AVANTI - FFmpeg/Avisynth GUI (support thread).

[ricardouk]

(I added tool entries to call AtomicParsley to show me the mp4 atom tree, and another to call qt_faststart.)

Shouldnt a more up to date tool be used to faststart mp4 videos? mp4box? AtomicParsley was last updated in 2006.

Chris, do we need to know the moov size in order to faststart mp4 videos with Zeranoe ffmpeg builds? can't ffmpeg detect its size automatically and faststart on its own without using mp4box or atomicparsley?

[Chris K]

Chris, do we need to know the moov size in order to faststart mp4 videos with Zeranoe ffmpeg builds? can't ffmpeg detect its size automatically and faststart on its own without using mp4box or atomicparsley?

Recent FFmpeg versions can do it on their own. When I check it out, I can see it's done but I have no practical experience in streaming from a website. This are the commands (-moov_size on its own will already do it) ...

-moov_size 50k -movflags rtphint

But you'll have to "guess" the needed moov size which will be reserved at the start of the clip. This is not easy because it varies, depending on the clip duration. I tried the 50k on a 42 seconds clip and got this warning when encoding finishes ...

reserved_moov_size is too small, needed 8134 additional

I think you'll have to reserve at least a few mb with longer clips. Perhaps you can play around a bit with it and report your findings?

[OldNick]

I installed Avanti and tried to run it. I was told that there was no path to ffmpeg. So I dld an ffmpeg.exe, but that was not generic and could not be used. So I found another one and installed in the Avanti ffmpeg sub-folder as instructed..

I was then told there was no valid path to ffmpeg and I asked to get an alternative version/path. I again selected the ffmpeg I had just pasted to the ffmpeg sub-folder.

I was then told that avcodec-53.dll was not there. I dld avcodec-52.dll, placed it oin the avanti folder with the other dlls and tried again.

I was told there was no path the ffmpeg and again selected the one I had pasted into the ffmpeg sub-folder. I was then told that avcodec-53.dll was not there.

What on earth do I do, please? It just keeps denying these files are there.

Thanks for any help

Nick

[Chris K]

I was then told that avcodec-53.dll was not there. I dld avcodec-52.dll, placed it oin the avanti folder with the other dlls and tried again.

I was told there was no path the ffmpeg and again selected the one I had pasted into the ffmpeg sub-folder. I was then told that avcodec-53.dll was not there.

You are trying to use a shared buid that isn't complete. It isn't Avanti that complaints about the missing dll but the FFmpeg version you use. If it asks for avcodec-53.dll it doesn't accept avcodec-52.dll (or is that a typo?).

To start with, it's easier to try a static build (one single file). Try the latest Zeranoe from here ...

http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/

If you're on Windows 7 and still get the "No path to FFmpeg found" error, also read this...

http://avanti.arrozcru.org/windows7.htm

[OldNick]

I was then told that avcodec-53.dll was not there. I dld avcodec-52.dll, placed it oin the avanti folder with the other dlls and tried again.

I was told there was no path the ffmpeg and again selected the one I had pasted into the ffmpeg sub-folder. I was then told that avcodec-53.dll was not there.

You are trying to use a shared buid that isn't complete. It isn't Avanti that complaints about the missing dll but the FFmpeg version you use. If it asks for avcodec-53.dll it doesn't accept avcodec-52.dll (or is that a typo?).

To start with, it's easier to try a static build (one single file). Try the latest Zeranoe from here ...

http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/

If you're on Windows 7 and still get the "No path to FFmpeg found" error, also read this...

http://avanti.arrozcru.org/windows7.htm

All seems to work now. I thought I did use one of those builds, but ...anyway thank you.

[OldNick]

Are there any tutorials or anything on this. I am completely lost. Can I have a timeline? Can I snip clips? Have cross-fades? If so how?

Thanks for any help\

Nick

[Chris K]

Are there any tutorials or anything on this. I am completely lost. Can I have a timeline? Can I snip clips? Have cross-fades? If so how?

Thanks for any help\

Nick

Avanti is a GUI for FFmpeg not a NLE application. I think you'll have to look out for something else.

Take a look at the tools section here at VideoHelp for a overview ...

https://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/video-editors-advanced

[OldNick]

Avanti[/URL] is a GUI for FFmpeg not a NLE application. I think you'll have to look out for something else.

Take a look at the tools section here at VideoHelp for a overview ...

https://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/video-editors-advanced

Thanks for the reply.

