Vista: Looking for testers for MCE video conversion assistant (MCEBuddy free GPL)

[phredeaux]

MCEBuddy 1.0.5 has been released. Key features of 1.05 are:
- Vista 64 support
- Vista UAC support (UAC is now*not* turned off)
- Updated Comskip and ShowAnalyzer integration
- ShowAnalyzer defaults set
- Simultaneous file access faults fixed.

Download from http://www.mcebuddy.com

Thanks to the people who have provided these feature requests

Derek

[phredeaux]

Originally Posted by dgaust

One question I have, and forgive me if this is in there as I have set it and forgot it, but this may come into consideration with the recent additions you have made.

I ran the first version of the program over some DVR-MS files, the version before it made changes to showanalyser and higher qualities were available, and I would like to remove these conversions and re-run MCEBuddy on those files with my new settings.

I assume that the program takes note of which DVR-MS files it has already done encoding on and then doesn't do them again. Is there a way to reset this? Or force MCEBuddy to re-encode files already done.

But as it stands this program is brilliantly functional already, and while it works fine on my old Pentium D 805, I can't wait to install my Quad Core and see how quick it goes then

Just rename the converted file to something else and it should re-convert the original.
As for the Quad Core, I've run it against my dual processor dual core Opteron and its goes very nicely.

[phredeaux]

Originally Posted by yoavf

It works great for me...

Just a little note. The size of the configuration window is a little to high and doesn't fit the 800*600 resolution I got on my tv...

Other than that: Thanks!

Ahh. Good point. I knew there was a reason why I asked for help. It's now on the list.

Derek

[rushN]

Hi Derek

What a great app - just what I've been waiting for!

I have one suggestion...

...how about you add a "Donate" (eg: PayPal) link to your web site so that I (and many others, I'm sure) can provide you with a small thanks in appreciation for your work, and to perhaps enable you to enhance this excellent product in the future. I've given you rep points, but don't think this is enough.

Cheers

[arkay]

Hi Derek,

Congrats on what appears to be a very nice tool. Much of what I've wanted to do in crunchie you've already got running. I've had nothing but a lack of time/interest in updating Crunchie even though I've had the jelwood mencoder build (with source) for some time now.

Glad to see there are some other options about. Enjoy supporting it! For as long as it's enjoyable

Just curious though. What are you doing regarding deinterlacing? Are you using mencoder profiles so it's possible to modify them manually? What about number of passes etc?

Cheers,

Arkay.

[phredeaux]

Originally Posted by arkay

Hi Derek,

Congrats on what appears to be a very nice tool. Much of what I've wanted to do in crunchie you've already got running. I've had nothing but a lack of time/interest in updating Crunchie even though I've had the jelwood mencoder build (with source) for some time now.

Glad to see there are some other options about. Enjoy supporting it! For as long as it's enjoyable

Just curious though. What are you doing regarding deinterlacing? Are you using mencoder profiles so it's possible to modify them manually? What about number of passes etc?

Cheers,

Arkay.

Thanks Arkay, Cruchie is a pretty good app. I've used it happily for ages. For MCEBuddy I've tried to keep the scope and options well within the 80/20 rule, so thus far I have tried to keep the options to a minimum. I figure that if people want to work the technical angle, they are better off using DVRMSToolbox and Crunchie. As for support that ties in as well, the more options and the more someone can mod it the harder the support is as the amount you control drops right off. I don't have a lot of spare time either, so I figured focusing on an end-user type application would produce the best result. So MCEBuddy has a mencoder build tied lock-step with the MCEBuddy build (so you won't have the MCEBuddy-Mencoder-Commercial skipper version matrix compatibility problem). Yes, you can actually change conversion parameters but I really don't want to open that can of worms as it will be a nightmare to support. I suspect/hope that once the remaining key features are built it won't need too much maintenance especially as it supports Vista and Vista 64 already. As long as it keeps doing just what its doing.
I'm not using mencoder profiles as it requires a subdirectory relative pathing that complicates things. Trying to keep things simple again, just trying to make it install and forget for your average punter. Lastly for multiple passes, I'd be curious to hear your opinion on this. I've done a lot of conversions with Xvid and some with H.264 single and multi pass didn't seem to produce that much benefit, especially if you factor in the increase in conversion time. It's not hard to put into MCEBuddy (in fact it was in there and I took it out before the 1.0 release for the conversion time reason). If you've found it makes a big difference to file size or picture quality (especially for H.264) let me know and what settings you used and I might put it back in.

