AviSynth Discussion/Help/Information

[ZaCloud]

Heeeeya folks!

I think that since avisynth is such a powerful tool of awesome, that we ought to look into using it for our projects from now on.

But since it's so syntax and language-laden, it can be an epic quest each time you wanna find out what it can and can't do. Sometimes it's amazing what you can stumble opon. Sometimes you can't seem to find what you hope it can do, not even knowing if it can or not.

So we can share tricks and methods here, or ask for how to do certain things.

Where it comes from, avisynth.org , seems to be down as I type this, so I had to scavenger-hunt for things on my own. But keep checking there to see if it returns, it should have lotsa good basic functions.

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Here's a little something I came up with through three different webpages and a lot of trial-and-error experimentation...

How to put multiple clips together into one, while cutting out parts you don't need.

There's some basic syntax on this site:

www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/using_avisynth_page_7.cfm

But lots of it didn't seem to work right when I tried to combine multiple outside clips, or to trim from one clip before joining another.

What I was trying to do:

-I wanted to keep my current big Huffyuv encode of my Haruhi dance video.
-I wanted to trim off the current credit sequence and replace it with a new one to reflect the renamed video (which I haven't decided on so I was experimenting with an altogether separate clip)

Ok, easy enough to do in VirtualDub, just direct-stream-copy with only the main vid selected, make a new huffyuv file, then splice it with the new credits, no problem... Except...

-I didn't have the space for a new Huffyuv file.

Well damn. But yeah, many of you may also be in that situation, or just plain not want to make another big fat file. So, here's how to get out of it...

Define not one, but all involved files in one script.

AVISource("[DZX] - ZaCloud - I Ain't Marryin' No Friggin' Horse!!!.avi") + AVISource("credits.avi")

(with both files being in the same folder of course)

Define where you want each clip to end and begin... but treat it as if they're all one clip when you specify frames.

ClipOne=Trim(0,5180)
ClipTwo=Trim(6100,0)
ClipOne + ClipTwo

The above takes my original, old-titled clip, skips the old credits, and goes right to the new credits, with 0 ending the sequence as a default for saying "just keep going till the clip is over"

So there we have it, all I have to export is my fixed credits, and I don't have to have another huge huffyuv of the original video itself. Saves lotsa space.

This took a lotta time and work to find out, but it's worth it if it can save everyone else time and work in the future. ^_^

[remixedcat]

sounds like a great program! Might be helpful for more silly "well met" type vids. even todays large capacity drives still cant keep up with people.

[AltruisticCrono]

For general reference, these are some of my AVS scripts (may add more to this post).

**Remember - They may or not apply to your AMV since manipulation of the footage is on an individual basis.

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Azumanga Daioh:
A touchy hybrid-interlaced encode on the slim pack edition. Trial and error found this to work the best.

mpeg2source("X:\...\D2V\Azu Disk 1.d2v",cpu=6)
tfm(d2v="X:\...\D2V\Azu Disk 1.d2v")
Decimate(mode=1, threshold=1.0)
LanczosResize(640,480)
#Deen("w3d",3,3,5)
#tweak(sat=1.2)
ConvertToRGB32()

This allows me to edit at 29.97 fps rather than the dreaded 23.976 that causes issue with Premiere. ConvertToRGB32() is important because the colorspace of editing software is natively RGB32 when the footage is YV12 (reverse the order when final encoding for additional filters). Tweak was not used until the final encode from Huffyuv to Xvid/H.264 to preserve colors.

The source is pretty clean and doesn't need much help to look good.

[AltruisticCrono]

OOooOOOkay... Here's a biggie:

MKVs and MP4s in VirtualDubMod

Through hell and back (no joke - System Restores and AMV Pack uninstalls/reinstalls later), I found a simple way to convert your evil formats that usually never worked before.

1. Download the plugin FFmpegSource 2.00 beta 5 here: Link
2. Unzip FFMS2.DLL and ffmsindex.exe to Windows\System32
3. Unzip FFMS2.DLL to C:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins
4. AND YOU'RE DONE!

Code for AVS file:

FFVideoSource("path to .mkv or .mp4")

(All the earlier documentation notes say to use FFmpegSource, but he changed it in the later releases, so I'm confused when or if you'll ever use the original command)

There is also FFAudioSource("path to audio"), but it hasn't worked for me thus far. If you can get it working, let me know. I'll just find other methods to demux / get the audio.