When Computers Die

So, what programs does a person absolutely need to be able to convert fansubs to AVI (so that they can be burned onto DVDs)? I think I had many which did their jobs from behind the scenes--that is, they played a part in routine conversion work, but I didn't have to expressly activate them each time, so I forgot about them. Stuff like Haali Media Splitter (or had they just become dead weight, and no longer played a necessary part?).

First of all you want to get the videos playable on your PC. That's why I asked whether you want to install all the many codecs and filters, or try CCCP instead this time (as it won't create conflicts with other codec packs as long as you have none installed). Haali will be one part of CCCP.

If you have this, you can still decide whether you will continue using the conversion procedure we discussed. Some of the required tools will be part of CCCP, some will have to be installed separately (Switch, to name one). The tools that we installed for the conversion procedure were (links taken from the old thread):

• MKVtoolnix (for handling MKV containers)
• MKVextractGUI2 (for extracting audio and subtitle streams from MKV containers, goes into MKVtoolnix dir)
• Switch (for converting WAV audio to MP3; there might be alternative programs)
• AviSynth (for simulating a video player, and as such reading the MKV file as conversion input)
• VirtualDubMod (for creating AVI containers, i. e. conversion output; there might be other programs with the same or better functionality)
• VSFilter a.k.a. DirectVobSub (for interpreting SSA subtitle streams, might be part of CCCP)
• XviD codec (for actually encoding the video stream, might be part of CCCP; DivX 6/7 would be as good as XviD)

Edited on 01/18/2012 07:27 PM.

Though I am already traumatized by all the changes that have taken place, I'd be willing to try CCCP. But I have already done a good deal of downloading: MediaInfo_GUI_0.7.52, AlltoAVI_V4_r5394, UTorrent 1.6, VirtualDub 1.9.11, MKVExtractGUI 2.2.2.9 (both zipped folder and file folder--which wouldn't work apparently because I didn't have MKVtoolnix), and mkvtoolnix unicode setup. I was trying to replicate my old set of programs as closely as I could remember. What a mess I have already managed to make!

Everything okay so far, none of the above clashes with CCCP. (And AlltoAVI was replaced by our procedure as it couldn't read modern MKV containers, remember?)

Continue with CCCP (which will replace what K-Lite did on your old PC, plus contain Haali and MPC and lots of codecs) and check whether you can play all your fansubs. Conversion comes afterwards.

Edited on 01/18/2012 07:20 PM.

Oh yeah; I still use AllToAVI to double-check fansubs which are already in AVI mode when I download them, becuase that doesn't necessarily mean that they will be watchable on a DVD player. I downloaded the startup for CCCP 2011-11-11 Final. My Norton security service found CCCP to be 'safe' but also 'slightly unstable', whatever that means. However, when I attempted to complete the download, I got the message "You do not seem to have the latest D3DX9 binaries from the DirectX End-User Runtime installed, which are necessary for some advanced renderer features in MPC-HC. It is recommended to update DirectX before installing CCCP". I clicked on the download, and since DirectX is a Microsoft product I judged it safe to procede. I think that every time I try to download something I have gotten the message "This type of file could harm your computer". I am closing down Mikomi for a little while because the CCCP startup menu recommended it. I'll check back in a while.

OK, CCCP download seems to be complete.

I got the same message about DirectX here.

Every executable program you download could contain a virus. That's why you have Norton Security installed to tell apart "good" programs from "evil" ones.

Did you complete the download of CCCP or its installation? If the latter, are you able to play your fansubs with the MPC that is part of CCCP?

Edited on 01/18/2012 08:22 PM.

Yes, I am able to play an MKV fansub on my computer via MPC without any trouble. Sorry for forgetting to check that.

One new problem is that my new computer crops the right side of this screen off, so I can't use the sliding thingie to move up and down; part of each chout box entry is cut off as well. Adjusting zoom and text size doesn't seem to make any difference.

Which screen resolution are you running your PC with? This might be larger than what your monitor supports.

Ah, when I change from 1280 x 720 to 1280 x 600 I get the slide track back again. Thanks.

After midnight I went to the reopened Tokyo Toshokan website. I downloaded the preliminary Torrent File for episode 14 of Persona 4 from Commie fansubs. Previously when I opened such a file in My Documents UTorrent automatically carried out the download of the fansub itself. But now I get "Windows can't open this file. To open this file, Windows needs to know what program you want to use to open it. Windows can go online to look it up automatically, or you can manually select from a list of programs that are installed on your computer". But when I attempt to manually select, UTorrent isn't among the list of choices which I am offered, even though I re-downloaded it today. Both UTorrent and the fansub torrent file are on the same page, {'Documents'), and I told the computer that I wanted UTorrent to be the default file for the handling of torrent files, but I still can't get the process to work.

Actually, I think I have figured it out. Now I must open the UTorrent program then select the torrent file whose fansub I want to download, whereas in the past opening the torrent file in My Documents automatically activated UTorrent. But where is the fansub being stored at? It is at neither 'Downloads' nor "Documents'. Back at the UTorrent page, I click on 'Open Containing Folder', and here it is (and it plays without trouble). I guess this is the equivalent of what used to be known as 'Downloads' but is now a subset of the Lenovo page known as 'Downloads'. If I take the route through UTorrent to the 'Containing Folder', I can 'send' the fansub to 'Documents', which is where I'm used to them being.

So, I think I have figured out how to download fansubs again. What I still need is to be able to convert them to AVI and burn them onto DVDs again.

I downloaded an AVI fansub, Bakuman 2 #15 from SFW-sage, to see if I could get my old system of using MediaInfo and AllToAVI to convert it. After fooling around for a good while I figured out where MediaInfo was stored (I can only get to it in 'All Programs'), use it to get the Bitrate, then open up AllToAVI. It was looking like something might actually go the way I wanted it to on the first try, but I get a message of 'Run-time error '70' Permission denied' when I attempt to begin the conversion.

I would be up a serious creek without your help. But it is 2AM here and I must get some sleep...

About your terminology: Downloading an archive or installation file to your PC isn't the same as installing the software product, i. e. execute the downloaded program once to permanently create a usable version of the product.

During this installation process the software usually registers itself within Windows (often after asking you whether you want this to be done), thus creating an association between a file name extension and itself. This is what makes Windows execute the MPC player when you double-click a MKV file, what makes Windows execute uTorrent when you download a Torrent file etc. So if you have installed uTorrent it should have established the association between itself and the Torrent files, which obviously isn't the case on your PC. Did you select to not create this association during the uTorrent installation process?

In most programs you can establish this association manually. In the case of uTorrent it works like this: In uTorrent, select the menu entry "Options" / "Preferences" / "General". There you will find a section "Windows Integration" with buttons reading "Associate with .torrent files", and a checkbox "Check association at startup". The button tells Windows to invoke uTorrent whenever you "doubleclick" a Torrent file (which includes downloading one); the checkbox causes the button to be pressed at every start of uTorrent in case some other program has grabbed this association and redirected it to itself, or deleted it from the Windows configuration.

Selecting uTorrent from the list of (installed) programs and setting the checkbox "use this program always" would have the same effect. It probably isn't part of the list you were offered because until now your Windows system hasn't seen that uTorrent can be willing to handle files of this type.

When uTorrent gets access to aTorrent file it opens a dialog, showing you the content of the Torrent file (so that you can decide whether you actually want to start this download). In this dialog you can see the directory path, i. e. the location where the downloaded files will be stored, in the topmost field, and you can change it there to a location of your choice. Some of this behavior is configurable, i. e. your program settings might have disabled this dialog; I like this dialog as it allows me to arrange torrent results by content even before their download has begun. But even if you have this dialog disabled you can set the directory where your Torrent downloads are to be stored in uTorrent's "Options" / "Preferences" / "Directories".

