Starting out with MeGUI which Netframework runtime needed

[loninappleton]

I have some of the guides for MeGUI but was not prepared for runtime errors in Win XP Net Framework.

The specific error I'll write in for completeness:

In the box: Net Framework Initialization error ( which appears when clicking in MeGUI icon) this error is shown:

Unable to find a version of the runtime to run this application



I dl'ed Netframework 4.0 not knowing any better.


What is the 2013 version of all this how should I get MeGUI going for Win XP?
Which Net Framework and which c++ need to be present for MeGUI?


One solution showing is copied below but I have no idea if it applies to current releases of anything:

Solution: Uninstall .net framework 3.5 and install .net framework 3.5 sp1 and uninstall Visual C++ runtime currently installed and install the Visual C++ Runtime 2008 sp1. You may follow the steps as below:
1. Open Control Panel|Click 'Uninstall a Program' (Programs and Features)
2. Look for Microsoft .Net Framework in the list and Uninstall them all (restarting the computer each time it tells you to)
3. Once they are all gone, open the Uninstall a Program (Programs and Features) again and click Turn Windows features on or off on the bar on the left
4. You'd get another window on and you need to uncheck Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5.1 from the list and click OK
5. Proceed with it complete uninstall and restart the computer (when it tells you to)
6. Open the 'Uninstall a Program' (Programs and Features) again and now look for Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable and uninstall all these as well.
7. Restart the computer and open the Uninstall a Program (Programs and Features) again and click Turn Windows features on or off on the bar on the left and place a check on Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5.1 (it would be a blue square and not a check) and install it again
8. Finally, download & install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package from Microsoft's website
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=A5C84275-3B97-4AB7-A40D-38...displaylang=en
You won't see that error again, provided you have a proper security package (antivirus & firewall) installed. I useComputer Associates Internet Security 2010 which, as per their website, are offering $10000 coverage if your system gets infected after you have installed it!



[unquote]


I pasted this here in case with would be useful to some but am awaiting a reply before I go down some path that leads nowhere.

[El Heggunte]

I'm pretty sure that neither MeGUI nor the pesky dotNET things it depends upon have anything to do with

Originally posted by loninappleton
Computer Associates Internet Security 2010

Just my 2 pence.

[loninappleton]

I don't understand the reply... with _what_?

I'll look at the tools which I thought MeGUI auto installed. Some of these errors are on forums from 2009. I have no idea where the current videohelp topics are on this. Nowhere does MeGUI say a separate install of things is needed.

[transporterfan]

Yup. You have to install AviSynth too. Check the Wiki.

[loninappleton]

Ok, I saw that and I have it here... 2.5 yes? And I thought I put it on already. Will check that it has it's own folder.

Still the error produced looks to be seeking a loader of some sort.

Yes, I was right. AviSynth 2.5 has it's own folder in XP programs folder.

[hello_hello]

I've had MeGUI running on XP computers with only dot net 2 service pack 2 installed, and with dot net 4 installed. I don't think Visual C++ anything is required.

[loninappleton]

Does this make it a windows problem to solve or in MeGUI? The program is looking for what it cannot find and a general question (in the error box) about the error doesn't tell me enough. Elsewhere it is stated that MeGUI runs only on Netframework 2 which IIRC was in a tutorial at Extra Torrents. Since MeGUI is in active development, has this problem ever been addressed and where would I find detailed install instructions? This problem has likely been seen before but I am not able to to do an adequate search.

I will see if I can find Net Framework 2 and delete Net Framework 4 to see if that is the problem area and report back. In the meantime continue to post other suggestions. I think Everest or something will give the detail of the Windows version on that (my other) setup.



I can copy out my version of XP if necessary. Have been running it a long time in Sp 3 (I think). Would have to check.

Hardware should be adequate with an AMD two core machine dedicated to these taskes with otherwise a light load (used as media center.)

[loninappleton]

Success.

After completely uninstalling Net Framework Extended and Net Framework 4 (in that order per screen direction) I downloaded Microsoft Net Framework 2.0 SP2 found here:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=1639

This got MeGUI to open which is as far as I am with it.



Next step I have handy is a proper install of Nero AAC Codec.

I dl'ed the current (2012) edition of Nero AAC 1.5.4.0. It arrives as a zip file. But I am confused as to how to unzip and install properly for MeGUI. The readme for the Nero is hard to understand. But my take on it is that the codec has to be unzipped within the MeGUI directory.

