First I have something very useful for all WinXP users out there: Tired of having to wait a couple of seconds before you can move/delete an AVI file? Well, let's stop the waiting. Start regedit and remove the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}\InProcServer32.

HeadAC3he 0.22 is the first program to use azid.dll v1.8 (without the new functions yet), has MP2 output via a modified mp2enc.dll that also has 32bit float input, automatic delay compensation, ssrc is now working in float mode, MP3 output uses john33's modified lame.dll which supports all lame profiles, the boost function has an auto-limit making the limit parameter obsolete, the boost curve is being drown, destination filesize is shown properly even for files over 4GB, full HD space usage is being shown, it's now possible to cancel HeadAC3he without having to kill the process, if a corrupt frame is being found the framenumber is being shown, a priority selection has been added, bitrate prediction for Vorbis output has been tuned and last but not least there are a couple of bugfixes.

Then I have a new guide for you: the BeSure guide teaches you how to create DTS audio CDs from AC3 files. And since a new HeadAC3he is out I've updated the Ogg guide as well. Now there's no need for external applications to do the delay correction anymore.

DVDx 1.8 has a couple of bugfixes concerning WNASPI (files larger than 1GB), blinking subtitles, crashing when decoding subtitles and crackling sound, then there's support for Lame MP3 which should fix all DivX synch issues, multilanguage support, a more reliable AV synch mechanism, SSE iDCT, full MPEG-1/2 input support and the ability to load and save a project. DVD2SVCD 1.07b2 is a minor update that fixes the file not found error when using vStrip to rip the DVD. Unless you actually use vStrip in DVD2SVCD there's no need to upgrade.

I found out that at least FXP between 2 of my servers work which rules out that the Router/NAT/Firewall has anything to do with my FXP problems but it's still a mystery why it doesn't work for the other servers anymore and all server admins swear they haven't changed anything :/

The Ogg DS filter 0.9.8.5 has changed locking in the Vorbis decoder and you should now be able to play ogg media streams containing subtitles even if the subtitle filter is not installed. There's also a new Ogg subtitle filter which works even with non XP renderers, doesn't change the format (i.e. blow up the resolution) if there's no subtitle stream, support for italics <i> and bold <b> tags in subs and it doesn't crash anymore if you try to change the font and color during playback. RadLight Subtitle Studio 2.0 R1 is a subtitle creation, editing, splitting and joining utility that support 18 subtitle formats.

DivX5 is near. You can now participate in an auction for the Gold Master CD of DivX5 along with a kick ass encoding machine.

Also, since the exam period is over now I'm staying at another place and I have a big problem when it comes to my site. Here I have 256/64kbit/s ADSL (slow, but our ex-monopoly telco still has a monopoly on the last mile so they can charge whatever they want rendering ADSL a luxury product) via a Zyxel Prestige 642-RI Router and using the exact same program (FlashFXP 1.4) with the exact same settings I simply can't get FXP to work and have to upload everything to all my servers via the slow uplink which is pretty annoying. So if anybody has an idea what could be wrong (I tried other programs, too) let me know. Of course keep in mind that I can FTP, so the problem shouldn't be NAT or PASV (passive mode, on by default in FlashFXP) related.

And I almost forgot about this one: ZoomPlayer 2.50b3 is out. As usual the changelog is huge.

vStrip 0.8e2_css contains a bugfix in the IFO parsing department. Anamorphic titles could contain two types of subtitles in two streams and that wasn't properly prior to this release.

ON2 has officially announced their next-gen video codec called VP5. Atm you can only get a public preview with pre-encoded content (as with VP4) so it will be up to the one getting their hands on the actual encoder to do some unbiased testing. As usual, the new codec should improve compression and image quality.

Yesterday's VCDEasy 1.0.8 had a renamed file which would prevent the proper use of the program. Here's a fixed installer. And for the people who prefer to just download the main program, I've added a VCDEasy only installer.

Some of you might have had difficulties downloading, especially if you use a download manager. The reason for this is that we installed referer checks on 3 out of 5 servers (the other 2 are coming, things are a bit more complicated on IIS but thanks to a reader we got some working code now). This means hotlinking files on our servers is likely to fail, and download managers that do not send a referer field will also fail. In the latter case this can be amended by following the instructions given on the HTML page you will get if the download is not authorized. Right clicks also don't work anymore, and you can no longer paste links (the forum is an exception here, if you use the official forum url: forum.doom9.org) anywhere. We're sorry for the inconvenience this may cause, but as you may know, this site generates a huge amount of traffic and we have to do whatever possible to keep the bandwith usage down and hope that you will understand the necessity of these measures. They should help ensuring the long-term survival of this site.