Edited on 01/19/2012 10:21 AM.

As for AlltoAVI: You're aware that you can replace this operation by opening the AVI file directly with VirtualDub and start the recoding there? (If the video stream is the cause of the issue, that is; VirtualDub won't recode the audio stream.)

"Run-time error 70: Permission denied" sounds like the program tries to write its output to a directory that it has no write access for. Change the output directory to make this error go away.

You remember what I wrote about a "work area"? Now is the time to specify one, and use its directory path in the configuration of some of your programs. You're creating a new system configuration right now, and the decisions you make will have lasting effects during the whole lifetime of your Lenovo machine.

Now would also be the right time to create a directory like "C:\software" where you install all the downloaded software to; this would allow you to easily have an overview about all the tools your conversion procedure relies on. Unfortunately, you already installed quite a few of these programs and each of them offers a default installation location of its own choice, thus scattering the programs over various directories.

As for MediaInfo, the installation of the program should create an entry in your Windows Explorer's context menu so that you can select the AVI file with the right mouse button, then select "MediaInfo" from the dropdown list. As always, you can configure this behavior within MediaInfo itself, by selecting "Options" / "Preferences" / "Setup" / "Shell extension".

Edited on 01/19/2012 10:03 AM.

I'm sure I never consciously told the computer not to make connections between UTorrent and Torrent files. Perhaps the problem is that in my confusion I placed UTorrent on both the Downloads and the Documents pages (This computer placed it in Downloads but I was used to it being in My Documents). Today I deleted it from Documents to reduce duplication, and when I opened it (to carry out your instructions) I get the message "UTorrent is currently not set up as the default application for .torrent files'. It asks me if I want to make it so, and I click on 'Yes'. This happened once yesterday, but like I said I had basically created two places to activate UTorrent, and maybe only one was acting as a default .torrent system, and I chose the one that wasn't. I'm just guessing. Anyway, inside UTorrent, alongside the 'associate with .torrent files' box, there are options for 'check association on startup' which is checkmarked, and 'start UTorrent on system startup' which isn't. I will attempt to download another fansub, and see what happens.

When I attempt to start the download of Daily Lives of High School Boys 02 from Sage fansubs, things go the same as yesterday: when I try to use my old technique I get the message that Windows cannot do this, so instead I use my new technique of starting at UTorrent itself, and that begins the downloading process. Indeed, it takes only a minute or so to complete the download! Maybe this computer really does have some extra speed to it.

Download speed is a parameter of your Internet connection; the CPU power of the PC is irrelevant. "Daily Lives" from Sage... which file version, the 480p file (125 MB) or the 720p file (228 MB)? Downloading the smaller file within 60 seconds would already be a really fast DSL connection: 120 MB in 60 seconds = 2 MB per second = 16 MBit per second (that's 8 times as fast as mine).

Having "duplicates" of a program is certainly detrimental to transparency. I suggest deleting all of them (except for the downloaded file that goes into the "archive of installation programs"), and redo the program installation of uTorrent so that you know where it resides, and what it is told to be responsible for.

"Windows cannot do this" is not correct. Windows offers you a list of programs but also a file select dialog which allows you to select the uTorrent program nonetheless (provided you are able to locate it).

Semantically speaking, uTorrent isn't a document, it is an application. I am used to separate

• applications (= programs, that are installed once and then never modified, only overwritten by more recent versions during another installation, and can't reasonably backed up because of their integration into the Windows operation system) from
• data (= documents, videos, music etc. that are created and deleted frequently, are independent from other files, and as such can reasonably be backed up).

Edited on 01/19/2012 11:37 AM.

I went back to AllToAVI looking for an 'output directory', but there doesn't seem to be any mention of that, and the closest match I see is the 'save to' option. The program wants to send the results to Documents, and I don't see why there should be any problem with that. I told it to send the converted version to my hard drive, just to see if anything would change, but I get the same Run-time error message. What am I doing wrong?

It sounds like I should move these programs which I have downloaded to a C:software directory. Does that already exist, or do I need to create it? What I'm working with at 'Downloads' are actually just shortcuts, aren't they? If I understand correctly, the actual programs are stored elsewhere. So I doubt if I can just 'send' them to the internal hard disk.

Anyway, all of the programs which I have downloaded are now listed together in Downloads. However, the only ones which seem to have installed correctly and are working normally are MediaInfo and UTorrent. I am starting to realise how wonderful it is to have a wide array of programs which cooperate smoothly.

I am still confused about your use of the terms "downloaded" and "installed", because this makes all the difference. If you have just downloaded all programs and installed none of them then only those programs that don't need an installation will work right now. If I remember correctly, uTorrent is one of those. Then again, I wonder how you would be able to play MKV containers if you hadn't installed CCCP.

As for the shortcuts: If you're talking about Desktop icons you can select them with a right-mouse-click and read their attributes, including the real directory path they are pointing to.

"C:\software" was my suggestion for a new directory to be created, the exact name and location would be your choice. Within this directory you would create a subdirectory for each application (which usually is what the installation program suggests by default), and perhaps even subdirectories for "fields of use" within the applications directories would reside. On my PC these are:

• applications (text editors, graphics tools, PDF tools, spreadsheet)
• communication (file sharing, web browsers, chat client, YouTube downloading tool etc.)
• multimedia (everything related to video and audio processing, including CCCP, media players, all converters, MediaInfo)
• systemtools (CD burning software, security software, WinRAR, HashCalc etc.)

Edited on 01/19/2012 01:46 PM.

I suspect that what I am doing wrong regarding the downloading of programs goes something like this: the downloading of the installation file generally goes without trouble, and Windows places them on the 'Downloads' page. but once I go through the installation process, the program itself is placed somewhere else without telling me where it is or offering me a chance to create a shortcut to reach it. So, I assume that the icon of the installation file now represents the complete, ready to run program. I click on it when I want to activate the program, but that only starts the installation sequence over again. Thus, I find myself re-installing the program for the second, third, or fourth time (and become frustrated). For example, there is still a MediaInfo icon on the Downloads page, but clicking on that just restarts the MediaInfo installation sequence. I was only able to find the program itself when I went to 'All Programs'. On the other hand, I can open UTorrent from the Downloads page--but every time I am asked yet again if I want to make it my default program to handle .torrent files. That shouldn't happen. And it doesn't seem to be listed in 'All Programs' (could that be because it begins with that Greek letter?)I will try to track down where all the other programs have been placed, and see if they are completely installed or not.

uTorrent is a special case that allows different installation procedures depending on what you decide to do during the first program run. It may be installed in a way that it stores all its data within one directory, together with the program binary ("self-contained installation"); it may also be installed storing its data in a directory whose name may be different on each PC but be known to uTorrent by accessing an environment variable %AppData% of the Windows system ("encapsulated installation"). The latter is apparently the default and thus what I did.

But neither of these installations creates an entry in the Windows "All Programs" tree because it is usually not necessary to start uTorrent manually as it can be invoked via associating it to the ".torrent" extension of the Torrent files. The uTorrent installation guide is here.

But most of the confusion you describe is caused by you not seeing what is real and what is merely a pointer to something else, what is an installation program and what is an installed application (thus causing you to repeat installations). That's what Windows gives you by hiding so much information (and even claiming to "make things easier for you" this way). The directory structure above would make it clear which is which.

Edited on 01/19/2012 04:34 PM.

MediaInfo, CCCP, MKVtoolnix and AllToAVI are listed in 'All Programs'. I'd like to create a shortcut to several of them on my desktop, but I have only managed to do so for AllToAVI, because it was the only program (IIRC) which offered me that option. And since I keep getting that 'Run-time error' thing, it still doesn't work anyway. That means that the Downloads page contains:

MKVextractGUI 2.2.2.9 which still wants to be put in 'MKVtoolnix dir'. I am told that clicking 'OK' will fix this problem. Doing so takes me to a long list of different versions of MKVtoolnix. IIRC, that was where I got the version which is now in 'All Programs'.

