Carbon3 19 1 Releasenotes A

Carbon 3.19.1 Release Notes (Amended version of December 24, 2011)

New Features, Known Issues and Bug Fixes

Carbon 3.19.1 Release Notes

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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................... 3 SOFTWARE VERSIONS .......................................................................................................................... 4 SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS AND REQUIREMENTS .................................................................................... 4 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ................................................................................................................................ 4 MINIMUM SYSTEM ....................................................................................................................................... 5 RECOMMENDED SYSTEM ................................................................................................................................ 5

NEW FEATURES – OVERVIEW ............................................................................................................... 6 IMPROVED H.264 VIDEO QUALITY .................................................................................................................. 6 H.264 PROXIES GENERATED FROM OMNEON SPECTRUM CLIPS ............................................................................ 8

UPGRADE CONSIDERATIONS .............................................................................................................. 12 KNOWN ISSUES – OVERVIEW ............................................................................................................. 13 BUG FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS ....................................................................................................... 17 MISCELLANEOUS ........................................................................................................................................ 17 EXPORTER -‐ H.264 ..................................................................................................................................... 17 EXPORTER – HTTP LIVE STREAMING ............................................................................................................... 17 EXPORTER – MPEG-‐2 V2 ............................................................................................................................ 17 EXPORTER – VC1 SMOOTH STREAMING ......................................................................................................... 17

APPENDIX – CHANGES TO H.264 PARAMETERS IN WFS PRESET “AUDIO PASSTHROUGH WITH TS TRANSCODE” ...................................................................................................................................... 18


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Introduction Carbon 3.19.1 is a full Carbon release that extends Carbon 3.19 with new features and bug fixes, each described in the sections that follow. The new features are:

• Improved Video Quality for H.264 encoded video. This affects the following Exporters and WFS Presets:

o H.264 Exporter

o HTTP Live Exporter

o Smooth Streaming Exporter – H.264

o WFS Preset “Audio Passthrough with TS Transcode”

Please refer to the New Features – Overview section for details.

• Creation of H.264 proxies from Omneon Spectrum clips. This feature is primarily intended for quick turnaround workflows that involve viewing and / or manipulation of large quantities of Spectrum clips with the Omneon Media Application Server, MAS 1. In order to keep network bandwidth usage low, MAS displays derivatives of the Spectrum clips called proxies instead of the Spectrum clips themselves. Carbon can also create the proxies without MAS, and when the proxies are wrapped in QuickTime they can be viewed with a QuickTime player. Important: This feature is only available for transcode farms controlled by WorkFlow System (WFS). It is not available for Carbon Server / Agent farms or standalone Carbon installations. This feature includes growing file support, meaning proxies can be created from Spectrum source files that are still being recorded. Watch folder support for growing files is only available when WFS is controlled by MAS.

Please read the Upgrade Considerations section before deciding to install or upgrade to 3.19.1.

1 The Media Application Server monitors and manages content across multiple Omneon systems, including Spectrum and MediaGrid. In addition it provides several media processing services, such as clip transfers.


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Software Versions Application Build Number

Carbon Coder 3.19.1.35728

Carbon Server 3.19.1.35728

Carbon Agent 3.19.1.35728

Carbon 3.19.1 is compatible with Rhozet Workflow System (WFS) versions 1.4.2 and later.

Note: WFS version 1.4.2 includes a new tab labeled “RMP Transcode” in the System Preset category of the WFS Preset Editor. RMP stands for “Rhozet Media Pipeline” and is an enhanced software framework for Carbon. Presets that use RMP can only be accessed and used with WFS and not with Carbon Server. In 1.4.2 the RMP tab includes the preset for writing ProRes 422 (from 10-‐bit DNxHD and JPEG 2000), the preset for transcoding from Transport Stream to Transport Stream with audio passthrough, and the preset for H.264 proxies. The first two presets were already available with Carbon 3.19 and WFS 1.4.0, the last is new and introduced with 3.19.1 / 1.4.2.

