meguIV: The Official Akiba-Online DVD Encoder (v1.0.1.1)

[no__One]

/JoKing ON

Placebo... :thief:

/JoKing OFF

If I may, I hope Mr.Vitreous will hold it against me ... ...:scared:

If you choose slow or very slow (preferably 60 frames per second to increased fluidity), you would get a resulat to meet your expectations.


If you need faster encoding, choose a profile less binding but of course, you will lose in precision and quality.
Regards.

 

[Vitreous]

Any recommended settings for a quality 60fps DVD rip ?
Are the default settings already good enough ? For previous version I use "60fps D: Slow + Light EdgeClean".

The default settings on the new version are very similar to "60fps D:Slow" on the previous version: this is already a good quality / speed balance for a DVD and is considered a high quality rip on this site (you can put [HQ] on your posts). So you can just leave things as they are (I am trying to keep it "One-Click", even though I am adding lots of options). Notice the "[HQ]" box on the "Custom Processing" tab. It goes green when your settings are good.

If you want improvements try these alternatives:
- Add Preset="Slower" [a bit slower]
- Use a higher x264 quality setting on the "Encoder Config" tab [slower, increases file size]
- SourceMatch=2, Sharpness=0.4 (or anywhere from 0.1 to 0.5) [much slower, needs good source]
- Preset="Slower", SourceMatch=2, Boost=On, Sharpness=0.1 to 0.5, Remove/Retain Noise=+0.4 to +0.6 [my typical settings, needs good source, very slow]

To deal with problems:
- For haloing in the source (strong dark outlines) or ghosts at the edges, enable Edge Clean. I have defaulted this to off because these problems seem to be reduced in newer DVDs.
- For a noisy source, use a negative value for "Remove/Retain Noise", the value to choose depends on Noise Preset and the amount of noise, so experiment (anywhere from 1.0 to 4.0 to 10 to 40...). Or set "Smoothing" to 2 or 3.

For other resolutions:
- 1080p content only needs Preset="Super Fast" or better to be considered [HQ].
- Low resolution content (including DVDs that need a lot of auto-cropping) should use higher quality settings (from the list above) and 360p x264 settings.

 

[Vitreous]

meguIVit 1.0.0 beta-3

Here is the latest beta of meguIVit:

Download meguIVit 1.0.0 beta-3
There was a problem in the first version I uploaded, please redownload if you got this earlier [thanks biku!]

Installation:
- Download meguIV from the first post in this thread
- [IMPORTANT] Delete any already existing "Sandbox" folder in the same folder as meguIV
- Extract the meguIVit zip file, which creates a new "Sandbox" folder
- Run meguIV (which is now transformed into meguIVit)

Usage
See this quick pictorial guide for the first beta. The interface has changed a little in places, but it's still mostly the same.

Problems
A few issues that affect some users have been worked out since release, please follow the tips in this post if you have problems. Also one user needed to install and run version 0.2.1 first, then without deleting the sandbox extract this version over the top.
____

The changes that I can remember:
- Fixed the bug that caused crashes with a ".inc" file in some countries
- Fixed the MP4 muxing bug

- General improvements to robustness and automation with different sources

- Changed the resolution controls completely on the "Advanced Config" tab. These controls let you output at a different resolution, e.g. to output a 720p version of a 1080p Blu-ray
- Added "Switch Parity" to the same tab. Will fix sources that become very jumpy after deinterlacing.
- Added a lot more x264 presets, for 24/25fps, 50fps and 360p sources.
- Many more tooltips: hover over most things for info on what they do.

____

I guess I haven't been clear about quality settings in meguIVit 1.0. There are many, many more options and I have removed the A,B,C,D... settings, so what to choose...?

I have tried to keep the "One-Click" concept. When you drag a source into the first one-click window it automatically selects settings for high quality double rate deinterlacing. It chooses the fastest settings that are still considered [HQ] for your source (I've extended the [HQ] concept to other resolutions). That means for most 60fps (or 50fps) deinterlacing jobs, you can just press "Go" and the result will be good. You can confirm whether your settings are HQ on the "Custom Processing" tab, there is a [HQ] box that goes green when your settings are good.

The myriad options are for repairing bad rips or improving poor sources, particular cropping or resizing requirements, ultra high quality or faster settings, adjusting threading for performance/stability and just general tweaking. When I finalize this version 1.0 (soon now), I will post a range of use case examples: ripping a DVD, ripping a Blu-ray, fixing up a poor rip etc. etc.

 

[Biku]

Working fine now, thanks Vitreous.