VirtualDub 1.9.11 which seems to be completely downloaded, except every time I open it it asks me if I really want to run it since its source couldn't be verified.

dxwebsetup which I'm pretty sure I have completely downloaded, but I haven't been able to find the finished version. This sounds like something Windows would automatically place on a special page somewhere.

MKVextract 2.2.2.9 zipped folder This is the installation program which I can delete now, right?

and UTorrent.

Hey, I have figured out how to create shortcuts on the desktop page.

What you see in "All Programs" is not reality. It is a list of pointers to reality. You don't know whether you see a list of different versions of MKVtoolnix or a list of pointers all pointing to the same MKVtoolnix. Reality would be the location where these pointers are pointing to; this would be the installation directory that you specified during the installation process (which I suggest to be C:\software\multimedia\mkvtoolnix), and that's where the MKVextractGUI2 needs to be moved to. But having several pointers to MKVtoolnix there proves that you did in fact repeat the installation process a number of times by confusing the installer tool with the result of the installation.
As these are just pointers you can simply delete all of them from the "All Programs" menu; the problem is that if you had in fact several MKVtoolnix installations in different directories it would be very difficult to find and delete them afterwards. But the current situation isn't usable as well: If you can't rely on the state of these installation(s) then deleting the pointer to them doesn't make that much harm. What's more: If you didn't manually enter a different installation directory during each of these installation processes, the installer must have used its installation default setting for each of these processes, thus overwriting the already existing MKVtoolnix installation over and over again (and being too stupid to notice this, still create additional entries in "All Programs" instead of overwriting these as well).
You will probably not be surprised to hear that I use the chaotic "All Programs" menu tree only in very few cases - such as when I am to run a program that can't be associated to a file name extension and I am using this program in so very few cases that having a Desktop icon for it would be a waste of space there. (Actually I don't even use Desktop icons: Instead I have modified my "Start" menu, adding the most frequently used applications directly above the "All Programs" entry so that I see all of them without having to navigate anywhere. The Desktop may be hidden by a maximized window of an application, such as my Web browser, whereas the "Start" menu is always accessible regardless of any application windows I have opened on my screen. But doing this modification is a bit tricky to explain albeit it ultimately is nothing more than moving a number of already existing files to a different location within an already existing directory tree.)

As for deleting the installation programs (or archives, in the case of MKVextract) you may remember that I prefer to move them into an "archive directory" (suggestion: c:\archives; actually I use the same "fields of use" hierarchical structure for the archives that I use for the installed software, this makes the directories easier to compare for me). Then they are out of the way so that you won't accidentally try to execute them but are available in case you need them (for example if an upgrade to a newer version of the same product creates unwanted results).
But your idea is not wrong in general as deleting the installation program after a successful installation prevents you from accidentally repeating the same installation. Me, I don't have this problem because I don't store programs and installations in the same "Download" directory to begin with, hence I can't confuse both. I download an application into C:\temp, install it into the C:\software tree, and move the installer into C:\archives tree - done. And from the location of each file I know what kind of file it is.

VirtualDub 1.9.11 doesn't ask you this. Instead, this is most likely your Norton Security software which remembers that you got this program from the Internet and still considers it "suspicious". I don't have Norton Security so I can't tell you how you can disable this message.

dxwebsetup sounds as if it's the installer for the DirectX system component upgrade. The result of this installation will be a modification within Windows, that's why you won't see it. This is one installer program that even I won't archive because it is very specific for a particular version of a Windows system and very unlikely to be reusable elsewhere.

Edited on 01/19/2012 06:09 PM.

I have placed all my installation programs in a special folder by that name. After fooling around for awhile, I found that I could drag and drop MKVextractGUI2 to the MKVtoolnix folder in C:/Program Files (though I needed to give myself 'Administrator permission' to do so). At last, it worked and I was able to seperate the episode of Persona 4 into it audio, video and subtitle components. I downloaded Switch as well, and that went quickly and smoothly. I was re-reading entries in 'Mencoder has encountered a problem and needs to close' as I did these things. Switch worked properly as well and I moved on to VirtualDub. Things were looking good at this point. I went back to Documents to create the .avs file (I had saved a copy of the usual AviSynth blank document, which I have used countless times, in my hard drive). The computer said that I had to specify which program to use, so I selected Wordpad. For some reason the Wordpad document I created didn't automatically have the usual .avs suffix, so I typed it in manually (I later notived that one of the documents I created was labelled 'Persona 14.avs.avs', so maybe the suffix is being attached automatically but not shown for some reason). But when I attempted to 'Open video file' at VirtualDub, I got 'AVI Import Filter error (unknown)(80040154)'. I created another Wordpad document without the suffix and tried to use that, but got the same result. At around this point I realized that I needed to re-download AviSynth itself, which I did. But I still can't get VirtualDub to work; now I get 'AviSynth Open failure: DirectShowSource couldn't open file: An object or name was not found (...Persona/3.avs, Line 1)'. I placed AviSynth back in C:/Program Files--could it be that it isn't 'close' enough to VirtualDub, just like MKVextractGUI wasn't in the same file as MKVtoolnix? As you may have guessed, what I really want is to be able to make conversions in the manner that I'm familiar with ASAP, but it isn't proving to be as easy as I had hoped.

You did great up to this point; reading the "mencoder" thread at this point is what this thread is meant for.

You had similar problems back then, and we solved them by isolating the possible causes. When you're opening an AviSynth script with VirtualDub you're actually executing several things at the same time: VirtualDub communicates with AviSynth, and AviSynth tries to interpret the script file. Now which one is the culprit? You can prove this by eliminating VirtualDub from the equation, and open the script with MPC instead (only to get the same error message there). You will then most likely find out that something in the path name of the MKV file is mistyped, thus the "DirectShowSource" statement in the AviSynth script can't find this MKV file.
Does your script contain only the file name of the MKV container? If so, then it must reside in the same location as that MKV file. (This is actually the same kind of dependency as between MKVextractGUI2 and mkvtoolnix: If you don't specify the path name in the script then it has to be the same path name as for the script file. MKVextractGUI2 can't specify the path name of mkvtoolnix; your script could do that but it would be more bothersome than just keeping it in the same place as the MKV file.)

If you want to prove that VirtualDub works as a stand-alone program, just open an AVI container with it - e. g. the file you intended to process with AlltoAVI. You did already prove that AviSynth works correctly - it was AviSynth who wrote this error message while interpreting the script, telling you the line number of the "DirectShowSource" statement where it ran into a problem.

Note: For processing subtitles you will have to add the vsfilter.vdf plugin to VirtualDub, that's probably the last component you didn't install already.

Background explanation: The connection between mkvtoolnix and MKVextractGUI2 is done by the GUI executing a program of mkvtoolnix; the GUI's (lazy) programmer decided to assume that both have to be located in the same directory instead of implementing a dialog for configuring the path of this mkvtoolnix program within the GUI.
Between VirtualDub and Avisynth this is different: VirtualDub doesn't even need to know that you have AviSynth installed. VirtualDub tries to open the script by itself, expecting it to contain an AVI container; actually there's a script inside, resulting in the "AVI Import Filter error (unknown)(80040154)" as long as AviSynth had not been installed. But now, Avisynth is configured to "catch" this attempt (because it permanently "listens" to all files with the ".avs" extension), opens the file itself instead, reads and interprets its content, and then sends the resulting video data to VirtualDub as if these had been the content of the script file in the first place - and VirtualDub is fooled into believing this. Therefore the location of these two tools is completely independent from each other; the "bridge" between both (i. e. the file name extension association of ".avs") is an internal mechanism of the Windows operating system. All that matters is that 1. VirtualDub can find the script and 2. the "DirectShowSource" statement of the script can find the MKV video file - the latter being your current issue.

