Simple x264 Launcher - use 64-Bit x264 with 32-Bit Avisynth Copyright (C) 2004-2013 LoRd_MuldeR 1. Introduction --------------- This program is a simple GUI front-end for the x264 H.264/AVC encoder. Thanks to Avs2YUV, this program can use the 64-Bit version of x264 with the 32-Bit version of Avisynth. This way you can keep on using your favorite 32-Bit Avisynth plug-ins (e.g. DGDecodeNV) and still benefit from the speed improvements of 64-Bit x264. Of course you can also use 64-Bit Avisynth, which is still considered experimental, if desired. And of course you can use x264's built-in LAVF/FFMS input instead of Avisynth just as well. Moreover this program provides full batch encoding support. This means that you can run several encoding jobs in parallel. Or you can let them run in sequence - one by one. 2. System Requirements ---------------------- This program runs on Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and later. 64-Bit Windows is highly recommended, but 32-Bit Windows works as well. The CPU should support at least the MMX and SSE1 instruction sets. Avisynth 2.5.x must be installed in order to use Avisynth (.avs) input. YV16/YV24 color spaces only supported by Avisynth 2.6 [see section 9]. Audio encoding NOT officially supported by x264 yet [see section 10]. 3. Anti-Virus Warning --------------------- Occasionally your Antivirus program may mistakenly detect "malware" (virus, trojan, worm, etc.) in some of the files here. This is called a "False Positive" and the files are actually innocent/clean. Itīs an error in your specific Antivirus software. In case you encounter such problems, go to http://www.virustotal.com/ and check the file again with multiple Antivirus engines! And take care with results like "suspicious" , "generic" or "packed". Those are *not* real hits, they are just wild speculation. Apparently Antivirus programs tend to suspect installers/uninstaller created with NSIS. Furthermore some Antivirus programs blindly suspect all UPXīd (packed) executables of being malware. Obviously this is a stupid generalization, so you can safely ignore those warnings! Last but not least: Always keep in mind that this is OpenSource software! If you donīt trust the people providing the pre-compiled binaries, download the source codes and compile them yourself. DONīT SUBMIT ANY VIRUS/TROJAN REPORTS, UNLESS YOU HAVE VERIFIED THE INFECTION WITH MULTIPLE ANTIVIRUS ENGNINES. THANKS! 4. License ---------- This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.txt 5. Portable Mode ---------------- This application can be run in "portable" mode. Just rename the EXE file to 'x264_launcher_portable.exe' in order to trigger portable mode. In that mode all configuration files will be saved in the same folder where the EXE file resides. This may be helpful, if you want to run the application directly from your USB stick on different computers. Note, however, that in portable mode the install folder must be writable! 6. Updating Your x264 Binaries ------------------------------ This application works best with the x264 binaries that are included in the distribution package. That's because these binaries have been tested to work properly with the GUI. Nonetheless in some cases you may want to replace the included binaries with a newer version of x264 or with an alternative build of the same version. Generally newer versions of x264 should work with the GUI too, though there is NO guarantee. In rare cases the CLI syntax (or console output) of x264 may change in a way that breaks the compatibility and therefore will require an update of the GUI itself. Furthermore this application does NOT provide any support for unofficial x264 patches. Usually x264 builds that contain unofficial patches will work anyway, but again there is NO guarantee. Using old/outdated x264 binaries with this application is NOT supported or intended. Report bugs rather than reverting to an old version! 7. Timeout Warning ------------------ This application provides "deadlock" prevention. This means that if an encoder process (x264 or Avisynth) stops responding, it will be terminated. This is done in order to ensure that the main program as well as the other encoder processes can continue properly. More specifically, a warning will be raised if the process does not respond for one minute. If the process still didn't respond after five minutes, it will be terminated and consequently the encoding job is aborted. In some rare cases, your Avisynth script may take a very long time to initialize and thus the process will be aborted before the encoding can start. For example, this can happen if FFMS2/FFVideoSource takes a very long time to index the source file. In that case, we recommend to index the source file beforehand, e.g. by using the 'ffmsindex' tool. 8. Custom Parameters -------------------- This application provides a "Custom Parameters" edit box. All command- line parameters you enter there will be passed to x264 unmodified. This way you can send arbitrary parameters to x264 - even such ones that are only available in patched builds of x264. See the x264 Wiki or the Help Screen for a list of available parameters. However be aware that the GUI will not check your parameters at all! Thus using an unknown or unsupported parameter will cause your encode to fail. Using an existing parameter in the wrong way will cause your encode to fail too. Last but not least, some parameters are forbidden by the GUI. If some parameter is forbidden, that's because the GUI will set that parameter for you (if required) or because that parameter is NOT compatible with the GUI. Hint: Occasionally your custom parameters string may become very long, especially when working with zones. In that case you can right-click on the "Custom Parameters" edit box and choose "Open the Text-Editor". This will open a multi-line text editor for easier parameter handling. 