WVC-1 Advanced Settings Editor GUI [Archive]

McoreD

28th May 2006, 09:30

Hey Guys,

Worked on a GUI during the past few days while I was bored.
For those who just need a GUI frontend to test the VC-1 settings here's another.

Download:

http://www.wmwiki.com/mcored/downloads/wmv9ase/?M=D

Screenshot:

http://wmwiki.com/mcored/downloads/wmv9ase/wmv9ase-1.0.4.0-demo.PNG

Version History

Version 1.0 (20061014)

1.0.4.0 Updated PerceptualOption to support Off, Conservative and Aggressive
1.0.3.1 Renamed to VC-1 Advanced Settings Editor
1.0.3.0 Increased ToolTip popup time to 1 minute
1.0.2.6 Fixed application crash if PureComponents.NicePanel.fw11.dll is missing

Version 1.0 (20060530)

1.0.2.5 Application is now a single instance application
1.0.2.4 Force Range Reduction is now set to Automatic by default
1.0.2.3 Fixed a few enable/disable misbehavior in NumericUpDowns
1.0.2.2 Renamed to Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Settings Editor
1.0.2.1 COT settings does not disable/enable its associated settings anymore

Version 1.0 (20060528)

1.0.2.0 Export and Import Settings
1.0.1.0 Apply button instead of modifiying settings immediately
1.0.0.0 WVC1 Profile Editor seperated from DVD2WMV Assistant 1.3 BETA

Any suggestions are welcome.

Cheers,
McoreD

check

28th May 2006, 10:28

Very pretty :) Kudos for adding in an import/export function too - not quite a profile system, but possibly better :D
I'm newish to using WMV for encoding (at least using these options), so tooltips would be great. Currently, I'm just reading the tooltips in Nic's program, but it would be great to have them in this program.
Removing the included dll from the directory causes the program to crash on startup.

nFury8

28th May 2006, 14:02

... tooltips would be great.
I agree with check. Otherwise it looks neat.Very nice indeed.

zambelli

28th May 2006, 20:33

Nice work, McoreD! I really like the way you structured Compression Optimization Settings and Range Reduction settings.

Comments:

The Compression Optimization logic could use some improvements. For example, if I enable COT, the app sets COT and all the settings associated with it. Surely the latter is a bit redundant, no? The associated settings should be set ONLY if their values are different than the default values set by COT.

Also, I'm not sure that graying out associated settings when COT is enabled is the best way to go. For example, if I manually edit the registry and set "COT=1" and then "NumBFrames=2", the B-frame option will be grayed out when I load your editor, even though I've clearly overriden the COT default for that setting. That seems counter-intuitive.

"Force Range Reduction" is defaulting to disabled. It should default to automatic (not set).

I second the request for tooltips. Hovering over each setting should provide a quick explanation of the setting's function. I'll also add what I already suggested to Nic for his encoder: In general, having descriptive values (i.e. Weak/Medium/Strong instead of 1/2/3) might make the encoder easier to use. Otherwise, people will need to look up the value descriptions online anyway.

zambelli

28th May 2006, 20:37

Oh yeah, one more thing: "VC-1 Advanced Settings Editor" is somewhat of a misnomer because the settings only apply to Microsoft's implementation of VC-1. So it might be more suitable to call it "Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Settings Editor".

McoreD

30th May 2006, 00:45

Thanks guys for the feedback.

Yes, Tooltips is in the works. (if you notice only Video Type currently has a Tooltip).

@zambelli,

I realized I have misread the last sentence in COT in the MS site, where it says:
If any of the settings in the previous list are set in the registry, the value in the registry overrides the values associated with this setting.

I read it the other way around: COT overrides whatever the associated settings have. It surely is going to get fixed.

I personally think having Weak/Medium/Strong instead of 1/2/3 gets redundant when you have Tooltips explaining what 1/2/3 are. For example, in Motion Search Level I have the tool tip:

The Motion Search Level registry setting specifies the types of video information that are used in motion search operations.

0 = Luma only.
1 = Luma with nearest-integer chroma.
2 = Luma with true chroma.
-1 = Macroblock-adaptive with true chroma.
-2 = Macroblock-adaptive with nearest-integer chroma.

So we can quickly change the values to 0/1/2/-1/-2 without the need to intepret what Weak/Medium/Strong means. What do you think?

An updated build is uploaded to reflect some changes.

