NEW Guides and AmvApp BETA

[AaronAMV]

Nevermind, I figured it out. I ended up importing the video track to VDub, adding audio there, exporting it as Huffy, and making a script with that Huffy. Then I just added it to Zarx and everything worked out. Thanks though. ^^

[Rhyzel]

Hi,

Not sure if this has already been addressed, but I think I found a broken link in the guide. Under the section "AmvApp - What it is and why it is important." The 'this page' link seems to be linking to a local file on Alan's PC

Premiere AVS Import Plugin

If the installer does not automatically detect your Premiere Plugins folder, you will need to select it yourself. When it asks you if you want to configure the settings for the plugin, you can skip it for now if you like, as it will be covered later on. If you would like to go ahead and configure it though, see this page for more information.

[Rhyzel]

And I forgot to give my thanks for such an in depth guide. Although it's long... I am enjoying every bit of it and it makes me want to continue reading

[BasharOfTheAges]

I just did some test encodes with ZarxGUI, and i'm impressed. Kinda concerned that a 2:11 vid at Q18 comes in under 17MB though. Maybe not "concerned" so much as I don't believe something with actual visual quality can be that small, and i'm doubting others will either.

[Scintilla]

On videogetb.html, near the top of the page, the link to the Adaptec ASPI package is out of date. The new link should be:
http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/support/_e ... ASPI-4.70/

[Zarxrax]

On videogetb.html, near the top of the page, the link to the Adaptec ASPI package is out of date. The new link should be:
http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/support/_e ... ASPI-4.70/

I doubt that should even be necessary anymore, so I'll just remove it.

[Zarxrax]

Preview version:
http://zarxrax.kicks-ass.net/avtechbeta/index.html

Everything should be pretty much completed now except the Aspect Ratios and Frame Sizes page, and a few pages which are dependent on amvapp stuff.

[Zarxrax]

And I went ahead and finished the resizing page. http://zarxrax.kicks-ass.net/avtechbeta ... atios.html
I would like feedback on this, because resizing is one of the most complex subject for me to understand, and I don't want to mislead people with bad info.

With that, all I need to do is make the amvapp... could be a few more years...

[Dime_fan3]

Thanks Zarxax, I'm not sure how many people tell you this but the work you put into this is much appreciated. I thinking of learning this stuff from scratch (again) so an updated version will be a big help.

[Qyot27]

And I went ahead and finished the resizing page. http://zarxrax.kicks-ass.net/avtechbeta ... atios.html
I would like feedback on this, because resizing is one of the most complex subject for me to understand, and I don't want to mislead people with bad info.

Three things I could see:

1) I'd recommend stressing that determining proper aspect/cropping is easiest if it is 1:1 - the bolded sentence is a good reminder, but perhaps elaborate on why it's easier with 1:1. If you know that DVDs only come in 4:3 or 16:9 (because even though MPEG-2 does support 2.21:1 flags, the DVD standard does not), and you know what the proper 1:1 size is for your region when dealing with those frame geometries (640x480, 848x480, 720x576, 1024x576), you can pre-resize the video, and then the cropped size is already in the correct ratio and it can be resized proportionally to the desired final resolution without issue.

Since AviSynth is being used, this is primarily for determining a proper end size, and the first resize function can be eliminated (and the crop values fit for the non-adjusted video). Unless of course there's no compunction against having two bouts of resize functions in the script.

2) The low resolution = always low quality comparison bugs me. Mainly because it's too general - "what constitutes 'low resolution'?", being the main issue there. I equate bad compression efficiency with bad quality, not smaller frame sizes (but then again, I started out watching videos that were mostly 352x240 MPEG-1s, VCD-compliant or not). There has to be a standard to judge by when saying 'low resolution' - is it 352x240, 480x360, 512x288, 512x384, 640x352, etc.? I included 640x352 in there because while it still is rather standard, it would still be deemed 'small' when compared to 704x396, 736x468, and so on (as those have taken the place of 640x352 once acted in, as H.264 has allowed 848x480 to become the nominal 16:9 standard resolution it always was).

3) A little expansion on mod16 might be in order, primarily concerning any borders that need to be put back on the video, such as for manual letterboxing in the event using a 16:9 flag isn't an option. 640x368 may be a mod16 res, but to make it 640x480, neither of the borders - if the same amount of pixels on both sides - are. Either the top or bottom would need 8 more border pixels than the other, or you need to use 640x352 instead (as 640x352 is also mod16, and both of the borders are as well).


However, I don't know how to necessarily make those explanations concise or clear enough if you're aiming for a more-or-less beginner level introduction.