode the video as MPEG2 is not a supported Plex codec and even when transcoding is set to "Make my CPU Hurt" on my Plex Media Server visual quality is downgraded. Plex quality is best for me when I convert it to Plex supported codecs (MPEG4 or H.264 for video and MP3 for audio)

the MakeMKV file is also MPEG2 video codec, so I need the Handbrake phase to make it better for Plex to stream.

[theewizard]

Plex is your problem
since it can't play dvd structure or mpeg, you are double converting and then you want to up scale which is a third conversion

if you insist on using plex
you should consider copying the DVD to hard drive, then using something like handbrake or vidcoder
and do your upscale from the original source vobs
you can merge the vobs before conversion or merge the converted segements after wards
me, i would merge the vobs, then upscale convert
but i choose to avoid things like plex and use players like MPC-HC that will play DVD structure/folders

[Hoover1979]

Plex is your problem
since it can't play dvd structure or mpeg, you are double converting and then you want to up scale which is a third conversion

if you insist on using plex
you should consider copying the DVD to hard drive, then using something like handbrake or vidcoder
and do your upscale from the original source vobs
you can merge the vobs before conversion or merge the converted segements after wards
me, i would merge the vobs, then upscale convert
but i choose to avoid things like plex and use players like MPC-HC that will play DVD structure/folders

I use Plex to stream the movies from my server (PC) to my client (Nvidia Shield Tablet) that is connected to my TV in my lounge room, as I do not have a Blu-Ray player for my TV, only a Blu-Ray drive on my PC. That way I can watch all my movies while stretched out on my couch instead of sitting in an office chair 1 foot away from the screen. (I have a bad back that has been acting up and am spending more time watching movies then being on the PC)

[theewizard]

What is the player on the tablet, and what is the resolution on the tablet,
Since you are connected To tv from the tablet, you are sending to the tv what the tablet display is showing
What do these same videos, look like if you watch one on the pc?
Are they blocky there, perhaps you are trying to fix the wrong problem
Unless the tablet is 1080p, it will do no good to up scale anything

I know you want to save some work, by coverting the ripped files
But you really need to go back to the DVD source, to get the best quality when up scaling/converting
Even that won't do any good, if the problem is at the tablet player or hardware

[Hoover1979]

The player is the Plex client for Android. The tablet's screen is 16:10 1920x1200 and when connected to the TV I enter what is called "Console Mode" so It shuts off the tablet screen and runs in 1920x1080. When I get my new TV (4K) The Shield Tablet can enter console mode at full 4K. (I could then even stream games from my PC to my Shield Tablet in 4k then by entering into 4K Dynamic Super Resolution on my 1080p PC Screen).

On Plex I get better image quality then I do on my PC as I have the ffdshow codec utilized on my PC, so on the PC I get Smooth Video Project to interpolate the frames to 60FPS. but the down side to that is video files smaller than 1080p are processed before resize and upscaled as ****ty "nearest neighbor" resize and look terrible on my PC. I have lost many days trying to get resizing to bilinear or bicubic but it does not work. I tried the resize section of the ffdshow filter itself but it looked no different and when SVP4 pro was active I got a slideshow of frame, black screen, frame, black screen etc at 1fps. My guess is the Avisynth scripts that SVP4 (Paid Version) use hate the resize section of the ffdshow filter being toyed with.

last night I forked out for Cyberlink PowerDirector 14 and that is working quite well. I MakeMKV'd a DVD, upscaled it in Format Factory and added the median filter in Handbrake and PowerDirector is handling the refining, brightness, contrast, vibrance, saturation and light film grain to disguise some of the artifacts the DVD had. (I am surprised that PowerDirector is only going to take 3 and a half hours to process the video).

What I learned is to not be too heavy handed on the de-blocking filters as a DVD has very little detail and I didn't want to lose any of the original details.

At least that can tide me over until I can find Blu-ray versions of what I own on DVD at the local store.

On a side note, I want to wish all the staff and members of Videohelp a happy new year!