Cheers

Derek

[psyklops]

Thanks for your great work on this!

I've been toying with mencoder and x264 encoding for quite a little bit under linux and it's very powerful and very techy

I've got some profiles which I use now and get great results. For example, I'm currently using the below mencoder profile on my linux box. I'm about to transfer this down to the MCE2005 machine after a bit more testing:

[x264avi-pass1]
profile-desc="H.264/AAC AVI - pass 1"
noskip=yes
af=volnorm=1
vf=pp=fd,scale=:-2,softskip,harddup
ovc=x264=yes
x264encopts=threads=auto:pass=1:bitrate=1000:keyint=25:bframes=3:b-pyramid:direct=auto:filter=-2,-1:no-psnr:no-ssim:subme=1:analyse=none:me=dia:merange=12:vbv-maxrate=25000:cqm=eqm_avc_hr.cfg
oac=copy=yes
passlogfile=x264avi.stat

[x264avi-pass2]
profile-desc="H.264/AAC AVI - pass 2"
noskip=yes
af=volnorm=1
vf=pp=fd,scale=:-2,softskip,harddup 
ovc=x264=yes 
x264encopts=threads=auto:pass=2:bitrate=1000:keyint=25:ref=3:bframes=3:b-pyramid:weightb:direct=auto:filter=-2,-1:analyse=all:8x8dct:vbv-maxrate=25000:merange=12:subme=6:me=umh:trellis=1:no-psnr:no-ssim:cqm=eqm_avc_hr.cfg 
oac=faac=yes 
faacopts=br=192:raw=yes:mpeg=4:tns=yes
passlogfile=x264avi.stat

This is a slow really high-quality H264 conversion that maintains the original size/aspect of the program and turns on most (if not all) of the x264 search and optimzation algorithms. The results are simply awesome and at a fraction of the size. The parametrs are based on Sharktooths (doom9.org) MeGUI profiles and I've also included in his quantization matrix. Results are great with the only downside being a slow encoding two pass process. The dual pass guarantees the bit-rate accuracy and optimises the size with almost unnoticeable loss in visual quality (or at least what's perceptible to my eye on a 46" Bravia X LCD).

I'm currently encoding it under linux at the moment and I've started using Celtic-Druid's mencoder build for MCE 2005. I did compile my own, but it's so overly tedious in Windows - much easier in Linux.

A couple of quick suggestions/requests:

• Loadable mencoder profiles?
• Batch Encoding?

[phredeaux]

Originally Posted by psyklops

Thanks for your great work on this!

I've been toying with mencoder and x264 encoding for quite a little bit under linux and it's very powerful and very techy

I've got some profiles which I use now and get great results. For example, I'm currently using the below mencoder profile on my linux box. I'm about to transfer this down to the MCE2005 machine after a bit more testing:

[x264avi-pass1]
profile-desc="H.264/AAC AVI - pass 1"
noskip=yes
af=volnorm=1
vf=pp=fd,scale=:-2,softskip,harddup
ovc=x264=yes
x264encopts=threads=auto:pass=1:bitrate=1000:keyint=25:bframes=3:b-pyramid:direct=auto:filter=-2,-1:no-psnr:no-ssim:subme=1:analyse=none:me=dia:merange=12:vbv-maxrate=25000:cqm=eqm_avc_hr.cfg
oac=copy=yes
passlogfile=x264avi.stat

[x264avi-pass2]
profile-desc="H.264/AAC AVI - pass 2"
noskip=yes
af=volnorm=1
vf=pp=fd,scale=:-2,softskip,harddup 
ovc=x264=yes 
x264encopts=threads=auto:pass=2:bitrate=1000:keyint=25:ref=3:bframes=3:b-pyramid:weightb:direct=auto:filter=-2,-1:analyse=all:8x8dct:vbv-maxrate=25000:merange=12:subme=6:me=umh:trellis=1:no-psnr:no-ssim:cqm=eqm_avc_hr.cfg 
oac=faac=yes 
faacopts=br=192:raw=yes:mpeg=4:tns=yes
passlogfile=x264avi.stat

