Elecard H.264/MPEG2 Converter 1.2 [Archive]

IgorC

9th November 2006, 22:29

http://www.elecard.com/products/products-pc/consumer/converter-studio/

H.264 High Profile Encoder has exelent quality even with all speedup options turned on.
Elecard encoder has a lot of settings for different adjustments.
First fast pass,profiles, different types of psy model (aka AQ) etc.

Version history:

1.1

New features and changes:
• The Speed/Quality mode (allows changing the speed/quality correlation)
• New file opening mode Open file(s) as multi-source
• New file opening mode Open file(s) as single-file
• Command line support (Pro/Pro HD versions only)
• Enhanced MPEG PS/TS multiplexer adjustment (Pro/Pro HD versions only)
• Enhanced MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 ASP/AVC decoder adjustment
• Ability to overlay any picture as a logo on picture (Elecard Logo Renderer) (Pro/Pro HD versions only)
• Ability to save profiles and their descriptions

1.1.52

New features:
• Change Profile option for tasks in TaskList
• AVC CQ mode
• AVC Blu-Ray and Sony Playstation3 profiles

Fixed bugs:
• Incorrect displaying of Add file(s) with profile… dialog (SpeedQuality string) when profile is changed
• Statistics displaying on the second encoding pass
• Adding great number of files in the Add file(s) with profile… mode
• Working with CBP (VBV) buffer in VBR mode (AVC/H.264 Video Encoder)

1.2

CruNcher

9th November 2006, 22:43

hehe lol finaly a non mobile device produtc jeez how long this took to create them some directshow gui :P

DDogg

9th November 2006, 23:37

ugly crash on the start of the 2nd pass using a vob as source.

MuTeK

10th November 2006, 07:48

DDogg
Could you please upload the file that entails crash?
It would be also very helpful if you write what encoder settings were set in the program and encoders.

DDogg

10th November 2006, 16:20

DDogg
Could you please upload the file that entails crash?
It would be also very helpful if you write what encoder settings were set in the program and encoders.Yes, I will do a complete report if I can get a replicable crash. Gotta do some client work so may take me a day or so.

I just used a VOB from a dvd - 6.16 GB (6,623,340,544 bytes) The crash was on the start of the 2nd pass with the demo version. Maybe something to do with the 15k frames limit.

shon3i

10th November 2006, 22:23

@Mutek, i have few questions.

First thank you and Elecard Team (Sergey A. Sablin) for providing us, this good tool.

1. What is difference when i use 2pass encoding with VBR and CBR

2. Why i can use HE-AAC profile, is that limitation of demo version.

3. What is difference betwen AAC-LC and AAC Main

4. Did you have plans to include Process priority options on encoding bar

5. What is recommendation for AQ settings

edit:

6. Is anyway two pass enabled in demo version, because i always get oversized files, like is encoder always work like x264 CRF mode.

DDogg

11th November 2006, 00:25

MuTeK, it is easily to replicate.

Assume all default values except where noted below.

1> load vob (this one NTSC - 4.35 GB (4,680,607,744 bytes))
2> video> "main profile"
3> audio> "AAC Main"
4> main> stream "MP4" >encoding pass "two pass" > custom "1cd"
5> start encode

Should see crash on beginning of 2nd pass

IgorC

11th November 2006, 01:33

5. What is recommendation for AQ settings
6. Is anyway two pass enabled in demo version, because i always get oversized files, like is encoder always work like x264 CRF mode.

For AQ try +20 -- +40 but it depends a lot from source.
You can choose 2 pass mode. It works.
Talking about problem with bitrate. Do you have installed another encoders of Elecard and Mainconcept? If you have any of them then try to uninstall all encoders and clean registers. Only then new installation of converter.

shon3i

11th November 2006, 11:58

You can choose 2 pass mode. It works.
Talking about problem with bitrate. Do you have installed another encoders of Elecard and Mainconcept? If you have any of them then try to uninstall all encoders and clean registers. Only then new installation of converter.No i didn't have any elecard or mainconcept programs, this is first.

IgorC

11th November 2006, 14:25

The same problem here with under/oversize.