Maestro SBT 2.2.5.2 has a scale help in the edit style dialog, corrected time code values in submux scripts and corrected horizontal margin scaling when breaking lines. VobSub 2.09 has an option for displaying only forced subtitles, VobSub -> text conversion through a semi-OCR method, unicode to single/multi byte conversion options for input/output, ssa and smi support in subresynch and the following changes in DirectVobSub: automatic font scaling for textual subtitles, ssa support should be more stable, another memory leak has been fixed, advanced fps detection for codecs that do not provide this which should fix textual subs appearing randomly if there are dropped frames in the video stream or when seeking. Azid 1.8 fixes the DRC bug that caused occasional clicks and pops using normal DRC, fixes a WAV-header bug (an int header was written for float data in 32bit output mode), adds new file output types with more informative names, fixes a playback hang bug on AC3 files shorter than 0.5s, the downmix overflow logic has been changed which makes it more reliable to find the maximum gain possible, there are more statistics in the output, stdin/stdout streaming has been enabled allowing to stream azid output to another application, Control-C handling is working properly now, a proper return value is returned by the application, a two pass maximize function has been added along with the possibility to only decode a part of the input file. Last but not least there's commandline script support for easier reuse of the options and DRC has been fixed for channel 1 in 1.1 AC3 files. The dll package for developers is also available.

I guess by now we deserve a line break ;) VCDEasy 1.0.8 can create MPEG Stills, CD-i support has been turned off by default since this mode was causing some problems on certain CD/DVD-ROMs, display under XP has been improved, Windows font sizes other than small fonts are now properly supported, the log and xml viewer pages can be undocked, support for CDxa2mpeg has been added to the Tools section, there's a new reset authoring and clear all MPEG files button, and XML viewer page has been added and the advanced mode is now the default mode. The Ogg DS filters v 0.9.8.4 fix the incompatibilities with embedded MP3 streams created with a filter prior to 0.9.8.3, a bugfix in seeking, and the stop time should work properly now.

The successor of DVD has been announced: Blu-Ray discs will have a capacity of 27GB on a single layer 12cm disc. The maximum datarate of the discs is 36MBits/s which is 3.6 times higher than the max we have on DVDs today. Discs will use an easy to use cartridge to protect the disc against dust and fingerprints. This discs are called Blu-Ray because blue laser technology is being used. DVD players that can record and play such discs are expected to hit the market between 2003 and 2004. Of course these discs will have some copy protection scheme that is likely to be more stable than what's on DVD video these days which leads to another erosion of fair use rights. Each disc will also have a unique ID stored which enables to track pirate copies.

Maestro SBT 2.2.5.1 has corrected alpha values for submux scripts, kerning control at the style level, line spacing control at the style level and a preview in the SSA style edit window.

I've updated the Ogg media stream creation guide. It now contains info about subtitle mulitplexing, direct AC3 -> Ogg conversions using HeadAC3he, and how to have MP3s in your Ogg media streams.

The latest ASPI layer has some incompatibilities with EAC so if you use that app you may want to hold off until a fix is available. And the IE security fix posted 2 days ago can cause browser instability if you go on a site that uses certain VBScript commands. But, these must be sites I never go to because I've installed the patch on both of my computers and never had any problem (I installed it the day it came out so I've had it for almost a week now).

Here's something I should've posted a long time ago: Microsoft released a cumulative security patch for IE5 and IE6. Every IE user should definitely apply that patch to get rid of a bunch of security holes. Apple has finished Quicktime 6.0, which has full support for MPEG-4 and incorporates a set of pretty interesting features. However, Apple has decided to not launch the new version until the MPEG-4 licensing terms announced on Jan 31th have been revised. Apple, and other companies object to certain terms of the proposed licensing scheme which imposes royalty payments of $0.25 per decoder for personal use, the same amount for an encoder for personal use, and a $0.00033/minute ($0.02/hour) fee for every use of MPEG-4 video for which a service provider or content owner receives a renumeration for and the same amount on each copy of a packaged medium that isn't destined for personal use. What the terms do not mention is if these fees also have to be paid for a decoder that's offered free of charge (in the case of the encoder the fee has to be paid anyways which means there can be no license fee free MPEG-4 encoding utlities, unless we're talking about software for educational use).

@miraclemaker: please get in touch with me.. your email provider is seriously screwed up.. I sent about 6 emails your way and they all bounced.

