1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
\r
5 <meta name="generator" content="HTML Tidy, see www.w3.org">
\r
11 <H1>VirtualDub plug-in</H1>
\r
12 <H2>Introduction</H2>
\r
13 <P><B><U>Important:</U> Make sure that
\r
14 you read this documentation carefully in order to avoid mistakes!</B></P>
\r
15 <P>The prerequisite for using this
\r
16 plug-in is that you already familiar with the “manual”
\r
17 process of encoding clips with VirtualDub (<A HREF="http://www.virtualdub.org/">www.virtualdub.org</A>).
\r
18 The great thing about VirtualDub is that it offers both a graphical
\r
19 user interface (GUI), accessible via <B>virtualdub.exe</B>, and a
\r
20 command line interface (CLI), accessible via <B>vdub.exe</B>.</P>
\r
21 <H2>Step 1: create VDub configuration
\r
23 <P>Let's say we had a clip that we
\r
24 wanted to encode not only once, but twice – into different
\r
25 formats. Let's say that the first goal is to encode it to a loss-less
\r
26 Huffyuv clip, and the second goal is to encode it to a quality-based
\r
27 1-pass XviD clip using MP3 sound.</P>
\r
28 <P>What you need to do first is to open
\r
29 VirtualDub, set up the settings for one of the goals (by going into
\r
30 the video compression and audio compression dialogs) and then click
\r
31 on File → Save processing settings (CTRL+S). You will end up
\r
32 with saving a .vcf file somewhere on your hard drive …
\r
33 remember where you put it! After that, you'd set up the settings for
\r
34 your second goal and save these processing settings as well, as a new
\r
36 <H2>Step 2: Enable and set up the VDub
\r
38 <P>First we need to set up the global
\r
39 settings of the plug-in. Go into the preferences dialog and enable
\r
41 <P><img src="images/preferences_global_vdub.gif"/></P>
\r
42 <P>Use the “...” button to
\r
43 specify the path to the vdub.exe file. The setting <B>max number of
\r
44 VCFs per job</B> is important, because the number you put in there
\r
45 will influence how many VCF files you will be able to select in the
\r
46 <B>job dialog</B> (the dialog where you create or edit a
\r
47 job/template). For our example we need to set it to 2, but it doesn't
\r
48 matter if you choose a higher value. Since VDub will encode <B>two</B>
\r
49 files for us, we will have to tell VDub under which filenames to save
\r
50 them. You can select which approach you want to use by configuring
\r
51 the setting <B>output as suffix(0) or file(1)</B>. If you <B>don't</B>
\r
52 check the checkbox this means that you will enter a small part of the
\r
53 file name, the <B>suffix</B>, that will be put at the end of the
\r
54 original file name. E.g. if your original filename was
\r
55 “C:\render\myVideoFile.avi”, and the suffix is
\r
56 “_huffyuv”, the resulting file would be
\r
57 “C:\render\myVideoFile_huffyuv.avi”. However, if you
\r
58 checked that checkbox, you would instead get a “...”
\r
59 button that allows you to specify the filename for the resulting file
\r
60 manually (this is handy if you wanted to save the file to another
\r
61 folder for example).</P>
\r
62 <P>The <B>show extra options</B> setting
\r
63 will be explained at the end of this page.</P>
\r
64 <P>Let's now have a look at the dialog
\r
65 when editing a job</P>
\r
66 <H2>Step 3: Set up the job-specific
\r
68 <P>Open the job dialog.</P>
\r
69 <P><img src="images/edit_job_vdub.gif" />/P>
\r
70 <P>Let's ignore the 2 checkboxes at the
\r
71 top for a moment. What you will need to do is to specify the path to
\r
72 the 2 .vcf files you created previously in VirtualDub in step 1. Then
\r
73 you need to specify the suffix (or the file using the file-chooser)
\r
74 so that VDub knows where to save the encoded videos.</P>
\r
75 <H2>Step 4: Run the plug-in</H2>
\r
77 <LI><P>If you had your job recorded
\r
78 (without using the plug-in) then the status of the job will already
\r
79 be “<B>done”</B> and you can right-click the job and run
\r
80 the VirtualDub plug-in</P>
\r
81 <LI><P>If the job has <B>not</B> been
\r
82 recorded yet, just click on Start processing and wait for the result</P>
\r
84 <H2>Additional information</H2>
\r
85 <H3>Empty VCF paths</H3>
\r
86 <P>As you know you can specify any
\r
87 number in the <B>preferences dialog</B> for the setting <B>max number
\r