System Specifications and Requirements

System Requirements • Microsoft Windows 32-‐ or 64-‐bit operating system from the following list

(64-‐bit Windows operating system recommended for multi-‐layer video exporters) (Windows Server 2008 R2 64-‐bit recommended for Carbon Server).

o Workstation OS versions:

§ Windows XP SP3

§ Windows Vista SP2

§ Windows 7

o Server OS versions:

§ Windows Server 2003 R2 SP1 or R2 SP2

§ Windows Server 2008 SP2

§ Windows Server 2008 R2

• A Windows Server OS is required for export to ProRes 422.


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• Please note that the old Carbon Server Web Interface does not work on any Windows Server 2008 or Windows 7 systems. This interface has been deprecated and is no longer maintained.

• QuickTime v7.6.8 is the newest version of QuickTime that has been tested to work correctly with Carbon. Other versions may or may not work correctly with Carbon.

• USB 1.1 or 2.0 port for USB Hardware Key

• 500 MB free hard disk space

Minimum System • Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon

• 2 GHz CPU or faster

• 2 GB RAM (4GB RAM for HD encoding)

• Windows XP SP3

Recommended System • Dual Intel Xeon E54xx series processors

• 3.0 – 3.4 GHz processor clock

• 8 or 16 GB RAM

• Windows Server 2008 SP2 64-‐bit

• Omneon MediaGrid or other high performance storage system


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New Features – Overview

Improved H.264 Video Quality Video quality has improved for all exporters and WFS presets that use H.264 as the video codec:

• H.264 Exporter

• HTTP Live Streaming Exporter

• Smooth Streaming Exporter – H.264

• Audio Passthrough with TS Transcode (WFS preset with limited qualification. Not available with Carbon Server / Agent)

The changes that were made are backwards compatible and all existing presets will still work.

H.264 Exporter and HTTP Live Streaming Exporter

CBR rate control for the H. 264 Exporter and the HTTP Live Streaming Exporter has been further improved through the efficient use of look-‐ahead picture information.

The Search Range parameter has been removed from the H.264 Exporter. A new and fully adaptive search algorithm has been implemented for motion estimation. It captures large motions, which were often missed before, without increasing computation cost. There is no longer a need to manually set the search range, and the parameter has been removed.

This does not impact previously saved presets.

“Smooth Streaming Exporter – H.264” Exporter

For the “Smooth Streaming Exporter – H.264” Exporter, the H.264 video codec has improved in several areas.

• Adaptive QP assignment at the macro-‐block level. Macro-‐blocks are adaptively assigned QP (Quantization Parameters) based on the complexity of the content.

• Adaptive deblocking. The original adaptive, in-‐loop deblocking filter has been replaced by a new and better one.

• CBR rate control. CBR rate control has been improved through better use of look-‐back (past) and look-‐ahead (future) picture information for VBV buffer planning.

There are no new controls in the Exporter for these improvements.


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WFS Preset “Audio Passthrough with TS Transcode”

Important: the “Audio Passthrough with TS transcode” preset in WFS has only been qualified for the use cases of two customers. Other customers are advised not to use this preset.

The improvements that have been implemented for the “Smooth Streaming Exporter – H.264” Exporter have also been implemented for the WFS preset “Audio Passthrough with TS Transcode”. However for this WFS preset, the improvements can be controlled from the WFS GUI, and a collection of new parameters have been added as well. Please refer to the Appendix for details.


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H.264 Proxies Generated from Omneon Spectrum Clips Introduction

Carbon 3.19.1 has the ability to create H.264 proxies from Omneon Spectrum clips.

Important: this feature is only available for transcode farms controlled by WorkFlow System (WFS). It is not available for Carbon Server / Agent farms or standalone Carbon installations.

The proxies are primarily intended for quick turnaround workflows that involve viewing and manipulation of large quantities of Spectrum clips with the Omneon Media Application Server, MAS. Using the original Spectrum clips could put a lot of bandwidth demand on the network and to avoid this, proxies are used instead. These proxies are H.264 encoded versions of the Spectrum clips with lower resolution than the originals in order to keep network bandwidth usage low. Omneon MAS has a User Interface with a built-‐in proxy player for viewing and manipulation. Without MAS, Carbon can still create the proxies but there is less functionality for viewing than with MAS, as explained below.

