MeGUI - help to understand the job progress

[ZikO]

Hello,

I have question regarding MeGUI. I am converting a DVD VOB file into XviD with subtitles. This is what I do:
- Run "VobSubber" and extract subtitles from a VOB file; it creates *.idx and *.sub files
- Create AviSynth script using "File Indexer" and load it to Video Encoding
- Set Video encoding to "XviD: 2pass Balanced" with higher bit rate, and with format set to AVI
- Set an audio track
- Clicked on "AutoEncode".

This opens another window where I set AVI container, no splitting, and eventually MeGUI adds jobs to the queue:
job1: VTS_01_1 T80 3_2ch 448Kbps DELAY 0ms_new.ac3 with output VTS_01_1 T80 3_2ch 448Kbps DELAY 0ms_new.ac3
job2: VTS_01_1.avs (with no autput)
job3: VTS_01_1.avs with output VTS_01_1.avi
job4: VTS_01_1.avi with output VTS_01_1-muxed.avi

My question is what is exactly happening with subtitles? Does MeGUI convert *.d2v to AVI using XviD first and then re-convert the whole video file again including subtitles or are subtitles simply added as a e.g. "additional" layer? If what it does is the first option, it means video files lose quality if subtitles are added.

Another question is there are a lot of "Queue" buttons, e.g. inside "Video Encoding", or "Audio". Are they there to manually do in-between jobs.

And finally, I can see "Queue Analysis Pass" next to Queue button as well. MeGUI Wiki does only say it helps with 2pass encoding.

Thanks.

[manono]

My question is what is exactly happening with subtitles?

The answer is found in the AviSynth script it creates. Somewhere in there is a line beginning with 'VobSub' which adds your Vobsubs (IDX/SUB) to the video.

Does MeGUI convert *.d2v to AVI using XviD first and then re-convert the whole video file again...

No. That's a time-wasting and quality degrading additional step. It goes directly from DVD to whatever your desired output format is, including whatever other filters you've added along the way. These might include cropping, resizing, denoising and, yes, adding in the subtitles.

I don't use MeGUI so I can't help with the 'Queue' questions. But study and learn the AviSynth scripts it (and AutoGK) creates. Then one of these days you'll have learned enough to be able to do the whole thing yourself without having to rely on these all-in-one programs.

[ZikO]

There will be time I can be more flexible, for now I have to rely on "Do everything for me" like programs.

As to subtitles, what do you suggest then? Do you suggest to learn AviSynth better and do everything manually? Do you use e.g. DGindex manually to convert VOB to d2v, and then you move to AviSynth to do the rest, carefully include commands to maintain quality of video?

It's clear what you think about MeGUI and these kind of tools but it's not clear what you do suggest.

Thanks

[hello_hello]

I assume you're adding the subtitles to the script for encoding under the Filters tab in the Script Creator?

job1: VTS_01_1 T80 3_2ch 448Kbps DELAY 0ms_new.ac3 with output VTS_01_1 T80 3_2ch 448Kbps DELAY 0ms_new.ac3
You're converting AC3 to AC3 here. No need for that unless you're downmixing multichannel audio to stereo, or modifying it while re-encoding in some way. MeGUI automatically extracts the audio and loads it into the audio section when indexing with DGIndex (one or more audio tracks, depending on what you selected when indexing). If you don't want to convert the audio, but want to keep the original instead, click on the "X" button in the audio section to clear it before opening AutoEncode. There'll be an option to add existing streams such as audio and subtitles to the AutoEncode job (subtitles added that way aren't encoded).

In case you don't know, when you use the "no target size" option in AutoEncode, MeGUI will use the video encoder preset that was selected before opening AutoEncode, so if it was set for single pass, quality based encoding, that's what it'll do. If it was set for 2 pass with a certain bitrate, that's what it'll do. If you select either the file size or bitrate options in AutoEncode, MeGUI will automatically switch the encoder to 2 pass encoding (if it wasn't already set up for that) and calculate the required bitrate. So if you want a final size of 1200MB (as an example) MeGUI will work out the bitrate required, subtract the audio bitrate, and use what's left for the video. I'm pretty sure that applies whether you're re-encoding the audio, or adding existing audio to the AutoEncode job.