This is a slow really high-quality H264 conversion that maintains the original size/aspect of the program and turns on most (if not all) of the x264 search and optimzation algorithms. The results are simply awesome and at a fraction of the size. The parametrs are based on Sharktooths (doom9.org) MeGUI profiles and I've also included in his quantization matrix. Results are great with the only downside being a slow encoding two pass process. The dual pass guarantees the bit-rate accuracy and optimises the size with almost unnoticeable loss in visual quality (or at least what's perceptible to my eye on a 46" Bravia X LCD).

I'm currently encoding it under linux at the moment and I've started using Celtic-Druid's mencoder build for MCE 2005. I did compile my own, but it's so overly tedious in Windows - much easier in Linux.

A couple of quick suggestions/requests:

• Loadable mencoder profiles?
• Batch Encoding?

Thanks, I'm working on this profile now. Do you have an updated quantization matrix .cfg? Mine's about a year old.

Derek

[psyklops]

Originally Posted by phredeaux

Thanks, I'm working on this profile now. Do you have an updated quantization matrix .cfg? Mine's about a year old.

Derek

Thanks for having a look at it!

The quant matrices I have are quite old but it looks as though they're been tweaked enough to meet the purposes they were intended for.

Here are what I'm using at the moment:
eqm_avc_hr.cfg (this is courtesy of sharktooth on doom9.org). it's a matrix designed for high bitrate conversions but I use it for pretty much everything with very acceptable results

INTRA4X4_LUMA =
 6, 9,13,19,
 9,14,20,27,
13,20,28,35,
19,27,35,42	

INTRA4X4_CHROMAU =
 6,10,15,20,
10,16,21,27,
15,21,28,33,
20,27,33,42	

INTRA4X4_CHROMAV =
 6,10,15,20,
10,16,21,27,
15,21,28,33,
20,27,33,42	

INTER4X4_LUMA =
 8,11,15,20,
11,16,21,27,
15,21,28,35,
20,27,35,42	

INTER4X4_CHROMAU =
 8,11,16,21,
11,17,22,27,
16,22,28,35,
21,27,35,42	

INTER4X4_CHROMAV =
 8,11,16,21,
11,17,22,27,
16,22,28,35,
21,27,35,42	

INTRA8X8_LUMA =
 6, 7, 8,10,12,14,16,18,
 7, 9,11,13,15,16,18,20,
 8,11,14,16,17,19,21,22,
10,13,16,18,20,22,24,26,
12,15,17,20,23,25,28,30,
14,16,19,22,25,29,34,38,
16,18,21,24,28,34,46,52,
18,20,22,26,30,38,52,72

INTER8X8_LUMA =
 8, 9,10,12,14,16,19,21,
 9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,
10,13,16,18,20,22,23,25,
12,15,18,21,23,24,26,32,
14,17,20,23,25,27,33,40,
16,19,22,24,27,34,41,52,
19,21,23,26,33,41,53,64,
21,23,25,32,40,52,64,80

This one is courtesy of *.mp4guy on doom9. Designed for medium bitrate conversions and is probably a more recent tweak. I'm going to start using this one for a while and see how it goes, but from all counts it has great results for it's intended purpose and bitrate.

INTRA4X4_LUMA =
10,10,20,30,
10,10,34,33,
20,34,52,76,
30,33,76,112

INTRA4X4_CHROMAU =
8,8,24,72,
8,8,41,144,
24,41,96,200,
72,144,200,255

INTRA4X4_CHROMAV =
8,8,24,72,
8,8,41,144,
24,41,96,200,
72,144,200,255

INTER4X4_LUMA =
10,18,20,20,
18,18,34,44,
20,34,52,76,
20,44,76,112

INTER4X4_CHROMAU =
16,22,22,22,
22,22,22,56,
22,22,72,96,
22,56,96,128

INTER4X4_CHROMAV =
16,22,22,22,
22,22,22,56,
22,22,72,96,
22,56,96,128

INTRA8X8_LUMA =
12,12,14,20,24,26,30,32,
12,12,15,22,24,27,30,36,
14,15,20,26,27,31,34,40,
20,22,26,30,35,38,40,46,
24,24,27,35,42,48,50,52,
26,27,31,38,48,56,60,64,
30,30,34,40,50,60,72,80,
32,36,40,46,52,64,80,96

