avi.NET 3.5.1.0

avi.NET will allow you to load in both MPEG-1 (VCD) and MPEG-2 (SVCD/DVD/HDTV) movie files and convert them to an AVI. Whether it be a DivX AVI, or XviD AVI, the resulting video file will be 100% standalone player compatible. It should play in your home dvd avi player just fine. avi.NET is FREE and all external programs and/or filters are included in package.



Using avi.NET is simple, select 'IN' and load in your movie (MPG|VOB) file. If it's the first time the movie has been loaded in, the file will 'INDEX' (process will take a couple of minutes) and once completed you'll notice many options have automatically been set and the movie is playing. avi.NET will, by default, guess the required conversion size based on what you have loaded in, whether that be a MPG|VOB clip or a full movie. The basis of this 'size guess' lies with the bits per pixel calculation and size will be determined at around 0.20 bits/pixel. This bits/pixel calculation (now refered to as quality factor [QF]) is just a starting point. One movie converted at a QF of 0.20 which looks great may not yield the same results on another movie, all movies are different, and there have been many debates on this but I use it because it give you a place to start. 'OUT' selects the destination folder/name of your converted file, by default the file will have the same name and be in the same folder as the input file. 'ADD' puts the conversion into the job list awaiting conversion. 'LOAD|SAVE' refer to the job list. Once any jobs are awaiting conversion the 'START' button will become enabled. One quick word about the input files... If your source is a DVD which has numerous files as part of the movie, example: VTS_01_1.VOB, VTS_01_2.VOB, VTS_01_3.VOB, VTS_01_4.VOB, don't load each file in! You only need to load in the first, all the other files as part of that set will automatically be processed. So remember, only load in the first file, the one that ends with _1.VOB.



Brief information will be constantly displayed whilst your movie is previewing. 'DAR' refers to the 'Display Aspect Ratio' and 'QF' refers to the 'Quality Factor' (bits/pixel).

The 'av.OPTIONS' sections (which is shown after loading) is where you make your initial, and most important, choices for conversion. With reference to the screenshot on the left, you first need to decide what conversion method you require, you have three choices; SIZE, BITRATE, and CQ. SIZE mode will be enabled by default, simply because this is the most common method employed and will convert your source file (movie) to the desired size. Various common size options are available, or simply insert your own custom size in the box. BITRATE mode will convert your source file using the bitrate you specify, again, common options are available or simply insert your own custom bitrate in the box. The final conversion option available to you is the constant quality method which uses quant values and requires just one pass to encode your source, unlike the two passes required by both the SIZE and BITRATE mode. Lower values produce higher quality encodes and thus larger final avi file sizes so obviously, higher values, will create lower quality, smaller files. The final size of your conversion in this mode will be unknown until the conversion is complete.

The audio tracks available will be shown and you're able to select your desired track, nine times out of ten your required audio track will be the first one in the list and thus already be selected. By default, the audio will be converted to MP3 at 128Kbps but this can be changed to 160 or 192Kbps if you feel you require the extra bits or you can simply select the AC3 option if you would like to keep the audio as the source thus preserving the higher bitrates and surround sound. Though remember..... if you're using SIZE mode, the more space taken up by the audio, the less room left for video, so increasing your conversion size may be required for a good quality final AVI.

Still within the 'av.OPTIONS' section, are the subtitle options. These will only be available if the original VOB file or VOB set had its associated IFO present when the file was first loaded. If the IFO is present, the subtitles, if any, will be extracted automatically and the subtitle options will be enabled and available to use. As with the audio options, making subtitle selection changes will pause movie playback and reload the movie with your chosen subtitles. There are three further subtitle options available, 'Normal (permanent into AVI)', 'Forced (selected dialogue only)', and 'External (to idx|sub files)'. Normal, which is the default settings will put the chosen subtitles permanently into the AVI file, they can not be turned on/off, they will always be in the file, part of the actual video, and always seen. Forced subtitles are again, permanent, always in the actual AVI file but these are subtitles that only display when a language other than the default audio is being spoken. As an example, imagine an English speaking movie which has someone who suddenly speaks Chinese to someone for 30 seconds, you would want to know what was said....... if you were at the theatre/cinema, or watching the DVD, subtitles would be displayed in English for these 30 seconds, even if subtitles are turned off. The last option 'External' will put the subtitles into two seperate files and not encode them permanently into the AVI, the AVI will be untouched. As long as these files are with the AVI they will be displayed as normal on your PC or any device which supports IDX|SUB subtitle files and because they are not permanent, they can be switched on or off. Various programs and utilities exist that will allow you to convert IDX|SUB files to other formats if required.

Once your movie is loaded in, it should display with the correct aspect ratio depending on the chosen width. The width can be changed to any of the common sizes used for AVI files. Height can be changed slightly if required. Unwanted black bars will automatically be removed, if there are any unclean edges remaining on your movie these can further be removed by using the 'Trim Edges' option. 'Horizontal' will remove pixels from the horizontal edges of the picture (top and bottom) and subsequently, 'Vertical' will remove pixels from the vertical edges which run down the sides.



