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Favc 1.04

SamuriHL

UHD Guru
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http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=106677

This is SWEET! It has menu creation, as well, for DrinkLyeAndDie's happiness. ;) This latest version is pretty damn kuel IMO. It's self contained other than requiring AVISynth 2.56a or higher to be installed. It uses QuEnc or HCEnc to encode your file into a DVD compliant video and then it authors it into a DVD folder for you. It can even open ImgBurn for you automatically if you'd like. This is freeware and most important of all does not seem to violate GPL licensing. I'm QUITE impressed so far. I've got it running on a DivX file right now using QuEnc. Check it out if you need a program to take a media file and convert it to a DVD.
 
Well I have an encode going right now with automatic menu creation so we'll see indeed. I hadn't seen the new version until now. I had massive problems in Vista with previous builds but this one's working great so far.
 
Well I have an encode going right now with automatic menu creation so we'll see indeed. I hadn't seen the new version until now. I had massive problems in Vista with previous builds but this one's working great so far.

Just curious as to what settings you are using. I want to go with HC for the encoder but I'm so used to CCE that I'm a bit clueless as to what settings to use for HC. :eek:
 
Just curious as to what settings you are using. I want to go with HC for the encoder but I'm so used to CCE that I'm a bit clueless as to what settings to use for HC. :eek:

At the moment I'm doing a "quick" encode with QuEnc with mostly default settings. I cranked the max bitrate up to 9000 and left everything else alone. I want to see how that comes out.
 
At the moment I'm doing a "quick" encode with QuEnc with mostly default settings. I cranked the max bitrate up to 9000 and left everything else alone. I want to see how that comes out.

I tried it out. I had only used FAVC once before. I used QuEnc set to max bitrate of 9000 and left the rest to default. I had hoped it would take less time than it did. It took way longer than expected and the quality of the output didn't impress me at all, sadly. :( I guess I'll just have to try tweaking the settings or see how HC does instead of QuEnc. The menu stuff isn't exactly stellar, either. It's a start, though!

Maybe when I build a new system I'll have a different view on things.
 
Try using HC encoder with the best settings. Remember that you can never gain quality. If you're going to do a movie which was done with XviD or something, then blow it up to 720x560 while converting it to MPEG2 you aren't exactly going to get a fantastic looking output. But it is fine to watch.

I only use it for temporary things anyway.
 
Try using HC encoder with the best settings. Remember that you can never gain quality. If you're going to do a movie which was done with XviD or something, then blow it up to 720x560 while converting it to MPEG2 you aren't exactly going to get a fantastic looking output. But it is fine to watch.

I only use it for temporary things anyway.

Since I used to use ConvertXToDVD I still use it for comparison purposes in an effort to find an alternative that is as good or better. I always used the High Quality/Slow Encoding setting in ConvertXToDVD. I did a comparison when converting the same exact Xvid files. The QuEnc encoded files using FAVC on the fast settings took way longer and the quality was way less, IMO. I was a bit surprised to be honest. Anyway, yes, I plan on trying HC with higher quality settings.

Generally I archive [specific] TV shows recorded in Xvid format and then convert three 1 hour (~42 minutes w/o commercials) to a DVD5. It's a shame that a 60 minute show now contains nearly 20 minutes of commercials. Pathetic, even.
 
I tried it out. I had only used FAVC once before. I used QuEnc set to max bitrate of 9000 and left the rest to default. I had hoped it would take less time than it did. It took way longer than expected and the quality of the output didn't impress me at all, sadly. :( I guess I'll just have to try tweaking the settings or see how HC does instead of QuEnc. The menu stuff isn't exactly stellar, either. It's a start, though!

Maybe when I build a new system I'll have a different view on things.

You expected quality with QuEnc?! I told you I was doing a "quick" conversion with it to test it out. There's no WAY you should do that on anything you want to keep. HC all the way for that. And it will NOT be fast. That's the problem with free encoders...you're spoiled by CCE which is fine and all, but, CCE is a commercial product. :) While the menu isn't stellar, it at least is functional. That's all I can ask for a free product.
 