Edited on 01/20/2012 08:58 AM.

I just lost a lengthy post due to Mikomi 'not responding'. Basically, when I attempt to open my script with MPC I get a similar error message as I did at VirtualDub, which I guess means that VirtualDub is not responsible. But now my blank AviSynth form has an MPC logo on it instead of the strip of light blue film, and trying to open it just takes me back to the same error message by default. I can select 'Open with” and choose AviSynth (Notepad is recommended), but that just takes me to the main AviSynth program, not the blank script (which is what I want). I fear that by forgetting to download AviSynth for awhile yesterday, and denoting Notepad as my program of choice, I have screwed something up.

To my surprise, an AVI fansub of Bakuman (not an AviSynth script) plays without problems on VirtualDub.

I am confused by the 'Path name' business. I copied AviSynth from C:/Programs to Documents in hopes that this would fix things like moving MKVextractGUI did, but no luck.

Edited on 01/20/2012 10:33 AM.

Well, I've been trying to create a new AviSynth blank form. Now my files have what I think is the Notepad logo, a notebook or something with a red letter 'A' on it. But I can't get them to convert to AviSynth. The computer labels their type as 'AVS file', yet they have a different logo. Has AviSynth changed their logo?

Is VSfilter_20081129_win9x what I want? (I chose the win9x version since that was just installed here recently). But this is called an 'application extension' (does that mean its an addition to a more basic program which I don't have?) and I get a warning that it may damage my system.

Edited on 01/20/2012 11:25 AM.

First of all: Are you still able to play the script with MPC, and get the same error message? Are you still able to open the script with VirtualDub, and get the same error message? If yes, then you didn't make anything worse, i. e. AviSynth still operates correctly. (Moving the installation program of AviSynth anywhere doesn't have any effect on the installation result.)

As for fixing this error, my question still stands: Are the ".avs" script and the MKV container it tries to open (via the "DirectShowSource" directive) in the same directory on your PC?

The logo is irrelevant for our purpose. Your Windows Explorer has its own concept of "associating" file name extensions to programs, which is not to be confused with the mechanism I described above; both can coexist.
On my PC, I have associated ".avs" scripts in Windows Explorer with VirtualDub, meaning that when I double-click an AviSynth file then VirtualDub is invoked and "opens" this script, as that's what I want to do most frequently. (Invoking the text editor for that script is something that I have a function key on my keyboard for, and actually I'm not using the Windows Explorer because it lacks this feature and many others.)
When you selected "Notepad" via the "Open with..." context menu, the resulting dialog had a check-box reading something like "always use this program", which apparently was selected in your case. This is what led to the different association, and the different "A" logo (which means "ASCII file", i. e. a file to be opened with Notepad). Try opening the script with VirtualDub via this dialog (even if you get "VirtualDub" offered already!), with the check-box selected, then you'll get the same setting as I have. After this, never use the dialog for ".avs" files again, and only use the programs you get offered, as using one of these opens the file without making the association permanent.

Using VSfilter_20081129_win9x would be okay (my current version was much older, from 2005). I used this opportunity to download VSFilter_20090624.zip instead, extracted the only file (vsfilter.dll), renamed it to VSFilter_2.39.5.2_20090624.vdf (the ".vdf" extension is necessary for it to work as VirtualDub plugin; the prefix of the file name is irrelevant so I used it to remind me of the file's origin), and moved it into the "plugins" subdirectory of my VirtualDub installation. And it works - meaning: The entry "TextSub" from "Gabest" appears in the list of filters within VirtualDub, and it handles the subtitles from an ".ssa" or ".ass" file correctly.

Edited on 01/20/2012 03:33 PM.

Yes, I still get “AviSynth open failure' if I try to play the script on VirtualDub, and 'DirectShowSource couldn't open file' if I try to play it with MPC. Both the container/fansub and the script are in the same folder, so I assume they are in the same directory as well. I wasn't sure exactly what you meant when you said to “Try opening the script with VirtualDub via this dialog (even if you get "VirtualDub" offered already!), with the check-box selected”. Since going to VirtualDub and trying to 'open video file' always results in 'AviSynth open failure', I went to the script first and tried to open with VirtualDub. That got the same result, but at least AviSynth is now automatically listed among the options for opening the script—previously only Notepad and Wordpad were automatically displayed. I don't see any checkbox, but I can choose a default program, so I choose VirtualDub. Again, I get AviSynth open failure', but now I've got the VirtualDub logo displayed on the script! This is crazy. By 'this dialog', did you mean try opening with Wordpad or Notepad, even though VirtualDub seems the natural choice? But that just puts me in edit mode with the script.

There is definitely something different about the way this Windows 7 displays things. Even if I expressly rename the script with a .avs suffix, none is displayed after I make it so. It just lists the 'type' as 'AVS'--but that doesn't seem to make any difference. You would think that that ought to put the AviSynth logo on it, but it doesn't. I hope you are right and it doesn't really matter. At least my 'saving' the scripts with the .avs suffix definitely causes their type to be AVS rather than Text. But that doesn't seem to be doing me any good.

I downloaded the same VS Filter 2009624.zip as you did, but when I tried to install it, I was told that Windows couldn't do this because it was 'invalid'.

Edited on 01/20/2012 03:57 PM.

Yes, the VirtualDub logo is what you should see (given you want to work the same way as I do), because it indicates that when you double-click this script in the Windows Explorer it will be "opened" by VirtualDub (the "default program") - and this is what you want for the recoding job. So this isn't crazy, it is practical. You apparently chose something else than the "natural choice" before, but now this "natural choice" is what you don't need opening the right-mouse menu for any longer.
For your understanding: Windows assumes that for every file type there exists exactly one program to reasonably open files of this type. If reality were as simple as that then Windows would be right, the association between file type and program would be a perfect solution (because double-clicking the file is certainly easier than selecting an application from the right-mouse context menu), and the icon would visualize that everything is as it should be. But reality isn't as simple as Windows believes. There are file types that can be opened reasonably by several programs - one of these is the subtitle script that you want to open with a text editor (to modify its content) and with VirtualDub (to postprocess the video stream created by the script). That's where Windows' limited view of reality causes confusion instead of simplifying computer handling: In reality there are cases when it's you who decides the meaning of a file type by selecting your preferred method of using this computer, for example by minimizing the number of mouse interactions by making the most frequently used method the preferred one for this file type. And Windows can't know your preferred way of working, can it? But your preferred way will be opening the script with VirtualDub. Why? Because you can change the content of the script any number of times in Notepad while keeping the Notepad window open - but you have to explicitly re-open the script with VirtualDub every time in order to find out what your latest change of the script led to (because "opening" the script with VirtualDub is what makes AviSynth interpret the script and create a new AVI container content to be sent to VirtualDub).

There is nothing to "install" about VSfilter. Just 1. extract the content, 2. rename the file "vsfilter.dll" to "vsfilter.vdf", and 3. move the renamed file into the "plugins" sub-folder of your VirtualDub folder. VSFilter is no standalone product (no executable program, and no GUI), it is an application extension of VirtualDub, much like MKVextractGUI2 is an application extension of mkvtoolnix. (The difference is that mkvtoolnix is a bunch of programs without a GUI for your purpose and MKVextractGUI2 adds this GUI on top for easier use, whereas VirtualDub is a GUI and VSfilter adds one more filter function within this program.) Note that from the fact that VSFilter isn't "installed" you can derive that you won't find an entry for it in the list of installed software within your Windows system, and no "uninstall" option.

But back to the core issue: If the script and the MKV container reside in the same folder, and the script still can't open the MKV file, then the most likely cause is that the file name is mistyped. Did you check this? (You had that issue in the old thread as well, and you learned how to copy & paste that file name into the script back then.)

