avisynth creating synch probs???

[rob1]

Oh yea, I make good use of the trim command, though I've been doing (highly abbreviated):

v1=AVISource("G:\huffy/03a.avi")
v2=AVISource("G:\huffy/03b.avi")
v3=AVISource("G:\huffy/filter/04.avi")
clip1=Trim(v1,30266,48009)
clip2=Trim(v2,10,157156)
clip3=Trim(v3,60,209301)
clip1++clip2++clip3

i.e., not joining the three files prior to finding my cut points. Seems to work okay. I cut the commercials and filter usually with peachsmoother and then temporalcleaner. I tried msmooth but it sometimes had an odd almost ghosting/flat effect on backgrounds. I was probably using too high a setting, though. But it was SO slow I ditched it rather than working on tweeking it out.

But yes, I have a pretty good command of avisynth for getting my source material cleaned up and trimmed down. I CAN feed CCE a set length of video, but because there's no sense in ending my DVDs when an episode ends (soaps are by definition 'non-ending'- hell, most fridays it'll be a cliffhanger!) I often end a dvd in the middle of an episode and start a new dvd with the next scene. So I don't cut my DVDs based on how long the source material is but rather how much of the source I can fit while still sticking to a given level of quality. Since I don't know what size file this will produce going in, that's why I use DVDlab to trim off any extra that doesn't fit onto the DVD. But yes, I use avisynth for pretty much all of the real editing. (A good choice very much inspired by DJRumpy explaining it on this forum!!)

But the nature of all of this is why quality based encoding (where I don't know the ultimate file size) seems to make sense for this stuff. I set the quality and let the length of video vary by that- filling up the DVD by simply trimming off any excess in authoring.

[DJRumpy]

I am puzzled that you got macroblocking using Half-D1. The bitrate your giving it (2000+) should have been adequate. What your describing sounds like some pretty bad macroblocking. I can usually squeeze full D1 resolutinos (around 3 hours), at bitrates as low as 3000kbps, without any visible artifacts using CCE. Is your source just poor?

[rob1]

Yes, it really makes no sense why I was getting the macroblocking. I mean, sometimes it was bad enough to basically lock up the DVD player.

The source was 'okay'- like I say, it was pretty well filtered and for VHS source I'd say it was pretty good. Half-D1 at 2300 with ac3 sound (224)- four hours seemed very reasonable. And most of the time, it worked just fine. But when it didn't, it REALLY didn't!

I figure any of the following could be the problem:

1. I was setting the minimum bitrate too high, thus not giving the extra bits needed to certain scenes. (However, I can't remember if I started setting the min higher as a result of the bloody macroblocking or not!) I even went to 2 pass cbr=2300 and believe I had problems.

2. The media- though I was using BeAlls, which most folks find to be a pretty solid option. However, if I burned on Riteks, most of the time the macroblocking went away. I think there was one case where it didn't- but it was reduced.

-regardless, the things looked very good on the computer. For a while, I thought it was my set top DVD player was just crap, but I sent one of the DVDs to a friend and they had macroblocking problems as well.

I'm encoding this stuff over again based on the 'constant quality' approach, doing a second pass with the same min (300) and max (9000) bitrates for both passes and basing the second pass ave. on the ave. bitrate produced in the first 'quality' based pass and burning it all to Riteks. If this doesn't get rid of the macro blocks, I'll be at a loss! As you say, it really shouldn't have been a problem in the first place!!

[SLK001]

The CLIP parameter is only necessary, if your input source is stored in a variable (in your example, you called it 'FIRST_PART'). By returning CLIP1++CLIP2++CLIP3 without assigning it to a variable, it makes the CLIP parameter invalid, and unecessary. This is not in contradiction with the documentation. The CLIP parameter cannot and should not be included when using my formatting. Why would you want to do more typing, and make your script more difficult to read?

Hey, I'm not saying that it was necessary in your script. It's just that there are THREE parameters to the TRIM command, NOT two.

I have had scripts where the clip parameter was needed.

[DJRumpy]

That's because your video wasn't in a variable. I always code the script to leave it out, unless it's handy for some reason (like joining clips). I always take it back out immediatly after though, as it clutters up the script, making it hard to read, and it scares the newbs

rob1, let me know if the lower min helps. The Half D1 encodes I've done for broadcast caps rarely exceed 3500 on a bitrate peak, so setting your MAX to around 9000 should have essentially no affect. The Min will definately make a difference though. You bring up an interesting point about the meda though. I suppose it could also be your burner. I've had older burners start doing bad burns (errors started increasing as the probelm got worse). It would cause macroblocking, and lockups on playback. You could always try burning at some suitably painful low speed, like 1x, 2x, or 4x to see if the problem is minimized/eliminated. Then you'll have first hand experience for how long it takes to burn a DVD