AutoXvid.exe info here and your thoughts please?

[tvshowman]

Hi,

Ever wonder how people on peer-to-peer networks squeeze a super high quality video movie into 700mb? They use a program called Gordian Knot.

Gordian Knot is an advanced integrated package tool for the entire process of DVD to DivX or XviD encoding. Supports AVI, OGM and MKV container formats. No longer updated,

It is very complicated as you can tell by reading this tutorial.

Fortunately someone named len0x created a GUI to make the whole process of compressing videos to DivX or Xvid in the simplest way ever. This program is called AutoGK.

Auto Gordian Knot simplifies the DVD to AVI/DivX/XviD conversion process for people new to Gordian Knot and overwhelmed by the vast options. It also supports other MPEG2 sources, such as HDTV, DVB captures and transport streams. New in version 2+: AVI, DV, DivX, XviD input.

Now the magic to make those clear small video files and of this program is to use the "2 pass encoding" setting and this can only be obtained by selecting the "specify your desired output file size" setting. If you encode using the "quality" then it only uses one pass and the video is larger and blocky in my opinion. I use 800meg for about an hour and a half movie and maybe a two hour movie max. This produces those wonderful super small video files that appear to have retained the high resolution of the original dvd recording at a considerable smaller file size (350meg an hour). My mce500 can create 5 gig files for a one and a half hour movie which is nuts. So this program is perfect to use on the files you want to archive. These programs only work with offline files so in other words it CAN'T record and compress your live video in real time as you are recording it.

Only offline files... Files you already finished recording. ok? k..

Now the problem using AutoGK and PVRX2 is.....

YOU CAN'T!

"len0x" has chosen to exclude any command line switches in AutoGK due to the fact that he wants people to use the program and not make it a baseline for others to exploit...

Without command line switches i'm afraid it becomes apparent that the only way to use AutoGK is to close PVRX2 and grab a mouse and manually enter each file you want to encode to encode it in 2 passes.

It turns out that one of our members here (leecole) has written a program that takes advantage of both Gordian Knot and AutoGK and can be run using a command line batch such as "PostProcessing.bat" and the settings are stored in the .ini file

Brilliant.

It turns out that leecole loves GBPVR and had actually made his program compatible with GBPVR and it's database.

This program is called "AutoXvid" and I have been playing with it for a bit and it is great!

Just read here what it can do!!

Code:

[SIZE=4] Author:[/SIZE] leecole@bigfoot.com
Short Description: Hands off Commercial removal and Xvid encoding
Long Description: Works with Beyond TV, MediaPC, and GBPVR. Supports tp, mpg,
and dvr-ms input.  MediaPC (dvr-ms input) require commercial cut with VideoReDo, to remove the dvr.

* AutoUpdate of lastest version of AutoXvid modules.

* Supports French Windows XP

* Hands off AutoGK encoding to either xVid or Divx of all recordings done by Beyond TV or GBPVR, and all MediaPC recordings that are not copy protected. The encoding job is queued to AutoGK immediately when the MPEG2 recording is completed by Beyond TV, GBPVR, or MediaPC. No copying to another folder, no human intervention required.

* Controls hours of execution for AutoGK. To avoid cpu contention, you may set AutoGK hours of execution.

* Moves AutoGK work files and work directorys out of Beyond TV's folders

* Cleanup of AutoGK work directorys and work files

* Supports many different commercial cut packages.
MPG
VideoReDo            Must be purchased
Comskip            freeware
Comskip and VideoRedo    VideoReDo must be purchased
ComSkip and ProjectX    freeware
IGCutter            freeware

dvr-ms
VideoReDo            Must be purchased

tp
HDTV2Mpeg2            freeware
VideoReDo            Must be purchased
Comskip and VideoRedo    VideoReDo must be purchased

* If, in Beyond TV, you have MPEG2 DVD quality recordings done by a Hauppauge PVR 250 then all ecessary registry setting are done to give you subtitle support in Hauppauge drivers, WinTV32, and WinTV200 applications. In WinTv application Click Preferences and select Closed Captioning.
Note: changes to device drivers require a reboot before they take effect.

* Episode Data is retrieved from Beyond TV for the MPEG2 recording, then when AutoGK has finished encoding the AVI, the Episode data is imported back into Beyond TV for the AVI recording. Includes stars and Episode Description.  For GBPVR,
GBPVR maintains MetaData in a SQL data base.  For MediaPC, all MetaData is kept in Extended File Attributes. My Watch program will save these in a SeriesName.ini with a section named for the {Episode].

