Avisynth Download and Install?
 

Best site to Download Avisynth from? I did a search and top result was Avisynth wiki. Saw Official build for v.2.6.0 ST 32bit, (ST means Single Thread?) Unofficial build is MT (Multi Thread?)... KISS Theory would help here,Tanks!

Avisynth 2.6 MT is a bit heavy for beginners and requires all kinds of configuration gymnastics for every filter you run. Avoid it. The Avisynth version most people have no trouble with is the May 2015 version, which I still use. Get it here: https://www.videohelp.com/download/AviSynth_260.exe . This is the 32-bit version. Folks say the newer versions run slower.

The .exe download is the installer. When you run the installer you can use the default location, which in 32-bit systems is C:\Program files\Avisynth 2.5 (or it might read "Avisynth 2.6" if the installer has been updated). The Avisynth name makes no difference, your registry will always know where it is. In 64-bit systems the default for the 32-bit version is C:\Program Files (x86)\Avisynth 2,5 (or Avisynth 2.6). The actual version number in the folder doesn't matter. In fact you can install it wherever you want. I have it installed in "D:\Avisynth 2.5" because i used to have 2.5 in there and the new installer just used the old folder without changing its name.

In the custom configurations take the defaults, but do be sure and check that .avs files are associated with Windows Notepad. Don't enable any other file associations. The association with Notepad is handy so that you can just double-click on an .avs script file and automatically have it open in Notepad. If you want to run an Avisynth script, open the script in Virtualdub, just like opening a video file. A lot of newcomers think an Avisynth script can be edited in VirtualDub. Not so. Notepad is for creating and editing .avs scripts. Virtualdub is for executing Avisynth scripts, not for editing them.

Avisynth installs its own documentation in the program folder but does not install any desktop icons. To access Avisynth's installed documentation, go to Start -> Programs (or "All Programs"), look for the Avisynth program listing, expand that program group in the program listing and click on "Avisynth documentation". The docs will open in your default web browser.

If you want to make a desktop shortcut to Avisynth Help, make a desktop shortcut to the help index file located in the Avisynth program folder in the subfolder "\docs\English\index.htm".

Avisynth has no executable file of its own. In other words, the "Avisynth.exe" file is the installer, not the program. Avisynth is run by running an .avs script in a file server app, like VirtualDub. Use Notepad to make the .avs file. The Avisynth file that is actually executed by whatever runs the script is Avisynth.dll, which will be located in the Windows system folder where it was installed. If you ever uninstall Avisynth, the only file that is removed from your computer is Avisynth.dll and a few registry entries. All the other Avisynth files will remain intact, including your plugins.

Thank you sanlyn for all those details! will really help as I dive into making better videos, and get out of that "lazy box"!

OK Downloaded, and Getting ready to install recommended version of Avisynth, Actually printed out your instructions, I assume to right click on installer package from desktop and run .exe file, Also just realized that the word "SCRIPT" and "Running Script" has always been mysterious to me, and kept me assuming "that's only for computer geeks":laugh: Please a basic explanation of scripts and saving/running them would help, even though I have the basic Idea now. Need to use Virtualdub to run them, Notepad to edit them? Soon I will be a Computer Video Geek?!!:rolleyes:

Avisynth's "Getting Started" tutorial is the first page that displays in Avisynth's builtin documentation. Use "Start" -> "Programs" (or "All programs") -> "Avisynth" -> "Avisynth documentation". Or find the same page online using the Google search string "Avisynth Getting Started", and you'll get a link to http://avisynth.nl/index.php/Getting_started. NOTE: Ignore what the tutorial says about using Windows Media player to play Avisynth scripts. WMP doesn't do it any more and pretty much sucks with everything else, too. Use VirtualDub to run avs scripts by using "File" -> "Open video file...", then locate the .avs script, and click "Open" or "OK" -- just like opening any other video file in Virtualdub.

There are literally hundreds of .avs sample scripts posted in this forum (maybe literally thousands), dozens appearing in the past few weeks. Here are some links to a not-very-old thread in the Project Planning & Workflows forum that details the creation, script commands, and filters for improving a poor capture:

- http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post42293, post #16: Creating and running an .avs script (illustrated) and what the lines in the script are doing.

- http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post42294 , post #17: Using Avisynth and Virtualdub tools with a script, what the lines in the script are doing, and what the graphs mean.

- http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post42315 , post #19: How to use several Virtualdub filters to modify the output of an avs script.

- http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post42316 , post #20: Detailed explanation of an .avs script, and how to use a .vcf file to copy VirtualDub filter setups and settings into Virtualdub.

- From the "Video Project help/Encode, Convert for streaming" forum, http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post40834 , post #24: Details of .avs scripting and Virtualdub filters, plus more complex cleanup requiring specialized Avisynth plugins.

Real quick, two things...

(1) I'm working on an Avisynth guide.
The reason I've not been posting a lot lately is because I've been doing two things:
- working on content for this site -- including MANY samples, sorting years of research
- doing actual video projects

(2) I've never found the Avisynth docs all that useful.
- Worth trying to read? Perhaps.
- Will it be useful? I doubt it. Most of it is just crap, and could be condensed down to a single paragraph. The real meat of the program, ie the filters, has zero documentation. And the separate filters themselves tend to have zero documentation.

The Avisynth and VirtualDub docs are a two-edged sword, helpful in some aspects and absolutely confounding in others. They're a start, of course, and the Avisynth plugin docs at least tell you what you need to run the filter. Every built-in function and command in Avisynth is pretty well described, it's the plugins docs that sometimes get a little haywire (I have to laugh out loud when you see a file called "help.txt" in a plugin's download, and you open it and it's in Russian only! Big help!). The documentation for QTGMC is a bit obtuse in some areas but overall pretty well describes how to use the thing, but something like RemoveGrain's docs are incomprehensible to all but the most cryptically inclined programmers. I've found that the best way to learn VirtualDub and Avisynth is to browse project forums and see the problems others have encountered and how they used scripts and filters to solve them.

It's like driving a car. Try describing how to open, start, and drive an automobile to someone who has never seen one, never saw anyone do it, and doesn't know what an engine is.