AVANTI - FFmpeg/Avisynth GUI (support thread).

[Chris K]

I know you can by FFmpeg, but I'm no script writer.

The FFmpeg concat filter works but it can not be used on remuxing (copy) streams. You'll have to re-encode.

Avanti only allows two input streams so with some tricks you could merge two vobs and recode them to something else. You need to use the -new option on the user command line like this...

-new -i "@source1" -i "@source2" -dvs -filter_complex "concat=v=0:a=0:v=1:a=1" -das -y "@destin1"

Probably a bit cryptic for the average Avanti user.

[PowerFalcon]

Loading up AVANTI can be slow, I sometimes have to close the program down, restart it, several times. I haven't been following this thread closely, is there an update, or is it my machine ?

[Chris K]

Loading up AVANTI can be slow, I sometimes have to close the program down, restart it, several times. I haven't been following this thread closely, is there an update, or is it my machine ?

I do tests with Avanti on an old Athlon 1.66 Ghz single core and the startup time there is somewhere between 5-10 seconds.

Your profile tells you're on XP SP2 is this still the case? Your machine (CPU speed) should be OK.

Avanti runs a copy of FFmpeg and if you point to a location on a slow device (e.g. memory stick) to find FFmpeg, this could slowdown the startup procedure.

If you have FFmpeg just in the default Avanti FFmpeg folder and run from a normal HDD location then I have no idea what's wrong.

[PowerFalcon]

At present my OS is Windows8, with a Quad Core CPU and 8 gigs RAM. It is normal for this program to load slow, eek.

[Chris K]

At present my OS is Windows8, with a Quad Core CPU and 8 gigs RAM. It is normal for this program to load slow, eek.

As I wrote... on a slow Athlon machine with XP in 5-10 seconds. But there are compatibility issues on Windows 7 and the same can be expected on Windows 8. You could rename the folder in which you installed Avanti a bit and see what that does. Paths are the big culprit for Avanti on Windows 7.

The new version will come (soon) stored in a predefined folder. I have stable results with that.

[PowerFalcon]

At present my OS is Windows8, with a Quad Core CPU and 8 gigs RAM. It is normal for this program to load slow, eek.

As I wrote... on a slow Athlon machine with XP in 5-10 seconds. But there are compatibility issues on Windows 7 and the same can be expected on Windows 8. You could rename the folder in which you installed Avanti a bit and see what that does. Paths are the big culprit for Avanti on Windows 7.

The new version will come (soon) stored in a predefined folder. I have stable results with that.

Thanks

[GoldenMeanie]

Is there any chromakey functionality in FFMpeg now or am I really just asking for too much at this point? I've been using the same build of FFMpeg for the last three years and recently upgraded it and Avanti so I really don't know what major changes have taken place, so if my questions seem retarded I apologize.

[Chris K]

Is there any chromakey functionality in FFMpeg now or am I really just asking for too much at this point?

Not at an easy to use user level but it wouldn't surprise me if it can be done. Perhaps with this ...

http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg-filters.html#blend

But there is so much more currently in libavfilter and the -filter_complex option. In Avanti you can do almost anything that FFmpeg offers with additions on the user command line but it requires a lot of research to find out how.

[Chris K]

A note for those who like to use the most recent FFmpeg versions ...

Avanti doesn't use FFprobe but collects its desired info from FFmpeg itself. This makes it sensitive for small FFmpeg changes. Such a change currently causes issues at avfilter log reporting and false warnings at the "Job Control Manager".

I checked it out and found it started at the May 20 2013 build. Although these issues are not fatal I still recommend to not use a build later than May 13 2013.

http://avanti.arrozcru.org/#download2

I'm not able to release a fixed Avanti version soon because I'm in middle of "massive" modifications that need a lot of debugging and testing.

Chris

[GoldenMeanie]

Will FFMPEG/AVANTI convert to Animated Gif? If not, can you recommend a good program for doing so? I was using JASC Animation Shop but it's completely crippled now. Or at least on my systems.

[Chris K]

Will FFMPEG/AVANTI convert to Animated Gif?

I tried it with this at the Avanti user options command line ...