* If IGCutter package is installed, will support using BTV Smart Chapters to cut commercials then encode the _cut.mpg to AVI. see: http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/showthread.php?t=23017

* Voice announcement of failures or success of job

* In Beyond TV, for versions of Beyond TV that support Closed Captions, turns on Closed Captions for the user.

* Create subdirectories for AVIs by Genre, Title, or Genre/Title.

* Delete source MPEG2 file on completion if you desire.

* If, in Beyond TV, you use SmartChapters for your MPEG2 recordings. AutoXvid will wait upon completion of SmartChapters, before deleteing any files, and export the SmartChapters to the AVI recording.

* You may "burn" subtitles into the AVI AutoGK.

* Easy to read, and understand AutoXvid.ini file. For times, use 24 hour clock, or 12 hour clock with pm or am, or keywords like Immediate, Noon, Midnight. For switch setting you may use 1 or 0, or Yes and No.

* In case of power failure while AutoGK is encoding, all unfinished jobs are automaticlly requed to AutoGK whenever you power the system back up.

* A run log may be maintained, if you desire.

When I use this program I can compress my huge 5 - 8 gig videos to a mere 750 megs automatically using PostProcess.bat

I can't believe there are only 4 posts about AutoXvid here so that is why I created this thread.

Anyone use it and what problems are you having? I hope with enough input we can learn how to use this properly.

"note that AutoXvid can be installed to work with MediaPC, or with GBPVR.
For GBPVR all that is required, is in GBPVR folder, create a PostProcessing.bat with the following line in it.
"Drive:\Path_to_AutoXvid\AutoXvid.exe" %1"

"My personal favorite id GBPVR. It is free and is full of features that aren't in Beyond TV, or MediaPC. It can be daunting to configure though."

"My neighbor later switched to GB-PVR and I wrote a program for him that would import the cut and re-encoded avi into GB-PVR and read the ini and set that info into the GB-PVR DB3 database. If you ever decide to do something like that, then you may also want my import program."

I want your import program lee!

But don't know where to find it

Lee was last here in 2007

link to AutoXvid here
.
Someone post here your thoughts and troubles and resolutions about this program so we can try to learn more about it.

Cheers!

[gazoo]

I understand the post was regarding using an automated tie in into gbpvr using autogk.

However, it doesn't get any easier than this program: http://www.pocketdivxencoder.net/

for doing it manually. I believe it may be a bit older, but very much easier.

[Deusxmachina]

There might only be a few posts here about it because AutoGK is no longer developed, (although it's still good at what it was always good at), and because of things like Stattik always updating his Mencoder script.

TVshowman, didn't you write the big how-to for setting up the ATI Avivo encoder to work automatically with GBPVR? Had problems with that or something? Hmm, or maybe I'm remembering wrong and it wasn't automated.

[carpeVideo]

You could use mencoder command line two pass with Xvid which given the same settings should give you the same results.

mencoder -o movie.avi \\
-oac mp3lame \\
-ovc lavc \\
-lavcopts \\
vcodec=mpeg4:mbd=1:vqmax=10:lmax=10:keyint=130:vpass=1:turbo \\
-sid 3 -aid 130 \\
-vf scale=720:405,expand=720:576:0:25:1 \\
-spuaa 4

second pass, change "vpass=1:turbo" to "vpass=2".

[tvshowman]

TVshowman, didn't you write the big how-to for setting up the ATI Avivo encoder to work automatically with GBPVR? Had problems with that or something? Hmm, or maybe I'm remembering wrong and it wasn't automated.

Yes I did. AVIVO quality was ok but still high file size and i am trying get the best results so one movie would be about 800megs at the best quality possible. that was only achieved through two pass encoding which AVIVO did not do.

carpeVideo: Thanks for posting that! I love learning and that's why i try out all these crazy things and it gives me new routes to discover unique things.

So I just load that in PostProcessing.bat and it is good to go?

I was having problems with autoxvid when it came down to my recorded files. how it works for two pass is you have 2 choices. 1 - filesize exact say 800megs. or filesize percentage like 30%. The problem I had with that in batches is with half hour shows hour shows and hour and a hlaf movies. I can select 800m for movies and be happy but with batch it will take my half hour shows or hour show and they will all be 800m each. If I set autoxvid to percent of file I would still get huge files beecause 30% of a one hour or half hour 3gig recording is still1 gig lol.

