HD to SD encoding with DGindex/Avisynth/VirtualDub

[TheSuperBeanie]

Very big newbie here so go easy on me!

I am trying to encode an HD video to a SD video format (.mpeg2) to burn to a DVD.

Here is my software encoding path.
Adobe Premiere CC
Adobe Media Encoder (downscale to 1440x1080 30p .MPEG2)
DGindex (to encode to .d2v format)
Virtualdub (to encode to .AVI)
Adobe Media Encoder (downscale to final 720x480 .MPEG2-DVD)
Adobe Encore (to build the DVD.iso)

Here's my problem.
When i create the .d2v file within DGindex and then try to put it into Virtualdub i get this error message.


[Attachment 45043 - Click to enlarge]

I am using Avisynth to write my script (below)


[Attachment 45044 - Click to enlarge]

with all the necessary plugins i have within my Avisynth plugin folder (pic below)


[Attachment 45045 - Click to enlarge]

I have been through so many forums and tutorials over a week now trying to find a solution to this problem and the only one i can find says to input the plugin GetSystemEnv.dll and that should fix the "GetWorkingDir" error, unfortunately i still keep getting the error.

Like i said, i am very new, and have hit a brick wall. Any help from you amazing guru's would be appreciated!

[manono]

What happens with a simple:

#SetMTMode(2,0)
MPEG2Source("Awards.d2v")
#hd2sd(interlaced=false,OutputColorspace=YUY2,Wide screenType=0)

You probably don't want your output colorspace to be YUY2. Your source is YV12 (isn't it?) and so is the final output. But maybe you have your reasons. Also, most - if not all - of what you're doing in Adobe can be done more easily, faster, and with better resulting quality in AviSynth. Not the encoding, of course.

I've never in my life seen that error message so I don't know what that's about. Must be something to do with hd2sd. And you can downscale without using that also. And why two resizings and two MPEG-2 encodes?

[AlanHK]

Very big newbie here so go easy on me!
Here is my software encoding path.
Adobe Premiere CC
Adobe Media Encoder (downscale to 1440x1080 30p .MPEG2)
DGindex (to encode to .d2v format)
Virtualdub (to encode to .AVI)
Adobe Media Encoder (downscale to final 720x480 .MPEG2-DVD)
Adobe Encore (to build the DVD.iso)

I think this is a needlessly complicated chain.


You can go from AVS to MPEG2 for DVD in one step, use HCenc.
Run it command line and batch or GUI.
To make the DVD from that I use GuiForDVDAuthor.


Also I think you could go from your HD source directly to avs, try ffmpegsource. That can input almost any kind of video.
Resize using LanczosResize.

So source-> AVS->MPEG.


You need the audio in AC3, but I assume you know that. You can use SoundOut in the AVS.

Get AvsPmod to edit AVS scripts.

And when you do post a script, post the text, not a screencap.

[TheSuperBeanie]

What happens with a simple:

#SetMTMode(2,0)
MPEG2Source("Awards.d2v")
#hd2sd(interlaced=false,OutputColorspace=YUY2,Wide screenType=0)

You probably don't want your output colorspace to be YUY2. Your source is YV12 (isn't it?) and so is the final output. But maybe you have your reasons. Also, most - if not all - of what you're doing in Adobe can be done more easily, faster, and with better resulting quality in AviSynth. Not the encoding, of course.

I've never in my life seen that error message so I don't know what that's about. Must be something to do with hd2sd. And you can downscale without using that also. And why two resizings and two MPEG-2 encodes?

This whole process was written back in 2010, and this company has been using this process since then and the people who set up the process on the previous computer didn't document any instructions on how to setup it back up on a new PC. The reasoning behind all of this was to basically get a better looking video for DVD.

But with all of that said, i was thrown into this with no knowledge of how to properly use DGindex/Avisynth/Virtualdub. So if there is a better way to downscale a full HD 1920X1080 60i video file to SD 720x480 30i video file while maintaining high quality, i humbly request any advice.

My apologies for my ignorance to this whole process.

[poisondeathray]

But with all of that said, i was thrown into this with no knowledge of how to properly use DGindex/Avisynth/Virtualdub. So if there is a better way to downscale a full HD 1920X1080 60i video file to SD 720x480 30i video file while maintaining high quality, i humbly request any advice.

What are you starting with ? is the "1920x1080 60i" video a physical file ? or is it part of a project ?

What container, what compression ? Use mediainfo (view=>text) if you don't know

Note that "60i" and "30i" are actually the same thing. Just different naming conventions. They both indicate 29.97 frames per second interlaced, or 59.94 fields per second interlaced.

[TheSuperBeanie]

I think this is a needlessly complicated chain.


You can go from AVS to MPEG2 for DVD in one step, use HCenc.
Run it command line and batch or GUI.
To make the DVD from that I use GuiForDVDAuthor.


Also I think you could go from your HD source directly to avs, try ffmpegsource. That can input almost any kind of video.
Resize using LanczosResize.

I agree it's a very complicated process. and to be honest as i am very green, all of this is a bit over my head and i'm learning on the fly.

After doing some research and downloading HCenc, and trying to figure out how it all functions with each other, and ffmpegsource functions within your process. I'm a bit confused as how your process works...

I'm directing my script in AVS to the MPEG file so my script in AVS is
Avisource("project title.MPEG")

When i input the script into HCenc, it gives me a prompt that it can't open the file.

