VFR for Fansub Encoders - how, why, WTF?

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by Harukalover

Okay that really should say save instead of open...

Correct, but the top of the dialog says (in big friendly letters): "Select an output file for this filter to use", so I thought it was pretty obvious. :P Still, the original post DOES have rather a sketchy description of how to do this...

Anyway, you seem to have a pretty screwed DirectShow enviroment. For WMV, neither AC3filter nor ffdshow should be loading at all - you can and should delete them from the graph. The fact that they're autoloading at all indicates that there's probably something wrong with their settings. That or graphedit is broken. Try finding another version, they float around teh intarwebs...

[Harukalover]

Got it to work by deleting those other filters. (Meaning AC3 filter and the ffdshow Audio decoder.)

Also by what I meant it should say save I didn't mean this guide. When using the Haali Filter it asks you to "open" a file. Makes me think I need to open some previous file not make a new one.

Thanks for the help TheFluff and Quarkboy.

[TheFluff]

No problems, but I guess I should rewrite that section to recommend using Haali's dsmux.exe instead of GraphEdit. It's probably easier and less error-prone...

[Sylf]

I just came across a situation where I couldn't play h.264 encode normally.

PC: Athlon XP 2400+, 768MB, 64MB VRAM
Player : MPC
Decoder : ffdshow
Video : Something I just finished encoding, as a release candidate

Reason : VFR, with one section being in 60 fps.

With the rise of awareness in VFR possibility and all, and after realizing this ending credit roll was in 60fps, I encoded in 60fps without thinking much... Yeah, 60fps 400p video is just as bad as 24fps 720p. The video played just fine with CoreAVC, with 100% CPU usage.

My lesson of the day... I need to be careful with VFR in the future... >.>;

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by Sylf

I just came across a situation where I couldn't play h.264 encode normally.

PC: Athlon XP 2400+, 768MB, 64MB VRAM
Player : MPC
Decoder : ffdshow
Video : Something I just finished encoding, as a release candidate

Reason : VFR, with one section being in 60 fps.

With the rise of awareness in VFR possibility and all, and after realizing this ending credit roll was in 60fps, I encoded in 60fps without thinking much... Yeah, 60fps 400p video is just as bad as 24fps 720p. The video played just fine with CoreAVC, with 100% CPU usage.

My lesson of the day... I need to be careful with VFR in the future... >.>;

I've encountered this before myself (not with something _I_ was encoding, but with something I was qcing...) In anime, the only things that might end up being "60" fps (i.e. TRUE 29.97 interlaced NTSC) is sections like credit roll or the occaisional horizontal "emergancy message" scroll (earthquake warnings, special giveaway stuff etc...).

I personally see absolutely no reason to strain the processing power of someone's machine just to make these sections marginally smoother, I'd always restrict anime vfr encodes to a maximum of 29.97 fps.... However sometimes this can be a pain to implement (e.g. tdecimate mode 6's output needs to be adjusted manually for those sections).

[TheFluff]

(restating what Quarkboy said, mostly) Yes, the 60fps sections are kind of evil. But since nothing really is 60 FRAMES per second anyway (60 fields yes, 60 frames no), it's usually safe to decimate those sections by two, and add some evil filtering to get rid of the interlacing artefacts.

[jfs]

Originally Posted by TheFluff

it's usually safe to decimate those sections by two, and add some evil filtering to get rid of the interlacing artefacts.

The question is, what kind of filtering is good for this?
I've had some sections like that before, and for what I've seen, Japanese scrolling-up credits are produced in a horrible, almost unfilterable way. First, the credits are rendered to field 1, then they're shifted up by some amount, which might be 1.3 pixel or so, then rendered to field 2. then shifted up again, rendered to field 3 etc etc.
Furthermore, the font used often seems to be rather "blocky"/low quality, so OCR'ing the credits and simply re-doing isn't an (easy) option either.

I realise this is getting a bit off-topic, but do anyway have a good way of filtering these credits so it doesn't look bad? (Pick one field and duplicate it doesn't count, that does look bad.)