INTER8X8_LUMA =
12,16,16,18,20,22,25,28,
16,16,17,20,20,23,26,28,
16,17,20,22,24,26,29,31,
18,20,22,25,28,31,33,38,
20,20,24,28,33,37,43,49,
22,23,26,31,37,46,56,65,
25,26,28,33,42,56,70,88,
28,28,31,38,49,65,88,115

For reference here is a Disney/Buena Vista quant matrix that was found on The Prestige Blu-ray DVD. There's comparisons of it over on doom9.org, but from all counts, there's no right or wrong. This Quant matrix appears to be very good for it's intended purpose and bitrate.

#Prestige CQM

INTRA4X4_LUMA =
6,7,10,16,
7,7,11,17,
10,11,12,20,
12,13,20,16

INTRA4X4_CHROMAU =
16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16

INTRA4X4_CHROMAV =
16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16

INTER4X4_LUMA =
10,13,28,41,
13,14,32,84,
28,32,41,111,
41,46,111,16

INTER4X4_CHROMAU =
16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16

INTER4X4_CHROMAV =
16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16

INTRA8X8_LUMA =
9,9,10,10,11,16,21,29,
9,9,10,10,11,16,21,29,
10,10,10,10,11,16,22,31,
10,10,10,11,11,17,23,33,
11,11,11,11,11,19,25,36,
12,12,13,13,14,20,27,40,
15,15,16,16,21,27,31,45,
20,20,21,22,36,40,45,16

INTER8X8_LUMA =
12,13,15,18,20,70,163,255,
13,13,16,18,20,72,170,255,
15,16,17,19,21,81,190,255,
18,18,19,21,23,96,228,255,
20,20,21,23,25,120,255,255,
33,34,36,39,45,32,255,255,
64,66,71,80,164,255,255,255,
151,155,169,192,255,255,255,10

[phredeaux]

Originally Posted by psyklops

Thanks for having a look at it!

The quant matrices I have are quite old but it looks as though they're been tweaked enough to meet the purposes they were intended for.

Thanks. That H.264 conversion went very well so it'll be in the next cut. Of you have any as effective for Xvid and WMV, please pass them along.
After trying in vain to resist it, the next major rev of MCEBuddy will support the use of Mencoder profiles. However, I would still like to distribute it with the most effective conversions by default, so please pass them along.

Cheers

Derek

[arkay]

Originally Posted by phredeaux

Lastly for multiple passes, I'd be curious to hear your opinion on this. I've done a lot of conversions with Xvid and some with H.264 single and multi pass didn't seem to produce that much benefit, especially if you factor in the increase in conversion time. It's not hard to put into MCEBuddy (in fact it was in there and I took it out before the 1.0 release for the conversion time reason). If you've found it makes a big difference to file size or picture quality (especially for H.264) let me know and what settings you used and I might put it back in.

Cheers

Derek

Hi Derek,

I think much of the answers towards all these issues comes down to the purpose of the encode in the first place. I've always maintained that true encoding needs to be done manually on a file by file basis for best results. You just can't get fantastic results working with generic profiles.

That being said though it's still possible to list generic reasons for encoding. If it's to save space but you want it done fast and aren't concerned with the resulting quality then single pass is likely fine.

On the other hand if you want perfect quality with the absolute best distribution of bitrate, or if you want to encode at best quality at a given filesize then it is definitely necessary to go the extra yards. In crunchie this consist of cropping the black off the image, deinterlacing and scaling with multiple passes to guarantee the best quality in the bitrate specified.

