[HELP] Hybrid stuck at STARTED during Video processing

[atab]

Hello!

I have been using Hybrid to process old camcorder footage. I have analog SD captures in AVI format, captured using VirtualDub.

I am using Hybrid 2024.12.21.1. I am on Windows 11

I am processing the video to x264, with audio set to custom and encoded to mp3. My default container for output is mp4. Sometimes I do 2 pass x264, sometimes I do 1 pass x264. This issue happens regardless on both. I also do Filter -> Overwrite...(Top field first) -> QTGMC: Preset: Fast (Bob, Pad mod16, Neo, all enabled).

When I submit the job, the audio encoding is fine. However, when it begins the video processing step (encoding video to MPEG-4 AVC with x264, it says "STARTED" and has no progress at all. After a while (10+ minutes), it eventually progresses. I am not sure why it pauses for so long during this step. It then pauses again if it has another video step (like a 2nd pass). For whatever reason starting the video encoding has this massive delay.

 It doesn't output a debug/crash log, probably because it doesn't crash. But I've attached the log/report in case that helps.

[Selur]

Report is totally useless to me, like the normal log, it's just for 'user amusement'.
I need a debug output. (Hybrid doesn't create this on its own you need to tell it to create one,..)
Tried to reproduce this here, but for me progress is shown a few seconds after the encoding started.

Wild guess:

• Anti virus scanner (disabling it or at least adding an exception for the input, temp, output folder might help)
  I would also recommend moving the Hybrid temp folder somewhere out of the user home.
  
• Indexing, initial loading, filling the cache can take a while when the source or temp is on a network drive.
  
• Firewall, especially if the source, temp or output folder are located on a network drive. (disabling the firewall might help)
  
• some other tool scanning the processed data might also cause the initial start to slow down
  
• running out of memory and swapping to physical memory will slow things down.
  

=> create a debug output, check the taskmgr while this happens,..
(Whenever the Hybrid gets infos for x264&co those should appear in the debug output)

Cu Selur

[atab]

Hello Selur,

Appreciate the quick response.

One thing I just realized, the file that I'm processing is stored on an external HDD (over USB). When running Hybrid on this video, it's reading from the HDD (at ~60mb/s, pretty much the entire USB bandwidth). I imagine that's probably related to the delay, especially with the source media being large (25-30gb). Once the video starts encoding, disk usage sharply drops (to around 10-15mb/s). The output destination is a different location (laptop SSD). 

I've attached the debug output in two parts because of the upload limit. Although not sure how useful it'll be considering the above. 

Thank you.

[Selur]

Those debug outputs are useless, they do not contain any of the processing.
=> re-read the sticky on how to create a debug output. Also like mentioned in the sticky 'compress (zip/7z/rar/..) the HybridDebugOutput.txt before you post it'

Wild guess: LWLibAVSource or BestSource are used which don't use an index file, but read the index into memory. So what happens, at the start is that the source filter needs to read the whole file and create the index inside the memory before it starts. Since your source can only be read with 60MB/s this will take a while.
If I'm right, disabling 'Prefer LWLibAVSource over FFMpegSource2' and disabling 'Prefer BestSource' will cause Hybrid to use FFMpegSource2, for which an index is created in the file system before the actual encoding starts.
Enabling 'Prefer AviSource for .avi input' might also help.

Cu Selur

[atab]

I have the debug folder set up, but I am unable to get the debug to include details of the processing. I checked the sticky, so I am not sure if there is another option that I may be missing.

Perhaps it's not a bug then, if your comment about the index being created is true. Do you know of a way to create and store an index ahead of time to save time on subsequent reads of the files? I see older threads mentioning tools such as aui_indexer or LSmash

[Selur]

Last I checked there was no external tool o create indices for LibAVVideoSource or BestSource.
One could create a nearly empty script and create the file using just the source filter and then call the normal script, but I decided not to write code do such a thing.
=> Use FFmpegSource2 if you want an index or AviSource.
Not that with FFmpegSource2 the index will still need to get created, it's just done in a separate thread.
AviSource should work without an index.

Cu Selur