Since I used to use ConvertXToDVD I still use it for comparison purposes in an effort to find an alternative that is as good or better. I always used the High Quality/Slow Encoding setting in ConvertXToDVD. I did a comparison when converting the same exact Xvid files. The QuEnc encoded files using FAVC on the fast settings took way longer and the quality was way less, IMO. I was a bit surprised to be honest. Anyway, yes, I plan on trying HC with higher quality settings.

HC is not going to be fast, but, the quality will be comparable to what you'd expect from CCE. NOT identical, but, comparable. QuEnc is definitely not as good as HC, but, it's faster if you can believe it.

Generally I archive [specific] TV shows recorded in Xvid format and then convert three 1 hour (~42 minutes w/o commercials) to a DVD5. It's a shame that a 60 minute show now contains nearly 20 minutes of commercials. Pathetic, even.

There's no commercials on my new setup. :D I use WinTVCap to record on my PVR 250. At the same time it's recording, I use ShowAnalyzer to mark the commercials in a VideoRedo project. When the recording's done, my record.bat file auto opens the project for me in VRD so I can massage the cut points. (It's never perfect and probably never will be, but, it gets about 90-95% of the cuts correct on its own). Write the file out, drag it into DivX converter and go to bed. :) I do this literally every day for people at work which is why I wanted something more automatic. SA is 10 bucks and worth every penny. It's MUCH better than the built in ad detector in VRD. However, VRD is still the best commercial cutting program on earth as far as I'm concerned.
 
HC is not going to be fast, but, the quality will be comparable to what you'd expect from CCE. NOT identical, but, comparable. QuEnc is definitely not as good as HC, but, it's faster if you can believe it.

Oh, I didn't expect QuEnc or HC to be as good as CCE. But I also know that ConvertXToDVD doesn't produce the best quality. That's why I was so suprised that the quality of its output was way better than QuEnc when tested with the same exact files.

There's no commercials on my new setup. :D I use WinTVCap to record on my PVR 250. At the same time it's recording, I use ShowAnalyzer to mark the commercials in a VideoRedo project. When the recording's done, my record.bat file auto opens the project for me in VRD so I can massage the cut points. (It's never perfect and probably never will be, but, it gets about 90-95% of the cuts correct on its own). Write the file out, drag it into DivX converter and go to bed. :) I do this literally every day for people at work which is why I wanted something more automatic. SA is 10 bucks and worth every penny. It's MUCH better than the built in ad detector in VRD. However, VRD is still the best commercial cutting program on earth as far as I'm concerned.

There are no commercials in my archived shows. I was just commenting on how pathetic it is that nearly 1/3 of a 60 minute show is commercials. I remember when I was younger there were maybe 10 minutes. That has now doubled. And I always laugh when there is a special episode of some primetime show that they have run an extra 5 minutes and make such a big deal about it. How about the idjits just cut out 5 ****ing minutes of commercials for a change instead of making the show run an extra 5 minutes. I don't watch much TV anymore and when I do it's rarely live TV... I watch the recorded stuff so I can either skip or fast-forward through the garbage.

I'll have to check out ShowAnalyzer. I also need to get myself a new TV tuner. I still have an old ATI TV Wonder VE that can't handle digital or HDTV and only does mono sound. I'm thinking about the ATI Theater 650 PRO although I'm still looking. I already have VideoReDo and it's quite handy, indeed.
 
Oh, I didn't expect QuEnc or HC to be as good as CCE. But I also know that ConvertXToDVD doesn't produce the best quality. That's why I was so suprised that the quality of its output was way better than QuEnc when tested with the same exact files.

I'm not overly surprised, tbh. HC will give you better quality, but, it will definitely take longer. Give it a shot and see what you think.

