AVStoDVD Support Thread

[manolito]

Thanks a lot for the new version, works great...

Just for fun I installed a 10 year old version a couple of days ago (wanted to check CCE support). Man, this software has come a long way. It is THE DVD creation tool today, and looking at the download numbers at SourceForge (almost 1000 downloads last week) it sure looks like the DVD format is not dead yet...


Thanks again and Cheers
manolito

[mike252]

I've had a couple of instances lately where the program informs me of a time delay of a few seconds.

It then asks me if it should adjust the time sequence.

Every time I click on OK to make adjustments, the audio appears out of sync, when I go with the original time
the result is fine.

Just a query on a great program ?

[manolito]

This is my experience, too. AVStoDVD retrieves the delay information from MediaInfo, and this is not always correct.

A delay of several seconds has never been correct for me, I always ignore such huge delays. For me everything greater than 100ms looks suspicious.

The whole thing also depends on the source filter you are using. DSS2Mod with LAVFilters sometimes behaves a little different than ffms2, and for MPEG2 or VOB sources the recommended source filter is DGDecode which again handles audio delays differently. I remember converting an MPEG2 source a while ago where MediaInfo reported a huge delay. When I used DGDecode I needed to have AVStoDVD correct this huge delay to get a well synced output. But when using LAVFilters or ffms2 I had to ignore the delay in AVStoDVD.

Another factor is the compression format of the source file. Lately I started converting German DVB-T2 captures. They use HEVC / AAC-LATM or E-AC3, the captured MTS files always have a huge audio delay of 2 sec or more. So far I always got good results by ignoring these delays.


Cheers
manolito

[digicube]

Is there a shortcut key for Move Up Title and Move Down Title? If not, can Mr_C implement it in future releases?

[_MrC_]

Something like CTRL-U and CTRL-D? Ok, no problem, I can add them, even if CTRL-D is currently used for 'Demux Files' tool, but I can re-map the shortcuts. Any preferences from the users?



Bye

[manolito]

CTRL-U and CTRL-D look fine for me...

While you are at it could you please have a look at another (cosmetic and very minor) issue in the title window?
Whenever I import several titles at once from an Explorer window AVStoDVD always reorders these titles so that the very last clip from Explorer (which is set to sort files alphabetically by name) will become title 1 in AVStoDVD. The order of the other titles is unchanged.

Example:
I have five clips in my Explorer folder, named "a.mp4", up to "e.mp4", and Explorer shows them in the correct alphabetical order. Then in AVStoDVD I click the "+" button to import clips, in the Explorer window I select all the 5 clips to highlight them. Back in AVStoDVD the order then becomes "e.mp4", "a.mp4" up to "d.mp4".

This issue has always been there IIRC. No big deal, but it would be nice if A2D did not reorder the input clips on its own...


Cheers
manolito

[davexnet]

CTRL-U and CTRL-D look fine for me...

While you are at it could you please have a look at another (cosmetic and very minor) issue in the title window?
Whenever I import several titles at once from an Explorer window AVStoDVD always reorders these titles so that the very last clip from Explorer (which is set to sort files alphabetically by name) will become title 1 in AVStoDVD. The order of the other titles is unchanged.

Example:
I have five clips in my Explorer folder, named "a.mp4", up to "e.mp4", and Explorer shows them in the correct alphabetical order. Then in AVStoDVD I click the "+" button to import clips, in the Explorer window I select all the 5 clips to highlight them. Back in AVStoDVD the order then becomes "e.mp4", "a.mp4" up to "d.mp4".

This issue has always been there IIRC. No big deal, but it would be nice if A2D did not reorder the input clips on its own...


Cheers
manolito

I noticed this also, but it seems to be related to the order in which they're selected.
For example,
select them in reverse order (e,d,c,b,a) and they'll be right in A2D

[_MrC_]

Whenever I import several titles at once from an Explorer window AVStoDVD always reorders these titles so that the very last clip from Explorer (which is set to sort files alphabetically by name) will become title 1 in AVStoDVD. The order of the other titles is unchanged.

That's a feature from GetOpenFileName (comdlg32.dll) API: last selected object is put at the top position (LIFO). A possible approach could be to intercept the multi-string, parse it and sort the list by filename. Meanwhile, Dave's workaround works.



