Avisynth core leadership issues

Richard - Is the current Sourceforge even where it is happeniing for Avisynth? I'm not registered as a developer for Avisynth but I went looking the other day and it didn't even look like any files were available there. But maybe I just missed something. But I know from DVD2AVI/Save-oe that some projects seem to sit dormant for awhile and then something will touch off a flurry of activity. That project also mostly lacks an active leader. And I'm more of a helper/follower myself, at least most of the time. I'm willing usually to follow any practical take-charge person who manages to get everybody marching more or less in the same direction. ;) But I will add one thing. It seems it should be possible to add at least source plug-ins just by checking them into Avisynth Sourceforge. Most wouldn't have to be in Effects.cpp, which could grow ungainly. Some filters could be sub projects but it could still allow synchronized releases for those developers who wanted to put them there. And of course folks would still hopefully be free to keep and maintain their versions instead. - Tom

Well, part of my motivation here is that I really have no idea "where it's at." Dividee checked in some fixes to SourceForge just 3 days ago, and the Yahoo mailing list (only place I know of where Matthias Born, Ole Hanson, and Avery write about avisynth...though for all I know there's a forum somewhere) is still decently active. Regardless, it's by far the best way to manage things going forward. Putting new filters in separate files would work easily and isn't a hard fix, but it won't happen just because I say so. Moreover, it's not a cure-all; there's still a lot of patching being done on the existing filters, which are currently stuck in these ridiculously long CPP files. (A lot of times the function headers are mixed in there too!) I'm no refactoring expert, but I haven't seen it discussed at all so I figured it was one of the important issues to bring up if only as an example of the kind of administrative tasks facing us. I too am definitely a follower for now; if my post gave the impression I was nominating myself, that's about 180 degrees opposite from what I meant :)

Hi- Not to get off topic, but more than once I've read that Ben Rudiak Gould has disappeared, like he's gone into seclusion or become a hermit or something. But that is far from the truth, and what he's working on now will be of great interest to many of the Doom9 regulars. You can find more information about his current project .

Whew! 

How hard would it be to integrate DVD2AVI into this? Not the entire interface - just using the MPEG2 front end to allow fast "playing" of MPEG2 files without having to go through "helper" applications and plugins? With the other stuff already added, that seems to me like it would be a great "version 2.0"

So basically it comes down to making the "index" once when running DVD2AVI, or rebuilding it every time the file gets reopened if it were made more a part of avisynth? Makes sense. I realize people run it standalone, but because it's been borg'd into another code doesn't mean the "regular" version goes away. But it sounds like it may be most optimal just as it is, since spending five minutes reopening the file all the time would suck. Then again, the file could be created once automatically, and not run again unless something changed... hmmm. Would it be alright to make MPEG2DEC part of avisynth rather than having to invoke a plugin? Moreover, would there be any speed improvement at all? I've never written a plugin, so forgive me if these questions sound ignorant... they largely are.

@Richard Berg Could you please attach an avisynth dll.I couldn't compile it. I've always get an error with cl.exe when linking. Thanks in advance ARDA

Darn - you're not the only one apparently. I'll post a binary when I get home, but I'd like to know what's breaking on other people's machines since that's obviously not a good thing. Probably best to attach errors as a text file vs. posting in the thread...thanks...

I don't think there is any noticeable performance hit from loading a plug-in. And I like to be able to specify which one I'm loading. Some version of MPEG2DEC have been hardware specific or test versions and it is a pain to compile Avisynth since it refers to too many libraries. @Poptones - I think I remember you cursing about this over on Ars a few months ago. ;) BTW - I think the more up to date Avisynth doc is now on Edwin's site. Wonder if he is willing to add it to SourceForge? I recently started trying to catch up on Avisynth history by reading the Yahoo forum/list but there are about 500 messages out there. It will take awhile. ;) - Tom

Yeah, I guess in one respect avisynth has been a good newbie experience, since there's so damn much to get together. It's like you gotta hold your mouth just right when you hit F7. I just recently started using mpeg2dec. I've been using the japanese vfapi thingie for about a year now, and I'm startled how much faster mpeg2dec is. And I can see how it's fairly trivial to add that one line to the avs, but somehow it still seems inefficient compared to having them talking with one another (slightly more) directly. BTW I finally managed a compile of all this today, and it's very, very nice. I don't know if anyone else is using this for more sophisticated stuff, but it's become a pretty powerful tool.