All,

I’m semi-pleased to release a new beta of Encode360. I say semi-pleased, because I’ve implemented a couple of nifty new features that are bound to please a number of people. I’m semi-unhappy, because I didn’t manage to get everything in here that I would’ve liked to. I’ve gone ahead and released anyway, as I was under pressure to resolve a number of outstanding bugs.

One of the key aspects of this beta is the scrappage of FFMpeg. It’s no longer required. Instead, I’m using a very impressive bit of code called MediaInfo which is specifically designed to gather vasts amount of info about different media formats. FFMpeg really was just a stop-gap until something better turned up, and I’m glad to say MediaInfo is doing an impressive job on discovering the details of nearly every file format I throw at it. However, there’s no telling what new problems might be introduced as a result. I haven’t had any, but someone else might. I’ll tackle issues as they arise. Just remember, this is a beta

One of the niceties I had planned was DVD Ripping, provided you had DVD Decrypter installed. The problem with this is, DVD Decrypter is heavily out of date and doesn’t support a lot of newer DVD encryptions. In order to overcome this, you need something like AnyDVD to work around encryption, and then still use DVD Decrypter to pull out the relevant video / audio streams. I also still haven’t figured out the details of ripping a TV series instead of a movie.

If someone would be willing to help on this aspect of it, I’d be grateful for the help.

So! What’s new in beta 5 eh?

Added

• Automatic correction for Non-Square-Pixel videos. This should resolve most Aspect Ratio issues
• OGM File Support (Except for subtitles, although someone could probably build an PPS like the MKV one?)
• Added DVR-MS as a filetype (may or may not work. I can’t find a codec that works with this)
• Ability to set additional settings through Encode360.Exe.XML
  • Video Buffer Size (Bitrate Modes Only - Default 3000)
  • Video Buffer Max (Peak Bitrate Mode Only - Default 5000)
  • Video Image Sharpness (Quality Based VBR Mode Only - Default 100)
  • Video Keyframe Distance (Default 2000)
• Can move processed files to the Recycle Bin by specifying “RECYCLE BIN” as the move path
• PostProcessing Scriptlets
• If a PreProcessing Scriptlet exists, the filetype it’s for gets added to the supported format list

Changed

• Major Major Change - No more FFMPEG! Now uses MediaInfo 0.7.4.3 Libraries
  • This has a lot of knock-on effects and is likely to have fixed a lot of reported bugs, but maybe caused new ones
• Fail-over to No Progress if MediaInfo can’t determine the source duration
• Selecting Output to Zune or Zune Bitrate now auto enables 2 channel downmix as well as setting all other Zune defaults
• Numerous failsafes implemented to prevent encodes from failing
• Expanded out the abilities of PreProcessing Scriptlets
• If using the MKV Subtitle PPS, you’ll need to re-download from here

Fixed

• Arithmetic error in timerPercentComplete_Tick would occur if WME couldn’t determine the source duration
• Default settings for 802.11b in an unconfigured environment were too high
• Numerous cosmetic and logging bugs

As always, Encode360 is DonationWare, and what with this being a one-man development project, it’s eating into vast amounts of my time for what at times seems to be a very thankless job. Additionally, this site has seen enormous traffic over the past few weeks, so I’ve had to up my hosting package, which incurs a direct cost on me. So if you feel that the app is worth it, please donate something and keep the project alive. You’ll feel better about yourself I promise

Download Encode360 2.0 b5 from here

And don’t forget the installation instructions in the release thread