What happened to Ben Rudiak?

[Flying dutchman]

Ben Rudiak Gould, the famous author of Avisynth and HuffYuv, seems to have vanished from earth. Has anybody heard from him? Is he still alive?

[Dr Mordrid]

The last I heard from Ben was on 4/10/01. We were discussing AVISynth and why Ulead has their head *up there* when it comes to supporting open source programmers.

I do know he mentioned he was quite busy and was a bit frustrated at the low number of donations he was getting for HuffYUV, AVISynth etc.

Just in case anyone decides to send Ben something for the work he did on these programs here's his page on the how and why of donations;

http://www.math.berkeley.edu/~benrg/donations.html

Development of AVISynth is continuing at 2-3 sites around the net. One of the better ones is;

http://www.videotools.net

Dr. Mordrid

[Rick6612]

Hi Doc,

I actually sent him a donation using my PayPals account a few months ago. He still hasn't collected it.

Speaking of HuffYUV... I've been searching for some help using it, but so far haven't found anything. Maybe (most likely!) you know the answer...

I recently bought Ulead MSP 6.5 and I'm trying to make some VCD and SVCD discs with the DVD plug-in. I am capturing with HuffYUV using my Marvel G400 and the latest Matrox W2K drivers.

The problem I'm having is that the field order seems to be getting mixed up somewhere along the way - at least that's what I think is happening. Sometimes when there are fast horizontal movements in the video (such as a fast pan), the video seems to almost break apart into horizontal bars that are shifted offset from each other. Also, along the edges of things in the picture, you can see that it looks like the horizontal scan lines are out of order or something.

I tried using Field order B and I've tried setting the field options for the source video clips to "deinterlaced." Deinterlaced seems to eliminate the problem, but then the video no longer looks smooth during playback. Instead it looks almost like a very fast strobe light is flashing on the video or something.

I've also tried rendering my HuffYUV captured video to PIC Video MJPEG codec, and I have similar problems there. So I'm sure I've got some setting wrong, but I'm not sure what.

I'm using W2K, AVI_IO to capure, MSP 6.5 to edit, Marvel G400, 5.39 video driver, 2.04 video tools...

Do you know what the correct settings are to use with HuffYUV captured video?

Thanks,

Rick

[AmSci]

Originally posted by Rick6612

Sometimes when there are fast horizontal movements in the video (such as a fast pan), the video seems to almost break apart into horizontal bars that are shifted offset from each other. Also, along the edges of things in the picture, you can see that it looks like the horizontal scan lines are out of order or something.

Argh...my new 27 inch TV seems to do this. I have no idea whats wrong.

[Dr Mordrid]

Rick,

Let me get this right....
you're capturing field B HuffYUV and exporting it as field B MPEG?

If so try setting the MPEG render options to field A. This is proper for MPEG destined for VCD, SVCD or DVD.

Dr. Mordrid

[Rick6612]

Hi Doc,

Yes, I am capturing Field B (I assume that is the only way the G400 can capture, right?) using AVI_IO set to capture in YUY2 mode and then recompress with HuffYUV codec.

In MSP 6.5, the Field Properties for the HuffYUV encoded clips shows Field B. I've never tried changing this to Field A, but I have tried checking the deinterlace check box, which produces undesireable results. Should I be setting this to Field A?

Following your advice, I tried rendering a new SVCD format MPEG file, and I set it to Field A on the Create Video Options. This resulted in a video that seems to be sort of "jumpy" when played back on my APEX DVD player through my TV. I think it actually looked better when I used Field B, even though that still didn't seem right.

I noticed in the HuffYUV codec settings that there is a setting that says something like "reverse fields on playback (for people with broken capture drivers)" Is that what I need to use?

As always, thanks for your help!

Rick

[Dr Mordrid]

Yup, try reversing the fields and see how it works. "Striping" can be from a field order inversion.

Dr. Mordrid

[Rick6612]

Hi Doc,

I've tried just about everything, and I can't seem to get rid of my field order problems. I tried enabling the setting the HuffYUV codec to "Swap fields on decompress (for people with broken capture drivers)." I tried setting the Field Options for the clips in MSP to tell it the HuffYUV .avi files were field order A instead of B. I tried setting the Create Video -> Field Order to A instead of B. I also tried just about every possible combination of these different settings.

No matter what I do, I end up with SVCDs where you can see on the TV screen that the scan lines are out of order. You can see it along the edges of things. You can see it in small details. You can especially see it when there is horizontal panning or movement and everything becomes sort of jumpy.

Dale Tripp from the MUG list sent me a copy of his ULEAD32.INI, which had some extra settings in it he said I needed. I tried that but it still didn't help. He also recommended some patches that Ulead has come out with. I have those on, but it still doesn't help.

At this point, I feel like I must be doing something wrong when I'm capturing with AVI_IO and the HuffYUV codec that is causing this trouble... but I just don't know what it could be.

I've made a VCD that came out OK, but I suppose that is because VCD does not use both fields.

Any more suggestions?

Thanks!

Rick

[Sciascia]

Just a stab in the dark, but did you try the enable field based scaling in the advanced dualhead, DVD Max options?

[Flying dutchman]

If the fields problem is also visible in still images on oblique lines, your field order isn't reversed (temporal reversion) but the fields themselves are physically swapped. (The odd and even lines are swapped.) VirtualDub has a "field swap" filter that can correct this.