9. Color Spaces / Chroma Subsampling ------------------------------------ Avs2YUV converts the output of your Avisynth script to the YV12 format, i.e. YUV data with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling and 8-Bit precision. Usually this is exactly what you want/need. If, however, your Avisynth script outputs image data with a higher chroma resolution, e.g. YUY2 (4:2:2), then the conversion to YV12 (4:2:0) will discard some of the information. In that case, and if you want/need to keep the full chroma resolution of your Avisynth script's output, you will have to pass the "-csp" switch to Avs2YUV as a custom parameter! Use "-csp I422" for YUV 4:2:2 (YV16) and use "-csp I444" for YUV 4:4:4 (YV24). Please note that Avs2YUV can NOT pass through the "packed" YUY2 format. Thus it has to be converted to the "planar" YV16 format. As both, YUY2 and YV16, are YUV 4:2:2 formats, converting from YUY2 to YV16 is a lossless operation. Note, however, that Avisynth 2.5 did NOT support YV16/YV24, so you need to use Avisynth 2.6; otherwise Avs2YUV will fail to do the conversion! Also be aware that the x264 encoder itself will convert any YV16 or YV24 input back to the YV12 format, if you don't pass the suitable "--output-csp i422/i444" switch to x264 as a custom parameter! In short, to encode YUY2 from Avisynth, you have to pass "-csp I422" to Avs2YUV and "--output-csp i422" to x264 to avoid 4:2:0 downsampling. 10. Audio Processing/Encoding ----------------------------- This application is a front-end to the x264 encoder. And, as x264 does NOT support audio processing/encoding yet, there is NO explicit support for audio encoding in this application. Thus, if you want to create a video file *with* audio, you will have to add the audio stream to the encoded video file afterwards. This process is called 'multiplexing' or just 'muxing'. In case you are dealing with Matroska (MKV) files, then "MKVMerge GUI" from the "MKVToolNix" package is the right tool for this task. If, instead, you are dealing with MP4 files, then you may use "MP4Box" or the "YAMB" front-end for muxing the audio stream. Having said all that, there now is an unofficial "Audio" branch of x264 available. If you are using one of the modified x264 builds with "audio support" patch (e.g. those provided by JEEB), then you can process the audio with x264 and skip the additional muxing step. Basically the audio patch adds a new "--acodec" switch, which you can pass to x264 as a custom parameter. For example, you can pass "--acodec aac" for encoding the audio to the AAC format (recommended for MP4 files). Or you can pass "--acodec vorbis" for encoding the audio to the Ogg/Vorbis format (recommended for MKV files). Please be aware that audio encoding will work only, if your input file contains an audio stream! When using the built-in LAVF/FFMS input of x264, the audio can be encoded straight from the input file. This does NOT work with Avisynth input! Instead, if you want to encode audio from an Avisynth script, you must pass the "--audiofile " switch to x264 as a custom parameter. For convenience, the string "--audiofile $(INPUT)" may be used. 11. OpenCL Support ----------------------- Newer builds of x264 now support OpenCL Lookahead, which can be enabled with the "--opencl" parameter. However, even if you do NOT want to use this feature, x264 will still depend on the OpenCL library (OpenCL.DLL) and it will NOT even start, if the OpenCL DLL is missing! For this reason, the Simple x264 Launcher ships with a "dummy" OpenCL library to make x264 start on systems that do NOT support OpenCL. As a side effect of this workaround, any OpenCL functions in x264 will not work at all! If your video hardware supports OpenCL *and* if you have an up-to-date video driver with OpenCL support installed *and* if you which to use the OpenCL Lookahead function, then please remove the dummy OpenCL.DLL from the Simple x264 Launcher directory, so x264 can load the system's OpenCL.DLL (from system directory), provided by the video driver. 12. Command-line Syntax ----------------------- The following command-line switches are available: --add [] ... Create new job(s) from files(s) --console ............... Show the "debug" console --no-console ............ Don't show the "debug" console --no-style .............. Don't use the Qt "Plastique" style --skip-avisynth-check ... Skip Avisynth check (not recommended!) --force-cpu-no-64bit .... Forcefully disable 64-Bit support These are parameters you can pass to Simple x264 Launcher, they can NOT be passed to x264 itself as "custom" parameters! 13. Help & Support ------------------ For help and support, please join the discussion at: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=144140 Please do NOT send me e-mail with support requests. Thanks! e.o.f.