AVStoDVD Support Thread

[Calidore]

Hi, MrC. I've just belatedly uninstalled 2.7.3 and installed 2.7.4, and that reminded me of a request I've been wanting to make. Would it be simple to add the ability to keep your settings when uninstalling and/or the ability to export settings to a file so they can be imported into a new installation?

[mike252]

Managed to get this hope there is enough info MrC thank you.

[_MrC_]

@Calidore

actually when you uninstall (using the uninstaller) AVStoDVD, you are asked to keep or to delete your Preferences in the Registry.

@mike252

well, it's a mess... uninstall either LAVFilters or ffdshow, it is not necessary to keep both of them... I would suggest also to deactivate (or uninstall) DirectVobSub, because otherwise you will get the subs hard-encoded in the output DVD.



Bye

[mike252]

Thanks MrC trimmed it up, still showing 0kbps when I load the file, maybe some problem with the file itself.

Appreciate the help , best program by a long way for making DVD's.

Still have problem with AAC-LC is this a fault of Lav Audio ??

[_MrC_]

@mike252

0kbps showed in the input file properties should not give you issues, you can ignore and start the conversion.

What kind of problems are you having with AAC-LC? LAV Audio should handle AAC format properly.



Bye

[Yanta]

Re: ffmpeg and also remux failures

I've noticed lately when remuxing a movie (using ffmepg version N-58099-g9244a68 as supplied with 2.7.4), that I can't do much else on my system. I was particularly bored today, so while I was waiting I attempted to play a game or two. I could not run any games except solitaire. They just won't load.

I have an I7-3770K OC'd (4.3ghz), 32GB 2400 DDR3, ASrock Extreme4, GTX 660Ti 2GB. ffmpeg only uses 20 - 30% CPU. Total memory consumption is 15%, and that is with a 2GB ramdrive.

Other programs like utorrent, avchdcoder, Outlook, and so on also slow down to a crawl.

Any way to stop ffmpeg killing everything else?

Also, I noticed with 2.7.4 that when there is a chapter that is at the endpoint of the movie, AVStoDVD will fail to mux it. I have to extract the chapters, delete the last chapter (or change it to an earlier point), and remux it, then use AVStoDVD to convert it to DVD.

I did not notice this happening with 2.7.3 or earlier.

Is it just me?

thanks
Tanya

[Kolina]

Hi Guys,

I'm having a problem with AVStoDVD.
I've been using AVStoDVD a while, turns out, before i use windows xp and an old computer, now i use windows 8 and a new machine. It happens that i'm trying to convert an mkv to dvd movie and systematically gives me the following error: "MPEG2 Encoder stop working". I thought that was Windows 8 x64 incompatibilty, but i install windows 8 x86 and continues the same. I don't know why this happens, when i work with windows xp i don't have any problems. And by the way, crashes at 6% everytime, i don't know if it helps. Can anyone help me?

START VIDEO ENCODING OPERATIONS
Encoding Profile: HCenc VBR 1-pass
Target Video FileSize: 3945,9 MB
Encoding Parameters: -ini "C:\Users\NELSON~1\AppData\Local\Temp\DVD_0_47.Ron in.HCenc.ini"
HCenc ini file:
*INFILE C:\Users\NELSON~1\AppData\Local\Temp\DVD_0_47.Roni n_1.avs
*AVSRELOAD
*OUTFILE C:\Users\Nelson Silva\Videos\DVD_0_47.Ronin.m2v
*LOGFILE C:\Users\NELSON~1\AppData\Local\Temp\DVD_0_47.Roni n.HCenc.log
*MAXBITRATE 9000
*1PASS
*BITRATE 4647
*PROFILE BEST
*ASPECT 16:9
*PROGRESSIVE
*TFF
*PULLDOWN
*BIAS 50
*DC_PREC 9
*MATRIX MPEG
*AQ 1
*LUMGAIN 1
*SMP
*PRIORITY NORMAL
*DBPATH C:\Users\NELSON~1\AppData\Local\Temp
*WAIT 2
<>

<09/07/2014 10:11:24>
END VIDEO ENCODING OPERATIONS
Video Source Filter: A2DSource (DirectShowSource)
Created File: C:\Users\Nelson Silva\Videos\DVD_0_47.Ronin.m2v (319,8 MB)
OUTPUT VIDEO INFO: MPEG-2 Video - 5893 kbps - 720x480 - DAR 1,778 - 23,976 fps (CFR) - Progressive (2:3 Pulldown) - 7:35 minutes - 13643 frames
<>

<09/07/2014 10:11:26>
Log file created by AVStoDVD Release 2.7.4
<>

[mike252]

READ later post

[mike252]

@mike252

0kbps showed in the input file properties should not give you issues, you can ignore and start the conversion.