My zip program is Izarc which I find easiest to use. How is Nero AAC correctly installed to the right directory for use with MeGUI?

[hello_hello]

All you need is "neroAacEnc.exe", which I assume should be in the zip file. Just unzip it and copy neroAacEnc.exe to wherever you want to keep it.

If you go into MeGUI's settings, under the external program configuration tab there's a check box to enable NeroAAC and another to tell MeGUI where it's located. It's also used by eac3to so I think it's default location for XP is here:

C:\Program Files\MeGUI\tools\eac3to\neroAacEnc.exe

It's probably best to put it in that folder, although I don't know if it would actually make a difference, as long as you tell MeGUI where to find it. I've always just put it in the eac3to folder myself.

[loninappleton]

I'm opening this thread to continue progress with MeGUI. I've printed some guides but questions remain.

I have a sample VOB set made in the prescribed manner for use with MeGUI using the DVD preparation technique with DVD Decrypter (not DVD Shrink as in the preparation of a DVD file for Auto Gordian Knot.)

With that I loaded it into MeGUI.
Finding the VTS_01_1.VOB I was able to open Manual File Indexer which is DGIndex (I think.)

The AVS Script Creator Opens and I selected Auto Crop which fills in some default border crop info. Taht's about all I did in there.

Reopening the VIDEO_TS Folder gave

Chapter information text file
Stream information text file
VTS 01 0. IFO
VTS 01 T80 AC3
VTS 01 T81 AC3
VTS 01 .d2v
VTS 01 VOB

That's what I got with just following some screens.

Still getting the feel of the program.

I am going to start a second job just so I can familairize myself with the procedure and starting with DVD Decrypter again. I don't know what kind of problems I'll run into with duplicate VTS this and that file names and folders.

My question for this post is : How do I save the AVS script from Scratchpad?

This seems elemental but I did not get that part from any 'drop down' suggestions at the Scratchpad box.

[hello_hello]

The drop down AVISynth box which says "scratchpad" works the same way as the configuration for other set ups, such as the video or audio encoders. If you click on the Config button next to it, it'll take you to a few options for creating AVISynth script templates.
Under the "Extra Setup" tab there's options for choosing things such as the type of resizing and noise filtering etc which will be used by default, and you can choose whether "upsizing" is allowed etc. You can save the setup to a new AVISynth profile and give it a name. If you don't, MeGUI will copy the current configuration to "scratchpad". The video encoder configuration works the same. If you change encoder settings but don't save it as a new preset, MeGUI will offer to use "scratchpad" so you don't lose the configuration. That way you can configure something and use it without needing to save it as a new preset every time.

When it comes to creating scripts it be quite useful, especially once you have your head around the basics of AVISynth. By default, the AVISynth configuration looks like this (under the Template tab):

<input>
<deinterlace>
<crop>
<resize>
<denoise>

All of the above lets MeGUI create it's own scripts in the usual way. But if (for example) you wanted to open a group of videos which will be cropped and resized in an identical way, you can create a template which looks like this:

<input>
<deinterlace>
crop(4, 2, -4, -8)
Spline36Resize(1024, 576)
<denoise>

You'd save the above as a new AVISynth template. After you've indexed the video and the script creator window has opened, choosing the above template would stop MeGUI from applying it's own cropping and resizing, even if you use cropping and resizing in the script creator window. Or you could use templates for adding AVISynth functions which MeGUI doesn't have the ability to add itself. For example if I'm re-encoding HD video while resizing to standard definition, I use a template I created for adding the proper colour conversion.

<input>
<deinterlace>
<crop>
<denoise>
<resize>
ColorMatrix(mode="Rec.709->Rec.601", clamp=0)

The above lets MeGUI create scripts in the usual way, but if I select the above template the ColorMatrix line will automatically be added to the end of every script.

Hopefully I've explained the AVISynth configuration well enough, but basically the AVISynth profiles don't have anything to do with saving a script as such, they help control the way scripts are created. Once you have a video open using the Script Creator, you can select one of the AVISynth profiles you've created and/or switch between them to change the scripts MeGUI creates. There's no need to use it though. If you go into the AVISynth Profile configuration and set the basic preferences there, MeGUI will save them to "scratchpad" and you can just leave the AVISynth profile on "scratchpad" all the time.