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by jfs

The question is, what kind of filtering is good for this?
I've had some sections like that before, and for what I've seen, Japanese scrolling-up credits are produced in a horrible, almost unfilterable way. First, the credits are rendered to field 1, then they're shifted up by some amount, which might be 1.3 pixel or so, then rendered to field 2. then shifted up again, rendered to field 3 etc etc.
Furthermore, the font used often seems to be rather "blocky"/low quality, so OCR'ing the credits and simply re-doing isn't an (easy) option either.

I realise this is getting a bit off-topic, but do anyway have a good way of filtering these credits so it doesn't look bad? (Pick one field and duplicate it doesn't count, that does look bad.)

The only filter I know that can resonably deal with jagged edges in an intelligent way is tisophate, only of tritical's filters. It helps, but can only do so much.

You can, of course, simply blur the hell out of it. Or alternately, you could warpsharp the hell out of it and THEN blur the hell out of it . Who cares if the kanji is readable?

[ffdshow]

I would like to know a little more of VFR in mp4/mkv:

if the original video has 70001 frames:
second key frame at 100
last keyframe at 77700

How can I verify the total number of frames and key frames positions in an x264 in mkv/mp4? It's to verify if the v2 timecode matchs

[[darkfire]]

I having trouble with tc2mp4 is there a certain version of mp4box i need. I musing the May build. is that too old. I could update if thats the prob. (I will update) When i run the prog it doesnt do anything. Is there a more recent version of tc2mp4 that i dont know about.

[Zero1]

It would be useful if you could elaborate on what sort of trouble.

Anyway, tc2mp4 can be found here: http://rapidshare.de/files/22887498/...60613.rar.html

Recent MP4box compiles can be found here: http://ffdshow.faireal.net/mirror/gpac/dev/

(Only need mp4box.7z)

Other than that, there shouldn't be any special requirements. MP4box has done NHML for as long as I know, and all tc2mp4 does is create an NHML file from the MKV timecode.

Check you timecode file isn't fubar also.

[Sylf]

I guess a copy of the exact command line used to use tc2mp4, along with timecode file contents, etc might be useful.

[[darkfire]]

tc2mp4 -i negima.mp4 -t negima.txt -o negimavfr.mp4

I get no output it.
the timecode file was made with avi2tc i tried a v1 and v2 nothing works. Am i doing somthing wrong.

Edit: zero1 forgot to metion the pass for the rar. doom9.org for all interested

[Sylf]

Do you get any output? (error messages if any)
And what does the content of negima.txt look like exactly?

[[darkfire]]

I got no error messages no output at all. the time code I don't remember off the top of my head.

#timecode format v1
{timecode}
{total number of frames}

something like that.

[Sylf]

No, I need the actual content of timecode and total number of frames, etc.

[Lej]

Originally Posted by Zero1

Anyway, tc2mp4 can be found here: http://rapidshare.de/files/22887498/...60613.rar.html

So what's the password for this rar?

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by Lej

So what's the password for this rar?

forums.doom9.org, or www.doom9.org, if I recall.

[Sylf]

Originally Posted by Lej

So what's the password for this rar?

The password is "doom9.org" (without the quotes)

[Zero1]

Originally Posted by [darkfire]

tc2mp4 -i negima.mp4 -t negima.txt -o negimavfr.mp4

I get no output it.
the timecode file was made with avi2tc i tried a v1 and v2 nothing works. Am i doing somthing wrong.

Edit: zero1 forgot to metion the pass for the rar. doom9.org for all interested

Where are your files located? That command will only work if mp4box, tc2mp4, negima.mp4 and negima.txt are in the same directory.

Also what can you tell us about the mp4? Is it being output directly from x264, or are you outputting raw, muxing to mp4 and then running tc2mp4?

Another thing to try is to dump the mp4 in mkvmerge, add the timecode file and mux it. See if it muxes and works correctly and displays the correct duration.

Also, I assume you are using H.264, and not ASP (XviD)?