I am trying to get the perfect script that will squeeze the hell out of movie based off of length.

with 2 pass encoding.

so a 30 minute show would be 250megs, one hour would be 500 megs and 2 hours would be 1 gig. That would be awesome if it's one automated script to work with all my recordings that produced the same quality as autogk 2 pass mode.

I can't wait to try your script.

If i can squeeze to 1 gig per movie that would be 480 movies on my 500 gig versus the 70 I can fit now

:p

Cheers

[tvshowman]

You could use mencoder command line two pass with Xvid which given the same settings should give you the same results.

thanks for your help

I could not get it to do anything....

mencoder -o movie.avi -oac mp3lame -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:mbd=1:vqmax=10:lmax=10:keyint=130:vpa ss=1:turbo -sid 3 -aid 130 -vf scale=720:405,expand=720:576:0:25:1 -spuaa 4

mencoder -o movie.avi -oac mp3lame -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:mbd=1:vqmax=10:lmax=10:keyint=130:vpa ss=2:turbo -sid 3 -aid 130 -vf scale=720:405,expand=720:576:0:25:1 -spuaa 4


Is that correct?

thanks

[tvshowman]

help

been searching for hours on the web

what is wrong with this?

mencoder -o movie.avi -oac mp3lame -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:mbd=1:vqmax=10:lmax=10:keyint=130:vpa ss=1:turbo -sid 3 -aid 130 -vf scale=720:405,expand=720:576:0:25:1 -spuaa 4

mencoder -o movie.avi -oac mp3lame -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:mbd=1:vqmax=10:lmax=10:keyint=130:vpa ss=2:turbo -sid 3 -aid 130 -vf scale=720:405,expand=720:576:0:25:1 -spuaa 4

so many errors

please help

[carpeVideo]

That was just an example I grabbed since I am not at my home machine so YMMV - Try googling mencoder 2-pass xvid and finding a better option.

Also I believe stattik's batch files have a 2-pass option which has certainly been tested.

http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...06&page=60

[tvshowman]

Hi and thank you for your reply.

I spent hours searching Google and learning things about mencoder and as someone who knows nothing about mencoder and switches I did manage to figure out what was wrong with the string you posted.

Here is the string in the correct format and working for me.

Code:

mencoder movie.mpg -oac mp3lame -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:mbd=1:vqmax=10:lmax=10:keyint=130:vpass=1:turbo -sid 3 -aid 130 -vf scale=720:405,expand=720:576:0:25:1 -spuaa 4
mencoder movie.mpg -oac mp3lame -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:mbd=1:vqmax=10:lmax=10:keyint=130:vpass=2 -sid 3 -aid 130 -vf scale=720:405,expand=720:576:0:25:1 -spuaa 4  -o finally.avi

I would like to point out that the quality was ok but just took hours to do a movie and I think it was 9fps on my 3ghz machine... I tried all the optimized builds too ..

gazoo" thanks for that pocket divx recorder but it is more for a portable device and I got bad audio sync problems so it's uninstalled faster than adware.

I am making great progress with autoxvid and settled on a single pass quality setting of 50% and feel i'm getting close to where I can batch load 400 gigs of movies and walk away while it does it's job over days and I should free up 300 gigs of space.

I recorded the 10-commandments which is a little over four hours long and is a 12 gig file and I am compressing it to about 2.4 gigs which is a huge savings and the quality kicks ass on my 22inch Computer monitor

Should look great on my projector.

In regards to if I have used Stattik script...

I can never get it to work and it always stops computer errors of sorts. I drag a file to it and can never figure out how to get it to stop crashing and taking time. I tried it the first week when I discovered GBPVR and joined the forum and I try it again from time to time. It souns good and people have success. I wonder what the encoding stats are like

I think his batch file would be easier if it came with an .ini file you could configure just like autoxvid does.

one thing I learnt about mencoder is that it come with already configured files in it's directory that are called profiles and are awesome!