The actual saving of a script is done simply by using the "Save" button at the bottom, right corner. If the option "On Save close and load to be encoded" is checked (it is by default), when you select Save the script will be saved to your hard drive, the Script Creator window will close and MeGUI will load the script into the video section ready for you to add it to the queue as an encoding job. By default, using "Save" also causes the video preview window to open a second time. You can simply close it if you don't need to preview the encode again.

It doesn't matter if you use DVD Decrypter or DVDShrink to prepare the DVD for encoding. I've always used DVDShrink myself, but as long as the end result is the same (a properly prepared DVD) it shouldn't matter how you do it.

VTS 01 0. IFO
VTS 01 T80 AC3
VTS 01 T81 AC3
VTS 01 .d2v
VTS 01 VOB

In the above example, the two AC3 files will be the two audio streams DGIndex extracted from the vob file. You can tell the file indexer to extract them all, or just to extract the ones you select.
The d2v file is the index file created by DGIndex. It's used for opening and decoding the video. AutoGK uses DGIndex, so it'd create exactly the same d2v file.

A tip for making life a little easer if when you prepare a DVD for encoding, you create a single large vob file rather than a group of vob files:
The vob file will have a name such as VTS 01 VOB as per your example above. I rename it before opening it to match the name of the movie or episode in question. ie something like "Crappy Movie.VOB". Then when you open it for indexing, the index file will be automatically name "Crappy Movie.d2v", MeGUI will create a script called "Crappy Movie.avs" and the final output will be called "Crappy Movie.mkv" etc. It only works if you're encoding a single large vob file.

A tip for re-opening DVDs after they've been indexed:
If you've indexed a DVD and created a script for encoding, saved it, and then later decide you want to do it again, you don't need to index the DVD a second time. Open the Script Creator from the Tools menu, and open the existing d2v file as the source video. The preview window will open and you're ready to create a new script.

[hello_hello]

PS By default, I'm pretty sure MeGUI should save all it's "working files" such as index files, extracted audio and scripts to the same location as the source files. I think by default even the final output file is saved there. You can change that in preferences if you like (I have, which is also a reason I use the vob file renaming method above) but if you leave it set to save it's files to the same location as the source, and each source is located in it's own folder, you shouldn't have problems with duplicate file names etc.

And if you're encoding DVDs, don't forget to use the Script Creator's "Analyse" function (under the Filters tab) to automatically apply the correct de-interlacing. You can manually add it yourself if you prefer, or choose not to use de-interlacing if you know the video is progressive etc, but for most of us mortals, it pays to let MeGUI analyse the video and apply any de-interlacing accordingly.

One of the things I like about MeGUI's script creator, is when you use it you can switch to the Script tab which shows you the contents of the script MeGUI will create. That way, you can change things using the script creator such as resizing or cropping etc, switch to the script tab and see exactly how those changes are applied to the script, and/or how AVISynth plugins are loaded etc. You can even modify the contents of the script tab manually.
There's no need to actually understand any of it, you can ignore it all completely and still set up an encode in the usual way, but looking at the contents of the Script tab can help you learn how creating AVISynth scripts works, and eventually it can be a useful tool for experimenting with modifying scripts yourself. Don't expect to get your head around it too quickly, but it can be useful for helping to understand the basics.

[loninappleton]

I'm getting mail notifications and this second one is still coming in. Will digest this and print out to have along side the guide(s.) I should get through the whole process once before doing anything else. In the guide I am as far as "Encoding Audio" from the basic guide. "Basic" is a word that gets overused too.

But in this process, my Levelator routine would have to fit in someplace, normalize and so on. Is this all done in scripts? Example: AutoGK normalizes the audio as part of it's functions. AC3 audio is the audio from this process. How would 2 streams T80 and T81 get these treatments?

In practical terms I'm many steps back yet. I'm following the guide rote.

[hello_hello]

I've no idea how you were "Levelating" the audio when encoding with AutoGK, but as you've discovered, the process of indexing vob files will extract one or more audio streams (whatever you specify when the file indexer window is open). In your previous example, they were both AC3.