What kind of problems are you having with AAC-LC? LAV Audio should handle AAC format properly.



Bye

When Hcenc is running get Avisynth frame error, so what I've been doing is using FFmpeg safe mode, to circumvent this problem,
which seems to work ok.

[_MrC_]

@Yanta

if your project involves video and/or audio demuxing and remuxing to DVD, then a lot of HD I/O activity is needed. That could be the reason of the general slowdown. Anyway demuxing steps usually require few time, I suggest you to have AVStoDVD (FFmpeg) run alone.


@Kolina

unfortunately I do not have Win8 installed, hence I cannot be 100% sure of its compatibility. So far no complaints about. What about switching to FFmpeg CBR 1-pass video encoding profile? Do you get the same error as with HCenc VBR 1-pass?


@mike252

take note that FFmpeg Safe Mode should be used only when there are serious issues with the other profiles. To get the best results from AVStoDVD, I recommend to understand what's going wrong with framserving to HCenc. Another good workaround is to skip the DirectShow decoding chain by selecting 'FFMpegSource' as 'AVS Video Source Filter' in 'Preferences'/'AviSynth'.




Bye

[Kolina]

@Kolina

unfortunately I do not have Win8 installed, hence I cannot be 100% sure of its compatibility. So far no complaints about. What about switching to FFmpeg CBR 1-pass video encoding profile? Do you get the same error as with HCenc VBR 1-pass?

No, using the FFmpeg CBR 1-pass video encoding i don't have any problems, but it is possible to have less video quality compared with HCenc VBR 1-pass? Seemed to be more blurred the video image...

Thx for the reply.

[mike252]

@mike252

take note that FFmpeg Safe Mode should be used only when there are serious issues with the other profiles. To get the best results from AVStoDVD, I recommend to understand what's going wrong with framserving to HCenc. Another good workaround is to skip the DirectShow decoding chain by selecting 'FFMpegSource' as 'AVS Video Source Filter' in 'Preferences'/'AviSynth'.


Appreciate you taking the time to reply, will try this one last question is the quality affected very much by doing this ?

[davexnet]

@mike252

take note that FFmpeg Safe Mode should be used only when there are serious issues with the other profiles. To get the best results from AVStoDVD, I recommend to understand what's going wrong with framserving to HCenc. Another good workaround is to skip the DirectShow decoding chain by selecting 'FFMpegSource' as 'AVS Video Source Filter' in 'Preferences'/'AviSynth'.


Appreciate you taking the time to reply, will try this one last question is the quality affected very much by doing this ?

No the quality is not affected, it's just another method of frameserving the source.

[mike252]

Thanks very much Davexnet.

[_MrC_]

AVStoDVD release 2.7.5 Alpha 140714 is available

Only for testing purpose!

Change log:

- Some bugs fixed
- Added MotionProtectedFPS, Motion_12Dec05 and MaskTools libraries to implement Motion Compensation FPS change
- Replaced ChangeFPS/ConvertFPS with MotionProtectedFPS in AviSynth script generation routine
- MediaInfo updated to release 0.7.69



Bye

[steptoe]

If your system is running realllly slow when encoding using AVStoDVD make sure you set up your temp files to be on one drive, with your output then being sent to another drive. This should give a BIG speed increase as the hard drive won't be thrashing about as much constantly moving back and forwards across the drive surface trying to be in two places at once. Unless you only have one hard drive ......

For example : C:\AVSTemp and the output sent to say drive D:\


I'm fortunate, or anal enough, in that I have my source files on one hard drive, the output is on another hard drive and all temp files are on yet another hard drive. Having a hard drive with plenty of cache helps. None of my hard drives are less than 500GB apart from a couple I use purely for file storage/backup, the rest are at least 1TB and have recently bought a 3TB so I could replace 2 ancient 500GB hard drives with one very fast 64MB cache 3TB drive increasing storage and speed in one hit

[steptoe]

Feature Request :

Do you have any thoughts about adding blu-ray authoring support as the prices of blu-ray burners and decent reliable blank blu-ray media is reasonably priced now compared to what it was 12 months ago

Thanks

[_MrC_]

@steptoe

thanks for the useful suggestion how to improve the I/O performance with AVStoDVD. I will add it to the FAQ General section.