-new -i "@source1" -f gif -s 320x240 -r 15 -y "@destin1"

This works for me. I don't know if frame rate (-r 15) is applicable on a gif but frame size is.

The "Destination Video Settings" doesn't matter in this case. You have to only disable audio.
You can enter GIF at the container field and press enter to store it. This gives you the proper
file extension at the destination field.

EDIT: If you want to do this with a image sequence as source, just load the source as discussed
earlier with the <Ctrl> key down.

[GoldenMeanie]

Had a problem creating a batch process yesterday. I'm taking multiple standard definition files and cropping them to 16:9. Fairly simple, and the process works fine when I do a file at a time. But when I tried to run the batch process I got the error "Fatal error on Joblist at job #1 (Joblist processing aborted)...... Always 'Reset Jobs' first before you change environment settings."

I've seen this before so made various changes including resetting the jobs, renamed the template and filename.tpl, reset parameters and even deleted avanti.ini and started my session from scratch, but I still got the message. I thought it might have something to do with the fact I'm reading the native files off of a flash drive, but since the single file conversion worked fine, I didn't think that was the issue. I completed the processes individually so I don't need to run the batch now, but wondered if you had any clue as to what was going on?

Thanks!

[GoldenMeanie]

I know this has been asked before, but I can't seem to find the thread, but what is the right command for rotating video 90 degrees? Yes, I'm trying to rotate an iPhone video to 720x480 in DV format for editing in Pinnacle Studio.

I have added -vfout "transpose=1" to my user command line, but it won't convert the video.
It cancels, and in looking at the process it says something about "Found no DV profile for 480x720 yuv411p video. Valid DV profiles are:" etc.

What it looks like is, it wants to rotate the video to 480x720, and won't just resample the video stream 90 degrees and save to 720x480.

Please advise.

[Chris K]

But when I tried to run the batch process I got the error "Fatal error on Joblist at job #1 (Joblist processing aborted)...... Always 'Reset Jobs' first before you change environment settings."

After a job process aborts the FFmpeg error message can be at the process log window (the yellow one) but also at the Job log. Have you looked there?

About the second question, it has to be...

-vfout "transpose=dir=1"


EDIT: Aah I see, that NTSC DV template seems to be not valid anymore ...

[dvvideo @ 02909180] Found no DV profile for 480x720 yuv411p video. Valid DV
  ... profiles are:
[dvvideo @ 02909180] Frame size: 720x480; pixel format: yuv411p, framerate: 30000/1001
[dvvideo @ 02909180] Frame size: 720x576; pixel format: yuv420p, framerate: 25/1
[dvvideo @ 02909180] Frame size: 720x576; pixel format: yuv411p, framerate: 25/1
[dvvideo @ 02909180] Frame size: 720x480; pixel format: yuv422p, framerate: 30000/1001
[dvvideo @ 02909180] Frame size: 720x576; pixel format: yuv422p, framerate: 25/1
[dvvideo @ 02909180] Frame size: 1280x1080; pixel format: yuv422p, framerate:
  ... 30000/1001
[dvvideo @ 02909180] Frame size: 1440x1080; pixel format: yuv422p, framerate: 25/1
[dvvideo @ 02909180] Frame size: 960x720; pixel format: yuv422p, framerate: 60000/1001
[dvvideo @ 02909180] Frame size: 960x720; pixel format: yuv422p, framerate: 50/1
[dvvideo @ 02909180] Frame size: 720x576; pixel format: yuv420p, framerate: 25/1

Although it has -pix_fmt yuv411p on the command line and is set to 720x480 and 29.97 fps.

It says 480x720 but the internal command line is -vf "scale=720:480,setdar=4/3,transpose=dir=1"


Current solution is to put -pix_fmt yuv411p -s 720x480 -vfout "transpose=dir=1" at the command line. At least that works for me.

Have to find out what's going on.

EDIT2: Nothing wrong with the template. You have to rotate on the input, not on the output. So the command line should be ...

-pix_fmt yuv411p -vfin "transpose=dir=1"


BTW; Why didn't you reply on the animated gif question? I'm doing this for free!

[GoldenMeanie]

Okay thanks! I will give these a try. Sorry I didn't reply on the Animated GIF Question.

