§ ¶VirtualDub 1.8.3 Released
1.8.3 is out, and fixes a horrendously stupid regression in 1.8.2 where VirtualDub's main window wouldn't display if you didn't already have saved window position data in the Registry. If anyone's still seeing issues in 1.8.3 like this, please let me know.
On the other hand, I already received an email from a software site saying that VirtualDub 1.8.2 has been added to the database and awarded 5 stars....
I have to apologize for the quality of the last couple of releases. To be honest, I haven't found a good solution to the testing problem. Having only one release line didn't work, because I couldn't push experimental changes out without breaking the mainline. Splitting development into two release lines still didn't really fix the problem because most people didn't try the experimental version and so I still ended up with showstopper bugs in the stable line. Lately I've been pushing out test releases at a much faster rate to the forum; that's helped a lot with specific issues since I can get bug fixes to people and have them verify it in much less time, but it's generally still the case that the first stable release end up with a few major bugs that didn't get caught in the pre-testing. In this case, it happened because I and everyone who had been trying those test releases already had the position data in the Registry because we'd been running incremental releases up to the final, and because the few tests that currently exist in the release script are scripted and don't notice issues in the UI. I'd like to beef up the automated testing, but that's going slowly since it's about as major as developing the program itself. Sigh.
If you have some time and tend to track VirtualDub releases, please swing over to the Testing section of the forums, and try the latest test releases there from time to time. I can't implement features very quickly -- particularly right now -- but if you spot new bugs, I can usually fix those on a time scale of days to weeks instead of months as it would be for a full release. I really apprecate this kind of feedback as it helps avoid releasing a dog like I did today.
Comments
Comments posted:
I would recommend you rename "experimental" to "beta". It's pretty much the same thing, but more people are likely to test out betas than experimental, just due to the fear associated with "experiments" :P
Blight - 20 07 08 - 06:51
If I type into Select Range a 459 (or any other number) ms Start or End offset and save the avi to job control the VirtualDub.video.SetRange shows up like this in VirtualDub.jobs:
VirtualDub.video.SetRange();
instead of
VirtualDub.video.SetRange(459,0);
or
VirtualDub.video.SetRange(0,459);
heustess - 20 07 08 - 23:04
That's a tough nut to crack. Offhand, the only way I can think of would be to create a set of virtual machines, each configured with the appropriate initial environment (clean install, earlier version of VDub installed, etc.). Of course, that would only cover a subset of issues, since VMs won't have DirectX or OpenGL drivers, AFAIK.
Rob Scott - 21 07 08 - 14:55
I had not known that experimental releases were available from the forums. Now i know, thanks to the 1.8.3 announcement. I used to just go to the VirtualDub home page and look at the upper-left side to see what versions there were (usually a stable & an experimental). I had only used the forums for technical help on occasion.
Perhaps you should advertise that there are in fact newer, experimental builds available, advertising them in a more "visible" location such as the VirtualDub home page? Might get more people (such as me) using those experimentals.... :)
roseman - 21 07 08 - 19:28
@heustess:
Sigh. That's a result of the completely goofy way that the start/end settings from the Select Range dialog and the selection interact, which is to say, badly... and yes, it is a bug.
The settings behind the Select Range dialog are a huge pain in the butt as they are current implemented, and were responsible for a large part of the range and sync breakage in 1.8.1. I think I'm more content with Select Range being broken now instead with the next step being to change it to Select Frames instead and have it just change the selection. That'll be more consistent, especially since the selection is actually the way that the mechanism works (the ms start/end is changed to frames under the hood).
@roseman:
Point of clarification... experimental releases are the ones that I post on SourceForge as experimental, whereas the test releases on the forum are distinct from that. The differences are as follows: (1) I don't keep test releases locally and periodically blow them away on the website. I don't support old test releases at all, whereas I have some ability to debug old releases. (2) Experimental releases go out with a general belief in stability, whereas sometimes I'll push out test releases that are known to be badly broken in some areas, because there's another area I need feedback on. By all means please try the test releases, but do heed the "things may be majorly and knowingly broken" sign.
Phaeron - 22 07 08 - 01:21
Every time I download newer version of VirtualDub I run so called auxiliary setup and remove any settings. There is also a bug in this utility - if you try to uninstall handler before you install it first there is an error of files in use or something like that, no error if you install first.
CJ_HNO - 22 07 08 - 18:06
@Phaeron
I rewrote my syls using VirtualDub.video.SetRangeFrames instead of VirtualDub.video.SetRange
This really makes more sense to me and is easier to interpret in the script. Thanks for the info on the inner working. I hope you plan to leave in the audio options presently under Select Range.
heustess - 22 07 08 - 22:11
Is there no changelog for 1.8.2 and 1.8.3?
Carsten - 23 07 08 - 13:51
I posted the changelog for 1.8.2 when I released it (click "read more"), and all of the versions on the SourceForge download page also have the changelogs posted next to the download link. The only change in 1.8.3 was the fix to the window hiding bug.
Phaeron - 24 07 08 - 03:52
I Think I've found a bug (or is it me going nutt ? - please tell me !) : The "show output pane" doesn't work, either via the menu, the shortcut F10 or the status window menu. furthermore the pane "video" of the status window doesn't show its graph anymore (or only at the very first run ... ?
Thanks anyway for this new version you're doing a great job !
E Viva Avery ! Cheers from France
Klodec - 24 07 08 - 18:00
looking deeper, the bug I mention occurs only at 1st pass of a 2 pass video encoding, where audio source is set to none - for obvious reasons - (I do the audio encoding at pass #2)
klodec - 31 07 08 - 21:45
Comment form
Please keep comments on-topic for this entry. If you have unrelated comments about VirtualDub, the forum is a better place to post them.
