Installing a codec in Virtual Dub
by Jim Murphy
on
Sep 16, 2009 at 1:00:31 am
I have downloaded the free Panasonic codec (pdvcodec) that John Meyer recomends in A Guide to Using DeShaker. How exactly do you install this codec to be used with Virtual Dub? TIA, Jim
Re: Installing a codec in Virtual Dub by John Rofrano on Sep 16, 2009 at 3:51:13 am
When you unzip the codec there will be a file called PANADV.INF in the same folder as the pdvcodec.dll file (which is the actual codec). Just right-click the .INF file and select Install. That's it!
Re: Installing a codec in Virtual Dub by John Rofrano on Sep 17, 2009 at 10:51:15 am
Magic Bullet Steady does not work with Vegas. It's an After Effects plug-in so if you don't have AE then it doesn't matter which is better. Having said that, I find that Steady does a little better job than Mercalli on some footage which is why I bought it, but the difference is small and depending on the footage, Mercalli might work better. It's also difficult to compare the two because they both have so many parameters to tweak that I'm sure you could get them to be very close with tweaking. What I like about Mercalli is that it has all of those presets to choose from. Mercalli does a great job on shaky footage.
One thing I did not like about Mercalli is proDAD's copy protection. It took me two months of unanswered emails to proDAD and then fighting with the company that I bought Mercalli from and it wasn't until I requested my money back did I finally get help from proDAD to get it registered properly. proDAD customer service is one of the worst and they are impossible to contact. Because of that, I will never buy a proDAD product again until they change their draconian copy protection. (which is another reason I bought Steady!)
Re: Installing a codec in Virtual Dub by Jim Murphy on Sep 17, 2009 at 11:42:28 am
That's scary to think of the difficulty contacting Mercalli for support. So, I'm trying to look at options. Does After Effects work with Vegas? I'm not sure why I can't get Deshaker to work with my HDV clips. When it is dubbing the screen on the left is totally black. Thanks! Jim
Re: Installing a codec in Virtual Dub by John Rofrano on Sep 17, 2009 at 3:23:47 pm
> That's scary to think of the difficulty contacting Mercalli for support.
Yea, and I despise activation... it's just holds paying customers hostage to use their purchases. (but I digress...)
> So, I'm trying to look at options. Does After Effects work with Vegas?
No. After Effects is a standalone application so you just render out of Vegas, edit in AE, then render out of AE to get back into Vegas. This is not such a bad workflow because I start my stabilization in AE before I even start my Vegas project. This way I start off with using stabilized footage.
> I'm not sure why I can't get Deshaker to work with my HDV clips. When it is dubbing the screen on the left is totally black.
What codec do the clips use? I use CineForm AVI and I have no problems.
Re: Installing a codec in Virtual Dub by John Rofrano on Sep 17, 2009 at 10:23:06 pm
> Can I download the CineForm codec and use it with Vegas Pro 8?
Actually, Vegas Pro 8.0 comes with it's own CineForm codec but it can only be used in Vegas Pro 8.0. If you want to use it to render in other applications like VirtualDub, you have to buy it. The Neo Scene product is the cheapest way for $99 at VideoGuys. Well worth the price.
Otherwise you can use the Lagarith or HuffYUV codec but they produce huge files (but are free).
Re: Installing a codec in Virtual Dub by John Rofrano on Sep 18, 2009 at 2:14:28 am
Select Video for Windows and press the Custom... button. Then on the Video tab look in the Video format list for CineForm HD. Finally save the template with a new name (like CineForm HD) for future use.
Re: Installing a codec in Virtual Dub by Jim Murphy on Oct 8, 2009 at 12:44:38 am
John, I am back to trying to get Virtual Dub and Deshaker to work on my computer. Have not had luck yet. I am wondering if the fact that my computer is 64 bit is the trouble. Any thoughts? Thanks, Jim
Re: Installing a codec in Virtual Dub by John Rofrano on Oct 8, 2009 at 10:07:51 pm
64-bit should not be the problem. I can run VirtualDub and DeShaker on my Vista 64 PC without any problems (in 32-bit mode). What is or isn't it doing?