DDogg

11th November 2006, 17:06

I have noticed several times it will not even do the second pass. The 15k demo limit stops it. I appreciate you guys need to protect your intellectual property, but it is very difficult and frustrating to try to test with the problems caused by this demo limit.

IgorC

11th November 2006, 20:53

I have noticed several times it will not even do the second pass.
2d pass works fine. The real thing what can happen when you change settings sometimes it drops to single pass. After choose all sets just check 2pass.
And fast first pass is enabled by default maybe that's why you don't notice it.

IgorC

11th November 2006, 20:58

I appreciate you guys need to protect your intellectual property, but it is very difficult and frustrating to try to test with the problems caused by this demo limit.
Can you be more specific when you talk about issues.
1. I can't reproduce 2 pass issues
2. Your problem with 2 pass wasn't really issue as it's limited by 15000 frames demo.

Yes, it's 15000 frames limit beta converter like any other commercial product. Can you indicate me another commercial project that freely gives you H.264 High Profile encoder (and high quality with all features , all profiles, aac+/++, interlace mbaff , all AQ modes with custom adjustment ....etc ..... at least for me it's very interesting ) 21-day trial and 15000 frames?
Nero? Apple? .....

vsv

11th November 2006, 22:37

Very good GUI, a lot of settings...And finally presets for HD-DVD and BD! Now need test quality of encoding to AVC, I hope it better than Nero implementation of H.264 :)

DDogg

12th November 2006, 00:22

2d pass works fine. The real thing what can happen when you change settings sometimes it drops to single pass. After choose all sets just check 2pass.
And fast first pass is enabled by default maybe that's why you don't notice it.Ohhhh, so it is supposed to stop at 50% progress - oh ok that must make sense to somebody. Good luck with your product <shakes the dust off>

Replicate:

1> Use avisynth script trimmed to 15k frames
2> Video> Main Profile
3> Main> Mp4 2pass, check custom - 45
4> Result: Process stops at 50% with the demo sign.
5> File size = 49.9 MB (52,364,983 bytes)

IgorC

12th November 2006, 03:35

Ohhhh, so it is supposed to stop at 50% progress
It's early beta. Bugs appearance is normal.

4> Result: Process stops at 50% with the demo sign.

I tried your set. Demo message box appeared when 1st fast pass was over. Bar progress indicated 50%. I clicked "OK" and then 2pass started and finished without issues.

There is another bug (?). Profile is checked in main menu but profile of advanced menu is still base by default.

Good luck with your product
I'm not from Elecard :)

DDogg

12th November 2006, 04:18

It's early beta. Bugs appearance is normal. Of course, which is why people are trying to report problems, except you interject and tell the poster there is no problem. Perhaps it is a language problem, else suggest you let the developers address the anomaly reports directly.I tried your set. Demo message box appeared when 1st fast pass was over. Bar progress indicated 50%. I clicked "OK" and then 2pass started and finished without issues. When I click ok, the process ends half finished. Period. [the job window does say "waiting"] What you suggest is not plausible, and I suspect you did not actually do the test as defined using an avs with a trim statement defining exactly 15k frames.
I'm not from Elecard :)From your posts it seemed so and that you were speaking for them. I was attempting to help and report problems as I encountered them. If you are always going post to tell me I did not see what I saw then I don't need to endure the frustration. Again, perhaps it is just a language problem. If so, no problem.

IgorC

12th November 2006, 05:42

Honestly developers didn't want to post here cause they knew that some users (i.e. read post number 11 of this topic) will critic too much. It is even worse if it's commercial soft.
But I still thought it would be useful to post this news here for Doom9 people who can help providing some feedback while enjoy new stuff.
Ddog
I 'm really sorry if I interrupt but your first posts are far from constructive too. From now, please, let's just concentrate on topic itself.
Source was trimed to 15k frames. However when I checked it MC demo was still installed. I'll try again.

DDogg

12th November 2006, 16:10

Not being critical - simply a byproduct of me being late for appointments and wanting to post something about a problem encountered before I got distracted and forgot about it.

Clearly the product looks very promising! It was not my intention to give any other impression. Any frustration is because it seems so good (and fast), yet I have not been able to complete a series of tests to show that.

