BatMan - first aid in technical problems

(this thread is about technical problems with the video converter BatMan)

Hi dudes. Lately I had to write the same things over and over again, so let me sum up the first steps you can take yourself when you are experiencing problems with BatMan.

Problem 1 : BatMan does not start up.
- WinXp and Vista : log in with the user account "Administrator" and try again. Should it work now, then it's clear you have somehow fucked up the permissions of the other account
- is there any kind of firewall running ? Some of them are capable of prohibitting the execution of programs. Turn it off and try again.
- if all else fails, try on another windows machine

Problem 2 : Once it starts converting, BatMan immediately shuts down.
- either the source video is faulty or not compatible with MEncoder (which happens only very rarely). Try converting your video with another converter first (e.g. VirtualDub) at a high bitrate, and the result with BatMan

Problem 3 : It converts, but there is no sound..
- be sure you have Avisynth and FFDShow installed (and maybe a codec pack like K-Lite) and be sure that BatMan tells you "Avisynth detected" in the main menu. If not, re-install Avisynth. The Avisynth/DirectShow strategy is superior to that of MEncoder in terms of compatibility. Be sure that you can playback your original video with Windows Mediaplayer (not VLC). If Mediaplayer cannot, search the web for appropriate codecs. Use MediaInfo to find out what's missing.
- there might be erroneouss data in the audio part of your video. Try converting with VirtualDub first, see above
- special command "repair" might also help with this
- if you are in VOB mode, you might have entered a non-existing AID. This plugin might come in handy.

Problem 4 : it converts, but the Meizu freezes or shows only a black screen or immediately stops playing.
- try the special command "repair" first
- if that fails, try converting with VirtualDub, see above

Problem 5 : I get black bars, but I don't want any.
- Have you selected your device correctly with D ?
- Do you have the correct zoom mode with Z ? (see internal help §2.3)
- If there are black bars encoded in the original video, you can crop them with Zoom Medium (click to see an example)
If this first aid doesn't solve your problem, we can still talk about it in depth (and if necessary send the problematic video to me). In any case, it would be very helpful to know the technical details of your video - which you can simply display by using MediaInfo.

Problem 6 : I want to convert a .vob and the result is out of sync.
- some vobs have an internal delay (maybe to nag some cheap illegal copycats), you can read that delay out with MediaInfo (View/Text) and look for something like :
Audio #0
Video0 Delay : -504ms
- BatMan uses an internal delay to compensate any device-specific delay (like the M6 needs about 230 ms generally). The problem is, you cannot change this delay to any negative values, so the best way is to keep this like it is and add the following :
- use special command "switch" and enter this : -delay 0.504
this will correct the skew of a source video if the sounds comes 504 ms too late.
- your switch gets saved and used automatically, so don't forget to clear it up again if you don't need it anymore (either delete the ini\lastswitch.ini or just enter "switch" again and enter a space)

Problem 7 : fast forward does not work ! Whenever I press |>>, the Meizu jumps back into the menu or starts playing the next movie.
- solution : press and hold |>> for 10-30 seconds. The Meizu will display strange characters in the bottom bar while it forwards over the problematic parts and then suddenly starts to fast forward just like normal.
- sometimes BatMan's special command "repair" helps as well. This will remove erraneous data blocks from the start and does a complete rewrite of the index data.

Problem 8 : with some of my videos I get an error message "avs2wav.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close."
- avs2wav.exe is not my program, I have no idea why it crashes sometimes.
- temporarily disable it by doing the following :
- in BatMan's main menu enter "exe", then enter "set avisynth=no"
- if you did it right, the main menu will read "smooth playback mode not possible"
- note that proper framerate conversion is not a vailable in this mode, but the avs2wav problem should be gone
- permanently disable that feature by adding "set avisynth=no" to your "D:\Program Files\Batman\plugins\do this when BatMan starts.bat" (do this with a text editor of your choice, e.g. notepad.exe)

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If you still have a problem that is not covered here, we can still work it up together in detail (e.g. you can upload the video to me). Before that, you should provide me with the video details, whcih you can easily find out by using MediaInfo.

Maybe it is generally a good idea to handle the technically issues in this thread, and the general talks about the program in the original thread.

