AviSynth

AviSynth acts as a non-linear video editor controlled entirely by scripting (without a GUI).[3] It emulates an AVI video file (or WAV audio file) as seen by the VFW downstream application, which is typically a media player, video editing software, or an encoder.[4]

AviSynth is built upon filters, which are much like DirectShow filters, but with a different binary interface. Filter capabilities include cropping, deinterlacing, inverse telecine, working with still images, doing basic color grading, reducing video noise, and many other things. AviSynth also performs traditional video editing tasks like cutting, trimming and re-sequencing segments.

For example, consider the script "myAvi.avs" (just a plain text-file saved with the extension "avs")

 AviSource("myAvi.avi")
 Crop(0, 0, 320, 240)
 Blur(0.1)

This script file can be opened in most media players (such as Windows Media Player). The program will play the video file "myAvi.avi" cropped down to its top-left 320 pixels by 240 pixels and blurred by a small amount. Operations occur in sequential order, so the cropping occurs first, then the blurring.

Technically, AviSynth constructs a filter graph (like Microsoft GraphEdit but with added capabilities),[5] controlled by scripts written in the AviSynth scripting language. Its functionality can be extended through the use of third-party filters known as plugins. An external plugin list is maintained at AviSynth Filter Collection.

AviSynth is a frameserver – the calling program requests audio/video frames and the script serves them. The calling program can call frames in any order, allowing it to pause, jump forward or backward etc., just as with a physical file.

The scripting language is a dataflow language:[5] a programming paradigm that describes a directed graph of the data flowing between operations. It lacks most procedural programming control structures,[6] but containing many features familiar to programmers, including variables, distinct datatypes, conditionals, and complex expressions.

The language works primarily with the audio/video clip as a built-in data type. The clip is a complex structure with many attributes such as width, height and duration.[7] The language also has several other more standard data types: int, float, bool and string.[8] These can be used to perform calculations, decisions, and write text such as subtitles to the video.

The script has a single return value, which is the audio and video 'seen' by the program running the script. This is normally the last line of the script, but a return statement may be inserted at any point.

 BlankClip()
 Subtitle("Hello, world!")

 Last = BlankClip()
 Last = Last.Subtitle("Hello, world!")
 return Last

 A = BlankClip()
 B = A.Subtitle("Hello, world!")
 return B

 A = BlankClip()
 B = A.Subtitle("Hello, world!")
 return Dissolve(A, B, 30) # 30-frame cross fade 

 AviSource("C:\Example.avi")
 ReduceBy2()
 GreyScale()

 DirectShowSource("movie.mp4") # YV12 color space
 ConvertToRGB32
 RGBAdjust(1.0, 0.95, 1.0) # decrease Green channel
 ConvertToYV12

  clip1 = AVISource("video1.avi")
  clip2 = AVISource("video2.avi")
 
  # call the user-defined function which is defined below:
  interlaced_dissolve(clip1, clip2, 30)    
  # ...the script returns the above result to the calling program  
  
  # user-defined function: 
  # dissolve from clip1 to clip2 over 30 frames
  function interlaced_dissolve(clip clip1, clip clip2, int iter) {
        clip1 = clip1.SeparateFields
        evn1  = clip1.SelectEven
        odd1  = clip1.SelectOdd
  
        clip2 = clip2.SeparateFields
        evn2  = clip2.SelectEven
        odd2  = clip2.SelectOdd
  
        evn = Dissolve(evn1, evn2, iter)
        odd = Dissolve(odd1, odd2, iter)
        Interleave(evn, odd).Weave.DoubleWeave.SelectOdd
        # ...the function returns the above result to the main script 
}

AviSynth 3.0 was a complete rewrite of AviSynth 2.x, and aimed to overcome the limitations of AviSynth 2.x. Adding improvements such as an abstracted color space model, in which new color spaces (including two with 45-bit depth) could be supported through a plug-in mechanism, better cache management for better performance, and using Ruby rather than the homegrown language employed in current versions.[10]

AviSynth 3.0 was to be available for other operating systems than Windows, instead relying on GStreamer, extending support to platforms such as Linux, Mac OS X and BSD. Development has been stalled since August 2007.[10][11]

The most current and modern version of AviSynth today is AviSynth+, originally a fork of the official AviSynth 2.xx, but AviSynth+ has since gained widespread recognition and has become the go-to implementation. It rewrote most of the original AviSynth code, and introduced long-sought features such as 64-bit support, multithreading, deep color spaces, support for recent compilers, new scripting constructs (new control-flow constructs such as loops), and increased performance in many areas.[12] At the same time it retained 100% compatibility to the AviSynth 2.5/2.6 series, both for filters and host applications. At the time of writing (2020-12), it is also actively maintained.

AviSynth 2.xx may be used under operating systems other than Windows through the use of Wine. To work on scripts VirtualDub/VirtualDubMod can be used as on Windows. To interface between AviSynth under Wine and for example FFmpeg running on a Linux host, Avs2YUV can be used. Avs2YUV is a Windows command line program that is run under Wine and renders the output of an AviSynth script to stdout that is then piped to FFmpeg. Avs2YUV also supports writing to a named pipe.[13]

There is a Linux port of AviSynth called AvxSynth.[14]

In addition, several programs have now been created which accept only AviSynth scripts as input - thereby simplifying the programs themselves but giving users the full power of AviSynth for input.

There are also several batch encoding applications that tie together AviSynth with command line audio and video encoders and muxers to provide an all-in-one, modular, customizable video encoding application. MeGUI is an example of this kind of application.

Although AviSynth scripts are meant to be easily opened in simple text editing programs, there are several editors meant especially for editing AviSynth scripts such as AvsPMod.

• List of video editing software

• AviSynth home page: (English) (Japanese)
• AviSynth Filter Collection
• Doom9's AviSynth Forums
• AviSynth 3.0 development homepage