Important: proxy generation of high resolution clips from third party systems that use the Spectrum Media API to write them may work but is not guaranteed.

In the typical use case, Carbon is controlled by WFS, which in turn is controlled by MAS. MAS is able to monitor Spectrum file systems and can detect new files that are being recorded. When the system is configured for proxy creation and a new file is detected, MAS will send a command to WFS through the WFS API instructing it to create a proxy using the WFS proxy preset. The system allows for transcoding while the Spectrum clip is being recorded, and there is no need to wait for the recording to finish before starting the transcode. The proxy that is created can be viewed with a player that is built into the MAS User Interface.

MAS can also be used to actively transfer a clip from a Spectrum to an Omneon MediaGrid. This means that the clip is transferred to the MediaGrid while it is being recorded on the Spectrum. In this case there is again no need to wait until the transfer to the MediaGrid has finished; creation of the proxy clip can happen while the source clip is being written to the MediaGrid.

In addition to the proxy clip, a thumbnail is generated from the first non-‐black frame. This thumbnail is displayed in the MAS User Interface for easy identification of the clip. Furthermore a storyboard is created, that is, a sequence of thumbnails taken from frames at regular time intervals. The storyboard is displayed in the MAS UI as well and it enables quick access to the proxy at different points in the proxy timeline.

Without MAS, Carbon (under control of WFS) can still create the proxies, but there is no watch folder support for growing source files. Transcoding of a growing source file can however be triggered with a manual queue in WFS. Proxies can be created with a choice of two wrappers: QuickTime and MXF OP1a. MAS is required for viewing of OP1a proxies; there is no qualified standalone player for this format at this moment.


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However the QuickTime proxies can be viewed in a QuickTime player, also without MAS, and even while they are being created. New frames that have been created since the proxy was loaded in the player can be viewed by re-‐loading the proxy.

Preset location

The feature is only available with WFS and the preset will only be shown in the WFS User Interface. It is located in the RMP transcode tab in the System Preset category of the WFS Preset Editor.

Source Formats

Spectrum firmware version. Source clips should be recorded with Spectrum firmware version 6.4.0 or earlier.

Spectrum formats. All Spectrum formats (wrappers, codecs, frame rates and resolutions) are supported with the exception of the following Spectrum essence types: SDI, HDCAM, DNxHD, and Data.

The list of supported wrappers includes: QT Reference, QT Self Contained, OP1a Internal, OP1a Internal Low Latency, eVTR, OP1b, AS02, and XDCAM HD RDD9.

The list of supported video codecs includes: DV 25, DVCPro 2, DVCPro 50, DVCPro HD (a.k.a. DVCPro 100), MPEG-‐2 I-‐frame, MPEG-‐2 LGOP, IMX, XDCAM HD, XDCAM EX, and AVC-‐Intra.

The list of supported audio codecs includes: WAVE and AIFF

Note that Spectrum does not support all possible combinations of wrappers and audio and video codecs listed above.

Spectrum audio configuration. Please refer to the section describing the proxy clip format.

Proxy clip format

The following table summarizes the proxy clip format.

Container QuickTime (self contained) and MXF OP1a – see text below

Video codec H.264, baseline profile Pre-‐charge frames in LGOP sources are ignored and not part of the proxy

Bit rate Fixed, 0.6 – 3.0 Mbps

Resolution SD: 320 x 240 or 352 x 240 (29.97/59.94) / 352 x 288 (25/50) HD: 432 x 240 or 640 x 360 (all frame rates)

Audio AAC stereo pairs at 64, 96, or 128 kbps per channel, with 16 bit samples at 48 kHz – see text below


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File location The proxy file is located at the top level of the target folder

MXF support: proxies wrapped in MXF OP1a can only be played back in the MAS User Interface.

