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AVS to AVI , PLEASE MAKE THIS HAPPEN FINALLY

79 posts

EL-VIS2#
This is amazing!!!

Tested versions of unconed and times2.

Unconed:
As you stated there's the 16-color-problem with the uncompressed mode. Compressed modes work fine but too slow since I need a higher-res to use it in my video-works. Nonetheless I might speed it up later in my video-software.

times2:
Uncompressed works perfect and fast enough. I do full vhs-video-res with pixeldoubling. I'm working with FAST-DV and Adobe-Premiere and the imported AVS-avis look sooo cool when blending them together with other video-tracks. Only bug to mention is a one-pixel-border at the bottom of the avi but this could be easily cut off in Premiere.

Thank you both for this great work. Waited for such a thing a long time. Up to now I played out the Fullscreen-AVS to VHS-tape via an external VGA-TV-Converter and then recorded it to my DV-camcorder and then used my Fast-DV to get it back on PC. Quality was very good but it is a lot of work.
times2#
thanks elvis...

yeah i get that 1-pixel border too, do you get it with unconed's plugin?

weird one that.

what kind of vids are u making..?

that computer>>vhs>>dv>>computer stuff is a pain, i tried stuff like that before and found the quality was never acceptable... it kinda goes fuzzy and also you get horizontal banding from lack of frame sync....
UnConeD#
AVSGrabber 1.1

I released a new version of AVSGrabber.

Bugfixes:
- The ugly 16-color-bug is now gone.
- The browse button would sometimes fail to work if you had already entered a filename.
- The status-field now works

New:
- Added a 'raw' mode that rips ultra-fast. The slowdown is reduced to an absolute minimum, but the resulting AVI might not be compatible with every program.

Get it from http://avs.acko.net/
Feedback is always welcome, either on this forum, the acko forum or by email.
EL-VIS2#
Now tested both grabbers (not the latest version of unconed) together with adobe-premiere:

- It seems that pixeldoubling makes no sense since the grabbed AVI seems to have always the "original" res. Good results for video I got from a 400x300pix-window which is speedy enough on my system.

- Some codecs/framerates worked not with premiere resulting in stocking or no playback at all or strange behaviour of the clip.

- times2 grabber works allright with 25fps but drops a lot of frames and has got this pixels at the bottom of the avi. Also the uncompressed filesizes are giant. Reducing the framerate to avoid dropped frames worked not allright with premiere (strange behaviour) but perhaps I've got to change some settings on the clip in premiere to fix this.

- Best results I got from unconeds grabber with Intel Indeo 3.2 codec at 25fps. Filesizes are cool, speed and quality were allright and the clip worked perfect with premiere. So I think this will be my fav so far.
Montana#
unconed>> thanks for improving your grabber
now i can rip to DivX in 30 fps
and it doen't slowdown so much
ZeroZero#
thnx TIMES

Thnx Times

I needed this tool very much, I dreamed about, and u were the first, although buggy. I used ur version 1 in a VJ production which I gonna show friday night. I put together some real kick ass video in premiere (very buggy under XP..) as intro for a theaterfestival. I used avi's and bmp's in avs and I could export on 512 x 384 on most vizs. (amd 1200 512mb raid 0 geforce gts2) I also took ur advice and used Virtual Dub (kewl app!) with wich I converted the buggy avi's to usable avi's. Also respect to UnConeD who also makes great presets.

Greetings
Kojak, Netherlands 😁
times2#
a release

OK I've made a minor bugfix to my saver .ape

It now no longer corrupts the bottom line (stupid oversight!)

And theres a couple of tiny performance enhancements.

I'm calling this version 1.0-



enjoy!