Drat! I feared as much, but I googled "ffmpeg video editor" and avanti came up.

hmmm...I will check out the site you gave, but I HAVE to have ffmpeg as an available codec package. After hours and hours of trying, it's the only one that gives a good result with the video I am working with.

Nick

[kokonut]

Hiall,

I have used ffmpeg as cli before, but this time I coundn't figure out what settings to take, so I used avanti. That worked with the first try! Very impressed! How can I see what ffmpeg command line arguments avanti issued for this encode? It seems that the console output below the settings window is the ffmpeg output.

Cheers, K

[Chris K]

How can I see what ffmpeg command line arguments avanti issued for this encode?

If you right-click on the field after "User VIDEO options >", there's a menu where you can safe the full FFmpeg command line as a Windows bat file.

EDIT: Avanti creates the command line on the fly after you pressed "Start Process" so you'll need to first start the process and cancel after a few seconds, to make it available.

It seems that the console output below the settings window is the ffmpeg output.

It is the output from the FFmpeg console but re-arranged to make it more readable. It separates the initial input/output info from the messages.

[Razoumikhine]

Hi guys,

I'm french, so sorry for my approximate english.

I've some pana sd700 rush in 1080 50p. I'm a new avid mc6 user but avid doesn't ingest my rushes. So, with this camcorder, the AMA AVCHD plugin doesn't work too. So, I want convert my rushes firstly in DNxHD but a man told me that the DNxHD doesn't make allowance for 50p.

I've a problem with avanti and ffmpeg. When I try to convert my rushes from AVCHD 1080 50p to Mpeg2 or H264, avanti told me that : "System busy" when I start every process.

I don't know why.

Any idea ?

[Chris K]

I've a problem with avanti and ffmpeg. When I try to convert my rushes from AVCHD 1080 50p to Mpeg2 or H264, avanti told me that : "System busy" when I start every process.

Does the app launch as expected and can you convert to something else like e.g. xvid?

If not, please first read these notes about Windows 7 ... http://avanti.arrozcru.org/windows7.htm

There's a DNxHD template at the UNI tab of the template load dialog (top left button menu). The comments include a table with supported settings. BTW; I only see two 1080i / 50 options on it.

Chris

[Razoumikhine]

Thank you so much.

I installed avanti on a second HDD, so not in Programmes Files (x86) and now everything works very good.

Thank you.

[Chris K]

I installed avanti on a second HDD, so not in Programmes Files (x86) and now everything works very good.

Nice! On Windows 7 it's hard to predict on what path it will run properly but when you find one, the app is in general stable.

[dimSon]

Hello
Are there plans to add an internalization (i mean a MultiLanguage interface) to the Avanti?
I think, this will bring some more funs to the project.
At least, i am ready to add the Russian translation.

Thank you very much for the great program anyway!

[Chris K]

Hi dimSon,

I currently don't have much time to spend on Avanti other than keeping track of the
latest FFmpeg versions and do the necessary adaptions in case the app fails on them.

But thanks for your suggestion and translation offer!

Chris

[rogerdpack]

Could I make a most humble feature request/suggestion that Avanti be offered with a download option that *includes* a known to work version of fffmpeg? Files could be hosted on sourceforge if bandwidth is a concern. WinFF offers it like this, for instance, and it is *soo* nice.
Thanks!
-roger-

[Chris K]

Could I make a most humble feature request/suggestion that Avanti be offered with a download option that *includes* a known to work version of fffmpeg? Files could be hosted on sourceforge if bandwidth is a concern. WinFF offers it like this, for instance, and it is *soo* nice.
Thanks!
-roger-

As far as I tried, the latest Zeranoe build should work. http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/ (dated 2012-07-20). Links to other builds can be found here... http://ffmpeg.arrozcru.org/wiki/index.php?title=Builds

But if you're on Windows 7 you might need to experiment a bit with the Avanti install path. Actually, changing the lenght of the install dir name may help. http://avanti.arrozcru.org/windows7.htm. This may even be necessary if you switch over to a later (or earlier) Avanti version.

This is a Windows 7 incompatibility issue of the the Gui4Cli interpreter on which Avanti runs. Unfortunately I'm not able to fix this.

Chris

[goorawin]

Hi Chris

I am trying to output Bluray compliant (1920x1080x25i) mpg files from an AVS script using Anavti, without success.
An example of the script I have used in the video options is:
-vcodec mpeg2video -top 1 -flags +ildct+ilme -g 20 -bf 3
This has a number of problems one of which is Chroma subsampling of 4:2:2. It should be 4:2:0 for Bluray
And the other is the variable bit rate. I would like to make it CBR at say 22000kbs
If I go this high I then get buffer underflow errors, see below.
What script should I use to correct these and the errors below?