[TheSuperBeanie]

What are you starting with ? is the "1920x1080 60i" video a physical file ? or is it part of a project ?

What container, what compression ? Use mediainfo (view=>text) if you don't know

Note that "60i" and "30i" are actually the same thing. Just different naming conventions. They both indicate 29.97 frames per second interlaced, or 59.94 fields per second interlaced.

My video comes from the project in Adobe Premiere CC then to Adobe Media Encoder for whatever file format i need. In this case, i usually export it as

Format : MPEG Video
Commercial name : HDV 1080i
Format profile : Main@High 1440
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=15
Bit rate mode : VBR
Bit rate : 15.3 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 18.5 Mbps
Width : 1440 pixel3
Height : 1080 pixel3
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 (30000/1001) fps3
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bit3
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : TFF
Compression mode : Lossy

Then after i create that file, then it goes through DGindex and Virtualdub using avisynth and then back into media encoder to for the final .MPEG2-DVD format.

Using just the media encoder to create a file for DVD doesn't come out the best quality.

[poisondeathray]

What were the sequence / project settings ? What were you starting with originally ? What type of assets ?

Ideally you wouldn't use HDV as an intermediate format (it's quite lossy) , but it probably won't make a major difference for SD DVD. But there is avoidable quality loss in that step

Adobe Media Encoder (downscale to 1440x1080 30p .MPEG2)

You wouldn't downscale to 1440x1080 30p mpeg2 , if you started with 1920x1080 60i content. You are throwing away half the information right off the bat. It would need to be "60i" to keep the motion samples. I'm assuming the 1920x1080 60i was actually 60i content (not "30p in 60i")

hd2sd (interlaced=false) is wrong too, if you actually have interlaced content as you reported you had 1920x1080 60i . This tells the script you have progressive content

This looks like the old hd2sd package. "MT.dll" is an older implementation as well . It should still work, but some of the workflow is a bit outdated. The main issues with letting NLE's do this, was the interlaced scaling. They do a poor job. But if you bob deinterlaced (to 59.94p) and used progressive scaling, most of the issues go away. That hd2sd script also does other things like change colors to rec601 (for SD) .

Another problem is usually "too sharp" depending on content. You get interlaced line twitter artifacts. Often you have to low pass to make it look less offending. But the side effect is blurring (losing effective resolution) - but that's an interlaced/ DVD limitation. Lots of trade offs to make


In your plugins screenshot, there are missing extensions. For example, AviSynthPluginsDir should have an .avsi extension to autoload. There is none in your screenshot. Same with ConditionalSmoothBob and colors_rgb . But you have extensions enabled in windows explorer view mode because I can see some .dll' s

[AlanHK]

I agree it's a very complicated process. and to be honest as i am very green, all of this is a bit over my head and i'm learning on the fly.

After doing some research and downloading HCenc, and trying to figure out how it all functions with each other, and ffmpegsource functions within your process. I'm a bit confused as how your process works...

I'm directing my script in AVS to the MPEG file so my script in AVS is
Avisource("project title.MPEG")

When i input the script into HCenc, it gives me a prompt that it can't open the file.

The whole idea of Avisynth is that it creates a virtual AVI file that other apps, even those not Avisynth aware, can use as a source. So you don't need to make a real AVI file-- that can take a long time and is lossy .
See http://avisynth.nl/index.php/FAQ_frameserving for background.

Avisource("project title.MPEG")

AviSource is for opening AVI files, so I'm not surprised it doesn't work.
I can't start to make sense of this unless I see THE ENTIRE SCRIPT.


I make DVDs very rarely now, having moved on to a media player.
But here for example is a batch file I used to encode a folder of AVS scripts to MPEG using hcenc, and also create AC3

You can also use HCenc's GUI.
Or just select a valid AVS file (one you can open in e.g. VirtualDub) and choose your quality and other settings.

(Note: if you use VirtualDub and Avisynth, get VirtualDubModplus (linked on the VirtualdubMOD page) which includes a simple AVS editor. And AVSpmod is the essential AVS stand-alone editor.)

set rate=1810

set ar=16:9
::set ar=4:3

set choice=
set /p choice=Run encode? y/n  
if not '%choice%'=='y' exit

set hc=P:\HCenc\HCenc_024
set mpgd=s:\mpg\

for %%A in (
1_Do_You_Know_What_It_Means.avs
2_Meet_De_Boys_on_the_Battlefront.avs
3_Right_PlaceX_Wrong_Time.avs
4_At_the_Foot_of_Canal_Street.avs
5_ShameX_ShameX_Shame.avs

  ) do (
%hc% -i %%~fA -o %mpgd%%%~nA.m2v -b %rate% -aspectratio %ar% -pulldown -profile best -matrix qlb -frames all -noini -2pass -maxbitrate 8000 -log %%~dpAhenc.log -avsreload

call avsaften %%~fA
move %%~dpnA.ac3 %mpgd%
)

And here's a simple AVS file that I used to make mpegs for DVD from an X264 MKV:

FFmpegSource2("601_First_Time_Again.mkv",atrack=-1,fpsnum=-1,fpsden=1)
LanczosResize(720,480)
AmplifydB(7.88)

If you're going to use Avisynth, join the Doom9 forum and lurk then ask questions there.
There are real gurus there-- the people who created Avisynth and many related utilities.
However, some are complete pricks, so take care.