MEncoder will use ~/.mplayer/mencoder.conf.

inside that file is a bunch of great profiles and you can add even more.

a mencoder profile looks like this

[mpeg4-kickass]
profile-desc="MPEG4/MP3 encoding"
ovc=lavc=1
lavcopts=vcodec=mpeg4
oac=mp3lame=1

to run it use this command
mencoder input.mpg -profile mpeg4-kickass -o output.avi

but mencoder is slow..

need some tips and tricks for autoxvid

Cheers

[carpeVideo]

I see one issue you are encoding with mencoder using mpeg4 not xvid so that could slow it down - here is a string that does one pass xvid with no scaling as a start:

mencoder -sws 9 -lavdopts threads=1 -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=1024:me_quality=4:chroma_me:noqpel:chroma_opt:vhq=4:bvhq=1:trellis:hq_ac:quant_type=mpeg:turbo:threads=2:pass=1 -oac mp3lame -af volnorm -lameopts mode=2:cbr:br=128 -vf decimate=2:1000:1600:.001, -fps 60000/1001 -ofps 24000/1001 -o test.avi %1

Here are all the options: (part 1)

xvidenc (−xvidencopts)
There are three modes available: constant bitrate (CBR), fixed quantizer and two pass.
pass=<1|2>
Specify the pass in two pass mode.
turbo (two pass only)
Dramatically speeds up pass one using faster algorithms and disabling CPU-intensive options. This will probably reduce global PSNR a little bit and change individual frame type and PSNR a little bit more.
bitrate=<value> (CBR or two pass mode)
Sets the bitrate to be used in kbits/second if <16000 or in bits/second if >16000. If <value> is negative, Xvid will use its absolute value as the target size (in kBytes) of the video and compute the associated bitrate automagically (default: 687 kbits/s).
fixed_quant=<1−31>
Switch to fixed quantizer mode and specify the quantizer to be used.
zones=<zone0>[/<zone1>[/...]] (CBR or two pass mode)
User specified quality for specific parts (ending, credits, ...). Each zone is <start-frame>,<mode>,<value> where <mode> may be
q Constant quantizer override, where value=<2.0−31.0> represents the quantizer value.
w Ratecontrol weight override, where value=<0.01−2.00> represents the quality correction in %.
EXAMPLE:
zones=90000,q,20
Encodes all frames starting with frame 90000 at constant quantizer 20.
zones=0,w,0.1/10001,w,1.0/90000,q,20
Encode frames 0−10000 at 10% bitrate, encode frames 90000 up to the end at constant quantizer 20. Note that the second zone is needed to delimit the first zone, as without it everything up until frame 89999 would be encoded at 10% bitrate.
me_quality=<0−6>
This option controls the motion estimation subsystem. The higher the value, the more precise the estimation should be (default: 6). The more precise the motion estimation is, the more bits can be saved. Precision is gained at the expense of CPU time so decrease this setting if you need realtime encoding.
(no)qpel
MPEG-4 uses a half pixel precision for its motion search by default. The standard proposes a mode where encoders are allowed to use quarter pixel precision. This option usually results in a sharper image. Unfortunately it has a great impact on bitrate and sometimes the higher bitrate use will prevent it from giving a better image quality at a fixed bitrate. It is better to test with and without this option and see whether it is worth activating.
(no)gmc
Enable Global Motion Compensation, which makes Xvid generate special frames (GMC-frames) which are well suited for Pan/Zoom/ Rotating images. Whether or not the use of this option will save bits is highly dependent on the source material.
(no)trellis
Trellis Quantization is a kind of adaptive quantization method that saves bits by modifying quantized coefficients to make them more compressible by the entropy encoder. Its impact on quality is good, and if VHQ uses too much CPU for you, this setting can be a good alternative to save a few bits (and gain quality at fixed bitrate) at a lesser cost than with VHQ (default: on).
(no)cartoon
Activate this if your encoded sequence is an anime/cartoon. It modifies some Xvid internal thresholds so Xvid takes better decisions on frame types and motion vectors for flat looking cartoons.
(no)chroma_me
The usual motion estimation algorithm uses only the luminance information to find the best motion vector. However for some video material, using the chroma planes can help find better vectors. This setting toggles the use of chroma planes for motion estimation (default: on).
(no)chroma_opt
Enable a chroma optimizer prefilter. It will do some extra magic on color information to minimize the stepped-stairs effect on edges. It will improve quality at the cost of encoding speed. It reduces PSNR by nature, as the mathematical deviation to the original picture will get bigger, but the subjective image quality will raise. Since it works with color information, you might want to turn it off when encoding in grayscale.
(no)hq_ac