There are no commercials in my archived shows. I was just commenting on how pathetic it is that nearly 1/3 of a 60 minute show is commercials. I remember when I was younger there were maybe 10 minutes. That has now doubled. And I always laugh when there is a special episode of some primetime show that they have run an extra 5 minutes and make such a big deal about it. How about the idjits just cut out 5 ****ing minutes of commercials for a change instead of making the show run an extra 5 minutes. I don't watch much TV anymore and when I do it's rarely live TV... I watch the recorded stuff so I can either skip or fast-forward through the garbage.

I love when they DON'T advertise that it's going to run over just to screw with people like us that record shows and skip commercials. That nonsense doesn't affect me as I give my recordings a buffer. We watch quite a bit of TV but usually it's recorded so we can get through more shows faster.

I'll have to check out ShowAnalyzer. I also need to get myself a new TV tuner. I still have an old ATI TV Wonder VE that can't handle digital or HDTV and only does mono sound. I'm thinking about the ATI Theater 650 PRO although I'm still looking. I already have VideoReDo and it's quite handy, indeed.

SA is great. For 10 bucks it's definitely worth it IMO. I just did a show on the History channel last night and it only screwed a little bit at the beginning. The rest of the cuts were flawless. I'm most pleased cause now I don't have to do all the work of finding and killing commercials. And combined with VRD, it's so damn fast and easy cause SA can put the ad sense markers in the project file. That way you can just move from ad sense marker to ad sense marker and verify that it is indeed accurate. If not, change it to what you want and replace the actual cut. Very easy.

As for a new tv tuner, I've got a Theater 550 Pro in one of my machines but I'm having issues getting it to work with gbrecord for command line recording. It works with GB PVR no problem so I don't know what the problem is. Decent quality records. I've got a Fusion USB HD tuner, as well, and it does pretty well. I need to reinstall it. I don't think there's a command line util for that one, although I should check. I hate the software that comes with it. It's rather useless IMO.
 
As for a new tv tuner, I've got a Theater 550 Pro in one of my machines but I'm having issues getting it to work with gbrecord for command line recording. It works with GB PVR no problem so I don't know what the problem is. Decent quality records. I've got a Fusion USB HD tuner, as well, and it does pretty well. I need to reinstall it. I don't think there's a command line util for that one, although I should check. I hate the software that comes with it. It's rather useless IMO.

Well, I may not end up with an ATI tuner again. I hadn't used my old ATI TV Wonder VE in awhile and spent the day trying to install it. Um... it was a nightmare. I do remember some issues the last time I installed it but nothing like this and back then I did get it to work. Even when everything was finally installed and the drivers were right it didn't work. I uninstalled the software, the drivers, and tossed it in the trash. It's an antique at this point, anyway. After dealing with that I really don't much want to deal with anything from ATI for awhile.

I'll make sure to check out SA :)
 
Well, I may not end up with an ATI tuner again. I hadn't used my old ATI TV Wonder VE in awhile and spent the day trying to install it. Um... it was a nightmare. I do remember some issues the last time I installed it but nothing like this and back then I did get it to work. Even when everything was finally installed and the drivers were right it didn't work. I uninstalled the software, the drivers, and tossed it in the trash. It's an antique at this point, anyway. After dealing with that I really don't much want to deal with anything from ATI for awhile.

I'll make sure to check out SA :)

Well that's a hell of an experience! :D Check out the Haupaugge cards. They give excellent quality recordings. Or if you're looking to go HD, check out the Fusion cards. Those are also quite good. Just make SURE you get some better software than what comes with the card. GB PVR might actually work with the Fusion cards. GB PVR also works with SA so that when SA creates the commercial cut list, when you play it back in GB PVR there's a way to quickly skip the commercials. Kind of nice, although I've yet to try it. Like I said, I'm also having issues right now getting the Theater 550 to do what I want. Such is life I guess. Good luck with whatever you end up getting. You'll definitely like SA.
 
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