Cheers,
McoreD

zambelli

30th May 2006, 03:35

I personally think having Weak/Medium/Strong instead of 1/2/3 gets redundant when you have Tooltips explaining what 1/2/3 are. For example, in Motion Search Level I have the tool tip:
So we can quickly change the values to 0/1/2/-1/-2 without the need to intepret what Weak/Medium/Strong means. What do you think?
But values -2,-1,0,1,2 are arbitrary values - it seems irrelevant to expose them if one can just as easily replace them with text descriptions in the UI. After all, isn't that the point of any UI? To abstract the numerical mayhem that goes on behind the scenes? :)

McoreD

7th June 2006, 07:09

Hi All,

I have added wmv9ase-1.0.2.6-src to its homepage which you can download from here:

http://microsoftuse.temp.powweb.com/mcored/downloads/wmv9ase/wmv9ase-1.0.2.6-src.rar

hoping somebody interested could continue from there.

If a moderator could please edit the thread title to what zambelli suggested: Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Settings Editor GUI, then that would be great.

Cheers,
McoreD

benwaggoner

4th October 2006, 00:02

Just curoius - anyone done anything yet with the 0.2.6 source code yet?

If anyone's working on it, I'm sure Zambelli and I would have plenty of suggestions

Sharktooth

4th October 2006, 01:26

Just got the sources but im not familiar with VC-1 (and dont know where settings are stored).
Also i miss a component "PureComponents_NicePanel.license"

bratao

4th October 2006, 03:16

Just got the sources but im not familiar with VC-1 (and dont know where settings are stored).
Also i miss a component "PureComponents_NicePanel.license"

http://www.purecomponents.com/products/nicepanel/

Sirber

4th October 2006, 03:22

benwaggoner

4th October 2006, 06:55

Who else implement VC-1?
Off the top of my head, these are some of the companies that have publically announced implementations not using our binaries:

Sonic Solutions
Main Concept
VBrick
Inlet
Telestream
Popwire (albeit just acquired by Telestream)

zambelli

4th October 2006, 10:19

Who else implement VC-1?
We should probably make it clear that this utility is useful only for Microsoft's DMO implementation of VC-1, better known as WMV9 (Advanced Profile). The registry keys are workarounds for the lack of update to WME9.

Anybody implementing a WMV encoder app with direct access to the DMO codec property store can actually access the settings directly without the need for registry editing.

Sharktooth

4th October 2006, 14:04

Is the title clearer now?
http://www.webalice.it/f.corriga/temp/WMV9SE.png

So, what else needs to be implemented?

bond

4th October 2006, 18:50

Off the top of my head, these are some of the companies that have publically announced implementations not using our binaries:

Sonic Solutions
Main Concept
VBrick
Inlet
Telestream
Popwire (albeit just acquired by Telestream)interesting, any link to publically available/testable encoders?

benwaggoner

4th October 2006, 20:38

interesting, any link to publically available/testable encoders?
These are all guys shipping products today, except for Main Concept (coming soon).

However, they're all commercial products - I don't know that any of them have any free eval versions or something like that.

McoreD

8th October 2006, 06:00

Just finished reading your PM, benwaggoner. Really glad you like it. I am all for contributing to a user friendly GUI that will be useful for the average customer. Any suggestions are welcome here.

Sharktooth, I am glad you got it successuflly compiled. Have to repeat Sharktooth's question: So, what else needs to be implemented?

From memory, I think the development stopped after all registry settings were implemented. Not all the ToolTips are completed however.

Just as a side note, the Versioning convension I followed:

*.0.0.0 implies Major rewrite of the application
x.*.0.0 implies New features
x.y.*.0 implies Minor tweaks to existing features
x.y.z.* implies Bug fixes

benwaggoner

12th October 2006, 21:41

Just finished reading your PM, benwaggoner. Really glad you like it. I am all for contributing to a user friendly GUI that will be useful for the average customer. Any suggestions are welcome here.

(Finally getting back to this in my split life betwen HD DVD and WMV).

First, thing, can we keep the tooltips stay up indefinitely, or make them easier to trigger? I seem to spend a lot of time trying to find the right place to over over them.

Second, as Zambelli previously noted, it'd be good to have settings where the numerical values are nominal, like Motion Search Level, just have popups of the names of the levels. So, instead of numbers, it could have these options:

Luma
Luma with nearest integer chroma
Luma with true chroma
Macroblock adaptive with true chroma
Macroblock adaptive with integer chroma

Also, Perceptual Option now has three modes:

Off
Conservative
Aggressive

It'd be nice to also indicate which settings apply to SP, MP, and AP. I'll get that info posted up here soon.