T
Senencito#
ok i really do hate to ask this, but i am a newbie at this, how do i get this ape to work, i really have tried searching, but i have not found anything, please help
Yathosho#
very cool unconed!

got any suggestion how to sync the avi with the mp3 (in VirtualDub for instance)? would be cool to have a divx with visuals and audio!
UnConeD#
I've been thinking about coupling it with a DSP plug-in that captures synchronised audio. Haven't tried anything yet, but I'm going to do some more APE-stuff once I'm finished with my current exams :P
chiggerlazer#
OK, weird idea. I only thought of this because Windows Media Encoder does the same thing. If APE's can make calls to any arbitrary DLL, then this will work.

As soon as you start reading frames with the APE, have it start a process in a DLL that captures the audio via the soundcard WaveIn feature. This is analog and probably sounds like a cheap fix, but the advantage is that you could capture anything Winamp is playing if the correct recording source is selected (CD, WAV, MP3, MIDI...)

The only problem here is latency involving WaveIn and the fact that the frame grabber will have to somehow get the recorded audio from the DLL once it becomes available. Sounds like fun (you know, the kind of fun that usually happens after the frustration part).

Another neat feature this could add is the use of ACM's to encode and compress audio data, or leave it PCM.
times2#
apes, syncing

.ape files go in the avs folder.

syncing avis to music, i've had success here by putting in an effect that visibly reacts to sound- for instance a 'simple' oscilloscope- which will make a discernable pattern the instant you press 'play'. you then have a visible marker to place the beginning of your sound track to in premiere. (don't think virtualdub can do this). of course you may not want this effect at the beginning of your sequence. so you can either blank the beginning of the output movie (and turn off the osc as fast as possible) or else make up a version of your soundtrack with a dummy section at the BEGINNING.

t
UnConeD#
WaveIn

Not all soundcards supports recording of its own output. Not to mention that's it's pretty silly to have it go through the card first. A DSP plugin provides you with first-class access, plus it integrates with Winamp. It's probably the best solution.
Yathosho#
unconed: is realtime rendering required? for an avi of avs with sound it wouldn't required to run in realtime i think, question is, if that's possible on the technical side.

btw: i'm yathosho (http://yathosho.deviantart.com)
yodhe#
Thanx UnConeD and Times2

I was sitting here, just wondering over the last few days how to do that avs-avi thingy and lo and behold two wonderful fluffy people up with a similar solution (I am reminded here of the Theory of Evolution and menes!!!), THANKYOU.
Basically I wanted it, as I use my own 3D animations through the avs as a live filter beat match unit/channel. But now I can grab these and slap them back onto the 3D objects, rerender the animations, put them back through the avs, and hey presto, even more fractal psychedelic imagery to help bend peoples heads at parties. Cheers again folks, and respect.
On a side I have had a few problems with playback speeds using avi's in the avs, and wondered if anyone else had any problems. I can get a reasonable frame rate with 320*240 stuff, which is alright for TV, but as I am starting to use data projectors at gigs (yes I am a VJ-sic sic sic) I wanted to take advantage of the higher resolution capacity. I have found even with 1+ Ghz computers with all the add-ons such as Matrox cards 512 ram and stuff, with any avi's higher than this (such as 640*480) the frame rate drops to an unacceptable level-5/6fps. Normally I need 15-20fps, similar to TV, as this is the "speed" at which it becomes possible to "fool" one's visual cortex, and also insert additional subliminal content. Has anyone had any greater success at finding perhaps the right combination? Or do I have to write an new avi player APE.
Lots of love, light, levity and a little liminality

P.s. I also am doing Free Video CD of my work, check out www.TranceVisuals.com if you are interested, and send me an email and I will post one out to you.
UnConeD#
The basic reply is "It's AVS, AVS is slow, deal with it." 🙂.

If you search around the forum, you'll find numerous questions from people with shiny new systems wondering why AVS won't perform better on their system.

Because it's 100% CPU based *and* performs way more complex stuff than your average 3D card, you won't get any resolution close to what most people expect these days. Nothing to do about it, other than learn how to simplify and optimize presets, so you squeeze out the most FPS.