But in this process, my Levelator routine would have to fit in someplace, normalize and so on. Is this all done in scripts? Example: AutoGK normalizes the audio as part of it's functions. AC3 audio is the audio from this process. How would 2 streams T80 and T81 get these treatments?

AutoGK doesn't normalise audio if the output is AC3. It'd just copy the original AC3 audio after extracting it from the vob files. It can only normalise if you're converting the audio to MP3.

It's normally done like this:



Each extracted audio stream should be loaded as an individual track in the audio section. You switch between them by selecting the appropriate Track tab. Each track will be re-encoded according to the chosen preset in the Encoder Settings drop down box. You can use the same preset for each tack, or a totally different one. Each preset can be configured independently, so you can create an encoder preset which encodes to MP3, downmixes to stereo and normalizes, you can create another preset which encodes to MP3 and downmixes without normalizing, or yet another which doesn't downmix, normalizes and converts to AAC. Whatever you want.

You can add each track to the job queue individually using the Queue button in the audio section, or if you want a total file size, you can use AutoEncode, specify the file size, AutoEncode will include any audio tracks loded into the audio section, MeGUI will calculate the total bitrate, subtract the bitrate required for each audio track from that, use the remaining bitrate for encoding the video, re-encode each audio track according to the selected preset, and then it'll combine them all into a single output file of the requested size.

Adding your "Levelator" to the process might mean you've got to do a lot of the audio stuff manually, but without knowing exactly how you were doing it with AutoGK I'm not sure what to suggest.

[loninappleton]

MeGUI is certainly the Swiss Army knife of video encoding.

The Levelator is simply a program name. It is freeware, works on .wav audio only and is designed to do three three processes. It was devised to balance different microphone input from podcasts. For any interested it is explained here (and worthwhile for anyone encoding where the voice of natural speech should stand out) :

http://www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator


That program is no longer developed but still free and at least one version is available at videohelp tools section.

As someone once said, 'It works a treat' for this function.

But there may be ways of chaining the effects/filters in MeGUI that The Levelator uses.

From above then, the AC3 audio streams T80 and T81 would have to be converted to .wav, run the Levelator program (which makes a file with 'output' included in the name) and then convertd back to AC3 for the last step (as I understand it) with MeGUI which is muxing the audio and video. That is the last step given in the introductory guide at mewiki.

Using the previous method we've discussed with AGK and Virtual dub might be preferable in this instance where audio needs more treatment than any video processing (about which I know less than described here.)

[hello_hello]

MeGUI won't output wave files (it'll output FLAC which is lossless but it'd still need to be converted to wave).

I'd simply use MeGUI in the usual way for indexing the video, extracting the audio and setting up an encode. When it's done, use another program to convert the extracted audio to wave. TAudioConverter will do it, and it'll also downmix to stereo and normalize etc if you want it to. Once it's done and you've run the wave files through Levelator, you can replace the AC3 files in MeGUI's audio section with the wave files and get MeGUI to convert the wave files to MP3 or AC3 etc and add them to the output file for you etc.

[loninappleton]

TAudioConverter sounds interesting. For the (I think) 13 years I've owned Goldwave I haven't explored all its features. But I have been using it for the simple job of wave conversion. And GW is updated all the time.

There will be other jobs for MeGUI when I get to subtitles in particular. Manono (?) or another responder recommended Subtitle Editor and I had used that briefly just as an experiment on an animated film. The outcome was good.
But I was amazed a short while ago at one mkv I got played in VLC that had all the options of two subtitle languages and two spoken languages under the menu and selectable by the program (track number etc.) I have a job where something like that could enhance the encode. Those chapters are still upcoming in getting the hang of MeGUI.

[hello_hello]

MeGUI has Vobsubber under the tools menu. It'll extract subtitles from DVDs. You can then mux them into MKV files "as-is" and you'll have the ability to select which ones to display (if you extract more than one). It extracts them in their native format (images as subtitles) which don't always look great, so they can be converted to text files (or another format) with SubtitleEdit. It can be a fairly slow process though if you want them to be right. I hate doing it. Fortunately I don't work with subtitles much.
I'm pretty sure Vobsubber can convert DVD subtitles to text files too, but if memory serves me correctly using SubtitleEdit is pure joy by comparison.