McoreD

14th October 2006, 11:39

Hi benwaggoner, I

1.0.3.0 Increased ToolTip popup time to 1 minute

I find two conflicting requirements.

If we move to a text based choice instead numbers like:

Luma
Luma with nearest integer chroma
Luma with true chroma
Macroblock adaptive with true chroma
Macroblock adaptive with integer chroma

Then,
1. That is going to defy the purpose of having ToolTips explaining what they are or depreciate its use
2. The GUI is going to be a lot bigger (at least wider).

Is this OK?

With Perceptual Option, are the new values -1, 0, 1 or 0, 1 and 2?

Cheers,
McoreD

McoreD

14th October 2006, 12:51

We should probably make it clear that this utility is useful only for Microsoft's DMO implementation of VC-1, better known as WMV9 (Advanced Profile). The registry keys are workarounds for the lack of update to WME9.

zambelli, ideally this tool should be named as Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile Codec Advanced Settings Editor. However, as obvious as it seems, the name is too long. So how about VC-1 Advanced Settings Editor?

bin:
http://wmwiki.com/mcored/downloads/wmv9ase/wmv9ase-1.0.4.0-bin.zip
src:
http://wmwiki.com/mcored/downloads/wmv9ase/wmv9ase-1.0.4.0-src.rar

Cheers,
McoreD

Sharktooth

14th October 2006, 12:55

"Microsoft VC-1 Advanced Settings Editor" would be better.

tchaikovsky

14th October 2006, 20:16

zambelli, ideally this tool should be named as Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile Codec Advanced Settings Editor. However, as obvious as it seems, the name is too long. So how about VC-1 Advanced Settings Editor?

bin:
http://wmwiki.com/mcored/downloads/wmv9ase/wmv9ase-1.0.4.0-bin.zip
src:
http://wmwiki.com/mcored/downloads/wmv9ase/wmv9ase-1.0.4.0-src.rar

Cheers,
McoreD

:)
Absolutely! When I use Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile Advanced Settings for the caption of settings form of WMEA. I feel it very professional, but too long. So I change it to VC-1 Advanced Settings.:p

McoreD

15th October 2006, 01:20

:)
Absolutely! When I use Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile Advanced Settings for the caption of settings form of WMEA. I feel it very professional, but too long. So I change it to VC-1 Advanced Settings.:p

tchaikovsky, just saw your WMEA and that's some really nice work. I see a great AutoWMV coming. :)

Sharktooth, I agree with Microsoft VC-1 Advanced Settings Editor.

tchaikovsky

15th October 2006, 16:17

Thx, McoreD :)
AutoWMV? :D I think AutoRV is the coolest RV producer I've ever seen. I hope my tool can follow it.
I want to try your tool, but my browser say can't find the server. :(

McoreD

16th October 2006, 13:55

tchaikovsky,

If you require hosting we are glad to provide it. Please contact me via PM and we could then talk via WLM.

Also created a forum, hope you like it.
http://wmwiki.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=21

Cheers,
McoreD

zambelli

17th October 2006, 11:04

Sharktooth, I agree with Microsoft VC-1 Advanced Settings Editor.
Why not just WMV9 Advanced Settings Editor? It's accurate and even shorter than the current name.

I once again vote for having the values descriptive rather than numeral. You could have a short name listed as the option, and have the tooltip elaborate on the option, its usage and recommended setting. I can give you a hand with this. PM me and we can discuss it in length over email.

Also, as much as I like your GUI design, I find the PureComponents.NicePanel.fw11.dll dependency cumbersome. Having a single EXE utility would be so much nicer. Any chance you could just build on generic .NET interfaces?

zambelli

17th October 2006, 11:13

Thx, McoreD :)
AutoWMV? :D I think AutoRV is the coolest RV producer I've ever seen. I hope my tool can follow it.
Indeed, I just looked at the screenshots on your site and I like the design - the tool has good potential!

Is the tool built entirely on WME9 SDK? You mention that it's faster than wmcmd.vbs encoding. Why do you think that is? The only overhead in wmcmd.vbs encoding is the cscript interpreter, AFAIK.

Is there a thread here dedicated to WMEA yet?

tchaikovsky

18th October 2006, 15:38

tchaikovsky

18th October 2006, 15:56

Indeed, I just looked at the screenshots on your site and I like the design - the tool has good potential!

