Please Help with MeGUI (new install, old working fine)

[mjmacky]

wait you might not have a stats file set for the automated 2pass, please copy your "parameter codes" in the config like I did in post #6, it's hard to cover every aspect question by question

Okay, things finally finish on the 6core, I did the mkymerge to put the audio and stuff back in it, and found that I'm getting all kinds of video artifaculating and stuff. Don't know if it has something to do with the Sharktooth presets of the machine (or the s/w on that machine), but I'll find out for sure tomorrow when the 4core finishes up. Went back and rechecked the input video, and it's clean as a whistle, so...

My guess about this is that you are using DXVA based video codec to play back, and the encode has specifications beyond what is compatible with DXVA. You can try setting to ffmpeg or ffmpeg-mt and see if you get the same video errors.

[Beck38]

Figured out part/most of the bottom line today with MeGUI.

The current developers, who took over from the original guy(s) a few months ago, have been utilizing the auto-upgrade system to 'push' out beta code to folks, without disclosing (or announcing even) that practice to anyone utilizing the program.

This has resulted in many if not most of the users to be left with a non-operational system. I guess I was lucky in not running it for quite a long time, and not 'updating' it either, or else my original installation would have been hosed as well.

Luckily, I still have all of the original downloads that (hopefully) haven't been screwed up (well, they aren't on the original machine they were installed on, so....) so I will be trying out installing that on the new machine, and seeing how they run.

BTW, in doing the hoop jumping that the current developers insisted I do, the minimal parts of the program that were working, have now stopped dead in their tracks. So much for that nonsense.

So I'll be blowing all that junk away, and trying to get the original package from early this year to work, just as it is on my other machine, and hopefully let these (deleted) (deleted) 'programmers' fade away in my memory.

wait you might not have a stats file set for the automated 2pass, please copy your "parameter codes" in the config like I did in post #6, it's hard to cover every aspect question by question

My guess about this is that you are using DXVA based video codec to play back, and the encode has specifications beyond what is compatible with DXVA. You can try setting to ffmpeg or ffmpeg-mt and see if you get the same video errors.

Wrong path. It's not like I haven't use all this before, I've been using it for months, and had zero playback problems on the PCH boxes I use And, all my (saved) recodes have been done using the Sharktooth DXVA-HD-Insane preset (with zero probs), so...

With what I've found out today, I'll be trying to un-linstall and then re-install the original package, as I noted above.

Hopefully, you haven't been letting your setup 'auto-update' or your system will get hosed, like like myself or the crowds of people who've been left with unworkable crud.

[mjmacky]

No I pick and choose which developmental updates I get depending on the release notes for each...

[Beck38]

Believe it or not, and despite staring down a bit of the flu this week (still got a hint a a cough), I managed to 'mix and match' bits and pieces and get something to halfway work (not completely tested, will take a couple of days to do that), but it led me down a path that it appears that others have been down before (if the Google searches are to be believed....)

It's just that the Google leads me (or should I say 'try'), to bits of a hint of what others ran into some months ago... but those threads (on Doom9) have been deleted (just cached by the Google). And what exactly are they talking about?

Well, it's what I call the 'Win7' thinking, in that the program (in this case MeGUI) doesn't have (or, perhaps I should say doesn't have NOW) a specific option/settings for using/running 32 v. 64 bit external programs. In the older documentation, it specifically points to places where one can, while running the program under a 64bit OS, that the 32bit pieces can be specified.

I call this 'win7' thinking because in that OS, Microsoft 'thinks' it's making things easier for the network manager by making way way way too many things 'automatic', depending on which version of the OS it is, and what it 'thinks' the network topology 'looks like' when it does it's network discovery routine.

Now, we all know that unless it has the thinking power of a HAL9000 it really doesn't have a chance of really doing this, and even if it did, it would still (in true HAL form) come out wrong anyway.

So, as it sits right now, the only way to get MeGUI run (or, right now, seem to run), is to 'fake' it out, unless and until the programmers of MeGUI put the options/settings pieces back in.

We shall see in the next few days if it operates okay under the 'fake out' routine under a full load recode or three.

BTW, I did spend some time trying to get the 'new' experimental version to work, to about the same level of success (i.e., pretty bad). Half the problems looked like the same as with the 'standard', plus a host of others. The current development team is claiming that it's 'almost ready to be released as stable'. That thud you just heard is my jaw dropping. How about getting the original version back operating to where it was before you took it over is my comment on that.

[mjmacky]

Might help to note that even though I am running 64bit OS, I only trust, therefore installed only 32 bit programs and features with MeGUI. As far as encoding tools go, 32bit versions are the ones that are working pretty solid.

[Beck38]

The 'updater' downloads all the 32/64bit versions of stuff, and the MeGUI 'decides' which OS you are on and uses the version it 'thinks' you need.

I found out that MeGUI used to have a section where you did 'global settings', which allowed you to force 32bit instead of 64 on a 64OS; this apparently was taken out some 8+ months ago or so (circa Feb10). The only way I can get it to use the x264 32bit here is to copy the 32bit and rename it to the 64bit.

Now, I probably wouldn't have figured (or be forced to) this all out, if the clip I had been using to test part of things out didn't have a shot of bit errors in the ripped piece. My Vista32 machine (which uses the 32bit x264 of course), seemed to go over this bump in the road, but the V64 machine running the x264/64bit didn't.

I did a rerip and am doing some retests, unfortunately dodging some power outage issues at the same time (large UPS but not 'infinite'!). (First wave of winter storms here).

So, it will take a few more days, running 32bit and then rerun on 64bit, to see if that was one of the core problems, and if I can decide which way to go full time. The 32bit is a bit slower, but not that big of a deal (you can look at your task manager processes to see which version you are running, btw.). Well, in a couple days, I'll have some idea, then another couple even a bitter idea. It always comes down to time...

[Beck38]

Might help to note that even though I am running 64bit OS, I only trust, therefore installed only 32 bit programs and features with MeGUI. As far as encoding tools go, 32bit versions are the ones that are working pretty solid.

How did you do that, and get MeGUI to not complain (loudly, I might add) that the 64bit parts aren't there? I've tried a couple of different 'methods' to 'trick' it into using the 32bit encoder, and although it did appear to work at first, the encodes are junk.

I'm on the last 'test' run right now (I've done about 10+ with both old and new versions of MeGUI), with 'standard' (non-test version), using 64bit encoder. So, I'm about to install Vista32 on that machine and go from there, unless you can give me a heads up on how you managed to 'trick' it into using the 32bit encoder 'properly' without failure(s), which is what I ran into trying to force it to use the 32bit encoder.

I might add, through all this nonsense, my 'old' Vista32 machine continues to work perfectly, running encodes without failure, just about twice as slow. Heck, if I could get the 'new' machine to work okay, even at that speed, at this pint, I'd be overjoyed.

[mjmacky]

Even though I put it in the PM, I should clarify out here as well. MeGUI and its tools are all 32 bit. There is a x264_64.exe that gets installed and used on a 64 bit OS, but it is used through vfw4x264.exe, since the 64 bit app isn't compatible with the 32 bit AviSynth.

I am just vomiting up info I've come across, I am in no way an expert. I have figured out that the current MeGUI is running this way, more info about vfw4x264 here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1385194

and in contrast to my opinion in the PM, Beck, you apparently can just rename according to this thread (I don't understand why though...)
http://doom10.org/index.php?topic=55.0