[GoldenMeanie]

THANK YOU! The rotate command works flawlessly. SOOOO Much better than the rotate plug in that I was using with Windows Movie Maker. Only thing is, you have to pad the video too or else it makes everything squished. The iPhone records at 640x480 so when converting you have to compensate for 160 pixel difference. So if you're keeping it at 640x480 you should add 80 pixel padding on each side. Since I like my video at 720x480 I have to add an additional 80 pixels or 120 pixels (80+40) for each side. For 16:9 I will let someone else do the math but at that point I would just crop 60 pixels top and bottom (120 total).

[Chris K]

The iPhone records at 640x480 so when converting you have to compensate for 160 pixel difference. So if you're keeping it at 640x480 you should add 80 pixel padding on each side. Since I like my video at 720x480 I have to add an additional 80 pixels or 120 pixels (80+40) for each side.

While I was reading your requirements and used procedure I was curious if the new frame size calculator which is in the latest Avanti version could handle this automatically. I fiddled around a bit with it and came to these settings (see attached image).

I set the calculator on "Custom frame size". This allows to set custom settings at the blue source and destination frame size fields. Because of the rotate command, your source comes in as 480x640 so I swapped the source width and height and set the source and destination presets according to your requirements. It then comes up with 160 pixel pad values to the left and right.

The "Copy results" button updates the crop/pad fields at the "crop/scale/pad" page. If you press <F1> at the activated calculator window you'll get the help section with more details.

Perhaps something to check out for future use?

[M-AUDIO]

I know you can by FFmpeg, but I'm no script writer.

The FFmpeg concat filter works but it can not be used on remuxing (copy) streams. You'll have to re-encode.

Avanti only allows two input streams so with some tricks you could merge two vobs and recode them to something else. You need to use the -new option on the user command line like this...

-new -i "@source1" -i "@source2" -dvs -filter_complex "concat=v=0:a=0:v=1:a=1" -das -y "@destin1"

Probably a bit cryptic for the average Avanti user.

Hello Chris and All .

This is my first post on VH.

First thanks for very flexible and nicely documented GUI.

So .

Just want to say this according to your post and ffmpeg wiki's (and I'm sure you know ffmpeg better than some newbie like me):

ffmpeg has 3 methods for concatenating (joining files).

The one witch suitable for Me and Kblev too is NOT "Concat Filter" but IS "Concat Protocol" :

http://ffmpeg.org/trac/ffmpeg/wiki/How%20to%20concatenate%20(join,%20merge)%20media%20files#protocol

Concat protocol

While the demuxer works at the stream level, the concat protocol works at the file level. Certain files (mpg and mpeg transport streams, possibly others) can be concatenated. This is analogous to using cat on UNIX-like systems or copy on Windows. In general, the demuxer is the better option.
Instructions

ffmpeg -i "concat:input1.mpg|input2.mpg|input3.mpg" -c copy output.mpg

And more info available on that link .

I tested and it works just fine with CLI . Just merged (Concatenated) VOB's inside DVD one after the other and then the result was a single 4.x GB VOB .
And that was a Lossless operation . Just the subtitle track ignored with a warning (Who cares when apps like VSRip and VobSub are available out There For This )

-----

So Mr. Chris . This could be another nice new feature in your very good GUI . So users can easily Rip/Compress their DVD's via AVANTI GUI .

-----
And also want to say your new features like subtitles TAB and FFPLAY preview option was really good ones .
-----
Thanks And Sorry For My Bad English.

[Chris K]

This could be another nice new feature in your very good GUI . So users can easily Rip/Compress their DVD's via AVANTI GUI.

Hi M-AUDIO.

Nice to hear the latest additions to Avanti are useful to you! Oh, and your English is OK to me (I'm not native english too).

At the time I posted about the concat filter I also looked into the other options. I wasn't very successful then and thought it was a Linux thing. But now tried your protocol example and that seems to work fine.

I'm going to take a closer look at it to add it as an option. For now, If you use the latest Avanti version, you can set it up at the FFmpeg script editor.