Is the tool built entirely on WME9 SDK? You mention that it's faster than wmcmd.vbs encoding. Why do you think that is? The only overhead in wmcmd.vbs encoding is the cscript interpreter, AFAIK.

Is there a thread here dedicated to WMEA yet?

Thany you for your visit. :) I'm working on the newer version. Welcome you to test it.

sjchmura

18th October 2006, 15:57

What is the best way (if using WMP10 for MCE2005 compatibility, and iTUNES sync with MusicBridge) to install the WMP11 codecs so we can try the VC1 profils??

zambelli

19th October 2006, 10:26

What is the best way (if using WMP10 for MCE2005 compatibility, and iTUNES sync with MusicBridge) to install the WMP11 codecs so we can try the VC1 profils??
I don't know about audio, but here's how to get the latest WMV3/WVC1 codec onto a WMP10 system. Let's assume you already have WMP11 installed on another XP machine.

1. Copy wmvencod.dll and mfplat.dll from WMP11 to \Windows\System32.
2. Open a command prompt and change dir to \Windows\System32.
3. Unregister the old AP encoder: regsvr32 /u wmvadve.dll Don't worry if it's not present.
4. Unregister the beta encoder: regsvr32 /u wvc1dmoe.dll Don't worry if it's not present.
5. Register the new encoder: regsvr32 wmvencod.dll
6. Open the registry and go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{d23b90d0-144f-46bd-841d-59e4eb19dc59}
7. Change the DWORD value WMSDKMerit from 256 to 512 (decimal). This ensures that the new DMO takes over WMV3 encoding, while the old DMO still handles stuff like WMV1 and WMV2 encoding.
8. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Windows Media\WMSDK\VideoEncode and add REG_SZ value WVC1 if it’s not already there.
9. If a value WMVA exists under that key, delete it. WMVA is no longer supported and should be avoided.

Needless to say, this procedure is not supported by Microsoft and you should proceed at your own risk. I have tested it on my home computer, but I can't guarantee it will work for everybody, and I especially can't guarantee that it will work with WMP9, Win2K, etc. There could potentially be issues with encoding to WVC1 with older WMF SDK runtimes older than v9.5.

zambelli

19th October 2006, 10:30

I have added another data point to the WMV9 AP sticky that the users of WMV ASE might find useful:

Q: Do these registry settings apply only to Advanced Profile (WVC1)?
A: Depends on which codec version you are using. If you're using the standalone WVC1 codec download package on top of WMP10/WMFSDK9.5, then the registry settings will affect only Advanced Profile (WVC1) encoding. If, on the other hand, you are using WMP11/WMFSDK11 (XP or Vista), the registry settings will affect all 3 profiles - Simple, Main (WMV3) and Advanced (WVC1). However, not all registry settings are valid in every profile. Here is how they map out:
http://www.citizeninsomniac.com/WMV/AdvancedSettings_WMV9.png

tchaikovsky

25th October 2006, 04:35

:-) I installed WMFormat 11 on my virtual WinXP-SP2 +WMP10
and download of the newer version of my tool is available, welcome to try it :-)

benwaggoner

25th October 2006, 13:59

I don't know about audio, but here's how to get the latest WMV3/WVC1 codec onto a WMP10 system. Let's assume you already have WMP11 installed on another XP machine.

1. Copy wmvencod.dll and mfplat.dll from WMP11 to \Windows\System32.
2. Open a command prompt and change dir to \Windows\System32.
3. Unregister the old AP encoder: regsvr32 /u wmvadve.dll Don't worry if it's not present.
4. Unregister the beta encoder: regsvr32 /u wvc1dmoe.dll Don't worry if it's not present.
5. Register the new encoder: regsvr32 wmvencod.dll
6. Open the registry and go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{d23b90d0-144f-46bd-841d-59e4eb19dc59}
7. Change the DWORD value WMSDKMerit from 256 to 512 (decimal). This ensures that the new DMO takes over WMV3 encoding, while the old DMO still handles stuff like WMV1 and WMV2 encoding.
8. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Windows Media\WMSDK\VideoEncode and add REG_SZ value WVC1 if it’s not already there.
9. If a value WMVA exists under that key, delete it. WMVA is no longer supported and should be avoided.

Needless to say, this procedure is not supported by Microsoft and you should proceed at your own risk. I have tested it on my home computer, but I can't guarantee it will work for everybody, and I especially can't guarantee that it will work with WMP9, Win2K, etc. There could potentially be issues with encoding to WVC1 with older WMF SDK runtimes older than v9.5.
Would installing the Format SDK 11 beta also work?