As with the AUDIO|SUBTITLE|WIDTH|CUT options, making changes to any of the 'avs.FILTERS' options will cause the movie to pause and reload so the changes can be seen in real-time. 'Deinterlace Movie' does just that, only use if you can see 'combing' (jaggies) in the movie preview. Moving the 'Smooth/Sharp' slider allows you slight control over the picture. 'Autocrop Threshold' allows you to change the default threshold (the sensitivity in determining the 'black bar' areas) used when movies are loaded/changed. The 'avi.CODEC' options are self explanatary, they allow you to choose your prefered video codec for conversion. Enabling 'HQ' mode will invoke higher (and slower) encoding options which should give you a higher quality encode - at the expense of encoding time. 'Remove .TEMP' and the 'Shutdown PC' options will always be enabled during any encoding which allows you to select/de-select if and when required.

Further to the above options, please note: Some MPG|VOB clips, especially ones that contain a black/dark background with a bright subject in the foreground may need the slider moved down to correctly display the picture. If the background throughout the entire clip is black/dark, then autocrop detection may think it's black bars and remove it, this is really easy to spot, and fix. You'll know when it's happened because the preview picture will look bizarre.... maybe even look like it's been magnified over a certain area. To fix, just lower the 'Autocrop Threshold' down one, the preview will automatically re-load and hopefully all will now be OK. Only use the 'Deinterlace Movie' option when needed... If you have loaded in a NTSC movie which has been detected to have a FILM% of more than 95%, then IVTC would have automatically been applied so your original NTSC VIDEO at 29.970FPS will now be NTSC FILM at 23.976FPS (this is good) and the deinterlace option will not be needed, there will be no combing. True NTSC, mostly NTSC, mostly FILM, and PAL source processing will be dealt with accordingly, if you see interlace combing in the preview, enable this option.

To finish off, I'll explain a few little things that have not been mentioned as of yet. Right-clicking on any part of the main preview display area will bring up further options, like 'Minimise to Tray' and the 'About' page. Doing this on part of the display which contains the movie will give you access to 'Pause/Play' options. Normal clicking on any jobs waiting in the jobs list will display a brief popup containing some information about the awaiting encode. After any amount of jobs has been encoded, when avi.NET has finished, a LOG file is automatically saved within the program folder, don't worry, LOG files wont start to accumulate, each gets deleted on the next set of encodes so only the latest one is saved. The LOG file contains exactly the same information that you see displayed in the main preview/feedback window during an encode. Various options are saved between program runs (after closing and re-opening), these being your input/output path, the codec used (DivX|XviD), the HQ setting, and the 'Remove .TEMP' option. Two filter settings are also saved, the 'Smooth/Sharp' option and the 'AutoCrop Threshold' setting. Other options like the conversion mode values for SIZE|BITRATE|QUANT or AUDIO|SUBTITLE selections cannot realistically be saved between program runs because their settings depend almost entirely on the current movie loaded and its contents, thus these options change each time depending on the source. The above guide refers to avi.NET v3.0.0.0.

index.NET

Included with avi.NET is a little utility called 'index.NET', a shortcut to the program is placed along with avi.NET in your normal program shortcuts folder (in clone.AD). index.NET 'indexes' MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 files, along with extracting their audio tracks. It does exactly the same thing that avi.NET does when you first load in a file, the procedure which makes the '.TEMP' folder, extracts the audio tracks, usually AC3 for DVD files, and produces the 'D2V' file. It doesn't have to be used with avi.NET, like I said, avi.NET does this anyway, but it may come in handy if you have various files on your hard drive that you want to convert - you can load many files into index.NET, not just one, so you can get all the indexing out the way so when loading the movie files into avi.NET, it doesn't then have to waste time, or keep you waiting, to index the files, they'll already be done. Also, index.NET doesn't have to be used solely for avi.NET, you can use it for other programs that require/support D2V files, may come in handy for those that link directly to D2V files from their own AVISynth scripts.


CHANGE LOG: (latest update) - v3.0.0.0

Most changes/updates in this version are based around a complete re-write and general tidy up of most the code. After many updates and changes e.t.c. it can all start to get a bit messy, there are times when a spring clean and clear out are in order. So much has changed (mostly internally). Although I never keep track of every change/fix/update when I should, these are some of the ones I have noted:

•Internal VIDEO|AUDIO|SUBTITLE routines re-written, now cleaner, logical, better parsing and storing of information, construction and implementation of thread routines improved (includes 'indexing' and subtitle extraction).
•Changed the conversion mode dialogs - now more logical than before. Each conversion mode (SIZE|BITRATE|QUANT) has its own 'combobox' to select preset sizes/values (custom values also allowed) which are also now easier to input.
•More audio options available, you can now choose some different bitrates when encoding to MP3.
•Subtitles automatically extract if the relevant IFO is present after indexing.
•VOB/IFO combinations renamed by pgc.NET to include PGC number now detected properly again.
•Changed the way some files are de-interlaced.
•Apart from the changes in dialogs and re-arrangement of controls other slight visual changes present.
•Updated all the error and notification dialogs.
•Error checks extended and improved.
•Altered the way option values are stored and related routines, more options saved between loads.
•Delete .TEMP files and SHUTDOWN options are now available during encode so can be enabled/disabled whenever.
•Windows shutdown should work again now, the old one didn't work on my Windows 7.
•Tooltips when over jobs list altered/fixed.
•Fix some serious program issues that would occur on non English based systems (brought on by earlier beta changes/rewrites) - the dreaded "." "," decimal seperator problem!
•Added some DPI and x64 checks/dialogs.
•External application threads and their feedback routines re-written/changed.
•Some huge memory management improvements.
•Internally, avi.NET is a completely different program.