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

[phredeaux]

Originally Posted by dgaust

I'm a similar issue with h.264 encoding using Beta 2. It's showing the codec error, but it is showing the video in WMP and not the sound. It's also not cutting out the adverts.

Using ffdshow and ac3filter as my codecs.

Not sure what's happening at the moment.

What version of FFDShow are you using? Have you tried it without acfilter and just FFDSHow? I've managed to reproduce issues with XVid which are being fixed for BETA3, but have had no issues with H.264 to date at all, so this is something I'd like to nail.

[dgaust]

It was an older version ffdshow-rev1325_20070701. I did use it with 1.0.3 with no problems. I just rebuilt my system (or more like it built a new one)

I just noticed that there is a newer version released a couple of days ago, so I will give that one a shot tomorrow and post back here.

[phredeaux]

Originally Posted by dgaust

It was an older version ffdshow-rev1325_20070701. I did use it with 1.0.3 with no problems. I just rebuilt my system (or more like it built a new one)

I just noticed that there is a newer version released a couple of days ago, so I will give that one a shot tomorrow and post back here.

Let me know how you go. It's a monster of an MCE box you have there. Should make short work of the conversions.

[wdric]

First use of MCEbuddy beta 2

Windows xp (MCEbuddy machine)
ffdshow_rev610_20061201
Plays H264 video with no sound
Plays WMV file OK
Have used H264 files produced with staxrip & fairuse with no problems plus various other files off the net

MCE2005
ffdshow_rev610_20061201
Will not play H264 files, stutters on file info screen
Have used H264 files produced with staxrip & fairuse with no problems plus various other files off the net

ric

[psyklops]

Hi Derek,

Great effort with MCEbuddy.

Beta1 worked like a charm with no issues

Loving the tweakable mencoder profiles as well.

One thing, on the pass-1 you may want to 'NUL' the output so that it doesn't write the movie file on the first pass.

I use comskip as well and can send you a tweaked comskip.ini file which has very good commercial detection for melb tv stations.

For example, my old bat file looked like :

mencoder -profile x264-avi-pass1 -o NUL %1

[psyklops]

Originally Posted by wdric

First use of MCEbuddy beta 2

Windows xp (MCEbuddy machine)
ffdshow_rev610_20061201
Plays H264 video with no sound
Plays WMV file OK
Have used H264 files produced with staxrip & fairuse with no problems plus various other files off the net

MCE2005
ffdshow_rev610_20061201
Will not play H264 files, stutters on file info screen
Have used H264 files produced with staxrip & fairuse with no problems plus various other files off the net

ric

wdric, I would highly recommend updating your ffdshow.
http://www.free-codecs.com/FFDShow_download.htm

Previous versions of ffdshow (and other decoders) were very stringent on decoding h264 files. previous versions had issues unless it was muxed into an mp4 container and/or was apple quicktime format encoded. Also some could only accept h264 'baseline' profile which was quite stringent on the parameters you could use for the encode. mencoder supports using them, but the quality isn't as good unless you start tweaking the options.

[wdric]

Originally Posted by psyklops

wdric, I would highly recommend updating your ffdshow.
http://www.free-codecs.com/FFDShow_download.htm

Previous versions of ffdshow (and other decoders) were very stringent on decoding h264 files. previous versions had issues unless it was muxed into an mp4 container and/or was apple quicktime format encoded. Also some could only accept h264 'baseline' profile which was quite stringent on the parameters you could use for the encode. mencoder supports using them, but the quality isn't as good unless you start tweaking the options.

Thanks will try this.
All the h264 stuff i've done were in a mp4 container

[phredeaux]

Originally Posted by psyklops

Hi Derek,

Great effort with MCEbuddy.

Beta1 worked like a charm with no issues

Loving the tweakable mencoder profiles as well.

One thing, on the pass-1 you may want to 'NUL' the output so that it doesn't write the movie file on the first pass.

I use comskip as well and can send you a tweaked comskip.ini file which has very good commercial detection for melb tv stations.

For example, my old bat file looked like :

mencoder -profile x264-avi-pass1 -o NUL %1

Thanks, I'll see if I can get the NUL into BETA3.

[phredeaux]

Originally Posted by psyklops

wdric, I would highly recommend updating your ffdshow.
http://www.free-codecs.com/FFDShow_download.htm

Previous versions of ffdshow (and other decoders) were very stringent on decoding h264 files. previous versions had issues unless it was muxed into an mp4 container and/or was apple quicktime format encoded. Also some could only accept h264 'baseline' profile which was quite stringent on the parameters you could use for the encode. mencoder supports using them, but the quality isn't as good unless you start tweaking the options.

Originally Posted by wdric

Thanks will try this.
All the h264 stuff i've done were in a mp4 container

Thanks psyklops, I might have to change the installation to make the latest version of FFMPEG strongly recommended or even madatory, as most of the playback issues people have found have been like this. I wonder if there is someone running FFMPEG that I should talk to about bundling it with the MCEBuddy installation to further reduce complexity for people. I've been avoiding this path as it means I'd have to keep the codec pack up to date with the MCEBuddy build, but as I already do that with the MENCODER and FFMPEG builds it might be OK. What does everyone think? Is this worth pursuing?

Cheers

Derek

[phredeaux]

Originally Posted by psyklops

Hi Derek,

Great effort with MCEbuddy.

Beta1 worked like a charm with no issues

Loving the tweakable mencoder profiles as well.

One thing, on the pass-1 you may want to 'NUL' the output so that it doesn't write the movie file on the first pass.

I use comskip as well and can send you a tweaked comskip.ini file which has very good commercial detection for melb tv stations.

For example, my old bat file looked like :

mencoder -profile x264-avi-pass1 -o NUL %1

Please eMail through the INI, that would be great.

[psyklops]

Originally Posted by phredeaux

Please eMail through the INI, that would be great.

Just sent through the comskip.ini file.

I find it very good in detecting ads in movies and I suspect it's more to do with the version of comskip rather than the ini. There's almost a monthly release of the exe file with updated parameters for the ini. However, I've had very good success with this ini file and would be interested in other peoples mileage with it.

Also, you may want to have a look at this is the 0.79.99 version:

Changes in 0.79.99

- Changed the Zoomplayer chapter file to use seconds instead of frame numbers to solve alignment problem with digital broadcast
- The default ini file now disables the heuristics as results are too broadcast dependend. Enable with care
- Added the .vdr output format defined by the Linux Video Disk Recorder software and used by XBMC to autoskip commercials. Enable by setting output_vdr=1 in the ini file.

Changes in 0.79.98

- Removed the enable_mencoder_pts=1 setting and instead introduced the output_edlp=1 setting enable generating a pts based mencoder file
- Added a parameter logo_filter=0, default is disable. Set to the size of the filter to apply to improve unreliable logo recognition. Setting logo_filter=4 often solves most problems

I've not used the mencoder output edl file, but this may help you for mcebuddy.

comskip:
http://www.kaashoek.com/comskip/files/

[FredZ]

Originally Posted by phredeaux

-Reposted by request-

Hello all,
I'm looking for testers for an MCE video conversion assistant (free GPL).

I've made several download & install attempts. The installation fails at the end with

"The installation has encountered and unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate an error with the package. The error code is 2869"

AFAIK this may have to do with a lack of permissions. <tongue_in_cheek>Is there another user level above administrator I can use?</tongue_in_cheek>

Thanks