Bye

[manolito]

Thanks for the explanation. It is indeed a systemwide behavior which only makes sense to M$...

I found this in the CreativeCow forum:

Okay, I figured this out. I was having the same problem. Despite sorting by name first (change to "List View" in the Project Panel), dragging them over to the timeline still resulted in some of them randomly being out of order. It was driving me crazy because I have 30+ videos and it sucks when you go to join all of them and find ONE or TWO are not in sequence!

I signed up for an account here JUST SO I could update with my findings. Here's the fix:

Sort your clips in the project panel by name (easier if you change the view type here to "list" view). Make sure the earliest/first clip you want is on top. Now do a CTRL+A to get them all highlighted. Here's the part that makes the difference - when you go to drag & drop to the timeline, GRAB them by the TOP-MOST clip. That's it!

So funky and stupid that this makes a difference, but it really does. Hope this pays it forward and helps someone else.

Cheers
manolito

[digicube]

Anyway to make MCJMFPS faster? It's using only 1 CPU thread out of my 8 available threads which makes it super slow.

[davexnet]

A2d does not take advantage of any multi threaded versions Avisynth and this partitcular function is
single threaded in it's design as far as I can see. Depending on your source/target there may be alternatives such
as blend frames or insert/drip frames. Look in the preferences.

[manolito]

@ digicube

Do you feel adventurous?

AVStoDVD uses the plain vanilla AviSynth 2.60, but it should not be too hard to make it work with AVS+. Of course you will need to use the 32-bit version. Then you also should replace the old (but stable) versions of MVTools2 and RemoveGrain by "modernized" versions which make use of SSE2.

Here are some links:

https://github.com/pinterf/AviSynthPlus/releases
http://github.com/pinterf/RgTools/releases (RGTools replaces RemoveGrain)
https://github.com/pinterf/mvtools/releases/tag/2.7.27

AVS+ and MVTools2 are still under heavy development, there are still many issues and you will have to upgrade them often. But you will probably get a substantial speed gain.

The other question is if you really need a motion compensated FPS converter at all. Such FPS converters are slow by design because they have to interpolate new frames from the neighboring frames. You should make a test conversion using ChangeFPS (which will either drop or duplicate frames) and watch it carefully to see if the resulting motion judder is tolerable for you or not.


Cheers
manolito

[digicube]

Thanks I'll give AVS+ a try.

[steptoe]

I use Avisynth+ and it is quite a bit faster as the multithreading is now part of avisynth+ instead of a patched version as in previous releases of avisynth. I have been using avisynth+ for a looong time, since it was first released before native multithreading and a proper installer. That was fun trying to convince AVStoDVD to run with it. Its much easier now with a full installer for avisynth+


It might take you a little bit of work to get it to work, or it might work straight away. I found it easier to install avisynth then install avisynth+. Your guaranteed to get the registry pointers set-up then. I've been forced to manually edit or add registry pointers to get AVStoDVD to recognise a copy of avisynth IS installed, but that was before a full proper installer for avisynth+

The default install settings pretty much do everything. If avisynth is already installed, it backs that up not simply overwrite, so uninstalling avisynth+ reverts back to avisynth

Don't be tempted to use the 64-bit avisynth+ thinking if you havea 64-bit system then thats what to use. ALL your filters MUST be 64-bit, and a few still are not 64-bit. I stick to 32-bit as per avisynth without any issues at all and use some fairly complex scripts and functions if I'm denoising


Also, AVStoDVD gives an error in the start-up window when it checks file versions complaining that avisynth 2.6.0 or higher is needed. The line above the error shows that the avisynth.dll HAS been loaded and everything works perfectly. Its just throwing a warning error because it can't find the specific version it wants


Either way here is the links to the newest installers, and how to get multithreading to work. A lot of filters have been tested or rewritten to work with specifically avisynth+ to gain even more speed

https://github.com/pinterf/AviSynthPlus/releases

For a first time install your probably better going for the vc redist to make sure everything is installed so you don't get strange errors



The most import thing to always add at the very end of your script is the prefetch() command. Without this avisynth+ will NOT run in multithreaded mode, which is also a good way to see what speed gain you actually get


http://avisynth.nl/index.php/AviSynth%2B#Setting_MT_modes

I simply downloaded the RAW copy of that text file, and created a file called mtmodes.avsi in the avisynth+/plugins+/ fo;der so that its auto-loaded. You then know filters are loaded with th ecorrect modes and know that at least they will work multithreaded and have all been tested with avisynth+


I use prefetch(8) for most things, but sometimes HCEnc or FFMPEG fail half-way through an encode, dropping it back to prefetch(4) solves that. I assume its fetching too many frames and the encoders can't cope

[digicube]

Thanks for the AVS+ tips.