Perhaps upscaling a 400x300 picture can still lead to acceptable results?
Player 1#
Have you tried using the Disk Writer Output plugin?

UnConeD: I would like to put an image into avs and stretch it to a shape shown below.

   ______
 .'           '.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

The reason I ask this is because I want to make an avs prest that looks like Super Mario Kart which was on the snes.
UnConeD#
Diskwriter outputs as fast as it can, so you'd never get a synchronised audio-track. Plus I'm thinking about something that's easier to use and synchronises with my AVSGrabber automatically.
I will try this in a week or two, but not now due to lack of time. Maybe times2 can try it with his.

As far as your mario-kart thing is concerned, I doubt it'll work. The image is way too large and rendering it in AVS will reduce the resolution a lot. And if you want to do a convincing mario kart effect, you'll have to make a 3D planar projection along with a camera that follows and aligns itself to the track. Not so easy.
Montana#
why does evry1 want visuals+sound, i just use the grabber 2 preview some shit and if i want sound to it i use a app i have.
times2#
sound

montana: still coming across like a 12 year old!

the reason I want to record sound is to be able to make a record of sound-reacting visuals. if I was to put some arbitrary sound on, the visuals wouldn't be reacting with the sound, would they? or what do you use AVS for? looking at your mommas holiday snaps?

unconeD: I have been doing some experiments with both grabbers, would I be correct in saying that your plugin writes consecutive frames to the avi file without considering when they were grabbed? or how does your 'sync with avs' feature work? I've found that my plugin syncs better when the music is dubbed back on.

I think to make an automatic grab-the-sound-as-well system, There needs to be a custom WINAMP plugin which is in communication with the .ape program. The problem is, what kind of plugin? If its an output plugin, I think you won't be able to hear the sound unless it also handles that itself..? Unless another class of plugin (general purpose?) can get access to the sound data?

I know external programs can communicate with apes (as PPs visfrac does this) but I don't know how to go about this. And I won't have time to look into it for another week or so...

For now I'm happy with the results I'm getting by putting in an effect that allows me to easily identify when the sound started and then dub it on afterwards.

BTW: another tip for anyone who's doing this. If you're recording typical quarter-screen AVS movies (say 320x240 or 352x288) and then blowing them up for output to fullscreen video (either in software usinf virtualdub etc OR in hardware using your graphics cards fullscreen overlay) they look A LOT better if you save them uncompressed when small, and blow them up BEFORE compressing them with indeo, mpeg or divX etc. This is because compressed files store pixel data in YUV411, YUV420 or similar formats, effectively meaning that the resolution of the colour information is HALVED or QUARTERED. So you're better off blowing up first, otherwise the colour signal of your movie is effectively only 160x120 or less and you get very blurry edges on high-contrast coloured shapes.

BTW another tip: mpeg4 v3 is by far the best quality codec in a given amount of data, that i've seen.

PS UnconeD: hows the exams going?

T
Montana#
times2: u call me a 12-year old, what's up with that?

i grab the visual (while reacting 2 music)
and then i add the song on the avi with a little app i have
UnConeD#
(offtopic)
Montana:
Hate to make this personal, but in another thread (AVS vs. Milkdrop) you found it necessary to talk about '3D shit' and 'u MD'ers' as well.
Writing texts like that makes you look like a 12-year old.

Most people who want to have an interesting discussion take the time to write out full sentences with correct grammar. And not 'talk shit lik dis 2 so they soundz wayy l33t'. It's got nothing to do with being snobby, but just simple communication skills. No-one is forcing you to change your typing habits, but don't complain if it affects someone else's view on you.

