Optimizations for Crunchie?

PJ_Major · **18th December 2005, 01:36 AM**

Been using Crunchie for a bit now and loving it. Kudos and thanks.

I've been suffering from unsynched audio/video in the final video. Originals _appear_ to be ok. Starting and stopping the final video during playback or searching forward/backward seems to resynch things. Its an understatement to say I know eff all about what Crunchie is doing but I'd like to change that. How do I go about sorting the audio synch issue myself and where do I look for modifying settings? Also, are there "default" settings that I can return to once I've throughly screwed everything up?

Should I pay any attention to the settings in DVRMSToolbox or ffdshow? Should I only concern myself with the settings in the Crunchie ini file? Where do I start?

PJ

arkay · **18th December 2005, 10:54 AM**

PJ,

Crunchie itself doesn't have any issue with audio sync. These are caused on playback. The usualy cause is a lack of CPU power. If you have been encoding videos with the double rate deinterlace I would uncheck that and try again. Files encoded this way require a fair bit of CPU grunt to play back.

Returning to defaults is as easy as loading the GUI and clicking defaults

Have you got Rollup Update 2 installed?

Cheers,
Arkay.

PJ_Major · **18th December 2005, 07:41 PM**

I'm running a 3.2GHz HT enabled CPU with UR2 installed. The one thing that may influence this is the tv tuner I've installed. It's a Pinnacle 40i. Not the greatest but it works fairly reliably.

I do have the double deinterlace enabled. Will untick it and try it again.

BTW, how do I modify the options in DVRMSToolbox so that when Crunchie runs it will chop out the commercials during the conversion to AVI?

Thanks.

PJ

arkay · **19th December 2005, 01:57 PM**

PJ,

Ok. Was in a bit of a hurry when I wrote the last reponse so I should cliarify it a little.

Crunchie as a general rule will not introduce and audio sync issues. I certainly haven't seen it but I only use Crunchie with Digital Recordings and only without RU2 installed.

It sounds like the card you have is analog. This could be the cuase of your audio problems..

To check you can run DVRMSToolbox manually and convert on of your dvr-ms files to mpeg. PLaying back that mpeg should tell you if you have a problem at that point.

I don't think with that CPU you will have any problems with double rate deinterlacing. I'd turn it back on.

As for automated Ad-removal you can't do this with Crunchie at present. The commskip program used for ad-detection was never reliable when I first wrote Crunchie so I removed it's use as an option.

Maybe Crunchie v2.0 will see it re-introduced.

You can still do it manually if you would like to try. Just use DVRMSToolbox to convert your shows (with ads removed) and saved as mpeg files. You can then point Crunchie at the directory containing the mpg files and it will process and convert them to xvid.

Crunchie will work with dvr-ms and native mpg files.

Cheers,
Arkay.

PJ_Major · **19th December 2005, 04:00 PM**

As near as I can tell, the audio desynch difficulty seems to occur during playback.

Ok, that sounds a bit more stupid than usual. Maybe it would be better to say that the desync appears to occur at some stage during playback. I suspect the ffdshow audio filter may be the cause of the problem. Where can I go to learn more about this particular program and it's options? Specifically how to turn off the audio decoder during playback.

PJ

arkay · **19th December 2005, 04:23 PM**

Ok. You can turn off the audio codecs during playback but I don't know if it will catch all entries.

If you want to try it have a look in Start->Programs->ffdshow->Audio codec configuration (or something like that).

The easiest (and gauranteed) way though is to completely uninstall ffdshow, download the latest version and re-install it.

When you get to the audio section of the install make sure you uncheck all formats. That way ffdshow won't try and do any of it for you and the standard codecs will be used.

Cheers,
Arkay.

PJ_Major · **20th December 2005, 02:33 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by arkay

When you get to the audio section of the install make sure you uncheck all formats. That way ffdshow won't try and do any of it for you and the standard codecs will be used.

Sweeeet! Thanks a million!

PJ

arkay · **20th December 2005, 06:38 AM**

Did it work?

PJ_Major · **20th December 2005, 03:50 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by arkay

Did it work?

Not sure yet. I uninstalled ffdshow and reinstalled it unchecking all the audio stuff. Tried playing an avi and had no sound.... Uninstalled again and reinstalled ffdshow unchecking audio and video checkboxes (figuring those checkboxes were used only for decoding). No audio on avi playback.

Thanks to GSpot I quickly realized I had not AC3 filter installed. Did that and got audio. Started up Crunchie and two dvrms files were found. First conversion failed. Second in progress. Gonna stop it, uninstall and then reinstall ffdshow with the video options checked then try recoding.

Contrary to to most folks, I seem to learn the most by doing everything wrong first. Will report results once I get it rolling.

PJ_Major · **20th December 2005, 04:21 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by arkay

Did it work?

Ok, I've finally sort out ffdshow and my AC3 filters. Those are all working as they should.

Re-ran Crunchie and it ID'd two videos to convert. The first one failed and the second one is under way. So, the first time around the failure may not have been related to my mis-installation of the ffdshow filters. I suspect there may be a problem with the recording itself, how do I go about determining that?

As an interesting side note, one of my recordings last week did something unusual.... After recording exactly 20 minutes of video, the computer closed out the file and started a second file. So, my one episode of Top Gear recorded in two files: one was 20 minutes long and the other was 45 minutes long. Any idea what would cause such behavior?

PJ

arkay · **20th December 2005, 07:08 PM**

Ok.

1. ffdshow has nothing to do with the actual encoding of video that Crunchie is doing.

2. The dvr-ms file IS probably corrupt and won't convert. You can try and convert it to mpeg manually by running DVRMStompeggui.exe in your DVRMSToolbox install folder. If that fails then it will be a corrupt file.
Let me know if you need to be talked through it. Then again, if the second file works then you'll know it isn't a problem with Crunchie or DVRMSToolbox.

3. No idea. Maybe it was in the guide as two separate entries which is why it recorded as two separate files?

Cheers,
Arkay

PJ_Major · **21st December 2005, 04:36 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by arkay

1. ffdshow has nothing to do with the actual encoding of video that Crunchie is doing.

2. The dvr-ms file IS probably corrupt and won't convert. You can try and convert it to mpeg manually by running DVRMStompeggui.exe in your DVRMSToolbox install folder. If that fails then it will be a corrupt file.

3. No idea. Maybe it was in the guide as two separate entries which is why it recorded as two separate files?

Finished up running Crunchie and almost all worked splendidly. No audio synch issues. Seems that the ffdshow audio filter may have been the cause.

First video still doesn't convert. I ran DVRMStompeggui and it converted to mpeg. Will try Crunchie on the mpeg file to see what comes out.

Edit: Crunchie failed on converting the mpeg file to avi. Not sure but I think the error in the original file probably did not get cleaned up.

I'm clueless about the third item as well. Your thought is better than most so I'll accept that as an answer until then next best idea traipses along the road.

Thanks.

PJ