Sorry for the lack of updates yesterday, somehow I missed the new Decomb in my incoming folder. Anyway, here it is: Decomb 3.1 has a new option to decimate. This option allows you to replace frames with interpolated ones rather than to discard them. Using this mode you can render your final output at 20fps without creating jerkiness due to duplicated frames. This version also improves performance on noisy source clips. TMPG 2.52 has been optimized for P3s and Athlons, improves audio loading using the DirectShow Multimedia Reader and generally works better with AVI input. The length of an OpenDML AVI file is also properly recognized now. Furthermore, at the max number of frames of a GOP TMPG takes the pulldown mode into account, there's improved framerate display in the MPEG settings when 3:2 pulldown has been selected, the MPEG tools will show details of a problem if an error occurs and last but not least if you create an MPEG-2 project using the project wizard the field order is being automatically determined. As usual, don't forget the VFP plugin.

And on a personal note: miraclemaker, please mail me, I sent you 3 mails in the last 36h and they all bounced. There's something wrong with your mail provider.

If you get random ASCII chars when coming to this page press F5, and verify that your browser is set to accept HTTP1.1 connections directly and via proxy (there might be hidden proxies). All the servers are back up again now, and the FTP redirects should also work for Opera users (there was one too many trailing slashes in the .htaccess file).

I have no new software for you today, but check out the EFF Alert on copy protected audio CDs. I think we should all support Philips on this one.

Great news for DreamCast owners: There's now an open source DivX player for your the DC.

And as you might know already I'm in the middle of a finals period so if it takes me longer to reply to your email than usual that might just be because I spend most of my time studying and my inbox is filling up faster than I can clear it out.

And I'm still fighting with apache. To be more concrete: mod_rewrite. I have a nice referer check that works, but now I need another rewrite clause to be added to the referer check and I seem unable to do it. If you know your way around mod_rewrite please have a look at my problem. I also still need help regarding server based referer checking on IIS.

Thanks for all the tips on counters, I think I have enough options but atm I can't check them due to finals and projects that are due.

TSCV 0.84r2 is a bugfix release. ZoomPlayer 2.40 has so many changes (keeping up with the tradition) that I won't bother trying to listen them. Definitely worth the download if you're a ZoomPlayer user. Last but not least there's Decomb 3.0 that should speed up things and bring Decomb on par with GreedyHMA. DVD2SVCD 1.0.6b4 includes a new compiled submux that is smaller and should work better, and 3 bugfixes: PAL PVA streams were taken as NTSC, when using smartdeinterlace the program would stop with an unknown ftp error and on computers where CCE had never been run before the program would fail with an access violation due to missing registry entries for CCE.

Also released today were the GeForce4 chips. Guess I'm definitely not going to buy an ATI card now despite the price advantage.

Same news again, I need some help with .htaccess files. We've figured out the basis, now there's a more complicated case to take care of. Also, if you know of any referer checking methods for IIS let me know.

Derrow has posted a new IfoEdit but since it still doesn't seem to properly do what it's supposed to do I won't take it to my site.

Also, we got our own IRC channel. Try EfNet #doom9. Atm I'm in the middle of my finals so don't expect to see much action from my part in the channel (I'm mostly idling) but I'll drop in every now and then.

Then we have 2 press releases concerning DivXNetworks (DivX4): DXn licenses its technology to the Fraunhofer group (the developers of MP3) and they've also struck a deal with SigmaDesigns that will bring DivX4 enabled chips to your PCs in the future (and maybe also standalones as Sigma is working with settop-box manufacturers). Then we also have SmartRipper in a ZDNet article.

Then, TheCounter just changed their terms and conditions. Under the new contract I'd have to pay $700 a year for the counter which is way too much so if anybody knows a free or reasonably priced alternative let me know.

Last but not least I'd like to bid farewell to Flexion.org. Even though technically a competitor it's still sad to see a fellow webmaster having to shut down his operations, especially if it's due to bandwith (= money) reasons. But Wimpy has promised a comeback...

If you're an experienced apache webmaster please have a look at my halfway sucessful efforts in making a good referer check.

As part of the bandwith optimization procedures we've created a new GKnot homepage where the download will be hosted from now on. Note that this page will contain both the downloadable files and the official FAQ, but you will still find the news about a new release right here because it's the same people doing both pages.

The simperesize filter v0.3 add support for interlaced sources. IfoEdit 0.851 allows you to select which frames will be written to the TMPG textfile. This is useful for movies that you re-encode with force film enabled.