Audio: Proxy clip audio is always in stereo pairs, with a maximum of 16 pairs. Source clips that have stereo pairs for audio (Spectrum configured with 2 / 4 / … audio channels per file during recording) will have the same stereo pairs in the proxy. For source clips with mono audio channels (Spectrum configured with 1 channel per file during recording), the proxy will contain stereo pairs of which the left and right are the same.

Storyboard thumbnails

Generation Fixed interval (scene change detection not supported), 1 – 600 seconds

Video codec JPEG

Resolution SD: 240 x 160 if proxy is 320 x 240, and 178 x 160 if proxy is 352 x 240 or 352 x 288 HD: 288 x 160 if proxy is 432 x 240, and 284 x 160 if proxy is 640 x 360

File location and naming

The thumbnails are located in the target folder in a subfolder called “picon.dir” The name of the each thumbnail file includes the frame number of the thumbnail

Head frame thumbnail

Generation First non-‐black frame only, manual change not supported

Video codec JPEG

Resolution Same as proxy

File location The head frame thumbnail file is located at the top level of the target folder

Metadata

Start time code Same as source start time code, or start at 00:00:00:00

Frame time code Only supported for MXF OP1a. Based on start time code – no support for discontinuous time code

Burn in time code Choice of 9 locations including under burn


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Proxy players

Proxies wrapped in QuickTime can be played back with a QuickTime player.

Proxies wrapped in MXF OP1a can only be viewed in the MAS User Interface in a future release of MAS.

Growing file support

WFS / Carbon under control of MAS

Source Watch folder support for growing Spectrum files with MAS monitoring the watch folders Watch folders on Spectrum file system, or on MediaGrid if source files are actively transferred there by MAS Proxy Support for growing proxies in MAS proxy player Manual player refresh required for QuickTime Manual player refresh not required for MXF OP1a (future Carbon and MAS release)

WFS / Carbon not under control of MAS

Source No watch folder support for growing Spectrum files Watch folders on Spectrum file system Transcoding of growing Spectrum files has to be triggered through manual queuing Proxy Only QuickTime wrapped proxies can be viewed, and this can be done with the QuickTime player. The proxy can be viewed while it is created, however the player will only display the frames that were available when the proxy was loaded into the player. To view frames created since then, re-‐load the proxy into the player.

Licensing

All WFS / Carbon farms are automatically licensed for this feature without loss of any other feature.


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Upgrade Considerations Improved Video Quality for H.264

Several improvements have been made to the H.264 codec for all Exporters and WFS presets that use H.264 as the video format. Users of these Exporters and Presets are advised to try 3.19.1 with their material on a test system and if necessary re-‐calibrate their presets before putting 3.19.1 into production.

Known issue: H.264 Exporter causes Carbon to crash due to memory leak in specific use cases

The H.264 Exporter can crash due to a memory leak in the following cases. Case 1:

• The H.264 Exporter is configured with ATSC type Closed Captions, and • the target has a frame rate other than 29.97 fps, and • the source clip contains no Closed Captions.

Case 2: • The H.264 Exporter is configured with ATSC type Closed Captions, and • the source clip has a different frame rate than the target, and • the source clip has both DTV-‐CC and 608 compatibility bytes.

Un-‐installing Earlier Versions

In order to upgrade from 3.19.1 from 3.19 it is necessary to first un-‐install 3.19. Apple ProRes 422 System Requirements

Please refer to the 3.19 Users Guide or the Release Notes for version 3.18.1 or 3.18.2 for system requirements related to writing Apple ProRes 422 clips.


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Known Issues – Overview This section lists known limitations of Carbon as well some other issues potentially perceived as Carbon limitations.