[USER_VIDEO_OPTIONS]

-new

-i concat:
"G:/DVD temp/VIDEO_TS/VTS_06_1.VOB
|G:/DVD temp/VIDEO_TS/VTS_06_2.VOB
|G:/DVD temp/VIDEO_TS/VTS_06_3.VOB"

-f vob

-c:v copy
-c:a copy

-y "@destin1"

You have to load a source at "Source 1" which actually isn't used but is needed to fool the file check system. I did simply the first vob. The used source vob paths are all at the script editor. You have to also set a destination path.

There's a button "Insert Source" at the script editor to load them. They then appear as something like...

-i "G:/DVD temp/VIDEO_TS/VTS_06_1.VOB"
-i "G:/DVD temp/VIDEO_TS/VTS_06_2.VOB"
-i "G:/DVD temp/VIDEO_TS/VTS_06_3.VOB"

then change that in

-i concat:
"G:/DVD temp/VIDEO_TS/VTS_06_1.VOB
|G:/DVD temp/VIDEO_TS/VTS_06_2.VOB
|G:/DVD temp/VIDEO_TS/VTS_06_3.VOB"

like in the script above. Only quote it at the start and end.

Of course this is not really convenient but it works for now. The progress display is also unreliable but I have to handle that when I implement it as a serious option.

If you want to convert it on the fly to another format you can replace the -c:v copy and -c:a copy commands with the -dvs and -das labels and do your settings at the main page in the regular way (look at the -new option in the help).

Thanks for bringing this up!

Chris

[ricardouk]

Hi Chris!

I have a video that has a resolution of 1280*720, it has black bars (88px, bottom/top), the video without crop has a 1.78 aspect ratio, after cropping it has a 2:35:1 aspect ratio (more or less), avanti doesnt allow to "flag" the aspect ratio as 2:35:1, when i play back the short clip it plays it as being 1:78... do you have any suggestions?

Thanks

[Chris K]

Hi Chris!

I have a video that has a resolution of 1280*720, it has black bars (88px, bottom/top), the video without crop has a 1.78 aspect ratio, after cropping it has a 2:35:1 aspect ratio (more or less), avanti doesnt allow to "flag" the aspect ratio as 2:35:1, when i play back the short clip it plays it as being 1:78... do you have any suggestions?

Thanks

Hi Ricardo,

You can simply add it! Type 2.35:1 at the DAR field and press enter to store it. It then internally uses "setdar=2.35".
FFmpeg reports in the output DAR 47:20 (47/20=2.35). This is also reported by MediaInfo.

Cheers,
Chris

[ricardouk]

You can simply add it!

D'oh!

Forgot about that lol, i always edit/add resolution.... thanks Chris

[GoldenMeanie]

Nevermind.

[GoldenMeanie]

I've been having a problem with conversions cutting the audio out of my resulting video files, but the problem seems to be related to my editing application, not AVANTI so much, but I would still like to know if there's anything I can do to fix this as I'm fairly proficient with my editor (Pinnacle Studio 9) and don't want to have to use something else. Here's what's going on:

I'm taking a ripped video (usually FLV) and converting it with Avanti into DV format which is used by Pinnacle Studio 9. I could convert to MPG2 but don't want to lose anymore information than I have to, as some of these files are already heavily compressed. When I import the resulting file sometimes the sound gets cut off after about five minutes or so and often this throws off my editor and the remaining clips are also silent. Like I said, this happens in the editor, but I actually create music videos with this editor and have no problem. I can only assume it's how the Studio interprets the audio stream of each individual clip.

I've tried re-writing the PTS and syncing audio, but these seem to make matters worse.
When I play back the individual clips in VLC, there is no problem.

Any clues?

[Chris K]

I don't know which decoders Studio 9 support natively but you could try HUFFYUV or MJPEG instead of DV.

Or perhaps try to import the audio separately if Studio 9 allows this.

[javaman]

I'm using Win7 and my DPI is set to 125%. The interface looks all messed up because of this. I don't want to have to change the DPI setting every time I use this program. Is there a fix for this?

[Chris K]

I'm using Win7 and my DPI is set to 125%. The interface looks all messed up because of this. I don't want to have to change the DPI setting every time I use this program. Is there a fix for this?

No! Unfortunately it's not supported by the used programming language.

You can right-click on the "Avanti-GUI" execuatable for the properties and at the compatibility tab try "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings". I'm not sure and currently can't check it out but I expect this to work for only the Avanti application.