If I'm encoding for a particular file size (which I rarely do) I tend to leave x264 in CRF mode, or Xvid in single pass CQ mode, and use AutoEncode to switch to 2 pass encoding automatically by selecting a file size. There's no downside to doing so for x264. For Xvid, you can't use it's profiles in single pass mode (Home Theatre, Portable etc), so if you want to use those, you need to have Xvid configured for 2 pass encoding even when using AutoEncode.

job2: VTS_01_1.avs (with no output)
I assume that's the 1st pass of a 2 pass encode. There'll be no output, but a stats file will be created.

job3: VTS_01_1.avs with output VTS_01_1.avi
That'll be the second pass, this time to encode the video.

job4: VTS_01_1.avi with output VTS_01_1-muxed.avi
The encoded video and audio (or the extracted audio if you added it to the AutoEncode job instead) are muxed together as a single AVI to give you the final output file. In this case it'll be called "VTS_01_1-muxed.avi" (MeGUI may or may not delete the other files after muxing. It depends how it's configured in it's Options).

My question is what is exactly happening with subtitles? Does MeGUI convert *.d2v to AVI using XviD first and then re-convert the whole video file again including subtitles or are subtitles simply added as a e.g. "additional" layer? If what it does is the first option, it means video files lose quality if subtitles are added.

The subtitles are encoded with the video at the same time. You should be able to see them in the Script Creator's video preview if you add them to the script creator and use the Preview button.

Another question is there are a lot of "Queue" buttons, e.g. inside "Video Encoding", or "Audio". Are they there to manually do in-between jobs.

You can add individual video and audio encoding jobs to the queue with the queue buttons, and that'll give you separate video and/or audio output files which you'll have to mux together as a single file yourself if need be. There's various muxers under MeGUI's Tools menu.

And finally, I can see "Queue Analysis Pass" next to Queue button as well. MeGUI Wiki does only say it helps with 2pass encoding.

Some Avisynth plugins/filters (none that come supplied with MeGUI) need to analyse the video. Kind of like the encoder first pass for 2 pass video encoding. That's what an analysis pass would be for.

[hello_hello]

As to subtitles, what do you suggest then? Do you suggest to learn AviSynth better and do everything manually? Do you use e.g. DGindex manually to convert VOB to d2v, and then you move to AviSynth to do the rest, carefully include commands to maintain quality of video?

DGIndex doesn't convert the vobs to d2v as such. It does the decoding and creates a d2v file for other programs to open.
http://www.afterdawn.com/glossary/file_extension.cfm/d2v

Personally I use MeGUI quite a bit. It's nice to know how the tools it uses work, what they do, and how to use them properly, but I still prefer to use a GUI such as MeGUI most of the time. MeGUI can help with various tasks, or you can get it to do everything (via the OneClick encoder). For example there'd be nothing stopping you from manually creating a d2v file with DGIndex yourself, and then opening MeGUI's script creator and selecting the d2v file for the input video. The result shouldn't be any different to when MeGUI creates the index file, so I get MeGUI to do it, but that's what I like about MeGUI. It doesn't prevent you from doing various parts of a job yourself as other GUIs often do, so you can do this bit manually, get MeGUI to do that bit, then do this bit yourself and/or modify the scripts it creates etc....

[manono]

Only now I received word of your response. Sorry.

There will be time I can be more flexible, for now I have to rely on "Do everything for me" like programs.

Sure, nothing wrong with that.

As to subtitles, what do you suggest then? Do you suggest to learn AviSynth better and do everything manually?

Not necessarily. MeGUI can add them in for you, I suppose.

Do you use e.g. DGindex manually to convert VOB to d2v, and then you move to AviSynth to do the rest, carefully include commands to maintain quality of video?