Edited on 01/20/2012 08:06 PM.

With my old computer I would place the fansub and a blank AviSynth script—the usual 'DirectShowSource ("",audio=no)', inside a folder. Then I would just put the title of the fansub container into 'rename' mode, copy it, then paste the name within the quotation marks. The only typing comes when I save the script, and type a title—something like 'Persona 14' (episode 14 of Persona 4). Until my old computer died, I did this countless times without trouble.

I had saved a copy of the standard blank AviSynth script on my hard drive, since I used it so much, and 'sent' it over to Documents on the new computer. At some point, perhaps before I even sent it from the hard drive to the new computer, the blank script lost the AviSynth logo—perhaps because I no longer had the AviSynth program itself and Windows 7 decided to change it (to Notepad?) by default. It took a while to dawn on me that I needed to re-download AviSynth, and in the meantime I think I authorized either Notepad or Wordpad as the default program to handle the former AviSynth script. realized that the script now being without the AviSynth logo was liable to be a problem, but hoped I could change it back later on. But as hard as I try, I haven't managed to do so.

So basically when I save the script—something like 'DirectShowSource ("{Commie} Persona 4 - 14 {79B0E68D}",audio=no)'--I'm saving it onto some sort of non-AviSynth form (Notepad or Wordpad), then trying to convert it into AviSynth by the way I title it. This must be where the problems with 'mistyping' come about. On my old computer, when I most certainly had an AviSynth blank script to begin with, the suffix '3.avs' appeared automatically in the blank where I typed the new title of the script that I wanted to save (he number 3 came from my making three copies of the blank AviSynth script back when I was first learning how to use it, and by chance the third one became standard). I would get rid of the number 3 with a backspace and type the new title in its place, keeping '.avs'. But now only the '3' appears in the blank, not the '.avs'. That's why I felt I had to type .avs myself (as I mentioned earlier), or else surely VirtualDub wouldn't recognize this as an AviSynth script. But the finished product still doesn't have an AviSynth logo even though its type is listed as an 'AVS File'. So, is it AviSynth or not? The only thing that is clear is that I get 'AviSynth Open Failure' every time I try to open it on VirtualDub.

To make things even more confusing, it seems that Windows 7 doesn't include suffixes like '.avs' in the title. Even if I specifically type 'Persona 14.avs' as the title I want to save by, what I get is just 'Persona 14'. Apparently the 'Type: AVS File' is supposed to substitute for that. I can't help wondering, is the actual title under which it has been saved now 'Persona 14.avs.avs'? Is that screwing things up even more?

I hope this clarifies things.

P.S: I find that I can add '.avs' to a script tile afterwards, back in the folder with the fansub itself, and it remains in sight. But it still can't be opened on VirtualDub.

Edited on 01/20/2012 09:38 PM.

The double extension ".avs.avs" (which you in fact have created; select the file, right-mouse click, "attributes" / "details", this will show you the complete file name but this is bothersome - and that's how it works on my Windows Vista machine, it may work differently on your Windows7 PC) is no problem. In general, the "extension" is the string beginning with the last dot in a file name; there may be any number of dots in its prefix.

But the missing ".mkv" extension of the file name in your "DirectShowSource" statement is why the script won't find the video container. Windows fooled you into using an incomplete filename by hiding the extension.

I know that Windows tends to hide file name extensions but there are operations when you really need them (such as renaming "vsfilter.dll" to "vsfilter.vdf", and without this you won't be able to hard-code subtitles into your AVIs).
I have never seen Windows7 so I can only rely on search results. But could you please try this to display the file name extensions?

Edited on 01/20/2012 10:04 PM.

Well, I have gotten Windows to display file extensions, and indeed any program where I had manually added .avs had a double extension. But, like you said, it must not have made much difference, because I still can't open the scripts with either MPC or VirtualDub. I wondered what you had meant when you mentioned the missing ".mkv" extension of the file name in the "DirectShowSource" statement being why the script won't find the video container. I took another look at the message and sure enough 'MKV' doesn't appear anywhere within it. I repeated the AviSynth script creation process and noticed that when I put the fansub title into rename mode and copy it, for some reason .mkv is left out—that didn't happen when I did the same thing on the previous computer. But I can manually denote what I want to copy, and include .MKV that way. I did this, and attempted to open the AviSynth script with MPC. I no longer get the DirectShowSource error message—but it won't play either, I just get a gray screen. I recall something like this happening back in the Mencoder forum, so I'll go review that. At least one step forward has been made, even though it reveals yet another problem waiting to be solved.

Edited on 01/21/2012 10:30 AM.

You were able to open the script all the time. (The error message was created by AviSynth while interpreting the script which failed to open the MKV video container due to the missing file name extension. And this error message is a video created by AviSynth! That's why you saw it in both VirtualDub and MPC, both of which are programs to handle videos.)

Being able to open the MKV container via DirectShowSource only means that you can access the data if you can play the video on your PC already (AviSynth simulates a video player, remember?) So are you able to play this particular MKV container with MPC directly?
If no, then the issue would probably be located in the codecs/filter area, i. e. within the CCCP configuration: The MKV file may contain something that your CCCP isn't able or wasn't told to handle. (And given your CCCP is up to date, the latter is more likely.) MediaInfo might then give you a clue where the problem with this MKV container could be.

I can play the fansub itself without problems, I just can't play it via the AviSynth script--that's where I get the gray screen.

Here's something else--when I attempt to open the AviSynth script at VirtualDub, I no longer get the 'AviSynth open failure' message; but the screen goes gray, just like with MPC.

Edited on 01/21/2012 11:30 AM.

Try playing a more simple video container, e. g. an AVI file, via the AviSynth script, displaying the result in either MPC or VirtualDub. If this works then AviSynth is cleared from suspicion, and the next step would be displaying the MediaInfo data of the problematic MKV container.

Your CCCP is probably configured to handle some but not all media types, streams, codecs etc., which means that some media types will be handled by MPC directly, thus causing different results from the AviSynth access method (which has to rely on what's installed elsewhere, i. e. CCCP in our current situation). This was the case for the AC3 audio issue which we fixed by modifying the way K-Lite handled AC3. Thus I expect that we will end up modifying some setting in the CCCP configuration to get the desired result, and MediaInfo should give us a clue where to look.

Edited on 01/21/2012 11:47 AM.

If I create an AviSynth script for an AVI fansub, it plays OK on MPC except there is no audio. It seems that during the Mencoder forum, I encountered the same gray screen problem at about the same stage in the process--while trying to get AviSynth to work. Back then, downloading and installing DivX H.264 decoder 5.2.0.26 magically solved the problem, so I have downloaded and installed DivX H.264 decoder 8.2.0.26. But I did some more reading, and it sounds like the problem I was having then was that fansubs weren't playing at all, whereas now they just weren't playing via AviSynth. So I decided that DivX decoder was unnecessary and uninstalled it. But that resulted in fansubs no longer playing on MPC at all--the screen would remain black (not gray). This is why I dread downloading programs--I can never be certain what effect installing and uninstalling them will have. I reinstalled DivX decoder and can once again play fansubs on MPC. But I'm sure that more unneccesary complication has been added to my computer which I'll never fully understand or be able to get rid of.