In A2D 2.8.7, when I load a TS file and choose to demux, DGIndex comes up but does not automatically load the file and start indexing.

Edit: never mind, I removed brackets "[]" from the file name and it works now. Maybe special characters are not good for file names.

[digicube]

In A2D 2.8.7, I get Error 35602: Key is not Unique in Collection when I click DVD Menu, there are no templates available.

Edit: I did a clean uninstall and reinstall, no more error messages.

[Wizard23]

Mrc or anyone who may know my problem. I have a issue with avstodvd on windows 10. The problem i'm having is i'm trying to create a dvd from old vhs tapes. The program works fine on windows 10 but without a menu. When I go to create a dvd menu menu of some videos. I get windows cannot create thumbnails and ffmpeg.exe saids stops responding. I have set ffmpeg exe to windows 7 and to run as administer. I have windows 7 as a dual boot. I was wondering how to fix this issue. Will replacing ffmpeg exe if possible to see if that fixes my issue?

[manolito]

I am not familiar with Win 10, but IMO the FFmpeg version which comes with AVStoDVD should work under Win 10. Just to make sure you can of course replace FFmpeg with a current (32-bit static) version, but you will need to edit your PATH environment variable.

FFmpeg:
The included version 2.2.3 is from 2014 and is slowly getting a little old. For the purpose of AVStoDVD it probably has everything it needs, though...
If you want to upgrade to a later version, there are a few things to keep in mind:

Starting with version 3.1.2 the FFmpeg AVS interface has changed. To work with A2D it is necessary to include the folder "...\AVStoDVD\Lib" in your "PATH" environment variable. It is also recommended to include the folder "...\AviSynth\Plugins" in the "PATH" variable.

Cheers
manolito

[Wizard23]

Thanks manolito for replaying back. Ill keep that in mind about replacing ffmpeg. Any idea what could cause ffmpeg to stop? Maybe avstodvd didn't install right on windows 10 at the start. Should i give that a try and see what happens?

[davexnet]

Thanks manolito for replaying back. Ill keep that in mind about replacing ffmpeg. Any idea what could cause ffmpeg to stop? Maybe avstodvd didn't install right on windows 10 at the start. Should i give that a try and see what happens?

Have you changed anything in the the preferences/paths from the defaults?

[Wizard23]

Just like locations where to create the dvd folder rather than C. Temp location i don't like using c location for temps other than that no. I did that on windows 7 alot of times after fresh install of windows 7 or update avstodvd. But have not changed any location for avstodvd on windows 10. But would like to check later im on windows 7 at the moment finishing up the dvds since I need them done by Sunday for my family. I'm pretty sure i never changed avstodvd preferences on windows 10 since i installed it.

[davexnet]

I also get an error when selecting the "DVD menu" button in Windows 10
Perhaps it's related.

[Wizard23]

I would say to but when I click ok on the error I get ffmpeg.exe comes up stops responding. I'm using mpeg-2 captured using hauppauge live usb 2.

[davexnet]

I would say to but when I click ok on the error I get ffmpeg.exe comes up stops responding. I'm using mpeg-2 captured using hauppauge live usb 2.

I don't get any message about FFmpeg. If I clear that error box, the wizard appears but when I click on "run editor" I get this:

[Wizard23]

I noticed that when i start avstodvd it checks java and tells me i don't got it witch i do maybe the version i got it don't like. Do you think java is my problem? Would uninstalling it then reinstalling it fix my issue?