For the people capable of understanding German, this thread has also a German sibling that can be found here.

is there a batman manual available for download? the thread is really really long... and in multiple languages.

BatMan contains an integrated help which you can invoke by entering "?", and that has been translated into the most common languages with the help of members from this forum (thank you all at this place !!!)

ok, since this is now the official batman help thread....
is there any way of doin batch encoding with batman..??

stonecoldd are you serious ? what do you think stands the "bat" in BatMan for ? :D
Drag any combination of files, folders and subfolders onto the BatMan icon to batch convert them.

Originally Posted by BobbyQ

stonecoldd are you serious ? what do you think stands the "bat" in BatMan for ? :D
Drag any combination of files, folders and subfolders onto the BatMan icon to batch convert them.

ohhhh.... so now i know why u called it batman.....and here i wuz thinking u were just a big batman fan or sumthin....

anywayz thnx for the help...this makes things a lot easier now..

HOw come when I used BAtman there is a black box around the video. Not just black bars.

boo516, Problem 5 covers this.

EDIT: Oh, I figured it out...it goes through them one-by-one, simply by entering Z in the first "D,Z,0-5,X,A,?" command. So, entering simply Z and hitting ENTER will switch to the next ZOOM choice. Same with D for device. Simply enter D, hit ENTER and it will go to the next choice....repeat and it will start from the beginning...
All good......



Hey again, BobbyQ,
BatMan is a great little program, although I need to explore more of its features.

One of the things I am having some problems with, is I don't know how exactly to call the commands...

The program first asks for:
(D,Z,0-5,X,A,?):
Which I have only been able to use the QUALITY setting with so far, i.e. 3 or 5, etc...

Then:
Special commands :

I can use the "test1" command for instance, but how exactly would I call the ZOOM commands; that I am not sure about.


EDIT: Oh, I figured it out...it goes through them one-by-one, simply by entering Z in the first "D,Z,0-5,X,A,?" command. So, entering simply Z and hitting ENTER will switch to the next ZOOM choice. Same with D for device. Simply enter D, hit ENTER and it will go to the next choice....repeat and it will start from the beginning...
All good......

I' ve done what you said but now the bars are bigger and video is smaller. Also does this work with itunes videos?

boo516, what device and what zoom mode do you use ? Make sure you have read the internal help §2.3 !
Which file extension does your "itunes video" have ? The size of the converted picture has nothing to do with the compatibility, either it works or not at all.

Cheers,
Is there any way to make subtitles look smaller at my screen? I mean, it is pretty disturbing as the subtitle occasionally takes half of the screen.

Ty in advance!

edit. also my letter t is shown as number 1. Is there any way to fix this?

@nakkis : special command "switch" and then the following :
-subfont-autoscale 0 -subfont-text-scale 10 (or a smaller value than 10)
About that t->1 problem, no idea what that could be. Have you taken a look into the subtitle file if there is really a "t" ?

i only can say: thank you!

BatMan works perfectly for me!

I have a M6 sl, and I used full screen zoom, also the video lags.

Thanks

My itunes videos have .mpeg4

BobbyQ, i have written a message to the original Batman thread like a week ago about resizing the subtitle font and making it to show at the bottom of the screen, and you said i should use -subpos 100 to do this. However it doesn't seem to work Also i tried to set the font smaller but doesn't matter what value i'm writing (like 4) it remains the same size! (This time i used the leading - to the commands )
Any suggestions?
Thanks!

nice2know_u, I have double-checked it myself, and it does work if you exactly follow the instructions I gave you. Simply copy the command line I posted and paste it into your %ProgramFiles%\BatMan\ini\lastswitch.ini or use this one :

Originally Posted by boo516

I have a M6 sl, and I used full screen zoom, also the video lags.

Thanks

in which way does it "lag" exactly ?

Originally Posted by BobbyQ

nice2know_u, I have double-checked it myself, and it does work if you exactly follow the instructions I gave you. Simply copy the command line I posted and paste it into your %ProgramFiles%\BatMan\ini\lastswitch.ini or use this one :

Thank you it's working now! The only problem is if i set the value to 9 it's damn small! :D