LlamaEnc - a Windows video encoding GUI

[absolutedestiny.livejournal.com]

Do you have the encoding blues? Always worried about whether you are using the correct settings? Don't know what to do if your video is PAL or if it's 24fps?

Worry no longer!

LlamaEnc is designed as an almost-one-click program for creating the m2v and wav files that we at Vividcon prefer for video submissions. It accepts most major video formats and will mostly know what to do with anything you throw at it.

::::: Download LlamaEnc 1.0 (4.08mb) here. :::::

This link should work for all future versions of LlamaEnc. New versions will be announced at vividcon.

Installing LlamaEnc:

LlamaEnc requires the Microsoft .NET framework 2.0 in order to function. If you do not have this installed, the installer will point you to the download page. It also requires a recent version of avisynth but this is included in the installer if you do not have it already.

I have not tested this program on anything but windows XP. I'm fairly confident that it will run happily on win2k but 95/98/ME I'm less certain. Give it a try and report back.

Using LlamaEnc

The program is fairly straightforward. The main thing to remember is that it's not 100% perfect at knowing what your source footage is, so you will need to tell it if your footage is interlaced or anamorphic and if the framerate has been detected wrong for some reason you need to tell it that too. Otherwise it should be fairly smart.

There is a full user guide included with the program, just press F1 to see it. This also contains more detailed instructions on encoding and tech issues.

Help, Feedback and Comments

Obviously this being my first ever program there are bound to be bugs. Please be patient with the program, it is free afte rall, and if you can report any bugs errors or any other oddities here that will help me improve the program in the future. I am not your general windows tech support but if you are trying to make a video for Vividcon and this program isn't working for you then you can contact me here or via the vividcon tech email address (vvctech at gmail dot com) and I will try and help as best I can.

LlamaEnc shouldn't kill your PC. The installer is very tame. It might not work but that's another thing entirely :)

(x-posted to vividcon)

Comments

[charmax.livejournal.com]

I use procoder at the moment for video frame conversions but I will definitely be trying this out. Thanks!

[absolutedestiny.livejournal.com]

This is just a wrapper for HCenc and AVS2Wav, so in terms of mpeg2 quality you will get better results with procoder. If you're comfortable with your setup then stick with it. I say as much in the submission instructions on the vividcon site. This is a program for the desperate and the lazy only :)

The avisynth scripting in LlamaEnc is pretty simple, if a source is not 29.97 or 23.976 it will just do a hard telecine the footage to 29.97fps using the following script:

[deinterlace if interlaced]

ChangeFPS(59.94)
AssumeTFF()
SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4,0,3)
Weave()
ConvertToYV12(interlaced=true)

I considered using DGPulldown for the telecine handling but some dvd authoring programs aren't too keen on odd drop frame flags.

[charmax.livejournal.com]

I am a relative novice when it comes to scripting and encoding so I’m afraid to say, most of that went over my head. After initial testing though, I am pretty impressed. It does exactly what is says on the tin. I tried it out on one of my uncompressed 25fps AVIs, windows XP and so far no bugs.

The output quality isn’t as great as Procoder and you do get a slight jerky playback, but those are only small drawbacks. Procoder is quite expensive to buy and sometimes quite tricky to work with so I think this is a very good alternative. I’m sure lots of folks here on vidding and the wider vid community will find it a very useful app to have.

I will continue to use it for now because I like to know all my options. :)

Thanks again for this nifty little program.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

You win at life. OMG.

::totally amazed::

[trythil.livejournal.com]

.NET 2.0 does not support Windows 95 (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html/cpconnetframeworksystemrequirements.asp).

[trythil.livejournal.com]

Oops, wrong link -- that was for .NET 1.1. .NET 2.0 requirements are here (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/ms229070.aspx). (MSDN is a mess.)

[absolutedestiny.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads up. I kinda figured it wouldn't, given that micosoft are actually stopping support altogether for those platforms soon (or so I was lead to believe) and if that is the case then there's not a great deal of reason for me to offer support for it either :)

In any case, I'd have never been able to do this without c#... I'm totally not a programmer and this javascripty thing was a real piece of cake to write.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I downloaded the program and tested it out, and I think there's something in my files that it doesn't like. This is the error that I'm getting:
Avisource: couldn't locate a decompressor for fourcc.

Details are:
************** Exception Text **************
LlamaEnc.AviSynthException: AVISource: couldn't locate a decompressor for fourcc
at LlamaEnc.AviSynthClip..ctor(String func, String arg, AviSynthColorspace forceColorspace, AviSynthScriptEnvironment env)
at LlamaEnc.AvsReader..ctor(String script, Boolean parse)
at LlamaEnc.Form1.sourceSettings()
at LlamaEnc.Form1.initialSettings()
at LlamaEnc.Form1.openVideoButton_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)


************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v2.0.50727/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
LlamaEnc
Assembly Version: 0.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 1.0.4.0
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/LlamaEnc/LlamaEnc.exe
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561
934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System
.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a
3a/System.Drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Xml
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/
System.Xml.dll
----------------------------------------

I'm still pretty new at this whole vidding thing, so I'm at a loss as how to deal with it.

[absolutedestiny.livejournal.com]

Go to options and choose Always Use Direct Show and see if that helps.

What codec is your video in? It needs to be one where you have a video for windows decoder generally.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Go to options and choose Always Use Direct Show and see if that helps.

It does! I can see the video and the 'encode' button has appeared.

Thank you so much.