Yeah, pretty much.

It's clear what you think about MeGUI and these kind of tools but it's not clear what you do suggest.

MeGUI is highly regarded and there's nothing wrong with using it. Lots of people use it with good results. I wasn't being dismissive of it at all.

[ZikO]

Hello,

Thanks for the explanation on the job progress and pointing out my misunderstanding of *.d2v


Yesterday, I tried MeGUI again and two things happened.

Missing Audio.
I removed audio track from the Audio section in the "Input" tab by clicking on "X". I opened "AutoEncode" and confirmed all parameters (no splitting, no restriction on capacity). After clicking on "Queue", the jobs started: processing audio, 2 passes into XviD, and muxing. When all was done, the video was without audio. I did it again but I also ticked "Add additional jobs audio, subtitles" (I don't remember exactly how this is worded) and a video file did not have audio again. I feel like I need to include an audio track in the Input tab (bottom part of a window) and then audio can be included tohugh it has to be processed.

The video was split into three parts.
I was also surprised when a video was created in parts. I double checked there was no restriction on file capacity, I confirmed "No splitting" was the chosen option, and yet the video was converted into three pieces. When I merge them in VirtualDub, everything was OK but all together the whole video was about 4.1 GB (I was playing with VERY high bitrates about 6000 )

Perhaps I should simply convert video separately clicking on Queue in the Video section, and then use one of the Muxes in menu "Tools" to mux video and audio into AVI container and just avoid AutoEncode.

Thanks

[hello_hello]

Missing Audio.
I removed audio track from the Audio section in the "Input" tab by clicking on "X". I opened "AutoEncode" and confirmed all parameters (no splitting, no restriction on capacity). After clicking on "Queue", the jobs started: processing audio, 2 passes into XviD, and muxing. When all was done, the video was without audio. I did it again but I also ticked "Add additional jobs audio, subtitles" (I don't remember exactly how this is worded) and a video file did not have audio again. I feel like I need to include an audio track in the Input tab (bottom part of a window) and then audio can be included tohugh it has to be processed.

When you open AutoEncode, and check "add additional content" then click on Queue (after setting a file size if required) a new window opens. You need to use it to manually add the extracted audio to the AutoEncode job. Just click on the button next to the Audio Input section. When that's done, click Queue again and the jobs will be added to the Queue.
If there's audio in MeGUI's audio section before opening AutoEncode I think it's automatically included in the AutoEncode audio section when you check "add additional content" and click Queue, and there's no way to remove it. You need to delete it from the audio section before opening AutoEncode. You could do both though, leave audio in the audio section, add existing audio via AutoEncode, and the output file will include both, but if you want just the existing audio without re-encoding, you need to clear MeGUI's audio section.

The video was split into three parts.
I was also surprised when a video was created in parts. I double checked there was no restriction on file capacity, I confirmed "No splitting" was the chosen option, and yet the video was converted into three pieces. When I merge them in VirtualDub, everything was OK but all together the whole video was about 4.1 GB (I was playing with VERY high bitrates about 6000 )

The original AVI format was limited to a maximum of 2GB. Hence the splitting into three sections. Probably two at 1.9GB and a third smaller one. The newer AVI standard is called OpenDML, or AVI version 2. Pretty much all players should support it these days, but once upon a time they didn't. That's why MeGUI unintuitively labels the two AVI options as "standard" (2GB limit) and "PC" (no limit). Below the section for selecting the output format in AutoEncode there's an option for "device type". Change it to "PC" and that should stop MeGUI splitting the AVIs. If you configure AVI as the default output type for AutoEncode in MeGUI's options, you should also be able to get it to default to "PC".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Video_Interleave

Perhaps I should simply convert video separately clicking on Queue in the Video section, and then use one of the Muxes in menu "Tools" to mux video and audio into AVI container and just avoid AutoEncode.Thanks

I do, but AutoEncode should work as I described. It's handy for being able to set an output size that includes the audio without having to calculate the required bitrate yourself. If you use MeGUI's AVI muxer you'll still have to select "PC" as the device type to stop it splitting large files. Most programs (ie VirtualDub) probably create AVI version one files until they exceed a certain size, then they automatically switch to AVI version 2. I suggested MeGUI should do the same (in the MeGUI thread at doom9) a while back, but I upset the "compatibility police" and it wasn't discussed any further. Maybe I should try again.