Guessed Channel Layout for Input Stream #0.1 : stereo

[vob @ 030fa600] VBV buffer size not set, muxing may fail

Metadata_Write:
... encoder : Lavf54.21.100
buffer underflow i=0 bufi=235158 size=251621

[vob @ 02c690e0] packet too large, ignoring buffer limits to mux it
[vob @ 02c690e0] buffer underflow i=0 bufi=235158 size=251621
... Last message repeated 1 times

packet too large, ignoring buffer limits to mux it

With Mediacoder as the GUI it works well, but only with a constant bit rate set at 16000kbs, and I don’t see why it would not work at 22000kbs (the limit of the free version).
TMPGEnc will do it at over 25000kbs
I would like to solve this and use Avanti.

Thanks in advance

[Chris K]

Hi goorawin,

I can only give some global suggestions. I can't find the bluray mpeg2 HD specs and are not able to check it out.

For CBR you'll have to set the bitrate, min rate and max rate fields all to 22000. I've tried buffer sizes (VBV buf size field) of 6000-10000 and didn't get buffer underflows while encoding two short HD clips. I used this on the user command line...

-top 1 -flags +ildct+ilme -alternate_scan 1 -g 20 -bf 3

FFmpeg reports chroma subsampling of the output as yuv420p. I don't know if this would be a problem. MediaInfo reports the output as Main@High interlaced with topfield first.

Chris

[goorawin]

Hi Chris
Thank you for the feedback which helped get it working.
The final syntax for PAL BluRay output at 1920x1080x 25 interlaced I used was:
-pix_fmt yuv420p -top 1 -flags +ildct+ilme -alternate_scan 1 -g 20 -bf 3
with VBV buffer size set at 6000 and Bitrate, Min Rate, Max Rate all set at 22000kbs to get a constant bit rate.
I don't know why VBR does not work, probably just some settings need looking at. Perhaps I'll look at it some time.

For anyone that may be interested in Bluray output, the resulting output played beautifully from a Bluray Disc
I tested the GOP (-g ) up to 250 (which is used in many Bluray discs) and bitrates up 29000kbs (I'm sure it could go higher). All worked well.

Maybe you should consider putting it as a template in Avanti!!!!!.
Thank you for helping

[PteJack]

Helllo Chris,

I've been looking for a GUI for FFMpeg to do batch work for a while now and stumbled accross Avanti today. All I can say is SWEET!!!

As you can see from my profile I have a variety of computer types all using Win7 Home Premium. I just finished my first JOB and I did notice one thing that threw me for a loop. This may be a 64bit Win7 thing, but I thought I'd let you know in case you are still developing this tool to branch across the Win7 platforms and head into Win8 (Just when you thought you had it all covered, eh?)

I haven't had a chance to read through the thread yet, and these points may have already been reported.

Anyway, the status bar in the Avanti main window turned red stating that FFMpeg had not seen any activity in 5 minutes, that the process should be cancelled. As soon as I saw that error, I killed the process and started over. After 5 minutes into the job, the status bar turned red again... I killed and restarted the process again. On the third attempt, the same thing happened, however this time I noticed that the Disk MB indicator was still counting down and decided to let it play out. Well, by the time I had filled out the registration form to leave this note, both videos in the job completed with just a couple of minor warnings reported by FFMpeg. Video and audio quality of the output is just fine.

As a side note, I have only added this to my 64bit laptop right now running an Intel i7 processor (1st gen) 8gb RAM, AMD Radeon 5800 graphics chipset; I have also added the Avisynth plug in (also downloaded Lame and threw it into the folder as well just for good measure.) It all seems to be working well. All are installed in the Program Files(X86) folder, I have pointed the preferences to the add ons and I am running as an Administrator using an XP SP3 Compatability setting.

Other Notes: The GUI is kind of out of place, Icons stretch outside of the window, and some text is chopped in various locations in the interfaces (text box limits). I run at 1920x1080 resolution and have icons reduced to small but that doesn't help. The Metadata Icon is not visible and the only way you know it is there is by hovering the mouse over the blank area. Maybe having a window that isn't Modal and is expandable might help (in both the main and job interfaces.) Yet again this could be a Win7 64bit problem as well.

I do have a question though related to the audio capabilities of your GUI and FFMpeg;

I have a slew of .VOX files I am trying to convert to .WAV files or another format that I can turn into wavs later. I have tried Audacity and a few other command lines to FFMPeg to try and convert them without success. Is there a template or command line that I can throw into Avanti that might help?? Or do you know of another program that can do this?