88 of VCFs per job</B>. In case of our example that consists of 2 jobs,
\r
89 if you selected 3 (or more) as max. number, and then opened the <B>job
\r
90 dialog</B>, you would see 3 fields each for the <B>path to VCF file</B>
\r
91 and <B>output file</B> setting. This, however, is not a problem. The
\r
92 plug-in will only execute those VCF jobs for which both the path to
\r
93 the VCF and the output file fields are filled with proper
\r
95 <H3>VDub job control</H3>
\r
96 <P>You still don't know what the 2
\r
97 checkboxes in the <B>job dialog</B> at the top of the VDub settings
\r
98 mean. What you need to know is that VirtualDub is having its own “job
\r
99 queue”, which, however, is called <B>“job control”</B>.</P>
\r
100 <P>The following scenarios can make
\r
103 <LI><P>Having <B>both</B> checkboxes
\r
104 <B>enabled</B>: Each time a new NDR job is executed which has
\r
105 VirtualDub jobs, the <B>job control</B> of VirtualDub will be
\r
106 cleared. This means that if you had other, old things in there
\r
107 (possibly when working with VirtualDub outside of the NDR) that
\r
108 these will be deleted from VirtualDub's job control, before the new
\r
109 jobs are added there. Checking the second checkbox means that after
\r
110 adding one of the VirtualDub jobs from within the the NDR,
\r
111 VirtualDub will actually encode them right away (which you will
\r
112 want, at least under normal circumstances).</P>
\r
113 <LI><P>Having <B>both</B> checkboxes
\r
114 <B>disabled</B>: In this case the only thing the NDR would do would
\r
115 be to add the two jobs to the job control of VirtualDub, but
\r
116 VirtualDub won't be encoding them. They are just put into the queue.
\r
117 This means that if you were to start the the graphical user
\r
118 interface of VirtualDub after the NDR completed processing, and open
\r
119 the Job Control (F4), you'd see these jobs “waiting”,
\r
120 and you could render them by pressing the Start button in Virtual
\r
123 <P>The reason why these checkboxes exist
\r
124 is flexibility. I often want the NDR to record stuff over night,
\r
125 because during the recording process my PC is virtually unusable.
\r
126 However, encoding clips in VirtualDub is a task that, depending on
\r
127 the codec, can be done in the background and allows me to use the PC
\r
128 for other things. In this case I'd disable both checkboxes, have the
\r
129 NDR record all clips and add them to VirtualDub's job control, and
\r
130 then on the next day, I decide when and which jobs to encode into
\r
131 different formats from within the VirtualDub GUI.</P>
\r
132 <P>And btw, just to be clear, the <B>second</B>
\r
133 checkbox means that, <B>when enabled</B>, VirtualDub would actually
\r
134 start encoding <U><B>all</B></U> clips that have already been in
\r
135 VirtualDub's job control and that have not been encoded yet.</P>
\r
136 <H3>Extra options</H3>
\r
137 <P>If you selected the <B>show extra
\r
138 options</B> checkbox in the <B>preferences dialog</B>, you will
\r
139 notice that, in the <B>job dialog</B>, you got 2 additional
\r
140 settings/checkboxes for each VCF file. Their names are pretty much
\r
141 self-explanatory. I added these checkboxes because, after a scene was
\r
142 rendered, I usually have the clip encoded into a loss-less format
\r
143 (e.g. Huffyuv) right away. Since it is no problem to encode further
\r
144 things (e.g. compressed XviD movies) based on the Huffyuv clip
\r
145 (instead of always using the original avi file), enabling both these
\r
146 checkboxes for VCF 1 would mean that the 2<SUP>nd</SUP> (3<SUP>rd</SUP>,
\r
147 4<SUP>th</SUP> …) VCF jobs will be based on the
\r
148 huffyuv-encoded file, and I got rid of original, big video as well,
\r
149 saving hard disk space.</P>
\r
150 <H3>Trouble shooting</H3>
\r
151 <P>In case you suspect that the
\r
152 expected, encoded file(s) is somehow incorrect (or even missing),
\r
153 have a look at the <B>logs</B> directory in the NDR folder. You will
\r
154 see log-files with the following format:</P>
\r
155 <P>VirtualDub_NameOfTheJob_vcf1.log</P>
\r
156 <P>Instead of “vcf1” you
\r
157 might also find “vcf2”, “vcf3”... it
\r
158 specifies for which VCF file of that job the log file stands for.</P>
\r
projects / xonotic / xonotic.git / blob