Happy to Give/Recieve Opinions

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Sat Mar 13, 2004 12:35 pm

And your Dr. Greenthumb video is very close to being free of the problem. I'll op those two sometime today then, but I hope you won't be mad if I pick on that little video issue in there a little.

rose4emily · Post by **rose4emily** » Sat Mar 13, 2004 12:37 pm

Go ahead. I'm really most interested in figuring out what, exactly, the video isue is, because on my computer most of these look almost as good as a shiny new dvd. I'm taking a look at Xvid now to see if that might be the answer to my problems.

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Sat Mar 13, 2004 10:08 pm

I gave you brief, but hopefully useful ops on two of your vids.

If you have questions, I'd be happy to discuss your vids more, so PM me if you're looking for more detail on my comments.

If you have to op something from me, just check out my recent vid from my sig. I maintain that it's really the only one worth the effort

mexicanjunior · Post by **mexicanjunior** » Sat Mar 13, 2004 10:26 pm

rose4emily wrote:I just took a look at your INXS video, MexicanJunior, and think it's awesome - yes, I know, not an "insightful comment" - but in this case "rules" really is about all there is to say.

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it.

rose4emily · Post by **rose4emily** » Sat Mar 13, 2004 11:01 pm

I see - I'm supposed to click on the picture to get to the video (that one took me a while).

As for the other ops requests: I'm getting to them, the whole crashed-database thing set me back a bit, but I still think I'll get to at least one of everybody's by the end of the night.

Finally, I've given out 21 reviews so far (yes, I know, not all of them were for videos mentioned in this thread, I've been combing through the other threads as well) and recieved a total of 4. Not that the four I have recieved haven't been helpful (thank you, by the way, to Otohiko for your reviews - I just read and commented them), I'm just starting to feel a bit left out here. C'mon people, share the intellectual wealth we all have to offer, that's what this site is for.

rose4emily · Post by **rose4emily** » Sat Mar 13, 2004 11:31 pm

I just watched the video that Otohiko's banner points to, and I just have to say that it was awesome. If you watched "Flying Motionless Above the Waves" and liked it - or possibly even if you didn't - you're going to love Otohiko's "The Wasteland".

Otohiko - you get a gold star (five of them, actually).

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Sat Mar 13, 2004 11:36 pm

Thanks tons! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I'm planning to watch that vid of yours, but I didn't want to get into it today since, were I to op it (and I probably will, seeing the strangeness of the concept behind it), I'd have to see it at least a few times.... and that would be quite an effort

I'll get to it soon though, we'll see how a vid that length works out...

rose4emily · Post by **rose4emily** » Sun Mar 14, 2004 12:07 am

Thank you, Otohiko, you are generous as both a creator and a critic.

And for everyone else: Check your ops. page. I've done several reviews this evening, and believe I have responded to everyone who's mentioned a video or set of videos for reviewing. If I missed you, please put up a post saying so and a link to what I missed, as I might not have noticed it before.

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Sun Mar 14, 2004 12:42 am

A little bit 'o' technical help from me...

Otohiko wrote:Installing the DivX 4 codec only partially solved my playback problems with this one, but completely messed up all other videos I have

DivX4'll do that to ya.

Otohiko wrote:I think they may be DivX 4. I wish you could give me more detail on the format, since I'm really quite lost here.

I checked out the "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" video as well, and even checked the stats out using some of the format analyzing software I have, and yes, it is DivX4 and Uncompressed PCM 44.1 kHz WAVE Audio.

rose4emily wrote:Some of them could be Divx4. The others just show up as Divx with no number, and it is perfectly possible that, since I use open-source software, the development of the programs is ahead of their documentation and they moved up to the next higher codec.

I dunno about any programs that could work on Linux, since I'm on a WinXP, but if you wanna check, the program I used to check it was MediaInfo (I can't remember the website, but I believe I found it on one of the DivX support websites).

The issue with the playback, though, is strange. For starters, Uncompressed WAVE Audio should be filtered through (for WMP), the Default DirectSound Device - when loading the video, it tried using InterVideo's filter for DVDs. I have no clue how it would send such screwy instructions to the components, but it did nonetheless. The video was even more bizarre. I didn't get any weird colors or lines or stuff like that, not at first.

At first, it would show a quick flash of the scene with Naota at the beginning and then go completely black and make my entire viewing screen flash every few seconds. I solved the problem by re-coding it in VirtualDubMod, which is when the color static blocks occasionally would appear and there was a solid green line at the bottom of the screen. I also resized it and compressed the audio and it worked fine, save for those distortions that became hard-coded into the video.

BTW, VirtualDub or VirtualDubMod can play back the video just fine, albeit with those funky color distortions [without installing DivX4 - just a note, but never install DivX4. It's buggy beyond all that is right and good in this world

(for that matter, there's also no need to install DivX 3.11;) since DivX5 can handle it also). DivX5 is a much better alternative to decoding stuff using DivX4. Of course, I don't know if there's a proper port of DivX5 to Linux - that may also be your problem. If any program (codecs included) isn't ported right (since most common codecs are built for use on Windows or Mac systems), it can royally screw up things, so it may be a combination of a bad port, an encoding scheme different from Windows or Mac that's dependent on the Linux OS, and the native bugginess of DivX4 - a veritable triple-whammy if you ask me

].