It's not that one particular fansub container is 'problematic', they all refuse to be played via AviSynth. Here's the MediaInfo data for the one I've been doing most of my fooling around with:

General Unique ID : 189620864958373732989488076831078122213 (0x8EA7A672E0AE8668A0E510E8BF5682E5) Complete name : C:UsersRonDocumentsPersona 14[Commie] Persona 4 - 14 79B0E68D.mkv Format : Matroska Format version : Version 2 File size : 191 MiB Duration : 24mn 29s Overall bit rate : 1 088 Kbps Encoded date : UTC 2012-01-15 00:45:21 Writing application : mkvmerge v4.1.1 ('Bouncin' Back') built on Jul 3 2010 22:54:08 Writing library : libebml v1.0.0 + libmatroska v1.0.0 Attachment : Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes

Video ID : 2 Format : AVC Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec Format profile : High 10@L5.0 Format settings, CABAC : Yes Format settings, ReFrames : 16 frames Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC Duration : 24mn 29s Width : 1 280 pixels Height : 720 pixels Display aspect ratio : 16:9 Frame rate : 23.976 fps Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 Bit depth : 10 bits Scan type : Progressive Writing library : x264 core 118 r2085+614 d1cc25d Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=16 / deblock=1:-1:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=10 / psy=1 / fade_compensate=0.70 / psy_rd=0.60:0.05 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=24 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=18 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / fgo=0 / bframes=10 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=20.0 / qcomp=0.70 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=81 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=2:1.00 Language : English Default : Yes Forced : No

Audio ID : 3 Format : AAC Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Format profile : LC Codec ID : A_AAC Duration : 24mn 29s Channel(s) : 2 channels Channel positions : Front: L R Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz Compression mode : Lossy Title : Commie Language : Japanese Default : Yes Forced : No

Text ID : 1 Format : ASS Codec ID : S_TEXT/ASS Codec ID/Info : Advanced Sub Station Alpha Compression mode : Lossless Default : Yes Forced : No

Menu 00:00:00.033 : en:Intro 00:00:28.987 : en:OP 00:01:58.994 : en:Part A 00:14:33.831 : en:Part B 00:22:58.669 : en:ED 00:23:35.789 : en:Part C 00:24:14.687 : en:Preview

I tried again to download FSFilter.dll, and this time I get the message that Windows can't open the file because it needs to know what program I intend to use. It sounds like this needs to be moved somewhere, but I don't know where.

Edited on 01/21/2012 12:38 PM.

I think AviSynth is operating normally. When I performed a test (writing a script named 'test.avs' which consisted of nothing more than the word 'version'), and attempted to open it with MPC, I got a message listing the version number, date of completing, author's name, website, etc, rather than a gray screen. I guess Windows 7 just doesn't use the old icon that I am used to. Could it be that some other program, like Haali Media Splitter, or something like that, is still missing?

Googling for help with downloading files with the .dll extention led me to something called 'Speedy PC Pro' which performed a diagnosis and identified 627 problems within my computer which it claimed needed attention. But I was afraid top aurthorize it to 'fix' them, for fear that it might do more harm than good. Also, it was extremely annoying and I eventually uninstalled it (I hope).

At least I managed to salvage my GoldWave audio editing program, which I use to make anime music CDs.

Edited on 01/21/2012 04:33 PM.

Successfully playing the AVI container through AviSynth proves one thing: AviSynth's "DirectShowSource" can read an AVI container using whatever system component has been configured as being responsible for this task. The pipelining, i. e. simulating a video player and forwarding the data to VirtualDub, works in general. So far, so good. (Edit: Your "test" script is cool. Your initiative exceeds my expectation. That's the spirit!)

Thinking that installing a program "magically" solved a problem is no good basis for drawing conclusions from this for later occasions. Remember that installing alone might not change anything if your system configuration is such that the installed program won't even be responsible for interpreting a particular type of data - we had a lot of "fun" finding out who is responsible for what in the case of AC3 audio in the K-Lite configuration, remember?

You don't need to open a ".dll" file. Just rename it to "vsfilter.vdf", and move it to the "plugins" folder of VirtualDub (who knows how to handle ".vdf" files).

As for the MKV file, the very first thing that strikes me is:

• Format profile : High 10@L5.0

1. I like to allow ffdshow handling as much as possible, as opposed to installing ever new individual codecs.
2. Haali is another trusted tool for me so I let it handle everything that's not ancient (such as AVI or MPEG1).
3. I want to see both "Tray Icons" for video and audio handling of ffdshow - they are helpful in many situations, and I asked you about them in every discussion thread before.
4. File Associations is something that I tell CCCP to keep its fingers away from as I may change these on Windows Explorer level occasionally.

Edited on 01/21/2012 07:03 PM.

The only differences between my CCCP settings and yours that I see (I was able to position my menu right alongside yours—that is about as convenient as possible) are that on page one under FFDShow Video Decoders H.264/AVC was not checkmarked, and on page two 'Enable MPEG-TS' and 'Enable MP4' were not checkmarked on my menu. I changed my menu to match yours and 'applied' the changes. Then I went to see if they would allow me to Open the Persona fansub via the AviSynth script. No, I still get a gray screen on MPC and VirtualDub. I even did a restart just in case that was needed, then tried again with the same result.

I wonder if the High Format Profile might have something to do with the recent tendency of fansubs to have the screen covered with shades of bright, flourescent pink during the first few seconds of play, then become normal afterwards. I have noticed this numerous times with episodes of Persona.

Edited on 01/21/2012 07:21 PM.

Just to be sure: You do have the same CCCP version? In the dialogs shown above you can see a date value "2011-11-11" - you have the same value in your setting, right?

As for your question: The "High 10" profile, i. e. the 10-bits colors, was what required me to install a new ffdshow to get rid of very similar color effects (in my case the dominant color was green).

Inspired by your report I did some experiments with the Persona 4 video, playing it with MPC: When I use the DivX H.264 codec then I get the pink color effect right at the start; when I use either ffdshow or LAV Video (CCCP's own H.264 codec) then the video plays correctly. (And by the way, "apply" works immediately, no restart required.)
But to my surprise, I can disable in CCCP both Haali splitting MKV containers and ffdshow decoding H.264 and still successfully play the Persona 4 video through AviSynth! I do get fewer icons in the task bar this way so the modification isn't simply ignored.
(The file begins with a black screen but that's part of the anime. Did you actually try to play some larger part of the video?)
When I do this, the famous blue and red "Tray Icons" in the task bar appear, and the red icon tells me that the H.264 video stream is being decoded by "libavcodec h264" when I just move the mouse over this icon. Also note that playing such a huge video through AviSynth requires a lot of data buffering; it takes about five seconds on my PC before VirtualDub shows a black window instead of its grey starting screen. And your PC may be slower than mine.

What about playing older MKV containers through AviSynth? Most notably such that don't have High Profile. This test could give us the information whether the Haali splitter works (this is the case if you find at least one MKV container that can be split successfully), then making the H.264 codec a more likely candidate for the root of the issue.

Edited on 01/21/2012 08:48 PM.

Yes, this is version 2011-11-11 of CCCP.

I got an MKV fansub (Episode 24 of Steins;Gate from Steins;Sub) which has a Format Profile High@5.0, and first of all attempted to play it by itself with MPC; it worked normally. Then I created an AviSynth script (being careful to manually include the .MKV suffix) and tried to open this with MKV. It plays except there is no audio or subtitles. Mirai Nikki 11 from GotSpeed has a Format Profile High@4.1; it plays fine by itself. Via AviSynth only the video plays, same as before. There was no 'pink effect' in either case.

So, is it likely that I am getting the pink effect because DivX H.264 is acting as my default codec, and can't handle Format Profiles of 10? Can I make another codec my codec of choice, and avoid this? And should I uninstall DivX H.264 yet again, to make certain that I waited long enough to tell whether the scripted fansub would play or not?

Edited on 01/21/2012 10:06 PM.

Yes, DivX's H.264 codec is too old to correctly support 10 bit colors, i. e. "High 10" (whereas "High" alone, i.e. BluRay format, obviously is no problem even for this codec).
You don't need to uninstall DivX H.264; if you use my CCCP settings then DivX H.264 will not decode H.264 streams; instead ffdshow will do this, and the ffdshow of this latest CCCP is capable of handling 10 bit colors correctly (that's the reason why I had to install a new CCCP only recently, my previous CCCP from 2010 was too old as well).

