Why would you need to frameserve?

[ungamunga]

I understand how to frameserve from VirtualDub / VirtualDubMod / VirtualDub-MPEG2 to my encoder (TMPGenc). I figured it out while trying to resolve a weird sync issue when I was encoding an AVI into MPEG2 format.

What I don't understand is WHY you would need to frameserve when you can just save the AVI file using "direct stream copy" and then have the encoder use that copy. I do see that frameserving might save you the required disk space but aside from that, what benefit does it provide?

Does it improve the quality of the encoded output in some way? Does it help you overcome specific sorts of problems? Does it reduce those pesky macroblocks or other such artefacts?

I've been futzing around making my own DVDs for quite some time now but I've never figured out what additional benefit frameserving provides. Please enlighten me.

[redwudz]

If you frameserve, you don't have to save the output file. That's one advantage. Nice if you're tight on HD space. It's also faster, cutting out the saving step.

[ungamunga]

Ok, I can see that as a plus. Not a big deal to me since I'm fine for drive space but I can imagine where it would be really handy.

Is there any way to frameserve batches of files (other than maybe having multiple copies of VirtualDub running)?

Any other advantages, especially quality related ones?

[jimmalenko]

Any other advantages, especially quality related ones?

The main one is if you need or want to use any filters in virtualdub. If using filters you can't use Direct Stream Copy and you must re-compress using a codec of your choice, or uncompressed if you've got masses upon masses of HDD space. Much, much easier to frameserve in this scenario, and no recompression so quality is as good as it can be

[ungamunga]

Now that's actually pretty interesting. I've never messed much with the filters in VirtualDub before. I usually just use it to demux files.

What sort of effects would these filters be used for? Altering colour balance? Adding hardcoded subtitles?

Now I'm curious.

[jimmalenko]

http://neuron2.net/hosted.html
http://neuron2.net/mine.html#virtualdub

I'm sure you can find plenty more with goooogle.

[ungamunga]

Cool stuff. Thanks!

[tigerman8u]

avisynth is also an excellent frame server. You do have to make up scripts for it.

[freebird73717]

avisynth is also an excellent frame server. You do have to make up scripts for it.

Avisynth is my choice and the scripts are easy if you use the free fitcd.

[ungamunga]

I have to admit that Avisynth seems kind of daunting. Mind you, I just tried a de-macroblocking filter with VirtualDub... very nice. Should be very handy with darker scenes (where macroblocking seems to be a real problem).