[javaman]

You can right-click on the "Avanti-GUI" execuatable for the properties and at the compatibility tab try "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings". I'm not sure and currently can't check it out but I expect this to work for only the Avanti application.

Selecting this option didn't work.

Also there's a problem with the location path and Avanti's ability to function properly. If I put the folder in C:\Program Files (x86)\Avanti Avanti will not start the process when I click the button. If I put it in some location like C:\Avanti then it will work. I read it has something to do with the 8 character limit or something like that. You need to update this program man.

[Chris K]

I read it has something to do with the 8 character limit or something like that. You need to update this program man.

It still works fine on Windows XP but I tried to fix these Windows 7 issues for almost a year and it appears to stay insolvable problems.

Both the Gui4Cli interpreter on which Avanti runs and its dll's depend very much on the by Windows OS offered low level stuff (WINAPI calls). These seems to have subtile differences that are perhaps not documented or at least very hard to trace.

Someone here at the forum recently called Avanti abandonware and yes I think it's about time to give up on it and discontinue my work on Avanti.

I'm sorry but want to thank you for your response and giving it a try.

Chris

[ronbaby]

Greetings to all and especially to Chris K, who, it would seem, is the primary and perhaps only perpetrator of Avanti. Thank you! Seriously. This is a nice tool. I'm generally a command-line kind of guy, but when any tool (e.g. FFMpeg) gets up above, you know, five thousand or so different command line options, not all of which are compatible with one another, then it is definitely time to layer a nice friendly GUI on top of that puppy... as you have kindly done.

So anyway, I just got one quick question and one brief observation. First, the question...

Looking in the drop-down "Container" menu, where the bleep is the wmv option? I've been using FFMpeg (command line version) on FreeBSD for awhile now and I *know* that FFMpeg knows how to generate .wmv files as output files, so, um, I'd like to do that now under Windoze (and with Avanti) also. Yea yea, I know. WMV is henious, evil MS stuff, but the observation to follow may perhaps make it a bit more obvious why I'd like Avanti to not limit my options artificially. I mean if FFMpeg itself can do it... (Oh! And if there any chance that you might release a new version that would support .wmv in the container drop-down menu? I sure would appreciate that.) One more little thing while we are on the subject... It looks to me like "avi" appears _twice_ in the container drop-down menu. Seems like a minor botch to me.

OK, so now my observation... While Avanti is already an extremely helpful tool for doing all sorts of (reencoding) things, it would be really really REALLY helpful if Avanti could be made into a somewhat more helpful tool for doing just plain simple cutting/editing. On my own I managed to puzzle out that I could put an explicit -ss option in the "VIDEO options" field, and thus use Avanti to simply help me to slice off the first (unwanted) part of a pre-existing .wmv file that was otherwise in need of no other changes, but this really feels like a rather clumsy way of doing things. (Because of the lack of a wmv output container option I also was forced to dump the WMV3/WMA2 streams into an output .mkv container, but that's OK, I guess, even if not really what I wanted.) Of course, first I had to use the preview window and use the various FFPlay control keys until I found the place I needed to make the cut, and THEN I had to MANUALLY copy the current position HH:MM:SS value over into the -ss option that I was putting into VIDEO options. This was all just slightly rather un-user-friendly.

So why am I trying to use such a powerful and fancy-schmancy tool as Avanti+FFMpeg to do simple edits on .wmv files? Well, it is because *no* other tool I have found can actually do this well. I've tried Windows Media File Editor and it sucks because it has only a teeny tiny preview window that is practically useless, and the other free (EZ Spiltter) and non-free (Boilsoft) tools that claim to be able to do this simple job just didn't work for me. FFMpeg can do what I want, and it works, and Avanti helps a lot when using FFMpeg for this simple purpose, but it could be a bit more helpful, e.g. allowing the user to (at least) set start and end markers within the preview window which would then be automagically transliterated into appropriate matching FFMpeg command line options, i.e. when Avanti invokes FFMpeg.

So Chris? What say you? Any chance of a future release that might provide nicer support for simple trimming of input? I think that if that was present, it would make a LOT of people happy.