I do use SubtitleEdit a bit for converting just the "forced" subtitles to another format, then adding those to a script for hard-coding. Converting just the forced subtitles generally isn't too painful and they'll usually look better than the original DVD image-based subtitles.
Actually thinking about it.... I don't know how to get MeGUI to do what AutoGK does.... extract the subtitles and then select just the forced subtitles for hard-coding, but it must be do-able if AutoGK can do it. I'm just thinking out loud a bit here but I will try to work it out at some stage. If the original DVD subtitles don't look too bad it'd save having to convert the forced subtitles to another format with SubtitleEdit in order to hard-code them.

Actually that's another SubtitleEdit annoyance I've never been able to find an easy fix for. If all the subtitles are in the same stream but the forced ones are "flagged" so they can be displayed separately, SubtitleEdit will happily select and convert just the forced subtitles. That's nice as then they can be added to the script and hard-coded on their own. But there's no way to select and convert the rest of the subtitles while excluding the forced ones. So you end up with the forced subtitles hard-coded, and also included in the separate subtitle file, which means if it's enabled on playback the forced subtitles effectively display twice. The only way I've managed to stop that from happening is to use SubtitleEdit to convert all the subtitles, then delete each forced subtitle manually before saving them. There must be an easier way..... sorry.... more thinking out loud.

[loninappleton]

thinking out loud is ok. On my breather here I did get some pages printed of the 'introductory" as opposed to the 'b'-word guide and so still have to do the initial audio encode-- to MP3 I guess --with the T80 and T81 then do the video or maybe I'm at mux the video with audio at that point. Like I said-- a couple days breather.

I have gone through subtitle hell on another job where nothing lined up-- which some say is the easy part but also had an incomplete transalation where a prologue had no subs at all. I made the request at the subtitle places to make an entire new one but this is a real minor French film that garners no interest to anyone but me. My goal was to fix it and have it done right but I could not get the hang of it in Aegis Sub. In sum, a new start time was neeeded to be found manually and once that was done no amount of changing framerate (the usual cure) helped either.

The suggested reason for this mess was recording the srt text file in PAL (the defacto European format) and then applying it to an NTSC AVI or vice versa. And yes, I had all the output from GSpot etc at the time. It was still a muddle. Very frustrating.


I'll take a shot at it again in the future.

[hello_hello]

SubtitleEdit will do PAL to NTSC conversions on the subtitle time codes. It'll also move them all back or forward by a specific amount if they don't line up properly. So with any luck you could do the conversion, then adjust them as a whole until they begin where they should. Another trick......

MKVMergeGUI can also apply a delay to subtitles when it muxes them the same way it can with audio. It works for all types of subtitles. So if the subtitles are basically correct but they start a second too late (for example), applying a negate delay of one second to the subtitle stream would fix it.
I've actually used MKVMergeGUI for simple subtitle corrections in the past before hard-coding them. If you mux the subtitles while applying an appropriate delay, then extract them from the newly muxed MKV, you'll have a new subtitle file with the correct timecodes. It works for srt subtitles, at least.

Either way, if the subtitles effectively match the video, but only the point at which they begin needs to be modified, it can be done. Sometimes it just takes a bit of trial and error to get it right.

[loninappleton]

No it's my conten tion that the subs in that job ar not "basically" (Grrrr) correct. I've found the start point at the exact time stamp. Another problem was voiceover. There was no visual cue that someone is speaking so I had to do all of that manually. One opinion from Aegissub or someplace was start over and do it line by line. I found myself incapable of mastering that task with three windows open of subs, video, and audio. In that job it seemed like there were just too many variables to juggle. Also amateur sub jobs don't know how to do the timing of the time onscreen for us slow readers. There must be a minimum screen time calculation done that should be changed globally or changeable for those bad jobs. Another variable.

Those programs are quirky too. There's some subtle thing going on that made making the time edit difficult. Anime subbers must do it all the time. They perfected third party subtitles.

[loninappleton]

Subtitles are a briar patch to me. Perhaps a separate thread or more study of Subtitle Edit which is also on my plate.

Back on topic, today I successfully made an mp4 using the steps in MeGUI "introductory" guide. The most enjoyable part was cropping which I thought would be the most difficult because it sounds difficult.

However with all the twiddling I do not know precisely what I came up with. I seem to recall a program called Media Info does what GSpot does for AVI but GSpot only works on AVI.

