Looks good @towi. And nice to see another new option for end users.

just tried out set f and sent it directly to my deathchart. write error and batterypull. card was transcend class 10 16gb. what i don't get is how "orion", which is a much more demanding setting (at least the way i understand it), can survive that chart, and other milder settings won't..

edit: shooting in hbr mode only.

@towi

I looked at your screen captures. It looks like StreamParser may not properly be identifying trick mode on the timers - either that or some modes will not be right with longer captures. I noticed that in some modes the max TS bitrate is lower than the video bitrate - which can be problematic. I have a few questions:

How long are the clips for the various modes (not what is reported, but how long they actually are)?

Which version of StreamParser are these captures from?

The PCR time is considerably longer than the clip time in some modes, which means that the video bitrate probably can't be sustained. Do those modes begin to go into fallback mode after a while (a minute, or so)? The frame sizes drop in size dramatically when this happens, so it is easy to see. Or, you can run the JM-SP decoder (built into StreamParser) and it will tell you if T4 matrices (fallback matrices) are being used.

By the way, there is a new version of StreamParser available that you might want to start using.

Chris

@cbrandin

Hi,

I've just shot 3 minutes of both 24H and HBRp25. The streams hold well all over the 3 minutes. But this goes for my revised version (36M instead of 38M for FSH ... to be posted later today). However PCR duration (whatever that might be :-/ ... ) is again longer than the actual duration of the clip (in HBR mode). Please see attachment.

The screenshots in my first post show the correct recording time. 30 seconds each to prepare the screenshots for the forum. The screenshots have been made with the predecessor of 2.6 (2.5 I assume). The bitrate was not correct for all the clips... this is why I also attached the info from Media Inspector of the respective files.

As to "trick mode" and "timers" ... I don't know what these are...?!

Any advice in making the patch more robust would be much appreciated!

Thanks for the info. "Trick Mode" is when the codec messes with the TS and PCR timers to make things work. What they do is skew these timers so that the reported time is not the same as the actual time (i.e. the elementary stream time). Sometimes they double or quadruple these timers - I already found those. It appears that at 50i they multiply these timers by 6/5. I'll have to look into this. The upshot is that with the HBR capture you posted, the actual PCR duration is probably actually about 3:04 (which is sensible, being only slightly longer than Clip duration), and the TS max speed is probably actually 46337424.

Can you do me a favor? Capture in FSH and SH modes and see if the PCR and Clip durations agree (i.e. whether PCR duration is only very slightly longer than clip duration). Also see if TS max speed is higher than total bitrate.

As to stabilizing the settings - I think AQ4 is much too aggressive - try AQ1.

Chris

@cbrandin

"Can you do me a favor? Capture in FSH and SH modes and see if the PCR and Clip durations agree (i.e. whether PCR duration is only very slightly longer than clip duration). Also see if TS max speed is higher than total bitrate."

I guess for those tests 30 seconds each will do?

It occurs to me that if 50i uses a trick mode that the actual video bitrate might come out 1.2x what you entered in PTool. This might explain various stability issues with PAL settings.

@cbrandin You'll also find that Etc mode and 80% modes will tax/tack on the bitrate an extra 15-20%.

@towi Thanks very much. It looks like a trick mode is used for 1080i50, but not 720p50. Weird!

@driftwood How do you mean Etc mode boosts bitrate, can you post an example? Also, can you post an example of the 80% too? How about when you go up in percentages - is the bitrate cut? You will be able to tell because the Clip and PCR durations will be quite different. Be sure to test with clips at least 30 seconds long, though.

Looks like I'll have to some tuning to the trick mode calculations.

@cbrandin What's the minimum duration you'd recommend? I usually shoot for 8 seconds as that makes it easy to estimate bitrate from a glance at the file size.

Trick Mode is determined by the FH/H Video Bitrate setting which affects both 1080i50 and 720p50 modes. Most Trick Mode settings for those modes will produce 4X in 1080i50 and 2X in 720p50 modes, or 2X in 1080i50 mode only. I had to set it extremely low to produce 4X Trick Mode in both 1080i50 and 720p50 modes, and it required careful fine-tuning.

@cbrandin I suspect that it's also possible to trigger Trick Mode in FSH and SH modes, and perhaps in 24H mode as well. If these modes are tweaked to prevent Fallback mode from occuring, excessively high bitrate excursions can cause recording to fail suddenly on otherwise uncorrupted streams. My hunch is that forcing the bitrate significantly above the Top Setting in FSH and SH modes triggers Trick Mode, which doubles the effective TS Max Speed and allows the transport stream bitrate to exceed file buffer limits. Hard to confirm, though, since nothing is written to the file.

@zzap64

thanks!

I've just did a patch comparison at HBRp25 on a static (!) scene at ISO800 in lowlight, tungsten.

Setting: smooth -2|-2|-1|-2.

Patches used are: 24p25p-NINE, Sanity (modified), my GOP12-span setting from above, Flowmotion (1.11) and Orion.

Here's a side by side comparision of the HBR shots assambled in a QT mov; first 4 seconds uncorrected, then pushing the blacks: http://www.file-upload.net/download-4155438/5patches_tungsten_ISO800.zip.html

And here are the original MTS files:

24p25p-NINE: http://www.file-upload.net/download-4155445/24p25p-NINE_HBR.zip.html

Sanity (modified: FSH=36M / Matrix added): http://www.file-upload.net/download-4155448/Sanity_HBR.zip.html

GOP12-44M32M-span: http://www.file-upload.net/download-4155452/GOP12_span_HBR.zip.html

Flowmotion (1.11): http://www.file-upload.net/download-4155454/FloMo_HBR.zip.html

Orion: http://wtrns.fr/bw45HcqJ1X5DQzT

Attached the Streamparser grabs from the scene.

I'v also attatched a new patch to the first post with new settings for 24p: 24H set to 66M (and 24L to 44M) if you prefer more moderate bitrates for 24p.