MeGUI / batch processing / successor?

[Interpolator]

I've been using MeGUI for years, and it continues to be my preferred transcoding tool, despite the bugs and a few minor annoyances (profile updates are not saved immediately and thus discarded when it crashes) but no software is perfect and I sure appreciate the work the developers put into it, especially the ability to encode to x265.

For batch processing, I've been using the java MGE tool, which has its own issues, but usually works. Problem is, it doesn't seem to parse the x265 presets and work on both of these tools appears to have been essentially discontinued.

Does anyone know of an MeGUI batch processing successor? I played with Handbrake about three years ago, and didn't care for it. I use AviSynth, but that's also very buggy and doesn't have a batch processing mode that I know of.

I guess what I really want is batch-processing built into MeGUI - it kind of seems like a no-brainer that would be relatively simple to implement, but apparently it's not in high demand.

I have about 500 television series episodes to transcode into x265, and probably about 2000 other videos of various formats in my own home theater solution I wish to do the same with.

[Detmek]

Why don't you just use MeGUI's OneClick encoder? It will encode any file or all files in folder with same settings.

[TorBru]

Don't know that much about MeGUI, but have you tried ffmpeg with ffqueue? You can create presets for all the codecs supported by ffmpeg including x265. Ffqueue has nice batch-job creation as well where you can locate a bunch of files (or drag & drop them), select what stream types should be used (audio and/or video), a preset to use for the encoding and of you are.

[Interpolator]

Why don't you just use MeGUI's OneClick encoder? It will encode any file or all files in folder with same settings.

This is the first I've heard the one-click encoder permitted batch processing. You think that would be indicated in the title, in a tool-tip, or in a summary on the dialog box.

Typically MEGUI requires several steps per source - extract, index, create AVS, encode video, encode audio, mux). I thought it simply automated these, but still required interaction for each individual source file. I'll give that a try.

I have ffmpeg, of course, but it's command line. Most of the various tools are front ends for this and other command-line utilities. I can do command line, it's just a cumbersome annoyance, and isn't the kind of solution I'm after. GUI's exist for a reason.

[Interpolator]

... I also need to customize the AVS script for each TV series, which MGE permits, but I don't think One-Click does, and with MeGUI it's not a simple matter of editing the scripts as I think the source is read and copied when opened (so subsequent edits after the jobs are enqueued are ignored)... but it's been awhile since I've played with it so I'll dig into it.

[Detmek]

MeGUI OneClick supports folder input. It will convert all files within selected folder with chosen settings. But you can not edit avisynth script after you load files. It has to be done before. You can create multiple One-Click profiles for different TV shows.

StaxRip x64 also has File Batch processing but you also need to set avisynth fiters and encoding options before you load files for batch processing.

[Interpolator]

I got it to work. It's just what the doctor ordered, with one exception - it doesn't generate and enqueue all the jobs right away. This would be OK, if it put them in the same worker, but it dumps them into the main queue. It's not a showstopper, just cumbersome/annoying.

The workaround will be I'll switch my other jobs to temporary workers, and leave the main queue for batch processing and send newly enqueued jobs that aren't part of the batch to temporary workers.

Thanks for turning me onto the feature.

This is unrelated, but I did find one problem with MeGUI's HD extractor, though it may be a fault of eac3to itself - it doesn't know how to extract HEVC (x265) yet. So once you've muxed into a Matroska .mkv file, you're screwed if you need to reverse the process... at least within MeGUI. I'm sure there's another tool that can handle it. I prefer to use mp4 as a container anyways over mkv, but mp4 does't seem to seek with x265, at least with VLC.

