Frameserving from Vdub to TMPG VMW5

[DVWannaB]

Guys,

Sorry if this has been covered before, but couldn't find any documentation. I am trying to frameserve video Virtualdub 1.10.4 to TMPGEnc Video Mastering Works 5 with no joy. I used too to this some years ago with TMPG Plus and have not been converting videos for a while. I am running Win8, VDub Handler is installed and in TMPG VMW5 I have VFAPI file reader checked. What am I doing wrong? TMPG opens the file fine and everything looks fine, but I get a "file unsupported" error when I try to output an MPEG file. If TMPG no longer supports frameserving, is there another encoder that does? Thanks.

[Baldrick]

Maybe export to a lossless format like huffyuv.... If it's not hd and too long.


Or frameserve to hcenc.

[DVWannaB]

Thanks Baldrick. Glad to see you are still around. Looks like HCenc only accepts d2v and avs files, so looks like a no go there.

[_Al_]

you can frame serve it from VirtualDub to Avisynth, just couple of line script:

Avisource("video.vdr")
ConverttoYV12() #this line to convert it to YUV from RGB if needed to make it 4:2:0

load that avs script into HcEncoder

[DVWannaB]

Thanks a bunch Al I will do that.

[DarrellS]

Seems like we had to create a fake avi to frameserve to TMPGenc. Don't know if that will work for TMPG VMW5 though. You could try changing the .vdr extension to .avi.

Have you looked at the help file in Virtualdub? There is a section on frame serving. Any program that will use avisynth should be able to use the frame server. It talks about Installing the AVIFile driver in proxy mode and Installing and using the 64-bit frameserver and frameclient.

[DVWannaB]

DarrellS, yeah I did that vdr and avi name conventions but didn't work in VMW5 (trial version). I am suspecting that TMPG no longer supports, but will check VD help and see if there any answers there.

The VD to AVIsynth to HC 0.27 did work. The project ultimately failed though. I am testing using Neat Video (32-bit trial) to clean up noise in old VHS tapes. Somehow it crashed HC. VirtualDub 1.10.4 didn't accept the 64-bit version of Neat Video trial. Looks like I will have to do a LOT more homework to make this whole process work. Truthfully I was trying to avoid the multi-line script and filters of AVIsynth and was hoping Neat Video would help me do that. If not, its back to Doom9 to find out what folks are doing these days for filter choices and operations

[_Al_]

you have guys here that would suggest filters as well, all you need to do is upload sample, not too large, and trying to follow up, understand ...

[DVWannaB]

Thanks all. I think I have found a workable solution. Like I mentioned above, its been a while since I have dabbled with video conversion (about 6 years) and so many things I have forgotten.

About 6-7 years ago I transferred many many VHS tapes using a Toshiba HR-S9800U VCR---> Canopus ADVC 100 ---> SC Live (capture avi to HDD). SC Live automatically split eah capture into 4GB chunks. So that made easy for me to just burn the avi(s) to DVD-R for storage. Needless to say I have tons of DVD-R stored in the cases that they original plastic casing.

So now I'm in the mood for conversion to DVD. What I have settled on (for now) is load the AVI(s) into VirtualDub, apply Neat Video (dependent on project needs), save to AVI using HuffyUV. Then open that new processed AVI in HCencoder 0.26 (Avisynth frameserving).

One thing that really kicked by butt this weekend was that at first I was using AVStoDVD to open the processed AVI, but after converting to DVD I kept getting a stuttered playback on any motion. From past experience I thought it must be a field order issue. I edited the AVIsynth script to true various AssumeTFF() and the AssumeBFF() and nothing seemed to work. It became apparent that HCencoder what somehow disregarding the field order flag and would just automatically use TFF. I also I couldn't find a way in AVStoDVD to adjust the encoding parameters. I then tried the standalone HCencoder 0.27. Inexplicably it required AVIsynth 2.6.0.4 or higher. WTF? The latest version I could find online was 2.6.0 RC (which I DL and installed). Still HC 0.27 didn't like. I then found and used HC0.26 beta, which worked. In HC0.26 I manually changed the field order to BFF. The final DVD played flawlessly.

While probably not my final or only workflow, I think I am off to a workable start. One thing about Neat Video, which does take some tweaking and messing with, I feel that my first attempt may have smooth too much. Seems to create a bit of halo-ing. SO more testing and messing around required. Thanks guys.