Testing the AMVapp Installation

The new AMVapp contains a little tester program that you can use to see if Avisynth and dvd2avi are working correctly. It will also try a variety of colourspaces in order to see if your video card and currently installed playback codecs can handle different types of video.

First I will go through the test to show you how things are supposed to look and then I will talk about some of the possible problems you could have.

Avisynth Tests

When you start the test you will be greeted with this message:

Simple enough. The tester will run a variety of things in media player to see if your install can do what it needs to do. Close the media player window when you've seen all you need to see in order to progress to the next stage of the test.

After you press OK, Windows Media Player 6.4 should appear and you should hopefully see the following. Note that the screenshots here are at reduced size and the avisynth version may be a newer one than in the screenshots. It should be the same version number as advertised on the AMVapp.

You can then close down Media Player to go to the next test:

This test will create video colourbars that look like this:

If you can see these two tests (and it's the correct Avisynth Version) then Avisynth has installed correctly. If not, you can check the troubleshooter below.

Mpeg-2 Tests

The Mpeg2 tests are designed to see if the installed versions of Avisynth, Avisynth Plugins and dvd2avi can correctly index an mpeg2 vob file and play it back in Avisynth. The first thing this test will do is create a .d2v (DGIndex) project file that indexes a small vob that is supplied with the AMVapp.

This will probably happen faster than you can tell but you will see something like this flash up for a split-second:

Once the d2v file is created, avisynth will attempt to decode this in YUY2 colourspace...

...which should look like this:

The next two tests will look exactly the same as the YUY2 test except they will test decoding in YV12 and then RGB32 colourspaces. They should appear just like this YUY2 image except they will say "YV12 Test" and "RGB32 Test" respectively. If any of the outputs don't look the way they should then read the troubleshooting section below.

If, however, everything is working fine you can move on to learning about some of these programs.

Troubleshooting the Tests

The way the installer is written should mean that there should be no problem whatsoever in the tests, but it is possible that problems could occur. Read through the descriptions and see if there is anything that solves your particular problem. If not, please report the error in the Video Software Forum (a screenshot may be useful if it's a visible problem) and hopefully someone will be able to help you.

1) A different version of Avisynth is being reported than the one I tried to install! This should be particularly noticeable if the Version test reports 1.x or 2.0x version of Avisynth. You should look in both your Windows (or WINNT) "System" and "System 32" folders for avisynth.dll and delete them - you may even want to search your C directory for this file too. After you have cleaned this up, go to the AMVapp/Installed Files folder and re-run the Avisynth installer. Try the test again and see if the version has changed.

2) I get an Avisynth error saying "There is no such command: MPEG2Source" This means that there has been a problem during the avisynth filters installation. Go to the AMVapp/Installed Files directory and try installing the Avisynth filters again. Look in the installation folder to see if the filters are actually installing. The one you want installed is "mpeg2dec3dg.dll"

3) The display looks like garbage in some of the tests. This can happen in all sorts of varieties and will depend greatly on a) What video codecs are installed or registered and b) The drivers and overlay capability of your graphics card. Particularly if you installed the AMVapp and did not install FFDShow, it is unlikely that you will get an accurate YV12 display (you may get two images and a load of garbage at the bottom). The first advice I'd give to these playback problems is to install FFDShow as contained in the AMVapp and in the Start Menu select FFDShow/Configuration. In the left-hand frame, choose Codecs (at the very top) and then in the right frame scroll down to the bottom:

The AMVapp installer enables YV12 decoding using the Helix YUV codecs but only if you installed them. If not, you can try enabling FFDShow to handle the YV12 decoding

You can select a variety of options for FFDShow to decode - all supported will try all types of Raw video, "all YUV" might fix YUY2 and YV12 problems and "all RGB" might fix all RGB display issues - or you can choose the colourspaces individually.

There is a further possible problem that can occur that FFDShow can compensate for and this is related to your graphics card's display abilities. On the left hand menu you scroll to the bottom you can choose the "Output" menu. In this there will be a list of output modes and at the bottom there will be an option called "Use Overlay Mixer". Try selecting or deselecting that as required to see if it fixes your problem.

If you still have display issues, take a screencap from Windows Media Player by selecting the player window, pressing Alt + PrtScn and then pasting in an image editing tool to save to show people on the Video Help Forums. Hopefully someone there will be able to help you out. Also, right-click the media player window, choose "Properties" and then click the "Advanced" tab to see what the video renderer is - that will be useful information. If it just says "Video Renderer" then it means it is probably using a Video For Windows decoder to display the file which could mean you have a codec being used that can't handle the streams correctly or possibly your graphics card is to blame.

4) I get an "Unrecognized Exception" error. Oh dear - I thought we'd seen the last of these. This error appears when either the avisynth or DEDecode.dll finds a problem with processing the source but it's a problem that hasn't had an error code written for it. This can mean anything and if it is happening on the AppTests then it's not good. Make sure the Version test is correct and the Avisynth Filters have been installed correctly. Also double-check to see if your Avisynth 'Plugins' directory - there should be a file called DGDecode.dll and NO files called mpeg2dec.dll or mpeg2dec3.dll etc. In the 'Plugins' directory there may be versions of these files but that is fine - subdir files should not affect the plugin autoloading.

5) I get a "Cannot playback file - format is not supported" error. This means that Avisynth has not been installed or has been installed incorrectly. Try installing again, see if the avisynth installer gives you any errors. You will probably administrator access to install avisynth, so check that you do.

AbsoluteDestiny - April 2004

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