[TorBru]

x265 is not supported by the MP4 container. Even if some players may play it you cannot be sure - maybe at some point the MP5 container solidifies for x265, but until then I'd suggest you use MKV for x265.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_video_container_formats

P.S: You can remux to and from MKV with ffmpeg. If you use ffqueue as GUI you can make a preset with audio / video codec set to copy, and in the job-editor select a MKV file as input and define a MP4 as output - pretty easy when you've succeeded once

[hello_hello]

This is unrelated, but I did find one problem with MeGUI's HD extractor, though it may be a fault of eac3to itself - it doesn't know how to extract HEVC (x265) yet. So once you've muxed into a Matroska .mkv file, you're screwed if you need to reverse the process... at least within MeGUI. I'm sure there's another tool that can handle it. I prefer to use mp4 as a container anyways over mkv, but mp4 does't seem to seek with x265, at least with VLC.

Maybe I don't understand the problem exactly, but can you extract h265 video from MKVs with MKVCleaver or gMKVExtractGUI?

MeGUI's MKV muxer (under the Tools menu, uses MKVToolNix/MKVMerge to do the work, but I find MKVMergeGUI to be easier to use as it's more versatile. Can you open an MKV containing x265 with MKVMergeGUI and de-select the streams you don't want and add more etc?

What's the java MGE tool to which you referred earlier?

There's a couple of tools for batch adding encodes to the MeGUI job queue. I haven't used them, or for that matter OneClick for batch encoding, but they might be worth a look.
MeGUI AutoEncode Batcher
MeGUI Batcher

I generally prefer to create scripts individually, but adding them to the job queue can be annoying at times because you've first got to load the script into the video section, then add it to the queue, and each time MeGUI does whatever it needs to do to check the script, and if it contains complicated/slow filtering, each check can take quite a few seconds.
I'm hoping one of the MeGUI Batch utilities can solve that problem, but I've tried them yet myself. If you do, would you mind reporting back as to how well they work?

[sneaker]

x265 is not supported by the MP4 container.

That's not true. MP4 has had HEVC support for quite some time now (ISO/IEC 14496-15:2014, I think). You can mux using L-Smash or mp4box, for example. Whether your player supports that is a completely different question.

[TorBru]

That's not true. MP4 has had HEVC support for quite some time now (ISO/IEC 14496-15:2014, I think). You can mux using L-Smash or mp4box, for example. Whether your player supports that is a completely different question.

Fair enough! I've just never had an x265 encode in a MP4 container that worked flawlessly. Remuxing the MP4 into MKV using ffmpeg always fixed the issues. I'd still stick to MKV for x265 since (I suppose) all players supporting x265 also supports MKV

[Interpolator]

MEG.jar is the only MEGUI batch app I know of. I will try the others.

MEGui is buggy and has some big annoyances, but I still prefer to use it over many other tools. The fewer other apps or command line tools I have to f--- with, the better. I can work with command line, it's just a hassle.

mp4 probably supports x265 just fine, I suspect it's a VLC shortcoming (and surely other players, too). I would rather just use mp4, but it solves my problem, so I'll deal and try not to be biased against it just because it's a macro-container and editing mkv files doesn't happen without extracting the video stream first.

Standards are a good thing. Developers implementing their pet features almost no one but them wants and casting standards aside? Not so much, but it's painfully common.

[Interpolator]

MeGUI "One-Click" usage report...

Basically, it works well. One very important thing I learned, is when you get a One-Click profile, test it, and then be damn sure to save and exit MeGUI, and then relaunch before running your whole batch. The same is true for any codec profile you create, but the importance is magnified with One-Click.

This is extremely important because a crash that shuts down MeGUI will lose any profile settings. Now, what particular mix of psychedelic, hallucinogenic codecs the MeGUI developer(s) were smoking when they decided it was acceptable to not bother to write profile setting updates to disk until the application is closed properly, I do wish they would share in a README.txt file. Stupid, short-sighted software engineering practice, and they should have known better, because it's a major usability flaw in an otherwise great, but highly buggy app.

With that out of the way, One-click runs very well, aside from that it generates jobs on the fly as each one completes, instead of populating the list with them initially. To be fair, that has advantages, too, in terms of resources for very large sets of files, but it does not permit prioritization, or later on deciding one is a priority and sending it to a temporary worker.

