Wonky Gibbon Ramblings

Configuration of Tools

(You only have to do all this config stuff once – ever).

VirtualDub, XVID, Avisynth and the Smooth Deinterlacer we will setup in one go.

AVI Synth

We need to create an AVISynth Script to split the frames in the camcorder AVI file into two fields and then open that Script in VirtualDub (the original web page that the next short section came from is here http://www.100fps.com/ ).

Create a text file (e.g. with a text editor like notepad) with the name “Example.avs” (yes, “.avs” is the extension and there is no “.txt” extension) with the following content:

AVISource(“Yourmovie.avi”)
separatefields

In VirtualDub select File->Open… and select the “Example.avs” file. You will now find that instead of opening a file full of frames you have a file of fields that appear to be half the normal height (this is because 2 fields make up a frame)

Now select “Video->Filters…”, then “Add…” and select the Smooth Deinterlacer filter.

Smooth Deinterlacer Plugin

First add the Smooth Deinterlacer plugin to your VirtualDub application.

• Launch VirtualDub
• Select Video->Filters…
• On the dialog displayed click “Add”
• On the dialog displayed click “Load” and select the vdf file from the Smooth Deinterlacer package directory. You have now completed installing it.

I set up the config dialog for the Deinterlacer as follows:

If you want to play with these settings, more instruction can be found here http://www.guthspot.se/video/#deinterlacesmooth, but I found these values worked very well for me.

XVID

‘Select “Video->Full Processing Mode”.

We are going to do our conversion as a two pass process for maximum quality.

First the First Pass.
Select “Video->Compression”, click on the XVID codec and select “Configure”.

NB: For more information on what all these settings do and mean, see here http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtech/xvid.html which is where I lifted most of them from. Again, I found these worked very well for me.

Setup the main dialog as below:

Click on “More” next to “Profile@Level” and setup the resulting dialog as shown below:

and click OK.

Click on “More” next to “Encoding Type” and setup the resulting dialog as shown below:

Click on “Advanced Option” and setup the tabs of the resulting dialog as shown below:

Click on OK to close the XVID config dialog and OK again to close the Compression dialog.

Next in the VirtualDub main window, select “Audio->No Audio” as processing the audio in the first pass, is a waste of time and adds nothing to the result.

Store this configuration information away by selecting “File->Save Processing Settings” and call the file “FirstPassXVID”.

Next the Second Pass.
Select “Video->Compression”, click on the XVID codec and select “Configure”.

Setup the main dialog as below:

I set the target bitrate to 8000 (the highest possible) as I didn’t want to compromise on quality. (If you have the strength you could start at this level and then repeatedly reencode at lower and lower bitrates until you think you can see artifacts creeping in and then set it a bit higher again).

Click on “More” next to “Encoding Type” and setup the resulting dialog as shown below:

Click on OK to close the XVID config dialog and OK again to close the Compression dialog.

Next in the VirtualDub main window, select “Audio-> Full Processing Mode” as we are going to work on the audio in the second pass to convert it to mp3 embedded in the final avi.

Select “Audio->Compression”, click on the Lame Mp3” codec and select “48000Hz, 192kbps, CBR, Stereo” and then click OK to close the dialog.

Select “Audio->Interleaving” and setup as below:

Interleaving the audio is important if you’re ever likely to store the final avi on a slow medium such as a CD or DVD or remotely on a LAN. I recommend you just always do it, there’s no real overhead.

Store this configuration information away by selecting “File->Save Processing Settings” and call the file “SecondPassXVID”.

You might want to test convert a single AVI at this point and then audition the results in a viewer such as Media Player. I would recommend testing on one with a reasonable amount of movement or camera wobble as these are the most difficult artifacts for the codec to encode. Having tweaked any last minute settings we can then move onto the bulk conversion of vast numbers of AVIs, one after the other.

To do a test convert in VirtualDub, select “File->Load Processing Settings” and select your file “FirstPassXVID” that we created earlier. Select “Save as AVI” and store the file as (say) “MyMovie.avi”. Let the save process run. You now have a file of junk avi but more importantly, you have also created the statistics file. Now select “File->Load Processing Settings” and select your file “SecondPassXVID” that you created earlier. Again select “Save as AVI” and store the file as (say) “MyMovie.avi” overwriting the previous junk file. This time it will create the proper result avi which you can open in Media Player or the viewer of your choice and audition.

Now that you’re happy that the results are going to be good enough, let’s move on.