AVISynth again, decompressor error, fear of codecs

dxdy wrote on 1/9/2014, 4:45 PM
I do not want to mess up my SVP 12 install.

I have spent the better part of today learning to run AVISynth. John Meyer and others' excellent posts have gotten me farther than I ever expected to get. I am trying to run one of John Meyer's denoiser scripts. However, I am now stumbling on an error:

Couldn't locate a decompressor for fourcc UYVY

I found the following post on another forum, indicating I need a system-wide VFW codec:




Error message: "AVISource: couldn't locate a decompressor for fourcc dvsd"



     This error is an old standard, and is the result of not having a system-wide DV codec

installed. Most NLE packages, large and small, have internal decoders for the DV25 format, 

and can play the footage without issue. Avisynth's AVISource, however, uses the Video for 

Windows architecture, and in order for it to decode DV, a VfW codec for the format must be 

present on the system.



     For DV, a very common recommendation is Cedocida, by Andreas Dittrich. I'm a user 

myself, and I'm quite happy with the results of both decoding and encoding. Donald Graft has 

compiled a Windows version, which can be found by heading to http://www.neuron2.net/ and 

checking the "Hosted" section. At the bottom you'll be able to download version 0.2.2, which is 

the most recent.

     Extract the files to a convenient location, right click the .inf, and choose Install. That's it! Just 

don't forget that when using Cedocida to compress widescreen DV, you must go to the codec 

configuration dialog and set "Aspect Ratio" to 16:9.


I am afraid to install a codec that could clobber one of the Vegas-supplied codecs. Can anyone say what might be safe to install? Are there other codecs that will be required for decoding other file formats?

Edited for clarity

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 1/9/2014, 4:57 PM
There are dozens of posts in this forum warning against installing codec packs. That is probably good advice.

To know what you need to install, can you either post a small, unedited clip of the video you are trying to process, or at least put it into MediaInfo (free utility) so it can report exactly what codec it is using. The "dvsd" codec is indeed a DV codec, but unless you are editing DV video, this isn't what you need.

Also, AVISynth can only open certain video files directly and can only open other types of videos -- like MPEG-2 or AVCHD -- by using other "helper" apps. I don't like to deal with all of this mess, so when I use AVISynth I put the video into Vegas, do all my editing, and then use the Debugmode frameserver to serve the video into an AVISynth script. It takes less than one minute to download and install. Using the frameserver, if Vegas can open it, I can get the video into AVISynth.

The only issue with this workflow is that you have to keep track of the 0-255 to 16-235 mapping. I always do a 1 second render and put it back on the Vegas timeline just to make sure the levels are the same as the original.

If you want to put the output of the AVISynth script back into Vegas, you can either first render from VirtualDub (the Cineform codec works well), or you can use VFAPIConv to change the output of the AVISynth AVS script into an AVI file that a second instance of Vegas can import. Using this workflow you have one instance of Vegas serving out the video and a second instance of Vegas doing the rendering. This completely eliminates the need to have to deal with codecs inside of VirtualDub.

dxdy wrote on 1/9/2014, 10:33 PM
https://www.hightail.com/download/elNLU2VwMGswVW0wYjhUQw

This is the file I am trying to run through AVISynth with the JohnMeyer Deflicker script.

The error is "Couldn't locate a decompressor for fourcc.dll DVSD"



Mediainfo:

General

Complete name                            : J:\FredMovieArchive\FredsFamilyAVIs\Joe7.avi

Format                                   : AVI

Format/Info                              : Audio Video Interleave

Commercial name                          : DVCPRO

File size                                : 100 MiB

Duration                                 : 29s 196ms

Overall bit rate mode                    : Constant

Overall bit rate                         : 28.9 Mbps

Recorded date                            : 2007-11-03 08:32:39.000



Video

ID                                       : 0

Format                                   : DV

Commercial name                          : DVCPRO

Codec ID                                 : dvsd

Codec ID/Hint                            : Sony

Duration                                 : 29s 196ms

Bit rate mode                            : Constant

Bit rate                                 : 24.4 Mbps

Encoded bit rate                         : 28.8 Mbps

Width                                    : 720 pixels

Height                                   : 480 pixels

Display aspect ratio                     : 4:3

Frame rate mode                          : Constant

Frame rate                               : 29.970 fps

Standard                                 : NTSC

Color space                              : YUV

Chroma subsampling                       : 4:1:1

Bit depth                                : 8 bits

Scan type                                : Interlaced

Scan order                               : Bottom Field First

Compression mode                         : Lossy

Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 2.357

Stream size                              : 100 MiB (100%)

Encoding settings                        : wb mode= / white balance= / fcm=manual focus


The file doesn't particularly have a lot of flicker, I needed a sample file to experiment with for
learning AVISynth. This is one of a couple dozen Super 8 movies an elderly aunt left behind,
and I want to denoise them for my mother's 98th birthday party. (I have now found I get the
same error with the denoiser script)


I do use frameserver, and once I get past this hurdle I will work at incorporating it into my workflow.

Many, many thanks for looking at this and offering suggestions.

Edited for clarity
johnmeyer wrote on 1/10/2014, 12:31 AM
You can probably use the Panasonic DV codec. I don't know how well it does for encoding, but you only need it for decoding, and all codecs should handle that chore identically.

Panasonic DV Codec

I haven't used it myself (I purchased the MainConcept DV codec many years ago).

You may want to use this tool to get the files to play at the correct speed:

AVIFrate

Just open your AVI file and then fill in 16 for the rate and 1 for the scale to get it to play at 16 fps. When you put your AVI files into Vegas, make sure to manually set each media file to "progressive" because Vegas will always interpret DV files as interlaced. Set your project properties to progressive as well. Also, make sure "disable resample" is set for all events. There are scripts that can do all of this for you at the push of a button.

johnmeyer wrote on 1/10/2014, 12:58 AM
Here's a link to a quick test using the film restoration script on your file. The degrain didn't work very well, but I think you'll find that the 16 fps playback speed is about right. I also did a quick gamma correction using "color curves." The dirt removal did a good job getting rid of most of the dirt. The motion stabilization removed all the gate weave and a little of the camera shake.

I also synthesized frames at the two places where the film sprockets failed. Here's the MP4 of the result:

Test at 16 fps.avi


dxdy wrote on 1/10/2014, 12:07 PM
Thank you, John.

I think your output looks much nicer than the input!

I was able to get AVISynth running from the Debug Frameserver, it was really pretty straightforward and I was able to avoid installing the Panasonic codec. I found a posting that said people using it were having glitches in Vegas afterwards, so I didn't even try.

I do have a question about your script - it uses unsharpmask(). I have hunted and hunted for this function and can only find very old references to it, and they are all coming back 404 - dead website. Do you know if it is still available?

Thanks again for "booting up" another AVISynth user.

Fred
johnmeyer wrote on 1/10/2014, 10:05 PM
Unsharpmask is part of the Warpsharp DLL. The version used in VideoFred's script (and mine) is dated 4/5/2010. You can get this version if you download VideoFred's original script in the initial post in the long doom9.org thread about restoring film:

The power of Avisynth: restoring old 8mm films.
dxdy wrote on 1/11/2014, 8:26 AM
Thank you again, John. I hadn't realized it was embedded in warpsharp.dll.

You are a true treasure on this forum.

Fred
NickHope wrote on 1/12/2014, 5:21 PM
For the record, I have had Cedocida codec installed on my computers for a long time. It's an excellent codec and it never caused any issues with my Vegas (8 & 10) installations. But, like John, I prefer to use Frameserver to input video into AviSynth.