Work seems to have pretty much discontinued on MeGUI, though it was updated to handle x265 a few months ago. Sadly, the glaring bugs and design issues (such as the profile save) were not addressed. Maybe someone will pick up where they left off. I would, but I have priority coding projects that are going to keep me busy for years.

Hope this helps future One-Clickers that stumble across this thread.

[hello_hello]

MeGUI has been around for a long time. If I remember correctly, it was originally created by doom9 (owner of the doom9 forum) and was a GUI for Mencoder (hence the name).

I think it was abandoned for a while, and now there's pretty much only one person maintaining it, and he does it in his spare time. Work hasn't been discontinued though. The stable update server probably doesn't get updates all that regularly, but MeGUI's probably updated on the development update server at least a couple of times per month. Mostly it's just minor updates, but every so often Zathor must have enough free time to put some more work into it.

I know the problem with MeGUI not saving profile configuration changes until it's closed has been mentioned in the MeGUI doom9 thread. I think according to Zathor changing that would involve a fair bit of work. What problems have you encountered that's causing it to crash a lot?

If you'd like to suggest changes to the OneClick encoder and the way it adds jobs to the queue, you could do so in one of the the doom9 MeGUI threads. Zathor monitors them and posts regularly. Apparently he mainly uses the OneClick encoder himself, which is probably why it has the ability to batch encode these days, so you might get lucky.

[Interpolator]

Shame it's been abandoned, I like what they were going for, even if its reliability and a few oversights leave a lot to be desired, which is why I still use it.

Doom9 doesn't appeal to me, much, but I might try it. I had to guess like half a dozen times on their quiz on video encoding - which I do all the time, please note - before I got an answer it would accept. I went to pose a question and was told I had to wait five days. Doesn't really inspire a lot of desire to return to the board.

I can't say that's terribly surprising to learn the person that put this firewall in place is the one who somehow decided it was acceptable to not write changes in settings immediately to disk, but enough criticism; I just mean it's frustrating when good software is missing core obvious features that detract significantly from it. Like a great film with one really poorly done scene at the climax that kills it.

As far as what causes it to crash, there's no rhyme or reason, it's seemingly random. A common error is object reference not set to an instance. I understand what that means in OOP terms but there was no more info. It doesn't kill the actual encoding threads (which of course can easily take 8-32+ hours in x265 on typical hardware for a 1.5-3 hour 1080p film depending on settings), but you have to manually watch it to see if complete before you proceed with the next step, typically muxing.

I'll scout around for something better at some point have my hands full with too many other things right now, and each new tool requires spending quite a bit of time with to learn it in detail.

Things are always changing in software. Right now I'm just grateful for x265. Pretty good compression/quality, even on ultrafast, and only a little slower with a few tweaks. 4.3GB 1080p 2hr films are barely lower quality perceptibly from their 30GB BRD counterparts.

[hello_hello]

As I said, it's not been abandoned. There's been two updates to MeGUI itself in the last week or so (development update server), and all the tools it uses are updated when new versions are released. Nothing as far as new features go this time, but that seems to happen in fits and starts according to when Zathor has time.

I know what you mean about doom9. Sometimes people complain about the questions and the 5 day wait when they post for the first time, but it doesn't appear there's any plans to change that. According to doom9 it's almost eliminated spamming, whereas he said prior to that it was a lot of work for someone to monitor the forum and remove it. You won't need to play 20 questions once you've posted a few times.

[stax76]

One method to ensure settings get saved is using a common handler for unhanded exceptions that will save both the current project and the global settings.

[hello_hello]

One thing MeGUI does seem to save as it goes it the list of jobs in the queue. Fortunately they survive a crash. Sometimes the last completed job hasn't been removed from the queue, but at least there's no need to spent time loading up the job queue again.