Not to mention the fact that your two last posts to this thread said exactly the same, aside from the comment on times2 observation. He also didn't say you were a 12-year old, he said you came across as a 12-year old.
(/offtopic)


Now on to the actual useful discussion. AVSGrabber doesn't drop frames... how exactly does your grabber achieve this? Does it have a separate AVI saving thread that runs alongside render() and just fetches the current data when it's done with an old frame? I didn't really bother since the AVI saver slows down your PC in general, so AVS as well. Does it make a difference?

As far as 'Sync with AVS' is considered, I thought the UI was pretty clear on that though: It only applies to the playback rate (FPS)... if it's checked, the FPS will automatically be synchronized with AVS so you don't have to enter it manually.
Montana#
[offtopic]
i'm sick & tired of y'all dissin' my way of typing, i wite like this all the time, i can write in perfect sentences but i only do that in my english class (i got a A+ in english). ok i use a lot of of profanity, but hey, that's me, ignore me if you don't like me

i am 18 not 12 in any sence,
i say it in english to you for the last time.
do i make my point clear?
[/offtopic]
times2#
so montana: what part of harlem are you from, anyway?

seriously though. i'd be interested to know how well your 'previewed shit' syncs with the sound you've dubbed with the 'app i have'. because as far as i can tell, it couldn't.

unconed: the way i'm saving the avi is, first i check if avs is onto a new frame (based on the framerate chosen). then i'm saving the new frame with the framenumber based on when it was grabbed, not just consecutively. so the frame displays at the right time, although its possible to drop frames if you choose too high a rate (which is how it should be)...

T
UnConeD#
(different discussion)
Montana: Oh come on... typing kewlz language that y'all be dissin' cos yer 2 kewl has got to be harder than typing normally. Why not prove you have more language skills than a peanut and type like everyone else? Do you think that writing like that will make hollow comments and useless posts sound any more interesting? Of course, dropping the act would prove my point, and we'd all have a good laugh at your expense. Again, you don't have to change, as long as you'll just accept our comments on your rediculous language use, which you don't. You're acting like a 12-year old 🙂
PS: Want to guess *my* age?
(/different discussion)


unconed: the way i'm saving the avi is, first i check if avs is onto a new frame (based on the framerate chosen). then i'm saving the new frame with the framenumber based on when it was grabbed, not just consecutively. so the frame displays at the right time, although its possible to drop frames if you choose too high a rate (which is how it should be)...
So you increase the value of the framecount (2nd parameter to AVIStreamWrite) so that it corresponds with the actual FPS rather than the set FPS? I didn't really

hey dude u mean u like
Montana#
times2: for crying out loud do this:
first take a cool preset,
grab the preset to avi (while music playing),
then take a song and convert it 2 wav and
use virtualdub and add the wavfile on the video,
that's simple.

[offtopic]
Montana38 aka Antanios Masud aka Tony Montana aka Superugly
is born & raised in Sodertalje, Sweden
[offtopic]
sub1zero#
Re: AVS to AVI , PLEASE MAKE THIS HAPPEN FINALLY

Originally posted by ZeroZero
Me2 wanna record AVS to AVI, directly. Now I use Hypercam, but the quality is not very good, although I have fast 'puter and raid 0 hdd's. Come on u kewl nerds make this one (I read AVS-grabber or whatever) finally. THNX 😛

why wouldanyone want to do this in the first place
UnConeD#
why wouldanyone want to do this in the first place
Umm... let's see...

Number of downloads:
avsgrabber.zip 115

If you take times2's grabber into account as well, that would be about 230 downloads.

Ask those 230 people 🙂
times2#
unconeD: was your mail trunctated?

I invoke 'AVIStreamWrite' with the 'lStart' parameter set to the frame number that the frame should be played at rather than just numbering them sequentially. which is the only way to make it sync.


montana: so your secret is to lower your standards until you've already met them! its obvious from your description that the nearest you could sync it would be the time it would take from you pressing 'play' in winamp to pressing 'save' in grabber.... as vdub cannot seperately trim inpoin ts on video vs. audio.... so i ask you again. did the movie you made looked synced?