The unfortunate thing is that there is a tradeoff in terms of ease of support, ease of use and a technical nightmare that you can easily find yourself in when trying to auto detect video formats, whether progressive or interlaced, output aspect ratios etc etc.. Fortunately mencoder does much of these things for you but not all and the more options you put in to getting better encodes the more knowledge you assume from the end user. That's why I let people technically competent enough fiddle in the .ini file for crunchie and provided only a basic level of control in the GUI. Using mencoder profiles will do the same thing. Let the technical people fiddle while maintaining a simple interface that anyone can use.

I too tried to apply the kiss principal to Crunchie. Compared to many other encoders it is a set and forget prospect (right up until the issues in Australia with AC3 audio and DVRMSToolbox). Those issues are now resolved. I have a full design of what Crunchie v2.0 would look like in my head and it's a complex monster that still maintains the basic degree of knowledge from the end user. Just wish I had time/motivation to write it

At any rate if I ever do get around to it it doesn't hurt to have multiple tools about that do the same thing. DVRMSToolbox itself can do conversion straight to h.264/xvid etc now.

It's quite fun to write code and have people all around the world use it. But it also gets tiring Good luck with it

Cheers,

Arkay.

[phredeaux]

Originally Posted by arkay

Hi Derek,

I think much of the answers towards all these issues comes down to the purpose of the encode in the first place. I've always maintained that true encoding needs to be done manually on a file by file basis for best results. You just can't get fantastic results working with generic profiles.

That being said though it's still possible to list generic reasons for encoding. If it's to save space but you want it done fast and aren't concerned with the resulting quality then single pass is likely fine.

On the other hand if you want perfect quality with the absolute best distribution of bitrate, or if you want to encode at best quality at a given filesize then it is definitely necessary to go the extra yards. In crunchie this consist of cropping the black off the image, deinterlacing and scaling with multiple passes to guarantee the best quality in the bitrate specified.

The unfortunate thing is that there is a tradeoff in terms of ease of support, ease of use and a technical nightmare that you can easily find yourself in when trying to auto detect video formats, whether progressive or interlaced, output aspect ratios etc etc.. Fortunately mencoder does much of these things for you but not all and the more options you put in to getting better encodes the more knowledge you assume from the end user. That's why I let people technically competent enough fiddle in the .ini file for crunchie and provided only a basic level of control in the GUI. Using mencoder profiles will do the same thing. Let the technical people fiddle while maintaining a simple interface that anyone can use.

I too tried to apply the kiss principal to Crunchie. Compared to many other encoders it is a set and forget prospect (right up until the issues in Australia with AC3 audio and DVRMSToolbox). Those issues are now resolved. I have a full design of what Crunchie v2.0 would look like in my head and it's a complex monster that still maintains the basic degree of knowledge from the end user. Just wish I had time/motivation to write it

At any rate if I ever do get around to it it doesn't hurt to have multiple tools about that do the same thing. DVRMSToolbox itself can do conversion straight to h.264/xvid etc now.

It's quite fun to write code and have people all around the world use it. But it also gets tiring Good luck with it

Cheers,

Arkay.

Arkay, I agree with you on pretty well every point. In fact I've even caved on allowing people to tweak the app already. The resolve lasted approximately 7 days. Next rev supports mencoder profiles. So far I've managed to keep things within the 80/20 for the key functionality. Pretty much taking your Crunchie line and taking it another step further on the simplicity front. The trade off is fewer options and in some cases video quality. As you said, hand tuning is always going to win out over generic settings. Putting in the conf support (same as your ini) will hopefully ease some of the pain for the people who want it, though I'm not going to support anything but the provided conversion profiles. Again, if they want more flexibility I think Cruchie or raw DVRMSToolbox are the way to go.

Basically the goal with MCEBuddy is to save space, get as good quality as possible with generic conversion profiles and convert to the most common standard formats. And to do it simply. Anything beyond that is out of scope.

I'm working on the assumption that maintenance will get tiring (maintenance cycle normally does). So I'm keeping the 'nice to haves' to a minimum unless they come with the core functionality for each release. So far, the functionality for each release http://www.mcebuddy.com/MCEBuddyFutureVersions.htm hasn't changed significantly and I hope (perhaps in vain) it will continue that way. Just like the app, I hope to have it 'set and forget' once 2.0 is released and bedded down. 3.0 may not even happen as it's pretty time intensive.

Cheers

Derek