In closing, this is a MOST EXCELLENT tool, does what I need it to with videos and supported audio files. After I RTM (Read The Manual) and become more familiar with the tool, I look forward to using it quite a bit.

Thank you for developing it.

With kindest regard

Pte Jack

[PteJack]

Hi Chris,

Just a follow up to the problems with the GUI interface mentioned above. I just loaded the suite onto one of my AMD Althalon 900 Series (Win7 - 64bit, 8GB RAM, Radeon HD 6770, 2 TB HDD) machines. I am not experiencing the problem mentioned above with viewing the Icons and Text Boxes in either of the GUIs. It must be the way I have the graphics set up on the Laptop. I'll check that out later.

Still interested in what you have to say about the .VOX to .WAV conversion though,

Regards,

Pte Jack

[Chris K]

Hi Pte Jack,

This may be a 64bit Win7 thing, but I thought I'd let you know in case you are still developing this tool to branch across the Win7 platforms and head into Win8 (Just when you thought you had it all covered, eh?)

After I was able to check things out on Windows 7 (32-bit) some months ago, I fixed a few thing, mainly concerning issues with the internal video player. The biggest problem is that Avanti is running on a third party script interpreter that isn't fully compatible with Windows 7. Things do fine in XP so there are no bugs, just incompatibility issues. This interpreter is written in C and C++ and compiled with Visual Studio 2008. I have the feeling that the msvc-2008 runtime in Windows 7 is a bit buggy and I'm afraid MS doesn't care to much.

Even the the latest FFmpeg versions doesn't run on old OS like w2k anymore because they use msvc-2010 functions. I still continue development for a while (working on libass support now) but the future looks dark. And MS seems to stop XP support in 2014.

Anyway, the status bar in the Avanti main window turned red stating that FFMpeg had not seen any activity in 5 minutes, that the process should be cancelled. As soon as I saw that error, I killed the process and started over. After 5 minutes into the job, the status bar turned red again...
I killed and restarted the process again. On the third attempt, the same thing happened, however this time I noticed that the Disk MB indicator was still counting down and decided to let it play out. Well, by the time I had filled out the registration form to leave this note, both videos in the job completed with just a couple of minor warnings reported by FFMpeg. Video and audio quality of the output is just fine.

I looked at the related code which is rather old and found that the program assumes that FFmpeg runs idle when there is no output on the console for more than five minutes. Your experience seems to prove that that not necessarily has to be true. I later on added code for the post processing option that uses another method. I'll take a closer look and see if this is perhaps more reliable.

Other Notes: The GUI is kind of out of place, Icons stretch outside of the window, and some text is chopped in various locations in the interfaces (text box limits). I run at 1920x1080 resolution and have icons reduced to small but that doesn't help. The Metadata Icon is not visible and the only way you know it is there is by hovering the mouse over the blank area. Maybe having a window that isn't Modal and is expandable might help (in both the main and job interfaces.) Yet again this could be a Win7 64bit problem as well.

Just a follow up to the problems with the GUI interface mentioned above. I just loaded the suite onto one of my AMD Althalon 900 Series (Win7 - 64bit, 8GB RAM, Radeon HD 6770, 2 TB HDD) machines. I am not experiencing the problem mentioned above with viewing the Icons and Text Boxes in either of the GUIs. It must be the way I have the graphics set up on the Laptop. I'll check that out later.

I wrote it in one of the included readme files under "Bugs and Limitations" ... "Avanti doesn't scale its windows when you use a Windows OS system font other than the standard 96 dpi". Do you perhaps use another font size on the other system? I also hadn't much success with the Windows 7 display option that should overcome this problem.

I do have a question though related to the audio capabilities of your GUI and FFMpeg;

I have a slew of .VOX files I am trying to convert to .WAV files or another format that I can turn into wavs later. I have tried Audacity and a few other command lines to FFMPeg to try and convert them without success. Is there a template or command line that I can throw into Avanti that might help?? Or do you know of another program that can do this?

Here are some details about the VOX format: http://www.video-audio-converter.com/formats/vox-audio-converter.htm

FFmpeg can't do it. I tried the "uncompressed/all supported" audio option in FFdshow, also to no avail. Here are links to a bunch of other VOX players/converters... http://en.softonic.com/s/vox-player

I couldn't find a DirectShow VOX decoder when I Googled for it. Should there exist one, then you can use the "Avisynth FORCE" mode in Avanti.