[Rick6612]

Sciascia,

Yes, I have enabled Field Based Scaling in the Dual Head options. This seems to help when playing back MJPEG videos to the TV-OUT, but it doesn't seem to make any difference when rendering MPEGs and making SVCDs.

Flying dutchman,

I have some still images in the video which I put there so I'd have something for the SVCD menu entries to point to. The still images look really nice on the SVCD. It's just the moving images that are screwed up looking.

You are right, though, that the problem looks like odd and even lines are swapped somehow.

For example, suppose you had a picture of a object made up of lines like this:

-
---
-----
--------
-----
---
-

On my SVCD, it would look like this:

---
-
---------
-----
---
-----
-

If that makes any sense...

I'm really beginning to believe that my problem is with the way I am capturing the video using AVI_IO and HuffYUV codec. I don't know what I am doing wrong, but when I examine the frames in the .avi files, they seem to have the same "reversed fields" kind of look to them.

Does anyone know if there are any secrets to capturing with HuffYUV and AVI_IO in order to get the fields in the right order?

Rick

[Karlson]

There is light at the end of the tunnel.

I have a similar problem. Here is the situation:

I produced one year ago a film based on Matrox MJPEG. Now
I want to produce an SVCD to play on my Samsun 811 DVD
player.

I have titles running quite quickly from right to left. I dod not
intend to produce MPEG2 when I produced but tape, so it
did not matter that time.

I tried to produce SVCD with different encoders and burning
programs: Ulead VS, MSP + DVD Plugin, Tsunami, CCE SP 2.x,
Nero, and so on.

I have to admit that I was not systematically so
I cannot report now what is exactly to be done, but I have
now been able to produce a crispy sharp SVCD with even the
moving title looking great. This is what I meant by "light
at the end of the tunnel".

In between I also tried with HufFYUV and AVI_IO because
I asked myself the same questions like you because I saw
thos comb effects. E.g. I started to deinterlace to get rid of
them but thought all the time it should not be necessary
if just the frames/fields or whatever would be in the same
order. And in fact I got the desired results somehow but did
not remember how.

Three things helped me: First, when I used Ulead with the
build-in Ligos encoder and the DVD plugin to produce an
SVCD that played back smoothly, even the titles. So I thought
it should work. Don't give up!

Second: I used ROM instead of RW. My Samsung DVD player
did not like RWs (jumpy playback).

Third: some hints from Doc led me to the fact that I have to
produce an interlaced MPEG-2, whereas in the beginning I
thought I should de-interlace because of the comb effects.

I will now do systematic tests. First results show the
following setup to be the best: producing a film with
MSP6.0, I have to set the field order of each clip I use to B.

Then I created an output encoded with PICVideo set to 20
and resized to 480x576 (PAL) and created an .AVI which
(maybe it will work also with HuffYUV input and output)
I fed to CCE SP 2.50.

Here I have to switch off the field order check in video settings.
I produced an average 2200 with 1000-2520 VBR 3 pass and
muxed with Tsunami. Burnt with Nero without menus: superb.

As I said: there is some uncertainty with this because after
several weeks of test, 50 CD-ROMs and 100 burnt RWs you
loose track. I restart more systematically and hope it will
work out. I report back then.

BTW: if the quality is ok for you, the combination MSP6.0 and
its plug-in produced reasonable results. For some reason the
encoder seems to "know" how to solve the field order problem,
whereas others need to have the right checks to be set.

[Karlson]

OK, finished with the tests. It's the same for HuffYUV and MJPEG
encoded source.

Each clip has to have field order B property. If you create an
output file then and use also field order B, you have to deselect
the upper field option in CCE SP, if you select A, it is the oposite.

This means that Matrox produces field order B clips, with whatever
codec you use. I do not think that it makes a difference that I
have PICVideo in between.

As Doc said, my DVD player likes field order B the best.

I now have an excellent way to produce SVCD. Let's see how
it goes when it comes to menues...

[Rick6612]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all the suggestions. I've tried 'em all, but still no luck. I downloaded Virtual Dub and used the "field swap" filter on my source .avi files. This helps a little bit: on still images, after the field swap, everything looks great. Unfortunately, as soon as there is any horizontal movement or panning, you can see very noticeably that there is something wrong.

It's hard to explain exactly, but it's like instead of the fields being displayed in order, like 1 2 3 4 5 6, they're displayed more like 2 1 4 3 6 5 . So, when there is horizontal movement, you see a kind of jittery or jumpy effect, instead of smooth movement. Also, when there are scene cuts, you can always see a glitch, instead of a smooth clean cut.

It's clear to me now that the problem is in the captured .avi files. It's not anything to do with the way I am trying to render the SVCD MPEG files.

Here is a sample image:

Hopefully I did that right so it shows up.

After processing with Virtual Dub, that still image will look normal. However, as I said before, anything with horizontal motion is still not right.

There must be some tricks to using HuffYUV codec and AVI_IO to capture that I am missing...

Any ideas?

Rick

[Rick6612]

Well, I tried a few more things. I tried capturing using Virtual Dub instead of AVI_IO. Same problem. Then I tried capturing directly to PIC Video MJPEG instead of HuffYUV. Same problem.

So it's not AVI_IO that is causing the problem and it's not HuffYUV that is causing the problem...

What else can it be? Is my G400 Marvel broken?

Rick