[davexnet]

I don't have Java runtime either. According to this it's only for certain subtitles
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/277852-AVStoDVD-Support-Thread/page119#post2507279

[Seeker47]

I use Avisynth+ and it is quite a bit faster as the multithreading is now part of avisynth+ instead of a patched version as in previous releases of avisynth. I have been using avisynth+ for a looong time, since it was first released before native multithreading and a proper installer. That was fun trying to convince AVStoDVD to run with it. Its much easier now with a full installer for avisynth+


It might take you a little bit of work to get it to work, or it might work straight away. I found it easier to install avisynth then install avisynth+. Your guaranteed to get the registry pointers set-up then. I've been forced to manually edit or add registry pointers to get AVStoDVD to recognise a copy of avisynth IS installed, but that was before a full proper installer for avisynth+

The default install settings pretty much do everything. If avisynth is already installed, it backs that up not simply overwrite, so uninstalling avisynth+ reverts back to avisynth

Don't be tempted to use the 64-bit avisynth+ thinking if you havea 64-bit system then thats what to use. ALL your filters MUST be 64-bit, and a few still are not 64-bit. I stick to 32-bit as per avisynth without any issues at all and use some fairly complex scripts and functions if I'm denoising


Also, AVStoDVD gives an error in the start-up window when it checks file versions complaining that avisynth 2.6.0 or higher is needed. The line above the error shows that the avisynth.dll HAS been loaded and everything works perfectly. Its just throwing a warning error because it can't find the specific version it wants


Either way here is the links to the newest installers, and how to get multithreading to work. A lot of filters have been tested or rewritten to work with specifically avisynth+ to gain even more speed

https://github.com/pinterf/AviSynthPlus/releases

For a first time install your probably better going for the vc redist to make sure everything is installed so you don't get strange errors



The most import thing to always add at the very end of your script is the prefetch() command. Without this avisynth+ will NOT run in multithreaded mode, which is also a good way to see what speed gain you actually get


http://avisynth.nl/index.php/AviSynth%2B#Setting_MT_modes

I simply downloaded the RAW copy of that text file, and created a file called mtmodes.avsi in the avisynth+/plugins+/ fo;der so that its auto-loaded. You then know filters are loaded with th ecorrect modes and know that at least they will work multithreaded and have all been tested with avisynth+


I use prefetch(8) for most things, but sometimes HCEnc or FFMPEG fail half-way through an encode, dropping it back to prefetch(4) solves that. I assume its fetching too many frames and the encoders can't cope

While better speed is always welcome, this all starts to get rather advanced or complicated for me. I think I'd be inclined to wait until such time as _MrC_ might adopt these alternative modules, and if / when the installer handles it all in a smooth, reliable fashion. Otherwise I'll just get by with things as they are.

[Wizard23]

davexnet i decided to go on my laptop windows 10. I dual boot with ubuntu on it. I get the extact same error your getting. On my desktop windows 10 I get the ffmpeg.exe stops responding issue.

[manolito]

Even though I absolutely refuse to touch Win 10 the last couple of posts made me curious enough to do a little bit of research on this topic...

It looks like you guys are not the only ones experiencing issues when running VB6 software under Win 10. The weird thing is that for some users there are no issues at all, for others the VB6 applications always crash after a certain time, others get error messages like you did. I do know that MrC himself tests A2D under Win 10 and obviously he has no problems. I also know from some Email exchanges that he has no intention in the near future to port his software to newer VB.Net versions, mainly because he cannot find the time for it.

A lot of folks in the different forums show a very arrogant attitude like "How can you expect a software created with a 20 year old development environment to run under a current operating system at all? Time to ditch this ancient stuff..." I certainly do expect such software to work under a current OS, that's why I always refused to use Apple computers.

Microsoft confirms that they still support the VB6 runtimes under Win 10 for the life of the support cycle. But of course this does not mean that they will provide any assistance in troubleshooting problems with specific software. So what can affected users do?

1. The first thing to try would be running AVStoDVD in compatibilty mode for Win 7, maybe even for Win XP.
2. If this does not help some folks recommend to install the VB6 IDE under Win 10. This should make sure that all necessary runtime files are installed correctly.
3. Install a virtual machine like VMWare or VirtualBox, install Win 7 in this VM and run A2D from there.
4. My favorite, but f course a little bit radical...
Ditch Win 10 and go back to Win 7. Does anyone really need the Win 10 "improvements"?


Cheers
manolito

[digicube]

One of many reasons I refuse to upgrade my Windows 7. Luckily I can build my own PC.