I resisted the first time I posted here, but I've got to ask.... any reason you're still using Xvid? I ask, because if you have players that'll also play h264 video, the x264 encoder is much better. Xvid's kind of obsolete.

[ZikO]

Again, thanks for a very good explanation Things are much clearer now.

I resisted the first time I posted here, but I've got to ask.... any reason you're still using XviD? I ask, because if you have players that'll also play h264 video, the x264 encoder is much better. XviD's kind of obsolete.

OK. The story is I bought Sony Bravia (46KDL-W905A to be precise) some time ago. I would buy it again because it was very much discounted and I couldn't afford anything better. The opinions were convincing enough to go for it. I did not consider anything related to opening videos so I was happy to buy it.

However, I think it's well known Sony is very peculiar about modern codecs. If you Google it you will find a lot of complains. In general, it is said that Sony Bravia can only handle XviD. Fortunately, relatively recent models including my particular one, can finally handle modern codecs such as H.264 and containers such as matroska--I did test it yesterday and MKV + H.264 works but I did not test MP4. To this date I was working/testing with XviD only because I was convinced it's the only way to watch compressed videos.

So I am hoping I am able to change to H.264 in MKV but all this about XviD and AVI still made me understand the whole routine. I am massively more knowledgable.

Thanks


PS. As to MVK, of course there's another problem with Sony because when I include subtitles in the MKV container, I cannot get it working on TV; it's there because VLC can read them! It's still workaround by hard subbing , though.

[hello_hello]

I have a Sony Bluray player with a USB input that'll play virtually anything I throw at it. It's about four years old. My other half has a Sony Bluray player that's old enough not to have a USB input, but it'll happily play most formats if you burn the files to disc (MKV, MP4 etc). Maybe Sony took longer to give their TVs the same functionality?

It seems you discovered it will play h264/MKV, but I asked Google, and it led me here (I'm not sure where you live, so that's the UK model).
https://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/product/KDL-46W905A#Manuals
http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/13HG900111/EN/index.html
http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/13HG900111/EN/usb_europe_ga_twn.html
http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/13HG900111/EN/codeclist.html#5

This is the list of subtitle format it supports:
http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/13HG900111/EN/codeclist.html#section05
As is generally the case, they can't be muxed into the file, they need to be kept as separate files and given the same name as the video file and stored in the same folder on the USB drive.
I tend not to do that myself either though. When it comes to subtitles I'm generally always going to want to see them, or not see them at all, so when they're in the "always" category I encode them into the video. That way they'll always display, regardless of the playback device. And also regardless of the person using the device. Trying to explain to my mother how to enable subtitles..... it's way easier to encode them.

[ZikO]

Thanks for links to pdfs

I am happy to say everything's working now , including MeGUI's AutoEncode and H.264 / MkV / Subtitles.

Many thanks.

PS. Actually with slight nuance. Everything with USB. I did test DLNA and unfortunately MKV with H.264 was not recognised hehe, only XviD files, ..... sigh.

[hello_hello]

I'm glad you're sorted. I can't really help too much with DNLA as I've never used it myself, but it seems all DNLA isn't created equally. Apparently the DNLA in Samsung TVs only works for limited file types unless you use Samsung's DNLA software installed on a PC, or a Samsung tablet, or a third party DNLA server that knows how to "speak Samsung" etc. Maybe there's similar issues with Sony's DNLA. It sounds like there might be. Maybe that's where the "only supports Xvid/AVI" stuff you were reading on the internet comes from. It might be worth checking the manual for more info to see if there's a way to make it work for other file types. Or if it should.