Your "DirectShowSource" statement in the script uses "audio=no", that's why you get no audio from AviSynth's output (and for encoding purposes you don't need audio there as you will use an externally MP3-compressed audio stream created via Switch anyway - the audio stream from AviSynth would be uncompressed and 12 times larger, and VirtualDub can compress only video streams, not audio streams, that's why we need Switch at all).
DirectShowSource also has no access to subtitles (that's why you have to extract them into a separate file and use VSFilter in VirtualDub to write them over the video stream - AVI containers can't contain subtitle streams, i. e. softsubs).

But I still wonder why you shouldn't be able to play Persona 4 through AviSynth with my CCCP settings...

Edited on 01/22/2012 09:30 AM.

Searching the web a bit, I just found an interesting idea for simplifying our conversion procedure.

Until now, we had to extract the subtitles from the MKV container, load the TextSub filter in VirtualDub, and open the subtitle file so that this filter would write the text over the video. Why did we have to do all this? Because AviSynth "plays" the video without subtitles by default.

Now what if we could make AviSynth enable the subtitles automatically, like MPC does?

This can be done in the CCCP configuration, by enabling the checkbox "Autoload VSFilter (WMP & MC support)" in the Haali section - because AviSynth uses Haali's output as its input, just like WMP does.
The reason why I never used this feature is that it is unusable for immediately applying changes in the subtitles, i. e. fansubbing (where you want to edit a dialog line, and then see the changes in the video asap, i. e. without re-opening the video). I just used the procedure I learned and never thought about optimizing this step for a slightly different purpose.

This would not make MKVextractGUI2 redundant (because we still have to deal with the audio stream) but make the VirtualDub handling easier. (And it would make vsfilter.vdf in the "plugins" directory of VirtualDub redundant.)

Also note that AviSynth would then use some subtitle stream from the MKV container. But what if this MKV container has more than one subtitle stream? (Example: A MKV container with Japanese and English audio stream, plus one subtitle stream with dialog lines for use with the Japanese audio and another subtitle stream with only typesetting for use with the English audio stream.) AviSynth would select one (probably "the first one"), which may or may not be the one we would prefer to use. So this is no fool-proof solution, just an optimization for the majority of cases.

Edited on 01/22/2012 10:04 AM.

The impression which I have been getting is that high Format Profiles have a lot to do with the trouble we have been experiencing (even though my previous computer was able to handle those somehow). The thought occurred to me that if episode 11 of Mirai Nikki plays OK, and the loss of audio and subtitles was only to be expected, perhaps I could carry out a complete conversion of episode 14, which I have yet to watch. I had already carried out the MKVextractGUI2 and Switch stages, so that it would be ready as soon as an answer was found to why Persona wasn't playing. I had assumed that I would get the same gray screen result, but to my delight it opens properly on VirtualDub—because it has a lower Format Profile, I guess. The only problems are that TextSub is not available, because I still haven't figured out how to open VSfilter.dll, and that Compression doesn't offer Mpeg4 as an option (there are only seven options; ffdshow is the only one I recognize). Anyway, I decided to go ahead with a 'raw' version, just to see if it would work. The finished version seems OK—video looks fine (though I'm sure it wouldn't play on a DVD player), and audio seems to be in sync with it. This is encouraging.

What program should I use to open Vsfilter.dll? All I have at the moment are the zip files for both VSfilter_20081129_win9x.zip and (I need the right program to open this one) and Vsfilter_20090624.zip, (which Windows says is 'invalid'). I assume they can't be renamed as a .vdf file yet.

Edited on 01/22/2012 11:55 AM.

Did you try the "simplification"? This would make vsfilter.vdf obsolete.

But other than that: "vsfilter.dll" is the content of VSfilter_20081129_win9x.zip, so if you already have the DLL file you must have successfully extracted it from the ZIP archive and don't need that archive any more.

And as I wrote above, you don't have to "open" the DLL file; instead,

• rename it to "vsfilter.vdf" (ignoring whatever paranoic message from Windows you will get, and preparing for the icon to change during the process), and then
• move it into the "plugins" sub-folder of your VirtualDub installation.
  "vdf" means "Virtual Dub Format"; VirtualDub knows what to do with this filter, provided you put it into a place where VirtualDub expects it, and assign the extension to the file name that signals "this is yours" to VirtualDub.

Edited on 01/22/2012 01:30 PM.

OK, at some point while I was fooling around with the zip file a 'VSfilter_20081129_win9x' folder was created—I noticed that there was no .dll extension on this title. I added '.vdf'' and now have Vsfilter_20081129_win9x.vdf placed in the Plugins folder of VirtualDub. When I place the cursor on it, I get the message that this is a VSFilter.vdf type file, so that seems good. Again, I never had to remove get rid of '.dll' since it wasn't there to begin with. That made me worry that maybe Windows was hiding extensions again. I also carried out the simplification.

Now, when I try to play the AviSynth script of Mirai Nikki 14 with MPC, I get 'Media Player Classic-Home Cinema could not render some of the pins in the graph, you may not have the needed codecs or filters installed on the system'. If only I had a nickel for every time that message has appeared. On VirtualDub, everything goes normally (which is kind of surprising—I had assumed that if it wouldn't play on MPC it wouldn't play here either). However, 'TextSub' is still not available, nor is Mpeg4 in Compression.

Omigod! Somehow I have managed to restore the traditional AviSynth icon of a folder with a strip of film draped over it. I was getting tired of having to select 'Open With' and denote Notepad as the program of choice every time I created an AviSynth script for a fansub (otherwise MPC would automatically try to open it and give me the usual error message). I think what happened was that I tried to make Notepad the default program, rather than MPC, and somehow that caused the AviSynth icon to reappear.

Sorry for being such a nuisance...

Edited on 01/22/2012 02:49 PM.

Did the "simplification" result in MKV videos now having visible subtitles when being played through AviSynth (thus making all the "VSFilter.vdf" fuzz obsolete)?

Windows Explorer's message is irrelevant, this is telling you the file name extension while not having a clue whether the content of the file actually is appropriate for this extension (that's why Explorer says: "Renaming a file is always done at your own risk - I'm too stupid to understand what you're doing here anyway"). And if you actually renamed the ZIP file instead of the DLL file, it would be wrong.

"Rendering pins" means "decode stream with a codec" (we had this message before), and as you have a brand-new CCCP installed which still isn't capable of playing this video it must have used some pretty exotic codec. In MPC, select "File" / "Properties" / "MediaInfo" to get detailed info about this file.

Edited on 01/22/2012 03:34 PM.

I can't get the fansubs to play via AviSynth on MPC anymore, so I don't know if the subtitles are working. Even when I acknowledge the message about the problem reading pins, nothing happens regarding audio or video—the screen just stays black. I can't get beyond 'Properties'--that word is listed in gray script rather than black, like the functioning commands. If I Shift/F10, the menu just disappears without anything happening. However, I can play it with VirtualDub, and both the input and output versions have subtitles.

Actually, some fansubs will play via AviSynth on VirtualDub while others will not. Mirai Nikki, with a Format Profile of 'High @4.1' plays OK while Ano Natsu de Matteru, with a Format Profile of 'High 10@4.0' gives me the gray screen effect (and the same 'pins' message when I try to play it via AviSynth on MPC).

Edited on 01/22/2012 08:32 PM.

If there's at least one MKV file with SSA subtitles that has these subtitles when being played through AviSynth, then the audio-loading CORRECTION: auto-loading of VSFilter works as expected, and you can forget about anything else related to VSFilter. This is good news, as it permanently reduces your handling effort (no more extracting of the SSA file, no more adding the TextSub filter in VirtualDub and opening the subtitle file, all of this will happen automatically within AviSynth from now on - hopefully in 100% of your cases, at least this is likely for normal fansubs as opposed to DVD rips).