Jay Bee

12th November 2006, 21:10

Just gave it a quick tryout.

I like the GUI. But I couldn't find out how to change the Task Name so that I can cue up multiple encodes of the same source file. The resulting file had some strange stutters and a green line at the bottom of the screen but the picture quality looked great apart from that. Any information on the pricing yet?

MuTeK

13th November 2006, 08:06

Yes, I will do a complete report if I can get a replicable crash. Gotta do some client work so may take me a day or so.
What does crush: The application itself or one of its components?

I have noticed several times it will not even do the second pass. The 15k demo limit stops it. I appreciate you guys need to protect your intellectual property, but it is very difficult and frustrating to try to test with the problems caused by this demo limit.
Thank you. I’ve found this issue, too. The bug will be fixed.

First thank you and Elecard Team (Sergey A. Sablin) for providing us, this good tool.
1. What is difference when i use 2pass encoding with VBR and CBR
2. Why i can use HE-AAC profile, is that limitation of demo version.
4. Did you have plans to include Process priority options on encoding bar
6. Is anyway two pass enabled in demo version, because i always get oversized files, like is encoder always work like x264 CRF mode.
1. These are absolutely different modes of RC. If you need maximal quality, please use just VBR.
2. There are no restrictions, except for 15000 frames encoding.
4. Preference -> Thread Priority
6. In two pass mode RC gets into the set size very accurately. If it does not happen, then it is required to delete all the applications that could use AVC encoder, clean the registry and reinstall ConverterStudio. It is also possible that when the application has just performed the first pass, the cause is as described above.

The same problem here with under/oversize.
So far I failed to reproduce the issue, even on the file you provided.

MuTeK

13th November 2006, 10:53

But I couldn't find out how to change the Task Name so that I can cue up multiple encodes of the same source file.
It is required to go through the following steps:
1. change the output file name.
2. change the task name
3. add a task into TaskList

The resulting file had some strange stutters and a green line at the bottom of the screen ...
- What was the input video resolution?
- Did you use Resize? If yes, what was the output resolution?

Any information on the pricing yet?
not yet...

mgh

13th November 2006, 15:23

:thanks:
High profile avc encoding speed is good. At the low bitrates i use, quality was excellent without tweaking the profile.

IgorC

13th November 2006, 15:42

So far I failed to reproduce the issue, even on the file you provided.
I still had no time to clean my system from another MC components. Most probably that was issue.

shon3i

13th November 2006, 19:19

I find solution, i choose Best Quality High HEAAC+PS preset, and only change to two pass and bitrate, other settings are good for my taste.

@Mutek you didnt answered to one question, What is difference betwen AAC LC and AAC Main, because so far i know there is not any differents, two names for same thing.

IgorC

13th November 2006, 20:53

Shon3i Use search. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding
http://www.audiocoding.com/modules/wiki/?page=AAC

shon3i

13th November 2006, 21:27

Shon3i Use search. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding
http://www.audiocoding.com/modules/wiki/?page=AAC
There is no differents in quality, otherwise will be used in Nero aac and CT aac

wiki say

Low Complexity (LC) - the simplest and most widely used and supported;
Main Profile (MAIN) - like the LC profile, with the addition of backwards prediction;

My point is to, remove that main profile, because only can confuse ppls.

IgorC

13th November 2006, 21:48

Main Profile should be better than LC for speech content. It is a case of movie soundtrack.
And LC is here for mobile compability and high birates.

Froh here http://www.audiocoding.com/modules/wiki/?page=Main&PHPSESSID=fa867535f1c3fd83a0f7238e3453571e
It was meant for mostly tonal content like speech and highly predictable music instruments like pitch pipes or solo violins encoded at low bitrates.

shon3i

13th November 2006, 22:23

DDogg

13th November 2006, 22:34

What does crush: The application itself or one of its components? Made some positive progress. I uninstalled the version of Haali Media Splitter mentioned in the Doom9 news-page of 11/06/2006 and I no longer have a crash. I now have the problem of the encode stopping at the end of the 1st pass with VOB source as well as avs source.