Bye

[steptoe]

MPEG2 Encoder stop working :

If your getting this error after upgrading to Win8, then it may be the UAC (User Account Control) restricting access to the MPEG2 encoder in AVStoDVD. I also use DVD-RB Pro and that has to be given specific access in my virus software or it fails as it thinks its accessing files it shouldn't be so restricts access and DVD-RB fails the encode. I use Win7 but I have UAC turned OFF, win 8 works in pretty much the same way. A decent virus/firewall package should give you all the protection you need without interference from the UAC which is why I have it turned fully OFF

Have a look here, try turning it off and running your encode again, if it works then you have find you 'problem'

http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/win8/windows8-uac-disable.htm


UAC isn't found in WinXP, ugrading from WinXP to Win8 is a big adjustment so will take you some time to work out what is now stopping working that previously worked perfectly. Usually down to permissions being denied by Win8 that winXP just wouldn't bother about. More secure but more hassle to 'allow' software access to your system

[davexnet]

MrC,
something I noticed - If you enable "use NTSC slowdown for progressive PAL to NTSC" (but do not save
current preferences as default).

If then you build your project, but instead of running it, you save it.

When you start A2D later, open this project to run it, the above preference is no longer set, and the file encodes incorrectly.

Is it possible to save these "temporary" preferences changes in the project and have them applied when
the project is loaded?

[tebugg]

@MrC

coming up with some issues in the latest stable version and 2.7.5 alpha version. here are some screenshots.

the run-time error comes when i try to change hcenc settings by clicking on 2pass option. that error pops up as soon as i click on 2pass. i have avstodvd.exe set as winxp compatible and it runs as administrator by default. the other screen shot shows the wrong file size at the bottom. this is a m2v file made by avstodvd. when i load it in avstodvd it says it is too big. but the resulting dvd that got made with this m2v file the first time was not too big. also at the bottom it says it is longer than the movie actually is. at the top where you see the file it shows it's right run time. my pc is windows 7 64bit ultimate. have all the dependent codecs updated.

[steptoe]

Why have AvstoDVD running in XP compatibility mode. I also use Win7 64-bit Ultimate AvsToDVD 2.7.5 and don't have any issues at all with. Its possible running in compatibility mode 'may' be causing some problems, reset that and try again. Was there a reason my running AvsToDVD in compatability mode to start with

The only real issues I get is with my malware/firewall package being a bit too keen and asking me to verify the temp batch files to run if I set up a job list, which isn't helpful when I'm leaving it running a big list overnight, but all I do now is change the temp folders and assets locations and tell my firewall to allow those folders as 'safe' and that was that annoying problem fixed


I'm also using AviSynth MT 2.6.0.4 and HCEnc 0.27, so if anybody wants to use them try here. Its simply a case of overwriting the files and running AvsToDVD as usual

AviSynth MT 2.6.0.4
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=148782

HCEnc 0.27
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=169532


AviSynth MT does give a speed up, even on my overclocked i5 running at 4.5ghz I can get a good healthy speed increase on some scripts, plus some scripts and plugins I add into the script manager in AvstoDVD need AviSynth 2.6 to run, but that shouldn't be your cause of the problem if you stick to the install package of AvstoDVD

[Yanta]

If your system is running realllly slow when encoding using AVStoDVD make sure you set up your temp files to be on one drive, with your output then being sent to another drive. This should give a BIG speed increase as the hard drive won't be thrashing about as much constantly moving back and forwards across the drive surface trying to be in two places at once. Unless you only have one hard drive ......

I have source files on one drive (I:\, a 2TB spinner).

Temporary files and assets are stored on another drive (G:\, which is an SSD).

The Windows Temp folder is on H:\ (A Ramdrive).

The output is on F:\, a 1TB spinner.

However, I found a workaround. Every time I run ffmpeg I can drop it's priority to Below normal, which only adds a few minutes to the (re)encode and I can continue to do other things on my computer. Otherwise, considering the amount of media work I do, I'd have to buy another computer just dedicated to the task.

Having to "do nothing else" whilst using AVStoDVD is just not an option, especially in this day and age. 10 years ago that might have been an acceptable response.

[Yanta]

@Yanta
if your project involves video and/or audio demuxing and remuxing to DVD, then a lot of HD I/O activity is needed. That could be the reason of the general slowdown. Anyway demuxing steps usually require few time, I suggest you to have AVStoDVD (FFmpeg) run alone.

