Running DGDecIM on a virtual machine

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Kempniu
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Running DGDecIM on a virtual machine

Post by Kempniu »

I have been using DGDecNV for quite a few years now, but I am going to sell my current encoding rig in the coming days. This forced me to start putting together a new solution, which I was hoping could be virtual machine-based. I am not that much into performance, but two other things are essential in my case: frame accuracy and proper MBAFF support.

I was hoping I could just use DiAVC and DGAVCDecDI, but then I learned both are dead.

I experimented with FFMS2, but it handles some frames in the MBAFF DVB-T streams I work with incorrectly, so using it is out of the picture.

Then I found the new tool, DGDecIM, but DGIndexIM crashes immediately upon starting when it is run inside QEMU-based VMs (both Windows XP Professional SP3 and Windows 7 Ultimate SP1) with exception 0xc0000005 (access violation) at address 0x0003c411. Could it be that the licensing-related code is trying to access something that is not available on a VM? Or perhaps should something from Intel be explicitly installed before the tool can be run as it does not handle library errors nicely (yet)?

I am happy to do any testing or experimenting if you would like me to. So far I am hopeless.
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admin
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Re: Running DGDecIM on a virtual machine

Post by admin »

Hi. Let's try to isolate possibilities. First question: If you type just "dgindexim" with nothing else, does it crash? You should get an error popup that shows your machine ID.

It could be license related but let's go step-by-step. If that fails I can send you a standalone app that reads your main board serial number to see if it is simply that call that fails. I use WMI so if your VM does not support WMI we have a problem.

DGIndexIM does not depend on anything Intel. DGDecodeIM will want to load the Intel SW or HW DLL, depending on the setting.
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Aleron Ives
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Re: Running DGDecIM on a virtual machine

Post by Aleron Ives »

A VM will usually expose generic hardware to the OS running within it, so I would be surprised if it's possible to read your mainboard's serial number from within a VM. That's also why things like graphics drivers won't work: you can't install nVidia's GPU driver in a VM, because the VM tells the OS that it's running on some generic GPU and doesn't reveal information about the physical GPU in the machine.
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Kempniu
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Re: Running DGDecIM on a virtual machine

Post by Kempniu »

Thank you for a swift response, it is very much appreciated.
admin wrote:Hi. Let's try to isolate possibilities. First question: If you type just "dgindexim" with nothing else, does it crash?
Yes.
admin wrote:You should get an error popup that shows your machine ID.
Yes, that is what happens on a physical Windows machine. On any VM I tried only a message saying DGindexIM.exe has stopped working is displayed (or a similar one, depending on the operating system). The exception's number and address remain constant on all operating systems I tried. Running the utility as Administrator and/or changing compatibility mode for the executable does not change anything.
admin wrote:It could be license related but let's go step-by-step. If that fails I can send you a standalone app that reads your main board serial number to see if it is simply that call that fails. I use WMI so if your VM does not support WMI we have a problem.
I assume you mean the MBSerialNumber.exe utility linked to in this post. Please correct me if I am wrong.

This utility runs fine on a Windows 7 VM. It prints a serial number in the following form: XXXXX-OEM-YYYYYYY-ZZZZZ. On a Windows XP VM, I get a message box saying MBSerialNumber.exe is not a valid Win32 application, while a message saying Access is denied. is printed in the command prompt window which I run the utility from.
admin wrote:DGIndexIM does not depend on anything Intel. DGDecodeIM will want to load the Intel SW or HW DLL, depending on the setting.
Sorry, the above does not parse for me :) If it "does not depend on anything Intel", why does it "want to load the Intel SW (...) DLL"? As Aleron Ives correctly pointed out, no graphics-related driver/software from Intel is available on a fresh virtual machine, so I guess DGIndexIM can have a hard time trying to load "the Intel SW (...) DLL" ;) (I understand this is some library provided by the graphics card driver)
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admin
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Re: Running DGDecIM on a virtual machine

Post by admin »

That program you linked is a bad version that actually reads your windows serial number.

DGIndexIM and DGDecodeIM are not the same. Please re-read what I wrote with that in mind.

It's pretty clear that the VM does not support WMI reads of the motherboard serial number.

I can't support platforms that won't support my licensing.
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