I do not know if this is due to a problem with the newer Haali Media splitter, or some odd combination or conflict. I had noticed, ever since I upgraded Haali, an error when deleting any media file from the HD. Wonder if this might cause you a problem when you begin the 2nd pass?
Thank you. I’ve found this issue, too. The bug will be fixed. That was quick work! Great job and thanks for letting us know.

shon3i

13th November 2006, 22:47

Is this mainconept h264 v2.1 uses same encoder?

IgorC

14th November 2006, 01:05

Is this mainconept h264 v2.1 uses same encoder?
Yes. There are some differents indeed. I.e. Elecard has fast first pass always turned on.

MuTeK

14th November 2006, 04:36

@Mutek you didnt answered to one question, What is difference betwen AAC LC and AAC Main.

Now, AAC LC and AAC Main is no differents in quality.

CruNcher

14th November 2006, 07:55

MuTeK why are Referenceframes >3 not allowed for Main Profile ?
btw nice clean working gui good job :)
only thing is could you free the memory after a encoding task is done ?
also why does the app need the exact amount of memory when minimized into the systemtray ?+
and do you think it's such a good idea to change the filter installation from the Standard Shared Folder to application/components folder ?
Could also somebody @ Elecard try to look @ the Decoder once more since the Mainconcept thing DXVA isn't working anymore for me.
The old DXVA test Decoder from Elecard works (Nvidia 7600 GS PCI-E (VMR9windowed)) i allready tried to make Sergey understand this, but it seems he doesn't listen to my bug report about this problem, i have no problems with DXVA unregistering the new filter and register the old one but all your new Mainconcept builds fail with DXVA and also i have problems to understand your build numbers am i correct if i assume that only Elecard builds are Signed and Mainconcepts are not ? :(

List of DXVA working non working Elecard/Mainconcept builds:

1, 0, 28, 60705 (Wednesday, 12. July 2006 09:38:25) DXVA works
1, 0, 41, 60818 (Wednesday, 23. August 2006 09:27:21) DXVA works
2.0.7136.0 2006/10/19 DXVA fails
3.0.7299.0 2006/10/26 DXVA fails

MuTeK

14th November 2006, 08:50

MuTeK why are Referenceframes >3 not allowed for Main Profile ?
Amount ReferenceFrames is not limited. For all profiles (Baseline, Main, High) the maximal value is equal to 16. Amount of B-frames is really limited to three, there is no sense to have more.
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/957/prophe6.th.gif (http://img207.imageshack.us/my.php?image=prophe6.gif)
btw nice clean working gui good job :)
Thanks.

only thing is could you free the memory after a encoding task is done ?
also why does the app need the exact amount of memory when minimized into the systemtray ?+
This is right, in this version there is insignificant memory leak. Please wait for the release.

and do you think it's such a good idea to change the filter installation from the Standard Shared Folder to application/components folder ?
I, think, what yes. It is made specially that different applications used the set of filters to which there was a testing. Thus, raising stability.

Could also somebody @ Elecard try to look @ the Decoder once more since the Mainconcept thing DXVA isn't working anymore for me.
What version of the decoder does work in DXVA mode?
Please try to register a new AVC decoder from the Converter Studio\Component\ folder.

mgh

14th November 2006, 09:08

Only problem i have using this is if i hit the skip or stop button during encoding, the program crashes. I have XP-SP2

CruNcher

14th November 2006, 10:09

@MuTeK
I meant i can't go lower then 3 referenceframes with Main Profile in the Interface

also see above for the build list and some additional text seems you missed that, because i was editing it when you read it :)

Sergey A. Sablin

14th November 2006, 11:36

Could also somebody @ Elecard try to look @ the Decoder once more since the Mainconcept thing DXVA isn't working anymore for me.
The old DXVA test Decoder from Elecard works (Nvidia 7600 GS PCI-E (VMR9windowed)) i allready tried to make Sergey understand this, but it seems he doesn't listen to my bug report about this problem, i have no problems with DXVA unregistering the new filter and register the old one but all your new Mainconcept builds fail with DXVA and also i have problems to understand your build numbers am i correct if i assume that only Elecard builds are Signed and Mainconcepts are not ? :(

