Processing power that only a NASA could afford!

DDogg wrote on 2/25/2003, 1:42 PM
I doubt there exists a more complex set of noise and video manipulation filters on this earth as those in Avisynth. Avisynth is probably one of the best kept secrets in the video world as it has always been identified by many with video capture. To see how simple it is:

Avisynth HOME, http://www.avisynth.org
Avisynth FAQ, http://www.avisynth.org/index.php?page=AviSynthFAQ
Avisynth Plugins, http://www.avisynth.org/index.php?page=Section+3%3A+Filters+and+colorspaces#q3.4
Informal meeting area,http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=33

Avisynth has attracted some of the worlds best video programmers (many assembler experts). Many are global pre-PhD level students in mathematics from some of the world's best universities who enjoy the video hobby, using their high level abilities, and I suspect, the practice of English in a laid back environment (I
don't think I exaggerate at all the level of the contributors). I would think these top ranking people have collectively contributed tens of thousands of hours over the last 2 to 4 years toward the project. They contribute their time because they are having a lot of fun and we get the open source video processing power that only a NASA could afford. Open source at its finest.

Any properly written commercial program can open AVS files natively via the windows VFW interface calls. "To Windows, there is no difference between an AVI and a AVS." Some programs, like Vegas, require the use of a small utility called VFAPI with a special dll called readavs.dll.

This post is just to keep avisynth in front of this particular community and the Vegas programmers. Also, I wonder if some of you would be interested in a "How to use AviSynth in Vegas FAQ"?.

Regards,

DDogg
http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=33

Comments

slacy wrote on 2/25/2003, 3:48 PM
I'm interested!
speedjet wrote on 2/25/2003, 8:12 PM
Count me on that list too...

Interested in a FAQ, specially for import some files that vegas didn't handle properly...

OT: there's a way to use avisynth with QuickTime files?
jeffy82 wrote on 2/25/2003, 8:37 PM
Well, They WERE the best kept secrets.
mcgeedo wrote on 2/25/2003, 9:46 PM
After reading this post, I went exploring. I got AviSynth, VFAPI Convert and readavs.dll, and actually have it working! This is way cool. I used the temporal filter on a VHS cap and it is a huge improvement.
DDogg wrote on 2/26/2003, 3:30 AM
"OT: there's a way to use avisynth with QuickTime files? "

Yes, I wrote this up for you:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=269422#post269422
DDogg wrote on 2/26/2003, 3:33 AM
Great news. Take a look at the convolution3D plugin for your VHS caps.
DDogg wrote on 2/26/2003, 3:35 AM
I'll try to get a "how to" started up this afternoon.
mcgeedo wrote on 2/26/2003, 8:09 AM
Hey DDogg, I don't find a convolution3D filter in the basic set. Is that a third-party filter? and if so, have you a link for it? I only see a filter named GeneralConvolution, which just does a matrix convolve on a frame. Does convolution3D imply a convolve over several frames, i.e. temporal?
Thanks for your time, -Don
DDogg wrote on 2/26/2003, 12:23 PM
Try those links I posted
Especially this one (all the plugins):
Avisynth Plugins, http://www.avisynth.org/index.php?page=Section+3%3A+Filters+and+colorspaces#q3.4
DDogg wrote on 2/26/2003, 5:34 PM
As promised, this is a tutorial with step by step instructions for using avisynth scripts in Vegas and other applications. Please let me know what you think and if this was useful to you.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=269697#post269697

I apologize for not understanding the method of embedding links on this board. Perhaps a friendly mod will show me how.


dvdmike wrote on 2/26/2003, 11:25 PM
OK DDogg, whats the problem with that link? It has some bad java in it and caused IE 6 to get into an infinite loop on my machine. I had a hard time using the task manager to kill it.
DDogg wrote on 2/27/2003, 7:26 PM
I think they were moving servers or something. Yeah, it was a pain. Should be fine now. BTW, I lost a hard drive last night so I am behind. I'll try to get some more stuff up in the next couple of days.
Johnny7777 wrote on 3/3/2003, 1:58 PM
SO what is the advantage to using avs over let's say mpeg2? Would I capture to that format? Is it more compressed and does it keep the quality? Can I burn it to DVD and will it work with most DVD players.
DDogg wrote on 3/3/2003, 2:32 PM
Johnny7777,

I think you have a misconception of what Avisynth is. Let me see if I can help out.

Avisynth is a frameserving and processing engine that is particular synergistic with Vegas, it is not a format like AVI or MPG.

Perhaps this scenario will help. Imagine you have a monster 10 gig source file and you want to experiment with some processing. For the sake of discussion, let's say you quickly want to: deinterlace, convert to 60fps, apply temporal smoothing, tweak color saturation, gamma, all in one shot.

Formidable, huh? Nah, not really using Avisynth and doing so will not even require an intermediate file. You would just write a small text script, convert with VFAPI and load the resulting file in Vegas (maybe Vegas will load the native AVS one of these days).

Avisynth frameserves (sends pure video directly) to Vegas, again, with no intermediate file involved. Vegas just thinks it loaded an avi file and is quite happy. There is no processing time involved. Earlier, I said Avisynth is particularly synergistic with Vegas. This is true for a couple of reasons. Here is a couple.

1> Vegas has an excellent manner of file buffering. So, while the VFAPI.avi file might play very slowly in WMP, it plays quite well in Vegas due to the pre-buffering of the frameserved data by Vegas. More than fast enough on my old T-Bird 1.4 to see immediate preview results. With a little prerendering you can output to your external monitor and see your results. Again,(third time)with NO INTERMEDIATE FILE. Sure allows you to stretch that HD space.

2> A really GREAT feature of Vegas is the multiple video lines. You can load your original in one line and your avisynth version in another. By muting the original, you can clearly and immediately see the difference between the two versions on a frame accurate basis. This is extremely handy!

Well I hope this helps you understand avisynth a little better.

Regards,

DD