• Due to the version of install shield used, .NET 2.0 is not automatically installed on 64-‐bit Operating Systems. WORKAROUND: One way to find out which version .NET is installed is to go to the C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework folder and observe the names of the subfolders. Alternatively, look in the list of installed Windows features. If version 2.0 is not installed, then depending on the OS and its version, the .NET 2.0 (or higher) Framework may already be available but it still needs to be turned on in the OS. For example, in Server 2008 R2, navigate to Control Panel, then Programs, then Programs and Features, then select "Turn Windows features on or off". If .NET 2.0 or higher is not available then manually download from Microsoft and install before installing Carbon Coder: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/confirmation.aspx?id=6523

• It is possible that Carbon API responses will include a parameter "AspectRatio.DWD" with no value (NULL character). Carbon API calls should not include this parameter. Note: the AspectRatio.BIN parameter can still be used. WORKAROUND: There is no workaround; Carbon API calls should not include this parameter.

• There is a known Windows memory leak in Windows Server SP2 that may be observed when a Carbon output folder is shared with a Mac. See the following Microsoft article: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-‐US;976618 WORKAROUND: Install Windows Server 2008 R2.

• In certain cases Carbon can stall on a system with 24-‐core CPUs. There is a known case of Carbon stalling during transcodes from QuickTime DVCPro HD to MPEG2 TS with the [Legacy] MPEG-‐2 Exporter v1 using the Cable Lab (HD) profile (CCDR-‐57). WORKAROUND: Reduce the number of cores for instance by turning off hyperthreading.

• Carbon Coder stalls after resubmitting a job that uses the Omneon Exporter v2 with a QuickTime reference target (CCDR-‐98). WORKAROUND: Must close the Carbon Coder application and reopen it.

• Carbon Admin window does not resize properly (B-‐5890, T-‐13624). WORKAROUND: Must close the Carbon Admin application and reopen it.

• A letter preceding the wildcard in FTP retrieval does not work (B-‐8375). WORKAROUND: Must type the URL path preceding the wildcard.

• Using a Leading/Trailing clip that differs from the aspect ratio of the video being encoded will generate black bars (B-‐7015, T-‐07420). WORKAROUND: There is no workaround for this issue.


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• Files created by Encoding from ProRes source to MPEG4 (H.264) with channel mixer audio filter (Channels 7 and 8) will have audio sync issues when played back in QuickTime Player (B-‐8241, T-‐13045). WORKAROUND: This is a bug in the QuickTime Player. There is no workaround.

• Project fails with "Terminated: No Progress Timeout" (B-‐8296, T-‐13432). WORKAROUND: Increase the timeout values from the default settings.

• Transcode stalls on some GXF files (B-‐8392, T-‐13262). WORKAROUND: There is no workaround for this issue.

• Injected TeleText does not show up in the encoded file (B-‐8493, T-‐15430). WORKAROUND: Ensure that the source file has valid time code and that the "ignore Source Video Timecode" check box is disabled.

• Repeat frames observed in the WindowsMedia video output (B-‐8503). WORKAROUND: This is a normal Windows Media CODEC behavior.

• Cannot generate PCM audio file larger than 4GB (B-‐8653, T-‐09227). WORKAROUND: No workaround. This is a limitation of the wave file format. PCM WAV files have a file size limit of 4GB.

• Carbon decodes and scales the source in the XML, even though it is not being used (B-‐8411). WORKAROUND: Unused source files should be removed from the API.

• For some MPEG2 to MPEG2 conversions, output file has a shorter duration than the original source (B-‐8536, T-‐14883). WORKAROUND: There is no workaround for this issue.

• Converting from 8-‐bits 5.1 or 8-‐bits 7.1 audio source will produce audio noise in the output file (B-‐8564). WORKAROUND: There is no workaround for this issue.

• Network license has a higher priority than local license (B-‐8604). WORKAROUND: There is no workaround for this issue.

• Carbon Coder GUI and Nexus may crash when AVI exporter is selected as target because of an incompatible DirectShow CODEC (B-‐8654). WORKAROUND: The offending DirectShow CODEC must be uninstalled, or the AVI Exporter must be disabled by removing the CMLDSTAVI2.dll.

• Some MPEG4 files using the .mov extension do not encode (B-‐8655). WORKAROUND: Rename files to .MP4.

• Carbon on 32-‐core AMD machine does not transcode any H.264 MP4 source to any target. (B-‐8664, T-‐09693). WORKAROUND: There is no workaround for this issue.