Starting from the last step which is muxing:

When ripping the original DVD to files as described in the guide two audio files were made. They had big long names but can be called T80 and T81. I encoded both. But when I got to the Mux step (multiplexing which is combining audio with video) I got an error when doing anything but adding one of the streams to the video.
One has to look at the guide to see the actual steps. Playback in Media Player Home Theater gave a signal to both of my audio channels which plays through an amplifier to home theater/music-size speakers.

I'm confused about how audio streams are handled because of this.

The error might have come from all the Queuing and Starting with various buttons and on separate panes of the program. That had me scratching my head for some time.

Elsewhere in the program the Bitrate Calculator gave confusion as well. The guide for that told what to add but
was hard to understand since data is required from previous program elements.

But there is progress. Through these months I now have three techniques to replace using DVDFab which was my main tool.

[hello_hello]

I'd be taking a huge guess regarding what went wrong with muxing the audio. It's definitely not something which generally causes a problem. Maybe it's an MP4 issue relating to the type of audio.... I'd be guessing as I only ever use MKV. If MeGUI was doing the muxing there'll probably be an error message in the log file.

I never use the bitrate calculator myself. If you're after a particular file size and you use AutoEncode (leave the actual x264 encoder configuration in CRF, quality encoding mode if you like), once you've added the audio in the AutoEncode window and you've specified a file size, MeGUI will calculate the bitrate for you and automatically switch to 2 pass encoding. The bitrate calculator would be handy if you configured the x264 encoder for 2 pass encoding and specified a particular bitrate for every encode, but thanks to AutoEncode there's no need for that.

By the way, have you noticed MeGUI is now capable of 10 bit encoding? If not, go into Options/Settings, and in the AutoUpdate section switch to "development update server". Restart MeGUI and let it update itself. Restart it again if it requests it once it's finished updating, then go back into Options/Settings. Under the "External Programs Configuration" tab there's a checkbox to enable 10 bit encoding. Enable it and MeGUI should ask to update itself once more. This time it'll include the 10 bit x264 encoder.
Finally, after restarting MeGUI one more time, you can open the x264 encoder configuration where there's an option to enable 10 bit encoding, which can then be saved as part of a normal x264 encoder preset.

[hello_hello]

Well I thought I'd give 10 bit encoding a spin.... I've only run a couple of quick 8 bit vs 10 bit encodes, but already I can see the advantage of 10 bit. I still don't think I'll be using it until I know I can play 10 encodes with something other than a PC, which is a pity, because it's obviously a good thing.

Comparing frame by frame..... at a given CRF value (default x264 settings) I'm not sure I could pick much difference between an 8 bit i-frame and a 10 bit i-frame, but 10 bit p/b frames seemed to retain more detail. Or am I imagining that?

[loninappleton]

Thanks for the update. I'll set up the 10 bit encode as you say but only after I do a full backup again. Will be able to do that shortly.

To our previous question on another thread (which I should update and perhaps procede on the topic from there and link to it) can the MeGUI be set up with small size h264 where at present a small size would be 800 mb for a 98 minute job? I've seen some pretty small ones and again these look good on computer playback. I never set my WinXP screen resolution above 800x600 and I use the onboard video. That gives a smoothe image to my satisfaction.

[loninappleton]

I ran one update procedure under the develpement server and ran into errors for not having a more updated base version.

Before moving over to the 10 bit thread, I am confused as to how to do the required base version update for these other things. The most recent version showinng is 2353 at videohelp and sourceforege. The program makes a request for version at least at 2370 and Google gives a reference to 2395 but drops down at the June release once again.

I'll see what running the updater from a cold start does. Or how should I procede? I seem to be in a circular path right now.

[loninappleton]

I am in some sort of upgrade hell. After attempting to get Nero AAC installed-- and it shows installed to the right place but greyed out-- there is a constant update error to complete that operation. For now I have the following:

the Development Server is 2395 and loads as the default MeGUI. I simply unchecked the option for NeroAAC encoder until the problem is resolved. There is no immediate need for me to use AAC audio but I'd like to get the problem resolved. I don't know if this version in development will balk at something else yet.

[loninappleton]

One other setting question I have is at the LAME Encoder for MP3 audio. I looked in that config and it shows an option for Dynamic Range Compression. I checked the box and also the Normalize to 100 was preset. Should this give some help on getting voice ranges leveled which is a goal I have for some jobs featuring live theater recordings?

