As many people know Virtualdub, has a built in frame server. Unfortunately, this frame server is not compatible with many programs. Premiere is one of those programs that is not compatible with the default frame server of Virtualdub. With my new Link2 tool you can solve this compatibility problem, and allows you to frame serve directly from Virtualdub to e.g. Ligos MPEG encoder

If you never used the frame server of Virtualdub before, please install it. This can be done by running the AuxSetup.exe that is included in the Virtualdub package. When this program is launched, please click on the "Install handle button". If you ever used the frame server before, make sure that the proxy server is disabled. This proxy server is NOT enabled by default. If the proxy server is enabled, you can disable it by running the proxyoff.reg file included in the Virtualdub package.

To simplify this guide I also provide a sample stream (AVIsample.AVI) to registered users. This file can be downloaded in the members only download section to limit traffic on my site. If you registered one of my programs, you can retrieve your password and login in the member section. One of the main advantages of having this same sample stream is, that it allows you to follow this guide exactly. Of course you can use other streams, but you will not get exactly the same output.

1) Launch Virtualdub and select File->Open and open the file from c:\videofiles\AVIsample.AVI file. (make sure the file is not in the root)

When the AVIsample.AVI is loaded into Virtualdub, we add a rotation filter. This filter rotates the input AVI over 90 degrees.

If you move the slider to an other position you can see that the input is rotated over 90 degrees.

Now we setup Virtualdub and start to frame serve the AVIsample.AVI with the selected processing options to Ligos. First we start the default frame server of Virtualdub. This can be done by selecting File->Start frame server.

Save the frame server file as AVIsample.vdr. When you entered the file name please click on the save button.

If everything went O.K. Virtualdub wrote the AVIsample.vdr file and started the frame server. If Virtualdub is serving, the normal Virtualdub window disappears and the frame server window appears. Do NOT close this window. The Virtualdub frame server should be running during the WHOLE process. 

Now it is time to launch the Link2 program. This program will wrap the Virtualdub frame server file into an AVI file. This enables you to read the Virtualdub frame server file in any program that is able to read AVI files. 

The first step is to load the AVIsample.vdr file into the link2 program by clicking on the browse button.

WARNING: The total length of the filename is limited (including the path). So please use short file and path names for the input files for the link2 program. If the length is to long, the link2 program will report this. If you receive such an error, please reduce the length of the filename and path.

Because Ligos can NOT read compressed audio from an AVI stream. You need to enable the RAW audio feature.

Now you are ready to wrap the AVIsample.vdr (virtualdub frame server file) into an AVI file. This can be done by pressing the Wrap button. After the program has created the avisample.avi file, you can close the Link2 program (leave the Virtualdub frame server running). Please make sure that you are not overwriting the original AVI file (It was also called avisample.avi file, so if you would have put the original file in the root you will overwrite this file). 

Now the link2 program wrapped the Virtualdub frame server file into an AVI file. As Ligos can read AVI files, it can read the AVIsample.avi.  In the next section were are going to load the avisample.avi file into Ligos.

 Now it is time to launch the Ligos encoder and open the file. After the file is opened in the Ligos encoder, a AVI file information dialog is shown. Inside this dialog a warning is displayed, about the compression ratio. Ignore this message, as the Ligos encoder assumes that video is written into the avisample.avi file. This is NOT the case, the video is read directly from Virtualdub without any kind of compression. As a result you archive the highest quality possible.

Set the encoding parameters in the Ligos encoder..

Now Ligos is ready to encode. Press the Encode button to start encoding.

After you hit the encode button, Ligos starts encoding.

If your Virtualdub output is coded, you can close the Virtualdub frameserver.

The End