On a long movie, this time can be 30 - 40 minutes, even on my system. But I can drop the processes priority in Task Manager to work around it.

However, the more frustrating problem is the chapter issue. I have to extract the chapters, delete the offending one (a chapter at the end of the run time of the media file), then remux it and then run it through AVStoDVD.

As I said, I don't believe I ever had this problem before 2.7.4. Whether I was just lucky I don't know, but at present it's about 75% of media files, regardless of origin.

[manolito]

I believe that the chapter issue you have is caused by MuxMan itself. Every chapter point is moved by MuxMan to the next I-frame, and it always moves the chapter point forward, never backwards. This often leads to the last chapter being outside of the actual movie range. And MuxMan is extremely picky so it refuses to author a DVD if it detects a chapter which is out of range.

Other muxing / authoring applications (like Mplex / DVDAuthor) do handle out of range chapters by just ignoring them, but MuxMan does it differently.

I had exactly this problem with good old DVD2SVCD when I used the BatchMux plugin by Sir Didymus. He implemented a workaround which simply prevented creating a chapter close to the end of the movie. Obviously AVStoDVD does not feature this workaround. I have no idea if MrC will be able to implement something like this or if he is at the mercy of Sir Didymus in this case.

But in any case your workaround should not be necessary. You can edit the chapter points within AVStoDVD itself. Load your source file, click on "View/Edit Title Settings" and click the "Chapters" tab. Uncheck the "Auto Chapters Setup" checkbox and remove the last chapter.


Cheers
manolito

[_MrC_]

MrC,
something I noticed - If you enable "use NTSC slowdown for progressive PAL to NTSC" (but do not save
current preferences as default).

If then you build your project, but instead of running it, you save it.

When you start A2D later, open this project to run it, the above preference is no longer set, and the file encodes incorrectly.

Is it possible to save these "temporary" preferences changes in the project and have them applied when
the project is loaded?

Currently the Preferences options are not saved for each project. They are meant to be a sort of general preferences to be applied to all projects. But I agree that some of them are within a sort of "gray" area between general options and specific projects options.

I will think about that, it might request to deeply revise the save-load projects approach.



Bye

[_MrC_]

@tebugg

about the runtime error 383, when you select one of the Video Profiles in 'Preferences'/'Video', AVStoDVD load the bitrates levels from the AVStoDVD Windows Registry Key. It may be that the AVStoDVD regkey in your system is messed up. Just use the menu command 'Option'/'Restore Default Preferences' to reset the AVStoDVD regkey. You should not get the error 383 anymore.

About the m2v filesize misreading, just ignore the warning message. It is not a show stopper. Meanwhile I will deepen why it may happen (MediaInfo reading wrong m2v video bitrate?).



Bye

[_MrC_]

@Yanta

could you upload one of the source titles having the chapters issue? Together with the AVStoDVD project log file so that I can fully replicate the issue.



Bye

[tebugg]

@tebugg

about the runtime error 383, when you select one of the Video Profiles in 'Preferences'/'Video', AVStoDVD load the bitrates levels from the AVStoDVD Windows Registry Key. It may be that the AVStoDVD regkey in your system is messed up. Just use the menu command 'Option'/'Restore Default Preferences' to reset the AVStoDVD regkey. You should not get the error 383 anymore.

About the m2v filesize misreading, just ignore the warning message. It is not a show stopper. Meanwhile I will deepen why it may happen (MediaInfo reading wrong m2v video bitrate?).



Bye

thanks MrC, the default reset did indeed stop the runtime error.

[davexnet]

MrC,
something I noticed - If you enable "use NTSC slowdown for progressive PAL to NTSC" (but do not save
current preferences as default).

If then you build your project, but instead of running it, you save it.

When you start A2D later, open this project to run it, the above preference is no longer set, and the file encodes incorrectly.

Is it possible to save these "temporary" preferences changes in the project and have them applied when
the project is loaded?

Currently the Preferences options are not saved for each project. They are meant to be a sort of general preferences to be applied to all projects. But I agree that some of them are within a sort of "gray" area between general options and specific projects options.

I will think about that, it might request to deeply revise the save-load projects approach.



Bye

Thanks for considering it. I agree with you about some of these settings falling into a a gray area, They feel like they belong to the project,
but they're not saved. At least I know the behavior now, so I know what to look for and keep in mind.

regards,
Dave