Chris.

[Steve(MS)]

About Windows7(64) and possibly Vista(64)....I check programs out on my laptop W7 most of time unless it is high intensity type prog.,
anyway I am still using an older Avanti since I haven't had good luck with newer Avanti and ffmpeg builds.
Try to initiate Avanti but it never opens.
Could be something I am doing wrong however.
I guess it doesn't matter to me that much.

Ah I see someone experimenting with blu-ray outputs, that is interesting, I might have to fool around with that some.
Although mine would be NTSC.....

[Chris K]

About Windows7(64) and possibly Vista(64)....I check programs out on my laptop W7 most of time unless it is high intensity type prog.,
anyway I am still using an older Avanti since I haven't had good luck with newer Avanti and ffmpeg builds.
Try to initiate Avanti but it never opens.
Could be something I am doing wrong however.
I guess it doesn't matter to me that much.

You can keep your current setup and try the latest version in another directory. Then if it doesn't launch or has other issues, change the install folder name a bit by making it a few characters longer or shorter and see what happens. Also Installing in the "Program Files(X86)" folder and/or setting the XP SP3 compatibility mode might help.

EDIT: Also use a 32-bit FFmpeg build and 32-bit Avisynth if you use that. Others reported they had the most success with a complete 32-bit chain.

Ah I see someone experimenting with blu-ray outputs, that is interesting, I might have to fool around with that some.
Although mine would be NTSC.....

Yes, he wasn't able to use VBR but I later found out FFmpeg allows VBR in the m2ts container. My settings are for interlaced source/destination.

Set codec to MPEG-2, frame size to 1920x1080, bitrate to 22000. All other field at the right empty (max/min/buffer). Type m2ts at the container field and press enter to add it to the list. Then use this command line at the user options ...

-pix_fmt yuv420p -top 1 -flags +ildct+ilme -alternate_scan 1 -dc 9 -g 20 -bf 3 -mpv_flags strict_gop

For audio I did set codec AC3 - Fixed, bitrate 192, sample freq 48000 and channels to 2. I used the latest Zeranoe build.

I have no bluray burner to check it out but MediaInfo says...

General
ID                               : 1
Complete name                    : F:\VirtualDub Capture\test_final.m2ts
Format                           : BDAV
Format/Info                      : BluRay Video
File size                        : 31.6 MiB
Duration                         : 10s 880ms
Overall bit rate                 : 24.3 Mbps

Video
ID                               : 256 (0x100)
Menu ID                          : 1 (0x1)
Format                           : MPEG Video
Format version                   : Version 2
Format profile                   : Main@High
Format settings, Matrix          : Default
Duration                         : 10s 880ms
Bit rate mode                    : Variable
Bit rate                         : 23.2 Mbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16/9
Frame rate                       : 25.000 fps
Colorimetry                      : 4:2:0
Scan type                        : Interlaced
Scan order                       : Top Field First

Audio
ID                               : 257 (0x101)
Menu ID                          : 1 (0x1)
Format                           : AC-3
Format/Info                      : Audio Coding 3
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 192 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 2 channels
Channel positions                : L R
Sampling rate                    : 48.0 KHz
Video delay                      : 34ms

[Steve(MS)]

OK, cool, Chris, I'll try it sometime...it may be sometime this week when I get in the mood.
I do like to tinker around with Avanti/ffmpeg just to see what it will do.

[Chris K]

OK, cool, Chris, I'll try it sometime...it may be sometime this week when I get in the mood.
I do like to tinker around with Avanti/ffmpeg just to see what it will do.

I just posted a addition at the same time of your post. Please also take that into account.

Good luck,

Chris

[bromberg]

When I run AVANTI-GUI.exe as a (Vista) ADMINISTRATOR an error window opens stating:"AVANTI seems to have limited disk i/o permission and cannot continue statup initialisation". Any thoughts on how to proceed?
Thanks,
Dan

[Chris K]

When I run AVANTI-GUI.exe as a (Vista) ADMINISTRATOR an error window opens stating:"AVANTI seems to have limited disk i/o permission and cannot continue statup initialisation". Any thoughts on how to proceed?
Thanks,
Dan

Avanti has to read and write to the folder in which you installed it. This message is given at a very early stage when it tries to read a ini file. Can you normally copy to and from the install folder?

It actually only should show up when the folder doesn't have read permission but that is very rare. Or if you try to run it from a cd or dvd rom.

No idea what to suggest Well... the message is triggered when it tries to read "codecs.dat" which should be in the "avsystem" folder.