I've finished a new release of the DVD ripper comparison.

Synchronizer 0.8 contains rewritten AVI preview code which allows zooming and full screen mode and access to the DivX3/4 codec properties, a new synchronization tool called synch calculator, the set button has been replaced by a test button that applies your settings and previews the AVI, some delay presets are available for faster action and the program is multilanguage capable.

If you have some experience with the Apache webserver please read this thread.

Still working on the bandwidth issue but we can slowly see some light. Once again I'd like to ask for your help to figure out why one server suddenly gets a much lower load. In this case server2.doom9.org that serves its downloads via FTP and since we use FTP the load is much lower (which of course leads to more load on the other server(s)).

Soon after BeSweet 1.1 came out yesterday BeSweet 1.11 was released which I suppose fixed some last minute bugs. MaestroSBT 2.0.3.2 has corrected time coding in txt files for I-Author and the absolute positioning is now taken into account for creating the final bitmaps. DVD2SVCD 1.0.6b3 offers 3 choices for the PBC: selections, playlists and no PBC at all, the bitrate calculation will take the 2nd audio track into account, BeSweet 1.11 is used for the audio and since the module it uses for mpa input has problems with certain corrupt streams madplay is used to decode mpa/mp2 to wav before being converted back to mp2 using BeSweet. Decomb has also been integrated as alternative IVTC method (and it also works with interlaced PAL movies), VFAPI support has been added which makes it possible to use CCE 2.6x, you can now set a standard palette for the subs, the standard bitrates have been changed which results in less CCE freezes, there's support for custom CCE matrices, the cutting of the last seconds of the last cd image should be fixed and there are some fixes in the AVI2SVCD department but this feature should still be considered beta. IfoEdit 0.85 adds multiangle stripping and a GOP structure output that can be used in TMPG to create GOPs that correspond to the ones on the original DVD and that should make it possible to use files re-encoded by TMPG in IfoEdit. The latter feature is currently in beta status and there's also no solution for CCE encoded files yet.

Still working on bandwidth optimizations. HTML compression should be installed on the IIS server soon and I'll be able to outsource the most costly download: Gordian Knot. I've also checked the logs on the server that handles downloads via FTP.. and it's considerable lower than on the other servers. From the round robin or failsave switchover I see no reason for this, so are there download problems on that server (IP 212.43.217.28)? Downloads from that server work fine for me.

BeSweet 1.1 has a new smart normalizer that achieves higher gain values without harming the track's quality (so no more overflows with the auto gain search), adaptive clip smoother, a new dynamic range compression algorithm, support for lame's --alt-presets, automatic assertion of A/V delays, calculation of a gain for .lst input, a switch that forces the program to quit on badly ripped AC3 streams, all error messages can now be logged and last but not least all bugs reported in the 1.0 build have been fixed.

And a warning: There's no DivX4.5 build.. no matter what you may read or see on a page that looks almost like divx.com.

A little more info about the bandwidth issue. Yesterday afternoon I added a 3rd server and the load on the primary server immediately dropped and we're no longer maxing out the T1. But, the new server is at the same place as the other one and also on a T1. It's only a matter of time until my trusted old server gets shut down and then we're back to ground zero. Only time will tell how much of an effect the recent cuts in downloadable files and the HTML and picture optimizations will have. HTML compression will be enabled on the servers as soon as I can get through to the admins and we're working on a referrer checking as well. Still, I need another server to eventually replace the one that's going to get shut down. So, if you spare about 200 gigs a month or know anybody in the hosting business that could let me know. I'm monitoring the load on the oldest server (only one where I have actual bandwidth stats, not just webalizer stuff) and I can already tell that despite the cuts we're going to be maxed out again once that server gets shut off. There's an alternative to getting a free host, but it requires that more than 0.5% of the daily visitors make a donation because I'm not going to pay for hosting out of my own pocket.

The SimpleResize filter 0.2 has a better warp calculation formula for WarpedResize and some more SSE2 and SSEMMX enhancements. TSCV 0.84r1 has a new mpeg encoder that replaces TMPG (though you can still use TMPG if you want), it's possible to add MPEG audio files to a project, still menus can contain audio, a frame number can be set in the chapter options for still menus, CD title and background picture have been added to the chapter matrix, VCDImager 0.7.12 is now supported, subtitle support has been added to the Mplex tab, an empty element has been added to the menu properties and there are a lot of other bugfixes. I haven't had time to check it out yet so I can't tell you whether all the bugs I mentioned in my guide are still there.