Activates high-quality prediction of AC coefficients for intra frames from neighbor blocks (default: on).
vhq=<0−4>
The motion search algorithm is based on a search in the usual color domain and tries to find a motion vector that minimizes the difference between the reference frame and the encoded frame. With this setting activated, Xvid will also use the frequency domain (DCT) to search for a motion vector that minimizes not only the spatial difference but also the encoding length of the block. Fastest to slowest:
0 off
1 mode decision (inter/intra MB) (default)
2 limited search
3 medium search
4 wide search
(no)lumi_mask
Adaptive quantization allows the macroblock quantizers to vary inside each frame. This is a ’psychosensory’ setting that is supposed to make use of the fact that the human eye tends to notice fewer details in very bright and very dark parts of the picture. It compresses those areas more strongly than medium ones, which will save bits that can be spent again on other frames, raising overall subjective quality and possibly reducing PSNR.
(no)grayscale
Make Xvid discard chroma planes so the encoded video is grayscale only. Note that this does not speed up encoding, it just prevents chroma data from being written in the last stage of encoding.
(no)interlacing
Encode the fields of interlaced video material. Turn this option on for interlaced content.
NOTE: Should you rescale the video, you would need an interlace-aware resizer, which you can activate with −vf scale=<width>:<height>:1.
min_iquant=<0−31>
minimum I-frame quantizer (default: 2)
max_iquant=<0−31>
maximum I-frame quantizer (default: 31)
min_pquant=<0−31>
minimum P-frame quantizer (default: 2)
max_pquant=<0−31>
maximum P-frame quantizer (default: 31)
min_bquant=<0−31>
minimum B-frame quantizer (default: 2)
max_bquant=<0−31>
maximum B-frame quantizer (default: 31)
min_key_interval=<value> (two pass only)
minimum interval between keyframes (default: 0)
max_key_interval=<value>
maximum interval between keyframes (default: 10*fps)
quant_type=<h263|mpeg>
Sets the type of quantizer to use. For high bitrates, you will find that MPEG quantization preserves more detail. For low bitrates, the smoothing of H.263 will give you less block noise. When using custom matrices, MPEG quantization must be used.
quant_intra_matrix=<filename>
Load a custom intra matrix file. You can build such a file with xvid4conf’s matrix editor.
quant_inter_matrix=<filename>
Load a custom inter matrix file. You can build such a file with xvid4conf’s matrix editor.
keyframe_boost=<0−1000> (two pass mode only)
Shift some bits from the pool for other frame types to intra frames, thus improving keyframe quality. This amount is an extra percentage, so a value of 10 will give your keyframes 10% more bits than normal (default: 0).
kfthreshold=<value> (two pass mode only)
Works together with kfreduction. Determines the minimum distance below which you consider that two frames are considered consecutive and treated differently according to kfreduction (default: 10).
kfreduction=<0−100> (two pass mode only)
The above two settings can be used to adjust the size of keyframes that you consider too close to the first (in a row). kfthreshold sets the range in which keyframes are reduced, and kfreduction determines the bitrate reduction they get. The last I-frame will get treated normally (default: 30).
max_bframes=<0−4>
Maximum number of B-frames to put between I/P-frames (default: 2).
bquant_ratio=<0−1000>
quantizer ratio between B- and non-B-frames, 150=1.50 (default: 150)
bquant_offset=<−1000−1000>
quantizer offset between B- and non-B-frames, 100=1.00 (default: 100)
bf_threshold=<−255−255>
This setting allows you to specify what priority to place on the use of B-frames. The higher the value, the higher the probability of B-frames being used (default: 0). Do not forget that B-frames usually have a higher quantizer, and therefore aggressive production of B-frames may cause worse visual quality.
(no)closed_gop
This option tells Xvid to close every GOP (Group Of Pictures bounded by two I-frames), which makes GOPs independent from each other. This just implies that the last frame of the GOP is either a P-frame or a N-frame but not a B-frame. It is usually a good idea to turn this option on (default: on).
(no)packed
This option is meant to solve frame-order issues when encoding to container formats like AVI that cannot cope with out-of-order frames. In practice, most decoders (both software and hardware) are able to deal with frame-order themselves, and may get confused when this option is turned on, so you can safely leave if off, unless you really know what you are doing.
WARNING: This will generate an illegal bitstream, and will not be decodable by ISO-MPEG-4 decoders except DivX/libavcodec/ Xvid.
WARNING: This will also store a fake DivX version in the file so the bug autodetection of some decoders might be confused.