At this point I have not gone further than the introductory guide and these Q&A threads.

Next job I will see if that T80, T81 MP3 stream occurs again or if it was peculiar to the last project.

[hello_hello]

To our previous question on another thread (which I should update and perhaps procede on the topic from there and link to it) can the MeGUI be set up with small size h264 where at present a small size would be 800 mb for a 98 minute job? I've seen some pretty small ones and again these look good on computer playback. I never set my WinXP screen resolution above 800x600 and I use the onboard video. That gives a smoothe image to my satisfaction.

You can get MeGUI to output any file size you like but there's no guarantee regarding how it'll look. Remember the rule is pretty much.... CRF encoding lets you select the quality while the file size will be unknown, while 2 pass encoding lets you select the file size while the quality will be unknown.
So if you use AutoEncode and the option for selecting an output file size, specifying 800MB should give you 800MB. AutoEncode will use whatever x264 encoder configuration is selected at the time, so you'd probably want to at least open the x264 encoder configuration and load the defaults. For squishing the file size you could use a slower x264 speed preset which might produce a slightly higher quality for a given file size, but of course encoding will take longer.... or much longer. There's really no magic "high quality, small file size" x264 settings I'm aware of.

What size/type of monitor are you using?

I ran one update procedure under the develpement server and ran into errors for not having a more updated base version.

Before moving over to the 10 bit thread, I am confused as to how to do the required base version update for these other things. The most recent version showinng is 2353 at videohelp and sourceforege. The program makes a request for version at least at 2370 and Google gives a reference to 2395 but drops down at the June release once again.

I'll see what running the updater from a cold start does. Or how should I procede? I seem to be in a circular path right now.

Try downloading just the MeGUI.exe version 2395 from here: http://megui.org/auto/
Or this is the direct link: http://megui.org/auto/megui-core_2395.zip
Download it, unzip it, and replace the old MeGUI.exe file with the new one (maybe copy the old one somewhere safe first), then try running MeGUI, enabling 10 bit and using autoupdate again etc.

The videohelp MeGUI page is a bit confusing. It lists 2395 as the latest version but all the downloads are for the last "stable" release, which is 2353. I can't find a "full download" for anything later than version 2353, but the above method should work.

I am in some sort of upgrade hell. After attempting to get Nero AAC installed-- and it shows installed to the right place but greyed out-- there is a constant update error to complete that operation.

Hopefully the Nero problem will go away after you've updated MeGUI itself. If not.... well one thing at a time I guess.

One other setting question I have is at the LAME Encoder for MP3 audio. I looked in that config and it shows an option for Dynamic Range Compression. I checked the box and also the Normalize to 100 was preset. Should this give some help on getting voice ranges leveled which is a goal I have for some jobs featuring live theater recordings?

AC3 (and maybe DTS, I'm not sure) can contain info for compressing the audio. "Can" being the operative word. If it's present, when it's re-encoded, enabling "Dynamic Range Compression" should use the compression info while it's being re-encoded. DVD players have a similar dynamic range compression option. When it's enabled, they use the info contained within the AC3 audio to compress it. It probably would help with levelling out the volume and making speech appear louder etc, if there's dynamic range compression info contained within the file, and I think it only applies to re-encoding AC3, but other types of audio may contain it also. I'm not sure. The normalisation option is probably enabled by default when using dynamic range compression as the latter would possibly have the effect of making the audio sound quieter over-all.

[loninappleton]

Yes, I used the same 2353 link you did and got the same result (for other interested users) at both Sourceforge and Videohelp. I'll look at that direct link and see if it gives 2395 in a scratch directory. Otherwise as it is installed now, 2395 pops up under the Development Upgrade Server which loads at startup unless another selection is made.

I suppose we are talking about the stable release versus these development release options.

My viewing monitor is an old CRT generic from a company called KDS which is a 19 in.

For the small files, I've seen resolutions posted that were in the 320 x 200 range for 100 minute jobs and under 500mb total size or thereabouts. I do not know really what the bottom limit is before breakup or some other catastrophe happens to the image (and sound.)

Also the question I remembered to ask today was: with all these versions and settings is there any sort of checklist so you know you've got all the necessities installed? Some of the info like the LAME audio settings are subtle.