 

[hofct]

Thanks for the update.....Rollyco and you have created the best mp4 encoding package....k:

The UI text is pretty tight in my environment, which I didn't found in the pre-1.00 meguivIt
View attachment 438142

Note I have change display to 120DPI in windows display driver
View attachment 438143

Would much appreciated if it can be solved (the text are still read able though)

 

[isityours]

there are a lot more settings and therefore a lot more text/boxes compared to earlier versions.

Note I have change display to 120DPI in windows display driver

then put it back to 100% scaling. that is the reason its messed up.

Would much appreciated if it can be solved (the text are still read able though)

no. appreciate all you want but why would you even think that an adjustment like that is necessary? and who would take the time to do that, just for you? i just adjusted my dpi to 120 and it fucked up my display of that tab too. unless i am missing something.....

 

[Vitreous]

I agree that it's a bit tight in there. I wanted to keep the GUI as similar as possible to original MeGUI because that makes following MeGUI updates easier. However, I will have some more settings to add eventually so I will increase the One-Click window size later.

 

[lilgurlsrfun]

Thanks!!! Works fine so far, had no bugs so far. Just gonna have to play around to figure out the best quality/filesize balance. Tips are welcome

 

[Vitreous]

Tips are welcome

Tips on this page and the last still hold. Your black bordered CD vid is 360p so needs very HQ settings. I suggest my defaults (slow):
- Preset="Slower", SourceMatch=2, Boost=On, Sharpness=0.1 to 0.5 (to your preference), Remove/Retain Noise=+0.4 to +0.6 (this retains fine detail)
- Can drop the Remove/Retain Noise setting if your machine is slow.

Then choose a 360p 60fps x264 profile. That's important as the system will auto-select a 480p profile because it doesn't realize that there is such a large crop coming [I could pre-analyze the crop, but that's actually quite a lot of MeGUI recoding...]. The higher quality profiles are slower and give larger files. You decide how far you want to go on the quality...

Compare by running multiple versions at the same time. Maximize each (rather than full screen). Go to the same frame in each, then switch between to see the exact differences. This is much clearer than running one after another or side by side.

 

[SamKook]

I was wondering if there was a way to trim a dvd using meguIVit. For example, removing the ads at the end or encoding the extras in a different file.

Also, the chapters on some of my dvd's don't get extracted right. Is there a manual way of doing this or some way to fix it?

 

[Vitreous]

I was wondering if there was a way to trim a dvd using meguIVit. For example, removing the ads at the end or encoding the extras in a different file.

Yes, the latest meguIVit allows you to set the Start and End frame of the section to rip. I intend to allow multiple trims and a built in visual preview later, for now it's a little manual but still very easy:
- In the main meguIVit window (before you press One-Click), go to the menus, "Tools>>File Indexer".
- Drop in the first VOB of the DVD section you're ripping (the one ending in '1', usually 'VTS_01_1.VOB')
- Press "Queue". When the process finishes, scan through the vid and note down the start and end frames you want (the "Current position" number in the preview window title or press "Go to frame")
- Quit these windows and go to One-Click as normal. Enter your start and end frames into the "Custom Processing" tab. The rest is as usual.

You can of course do trimming after the encode instead. For example if you encode MKVs then MKVMerge can do it.

Also, the chapters on some of my dvd's don't get extracted right. Is there a manual way of doing this or some way to fix it?

This is a bit trickier. A typical problem is that the chapter points don't include ads at the start. So it says the first chapter starts at 0:00, but it actually starts at say 14:25, after the ads.

You can get round this manually in meguIVit, but it's not so tidy:
- In the main window (before One-Click), go to the menus "Tools>>Chapter Creator"

I added a "Menu Chapter" text box, which I use to offset the chapters so I can show the cover/DVD menus at the start. Can use this to correct offsets too.
- Browse to the IFO file of your DVD section (e.g. VTS_01_0.IFO, no drag and drop here)
- The chapter points will appear. Look to see how offset they are, for example if Chapter 1 is shown to start at 0:00:000, but you know it actually starts at 5:44:000, then it is 5 minutes 44 seconds too early.
- Need to convert that to milliseconds (timecode support is on my list of things to do). 5 minutes 44 seconds is 5x60 + 44 seconds = 344 seconds. x 1000 = 344000 milliseconds.
- Type that number (344000 in this case) into the menu chapter box.
- Browse and load the chapters again, they will now all be offset correctly.
- Save the chapters, make sure you type a '.txt' extension so they are saved in the correct format. Note that you can manually edit this file if you wish

During the One-Click process, there is a "Chapter file" box on the "Advanced Config" tab. Import your chapter file there.