CruNcher, please be a bit more precise - we discussed with you this in several emails and finally we conclude that
it is not failed or not worked, but in DXVA mode performance of a new decoder is nearly same as in software mode
isn't it? why you talking again about failing and so? It is not crashing, not freezing, not rebooting your system - it just has nearly same performance in both modes. How can I explain you that this is not bug? - this is normal situation. One have to compare old decoder in DXVA with new decoder in DXVA performance, but not SW vs DXVA of old decoder and SW vs DXVA of a new one (as you did) and make a conclusion that new one is not working/failing/broken because of identical speed of both modes, while old one have some advantage of using DXVA over SW mode. (all technologies have their own limit and current implementation of DXVA not an exception - it can't become faster just when SW processing accelerated, there is not such relation)

Cheers,
Sergey.

acrespo

14th November 2006, 12:53

I did a test with a source with 720x480 with iPod 5.5 profile. The resize filter is enabled to 640x480 but the final video has 720x480 too. I can't play the video in my iPod. There is something to do in this area.

DarkZell666

14th November 2006, 14:53

This looks neat :)

However, using framerate conversion gave me a clip with audio being out of sync. I guess the framerate wasn't converted but just changed (ie: the source clip was played faster/slower). Reproducing this should be easy (I used an xvid+mp3 in avi source, I didn't try anything else yet).

Jay Bee

14th November 2006, 20:01

It is required to go through the following steps:
1. change the output file name.
2. change the task name
3. add a task into TaskList

Thx.

- What was the input video resolution?
- Did you use Resize? If yes, what was the output resolution?

384 x 480, no resizing. It turns out the green line doesn't appear using the Mainconcept decoder, only with CoreAVC. And the stuttering I mentioned is introduced during decoding of the source file by Converter Studio. Which DS filters are used here, Elecard or "let Windows decide"?

CruNcher

14th November 2006, 22:00

Sergey before the update it was allways the case that when useing DXVA mode you didn't saw the Elecard Logo @ the top even with a Evaluation version, now this is not anymore the case also the decoding (VMR9 with every other thing off only DXVA on) isn't realtime anymore i conclude from these 2 logical facts that DXVA isn't working anymore (at least my Video doesn't get accellerated by my GPU anymore) with the newer Mainconcept builds i don't understand why this isn't logic for you i also showed you benchmarks with DXVA on for both builds and the new Decoders are alot slower then the OLD ones in DXVA mode (so i assume from that Speed drop in a logical manner that DXVA doesn't work correctly anymore), sorry but i absolutely don't understand what you see wrong in my assumptions that the Video isn't accellerated anymore i can do 1000 tests and it will allways be the same results DXVA isn't working (Video doesn't get accellerated) anymore, but it still works with your old Elecard builds maybe that's a new restriction of someone @ Mainconcept/Elecard for the Evaluation/Demo version i dunno why Elecard builds work and Mainconcepts not, thats your thing to find out im just reporting it to you.

Sergey A. Sablin

15th November 2006, 00:43

uhh. did you send me results of comparison of old DXVA with new one? seems like you sent just screen shots of mediatypes - not that useful information about performance... especially after I said you this DXVA mediatype and it was a bit weird (to say the least) to hear from you that this mediatype is not DXVA mediatype for you opinion.

Still waiting performance results from you. And as it is going to be a bit OT I'd prefer either start a new thread if you'd like or switch back to emailing.

Thanks in advance for spending your time for our products.

Sergey.

MuTeK

15th November 2006, 08:00

@MuTeK
I meant i can't go lower then 3 referenceframes with Main Profile in the Interface
Please, show me a screenshot. :confused:

I did a test with a source with 720x480 with iPod 5.5 profile. The resize filter is enabled to 640x480 but the final video has 720x480 too.
The source file is MPEG2?

woah!

15th November 2006, 09:00

well i gave it a spin and it works out about the same speed as x264 if you add the total time of both passes together. x264 is faster on its 1st pass, but slower on the second.

i used the same avs script for both runs of course.

x264 still seemed to give the best results in my eyes, and the encodes i attached are pretty low bitrates so you can see where the differences are:

http://www.uploading.com/files/OG36FH1K/results.rar.html