I honestly think that somewhere in the file's structure, there's some data that's out-of-order or just not written correctly (this could also mean 'written in a way as to direct it to the wrong decode filters'). The only solution I found was re-coding it with VirtualDub, like I said.

rose4emily wrote:If anyone knows a way to distiguish for sure between Divx3 and Divx4, please tell me.

Well, there are several ways of deducing (or is it inducing?) which codec it is. DivX 3.11;) is much more stable, but gives some extremely noticeable artifacts that are very similar to the ones found in MS-MPEG4 V3-encoded files, since DivX 3.11;) and earlier were derived from a hacked version of MS-MPEG4 V3. DivX4, while being completely built from scratch using the true MPEG4 implementation as a basis, may have better compression IMO, but is a crapload buggier than 3.11;). I used to have DivX 4.12 installed on my comp, but only until DivX5 came out - I never experienced any major problems during that time, but I've come across reports of DivX4's bugginess and seen some horribly screwed up encodes using it, and I'm glad I never used it myself (from what I remember, DivX5 came out before I started recoding my videos to convert over to VCD, so I never had to use DivX4).

DivX5 improved by leaps and bounds over DivX4, correcting the nasty bugs and such of the previous branch and providing a really good compression method that seriously rivals XviD (I'm not gonna get into it, but the history of DivX and XviD is quite interesting, or maybe that's just me

). My favorite version of DivX is 5.0.5, since it was the last to supply the Original 1-pass mode, the encoding method that had the best bitrate stabilizer, IMO. But alas, I don't know if 5.0.5 was ported to Linux, so that info may not help you at all

.

rose4emily wrote:I'm taking a look at Xvid now to see if that might be the answer to my problems.

XviD is somewhat better at reducing the nasty artifacts, but that's really just at lower bitrates. If the settings on DivX and XviD are set around 3500kbps, there's no real difference in quality, that is, assuming that the codecs don't need to go above that marker to preserve the video properly. Using Original 1-pass mode, 3500kbps is just the highest threshold - the encoder will not let the video pass beyond 3500kbps under any circumstances, and most times using a dropped res of around 480x320 (true 3:2 aspect ratio, since 720x480 is also 3:2, at least on a computer), the encoder won't even need to approach 3500kbps, thus ensuring pristine video. XviD's encoder is similar in practice, as I remember, unless you tweak some options around, which is XviD's strength for the perfectionist video preparer - it has options out the wazoo where DivX only has a few options to set. Of course, as far as I know, it's still a better option to use DivX's decoder to decode XviD content, since XviD's native video-playing feature still has some bugs in it. It's very easy to set DivX to play XviD content - in fact there's an option on one of XviD's settings screens to write a DivX5 header to the file, ensuring DivX5 would decode it, not XviD. This is, of course, all on a Windows computer. So if anything I just said was irrelevant and monotonous drivel, just ignore it and forget I ever said it. To be honest, I know nothing of Linux as far as working experience is concerned, since I've never used a Linux system, but I've read about how it works somewhat and my uncle knows quite a bit about them as well, so all of my Linux knowledge is coming second- or possibly even third- or fourth-hand, but hopefully something I've said makes at least a little bit of sense

.

*big sigh*

Anyways, I don't wanna clog up the thread with this banter unless I decide to ante up on the thread's purpose. I can op a couple of your vids. I'll probably look at "Locomotive Breath" or "Changes" since I haven't seen too many vids using Piano (which I still have to finish watching - I d/l-ed those fansubs back in October, I think, right around the same time I was watching Ikkitousen - I just felt like mentioning that, I guess). I don't know when I'll get to op-ing them, though, as my computer is going haywire and I'm running out of HD space real quickly. Not to mention I have a video I have to start in the next couple of days for a multi-editor project I signed up for.

You can op either The Nights Will See Them Through or Solace In Destruction.

These two videos are the ones I'm proudest of. And if you wanna check out any of my other videos, you're welcome to, just read the warning in my profile before just picking another one from my profile, since it's almost like playing Russian Roulette if the premiere date for the video is before July 2003

.

Thanks!

Man that's a lot of text (can you believe I've been writing this entire post for over an hour?!!)

(and(yes(I(do(use(a(lot(of(parentheses)))))))))

Mr Pilkington · Post by **Mr Pilkington** » Sun Mar 14, 2004 1:00 am

I am d/ling your vids this very moment. I will try to op atleast one but I'm so far behind and with Anime Express this week it may be a short while before its up. In the mean time if you could check out and maybe even op one of my vids that'd be sweet

Yatta
and since you seem pretty partial to FLCL:
Shame