As mentioned above, MPC names "pins" what we would call "streams", and this may be video or audio streams. If the audio stream were the cause of the issue this would explain why AviSynth doesn't have a problem - because we don't run audio through AviSynth (we merge it from an external file into the AVI container in VirtualDub).

Your reports sound as if you can't play "High 10" files in general (Persona 4 and Ano Natsu de Matteru). But "High 10" is exactly what we installed the CCCP from November 2011 for. And you did set the CCCP settings identical to mine? Then the H.264 video stream would be decoded by FFDshow which does support "High 10"... hm.

Edited on 01/23/2012 11:19 AM.

So, the reason 'TextSub' doesn't appear within VirtualDub is because I don't need it anymore? Does that mean that when using MKVextractGUI2, I would only need to click on 'audio' from now on?

The Mirai Nikki fansub which plays OK via AviSynth on VirtualDub (but not MPC) definitely has ASS subtitles, not SSA. In fact, Persona, Mirai Nikki, Steins;Gate and Matteru all have ASS type subtitles. Did you notice anything anything with SSA subtitles?

But how does an MKV file with SSA subtitles prove that the audio-loading is working as it should? Do audio and subtitles automatically work together?

I double checked my CCCP settings, and there is one difference—I must have made a mistake. On the second page 'Autoload VSfilter (WMP & MC Support)' was checkmarked here but not on your computer. I removed that checkmark, clicked 'apply', and the settings are now identical. Once I had done this I found that Steins;Gate and Mirai Nikki play via AviSynth on MPC, but with no subtitles (or audio), while Persona gives me the gray screen. I also played Mirai Nikki on VirtualDub, and got the same result: video OK, nothing else.

Sorry, that was a typo. I meant "auto-loading" (see CCCP configuration dialog), not "audio-loading".
We still don't use audio in AviSynth ("DirectShowSource (..., audio=no)"), thus neither VirtualDub nor MPC can play audio for your AviSynth script as the script doesn't extract it from the MKV container (because uncompressed audio would be useless for our purpose).

The difference in your CCCP configuration is no mistake, it's the "simplification" we added only after the screenshots, so when you unchecked this you lost the automatic subtitle handling in AviSynth.

But if you indeed let FFDShow decode H.264/AVC and still can't play "High 10" video streams then I've run out of ideas because this is what works on my PC, and was the very reason for installing a recent CCCP to begin with.
When you open the AVS script with VirtualDub, you should see the red icon "ffdshow video decoder" in your task bar; moving your mouse over this icon should get you a tooltip reading "ffdshow video decoder: Input: AVC1 (libavcodec h264) Output: YV12". Do you get this as well?

The reason why you don't see "TextSub" in VirtualDub is because you didn't move "vsfilter.vdf" into the "plugins" directory of VirtualDub.
As for extracting ASS streams, re-read the simplification posting, including the "no fool-proof solution" part. So for your MKVextractGUI2 question, my answer is "yes, hopefully".

Edited on 01/23/2012 11:26 AM.

I swear, 'VSfilter_20081129_win9x.vdf' is sitting in VirtualDub Plugins as we speak. It has been there for several days. Was it already too late to solve the problem when I placed it there? I will re-read Simplification.

If I remember correctly then you renamed the ZIP file instead of extracting the DLL and then renaming the DLL. But VirtualDub can't read ZIP files, not even if you rename them (renaming doesn't change the content of a file).

Try opening your "vsfilter.vdf" with WinRar or any other ZIP tool you have. This should give you an error message if it is really a VDF file (because ZIP tools can't open VDFs). But if you can open it (proving that you really renamed the downloaded ZIP file), then extract the "vsfilter.dll" file from this archive, and rename it to "vsfilter.vdf" in the "plugins" folder.
Alternative procedure: You already have a "vsfilter.dll" file - it is located in your CCCP installation's "filters" subdirectory (this one is what the "simplification" loads automatically into Haali). You can use a copy of this "vsfilter.dll" instead of the downloaded file (and it's even a more recent version 2.40.3819.2).

↗SSA and ↗ASS are just different versions of the same format; as SSA is a subset of ASS, VSFilter supports both.

After re-enabling the "simplification", you should already be able to convert Mirai Nikki (even without a TextSub filter); the remaining mystery is why "High 10" videos won't play, that's why I asked for the tooltip information here.

Edited on 01/23/2012 12:58 PM.

I didn't seem to have WinRar—I did a search of Programs and Files, and didn't find any matches—and I don't know what the name of any other Zip Tool program might be, so I have downloaded WinRar 4.10. I used this to attempt to open VSfilter.vdf in VirtualDub Plugins. Sure enough, I got an error message: 'The archive is either in unknown format or damaged'.

I went back to the zip file for VSfilter, and clicked on 'extract files'. I don't think I did any 'extraction' the first time around. This created a 'VSfilter_20081129_win9x' folder in Downloads. No file extension is displayed, but putting the cursor on it identifies it as a .dll file. I moved this to VirtualDub Plugins and deleted the 'VSfilter.vdf' file which I had created previously. Then I clicked on 'rename' and added '.vdf' to the title. For awhile I was confused because whereas the title was now displayed as 'VSfilter_20081129_win9x.vdf', placing the cursor on it still identified it as a .dll file. I finally realized that I had simply renamed the folder, not the filter itself. I opened the folder and added .vdf to the filter name. I went to CCCP and clicked 'Autoload VS filter (WMP & MC support)' and 'Apply'.

I was thinking that surely something had been fixed, but the result when I try to play Mirai Nikki is the same: OK on VirtualDub, but the usual pins/streams message from MPC.

Somehow I missed the line about Tooltip info when I read your previous post. I don't see any red ffdshow Video Decoder icon when I open Mirai Nikki; there's a Haali Media Splitter one, but that's the only icon for a program that has been mentioned here. I decided to do a test conversion, and under Compression I selected ffdshow video codec since Mpeg4 wasn't available.

I went back to CCCP to double check my settings, and found that again 'Autoload VSfilter (WMP & MC Support)' had somehow checkmarked itself—I guess it does this by default. I cleared it, applied, and now I find that Mirai Nikki will play on MPC, but withous subtitles. At least I get video instead of the pins/streams message.

Well, VirtualDub Job Control shows that an error has occured.

Edited on 01/23/2012 02:30 PM.

Autoloading VSFilter has nothing to do with being able to play a video stream. It has all to do with subtitles being automatically interpreted in AviSynth. Why changing a VSFilter setting would influence playing a video stream is beyond me.
But auto-loading VSFilter makes the difference whether or not I get subtitles when playing Persona 4 in the Windows Media Player, which is a media player outside of CCCP and thus similar to AviSynth: Both rely on Haali splitting the MKV container for them and running the subtitles through VSFilter in the process, thus returning an already "rewritten" video stream to the player.

And it was you who "applied" the auto-loading; by clearing it you once again deprived yourself from getting subtitles in AviSynth; you undid the "simplification". During your last posting you confused

• using VSFilter as TextSub plugin of VirtualDub (which is a VirtualDub-only feature) with
• using VSFilter for every video being split by Haali (which is a CCCP configuration feature)

• Get older MKV containers (such as Mirai Nikki) convertible to AVI. You should be able to do this once you installed the XviD codec.
• Get videos with "High 10" H.264 streams playable in MPC. I don't exactly know your current status about this one, except that you apparently don't have the same configuration as I have.
• Get videos with "High 10" H.264 streams playable in other programs such as AviSynth. (Here you might run into an additional problem caused by your Windows7 operating system so let's deal with this one last.)

Edited on 01/24/2012 11:25 AM.