Re: Installing a codec in Virtual Dub by Jim Murphy on Oct 12, 2009 at 10:20:59 pm
John, my apologies for the delay in getting back to you. Things have been a little crazy around here. When I go to Open Video File in Virtual Dub, and try to open an AVI file that I rendered in Vegas Pro 8, I get the message: "Cannot locate decompressor for format 'CFHD' (unknown) Virtual Dub requires a Video for Windows compatible codec to decompress video." I have already downloaded and "extracted all" the pdvcodec. Then I clicked on panadv and clicked install. Still not working. Any help you can provide is appreciated. Thanks, Jim
Re: Installing a codec in Virtual Dub by John Rofrano on Oct 13, 2009 at 1:27:46 am
The pdvcodec is the Panasonic DV codec. It sounds like you encoded the file with CineForm (CFHD) so you either need to buy the CineForm codec to use in VirtualDub, or encode the file in Vegas as DV.
Re: Installing a codec in Virtual Dub by Jim Murphy on Oct 13, 2009 at 3:50:26 am
John, I am getting there. I encoded in DV (NTSC DV Widescreen). When I open the AVI file, I can now see it in Virtual Dub. Yeah! Now...when I click on File>Preview output from start, I get the error message "Cannot initialize smart rendering: No codec is selected for compression." I went to Video>Compression and clicked on the Microsoft codec, but still got the same message when I tried again. What am I doing wrong? Many thanks, Jim
Re: Installing a codec in Virtual Dub by John Rofrano on Oct 13, 2009 at 10:22:03 am
> I went to Video>Compression and clicked on the Microsoft codec, but still got the same message when I tried again.
You want to select the Panasonic DV codec, not the Microsoft one. Make sure you are using the 32-bit version of VirtualDub so that the 32-bit VFW codecs are listed.
Re: Installing a codec in Virtual Dub by Jim Murphy on Oct 17, 2009 at 1:52:25 am
John, I have it working, but since I cannot find the codec in the list (I must be using 64 bit), I am using it uncompressed. It does do a good job. I just wish it were a little more user friendly. But...the price is right :) If you have other info on how I can use/find the 32 bit version and use a codec, that would be great. If not I can probably get away with using uncompressed. I typically need to steady very small clips. Thanks for all your help. Jim
Re: Installing a codec in Virtual Dub by Jim Murphy on Oct 17, 2009 at 2:37:38 am
Murphy's law is taking over. I thought I had it, but the AVI I produced had a smaller video size. My clips in Vegas are 1440 x 1080. So in pass 2 of Deshaker what should I set Destination Pixel Aspect to and what should I set the Destination Video Size to? I have tried a bunch of experiments, but not getting the results I need. Thanks, Jim
Re: Installing a codec in Virtual Dub by John Rofrano on Oct 17, 2009 at 11:58:14 am
The Pixel Aspect Ratio of HDV 1440x1080 is 1.3333. In DeShaker you should be able to use the option Save destination properties as source. Otherwise, select HDV 1440x1080 (1.333) as the destination pixel aspect in DeShaker and adjust the destination video size to 1440x1080.
What I would do is download the Lagarith codec. This has both a 32-bit and 64-bit version. Install them both. In Vegas, make a Windows AVI template that uses Lagarith at 1920x1080. In VirtualDub output to 1920x1080. This eliminates all of the headaches with the pixel aspect ratio of 1440x1080 PAR 1.3333. If you do the math, 1440 * 1.3333 = ~1920 so there is minimal loss in information doing it this way. I do all of my external compositing at 1920x1080 to avoid these kinds of problems with programs that don't interpret PAR correctly.
Re: Installing a codec in Virtual Dub by Jim Murphy on Oct 17, 2009 at 2:38:09 pm
I realized from your last email that I did not have the latest version of Deshaker, so I have installed the latest version. I installed the Lagarith codec. In Vegas I made an AVI template using the Lagarith codec at 1920 x 1080. So far, so good. However, when I import the AVI into Virtual Dub it takes up the entire screen and I no longer see the right side output screen. Also, when I try to run Pass 2 I get the error message "Unable to open file....for write because it is being used by another process." I don't understand this because Virtual Dub is the only program I have open at that time. Still wondering what I am doing wrong. Thanks, Jim