The opposite problem occurs if you trim off the ads, but the chapters took account of them. Then you need the same offset, but negative. meguIVit will throw an error at you when you enter a negative number, but ignore it, it will work. Delete any chapters that have been trimmed (they will have negative offsets).

Sometimes the chapter editor just doesn't pick up the chapters correctly [it's not my code!]. Need to use a better chapter editor in that case. The most robust is ChapterXtractor. Save out in OGG format, which is what meguIVit will read in.

 

[SamKook]

Thanks for the help, I should be able to do what I want now.

The problem with the chapters was that there's a company logo at the begining tha'ts in a different title than the main movie and it was the only one loaded for the chaptors. ChapterXtractor fixed it.

Also, it takes me about 2 - 2 and a half days to encode 1 movie so trimming before encoding is much better.

 

[Rollyco]

I would recommend preprocessing your DVD with Vobblanker and/or PgcEdit. You can strip out cells and the resultant rip has perfect timecodes without having to do manual calculations. You can also merge and reorder chapters easily, if you happen to be dealing with an annoying multi-titleset DVD.

 

[SamKook]

Thanks, that look really useful. Especially for one DVD I want to rip that only loads file by file.

 

[Vitreous]

I never really looked at those before, VobBlanker is a much better approach if you only need to strip to cell boundaries. Shame the interface is so daunting, even though it's practically not very complex to use.

I have a DVD that takes the form of a role play with different paths. It has a hideous DVD structure, maybe one of these tools might finally make ripping it a possibility (but Matroska, when is menu support coming...?)

 

[hofct]

Thanks for the help, I should be able to do what I want now.

The problem with the chapters was that there's a company logo at the begining tha'ts in a different title than the main movie and it was the only one loaded for the chaptors. ChapterXtractor fixed it.

Also, it takes me about 2 - 2 and a half days to encode 1 movie so trimming before encoding is much better.

I also own a slow PC which took me 8-12 hours to encode a DVD....
I can save the processing time by trimming out the useless part then start the encoding.
My problem is I used TMPGEnc Xpress for trimming. It is time accurate, but the output file has been re-coded.

 

[hofct]

intend to allow multiple trims and a built in visual preview later....

That would be awesome...

 

[lilgurlsrfun]

Tips on this page and the last still hold. Your black bordered CD vid is 360p so needs very HQ settings. I suggest my defaults (slow):
- Preset="Slower", SourceMatch=2, Boost=On, Sharpness=0.1 to 0.5 (to your preference), Remove/Retain Noise=+0.4 to +0.6 (this retains fine detail)
- Can drop the Remove/Retain Noise setting if your machine is slow.

Then choose a 360p 60fps x264 profile. That's important as the system will auto-select a 480p profile because it doesn't realize that there is such a large crop coming [I could pre-analyze the crop, but that's actually quite a lot of MeGUI recoding...]. The higher quality profiles are slower and give larger files. You decide how far you want to go on the quality...

Compare by running multiple versions at the same time. Maximize each (rather than full screen). Go to the same frame in each, then switch between to see the exact differences. This is much clearer than running one after another or side by side.

I tried this with a wmv clip from cd and got this error->

I retried and went from the one click screen to select the profile, didn't change anything else but the +1 quality and that seems to work. Just thought i'd let you know this error for future updates.

 

[Vitreous]

This seems to be a meguIV packaging problem. The file "FFTW3.DLL" is in my zip file in the System folder where it should be (along with the related file "libfftw3f-3.dll"). They appear in the correct location when MeguIVit runs, but somehow they aren't found at runtime.

Rollyco, can system dlls be added to the Sandbox and be expected to work? Or is something else required. These dlls do not need to be registered, they just need to be on the path.

 

[no__One]

Mr.Vitreous,

I am currently doing some testing of MeguIVit 1.0.0 beta-3 and would like some clarification.
I spent some time on QuickTGMC v3.31 + meguIVit 0.2.1(+your Last QuickTGMC Plugin Pack) and I would like to find my bearings with this new version.
If I understand correctly:
- Boost is comparable to LossLess = 2
How to completely disable the setting "Smoothing"?

I already did some testing with the command "trim". I still have to make a full encoding to validate the strength of this version on my PC.

PS: For the parameter "Noise Processing" Remove (-) / Retain (+)", would it be possible to increase by a factor of +1 two and not as at present. (You can enter a value manually, but since the purpose of this release is to make it as ergonomic as possible ...)