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• MPEG4 source file created by the Sony PMV-‐350-‐K camera will transcode but the resulting output file may have interlacing artifacts and extreme jitter (B-‐8669, T-‐08354). WORKAROUND: There is no workaround for this issue.

• Transport Stream file fails to load (B-‐8673). WORKAROUND: This may be caused by the file not having the correct Frame Rate information. There is no workaround for this issue.

• Expression Encoder is not showing proper aspect ratio for the video stream (B-‐8674). WORKAROUND: There is no workaround for this issue.

• HTTP Live Streaming Exporter: cannot create more than 16383 files. WORKAROUND: Choose segment size and number of layers in such a way that number of files does not exceed 16383.

• When using the Flash Exporter with source media that exceeds five hours, the resulting target file is truncated to approximately one hour. WORKAROUND: There is no workaround for this issue.

• A job for transcoding to ProRes 422 with the QuickTime 7 Exporter will stall if there are one or more source files that have a bit depth of more than 8-‐bit (B-‐8807). WORKAROUND: Split the job into multiple jobs using queue mode or watch folders for different types of source material so that the valid, 8-‐bit sources will be transcoded.

• Smooth Streaming H.264 Exporter sometimes crashes WORKAROUND: The crash can be caused by the system running out of desktop heap memory. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184802. To increase the size of the desktop heap, modify the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems\Windows The numeric values following "SharedSection=" control how the desktop heap is allocated. The setting that needs to be modified is the third one; it needs to be modified to 10MB.

• Some MPEG Transport stream files will fail to transcode due to "Unspecified Transport System Target Decoder (T-‐STD) error". WORKAROUND: Change the transport rate from (0 automatic selection) default, to the desired rate.

• When using Omneon V2 exporter and writes to a Omneon Media Grid mapped drive, an unknown error occurs (CCDR-‐75). WORKAROUND: There is no workaround for this issue.

• "Unspecified Transport System Target Decoder (T-‐STD) error" occurs when MP@ML, 15Mbps, CBR and VBV Buffer Size is 224KB (CCDR-‐80). WORKAROUND: Use a lower video rate (less than 14.95Mbps) for conversion.

• Transcoding jobs will fail when Avid MXF exporter is used and encode to DNxHD 120/185/185X with 1080i at 25fps. Error "Failed to write samples" occurred (CCDR-‐151). WORKAROUND: There is no workaround for this issue.


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• For 29.97 and 59.94 fps, the time code of the proxy storyboard thumbnails will drift over time. His is because the thumbnail interval is chosen as an integer number of seconds, which internally is translated into an integer (whole) number of frames (RMP-‐63). WORKAROUND: There is no workaround for this issue.

• Source Clips of several hours often fail when transcoding to Smooth VC-‐1 (CCDR-‐208). WORKAROUND: There is no workaround for this issue.

• Creation of H.264 proxies from Spectrum source clips will fail if o the source clips are QuickTime reference or MXF reference clips, and o the source clips are still growing while the proxy is generated, and o the Spectrum systems used to record the clips are Media Center or MediaDeck II, and o Carbon accesses the source clips directly on the Spectrum file system

WORKAROUND: There is no workaround for this issue.

• H.264 Exporter causes Carbon to crash due to a memory leak in the following cases (CCDR-‐205). Case 1:

o The H.264 Exporter is configured with ATSC type Closed Captions, and o the target has a frame rate other than 29.97 fps, and o the source clip contains no Closed Captions.

Case 2 o The H.264 Exporter is configured with ATSC type Closed Captions, and o the source clip has a different frame rate than the target, and o the source clip has both DTV-‐CC and 608 compatibility bytes.

WORKAROUND: There is no workaround for this issue.


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Bug Fixes and Improvements This section lists bugs that have been fixed and other improvements that have been made in this release.

Miscellaneous

Nr. Description

CCDR-‐164 T-‐19726

Conversion fails when stitching a movie source with a small clip at the end

Exporter -‐ H.264

Nr. Description

CCDR-‐137 Quality degradation because of incorrect parameters passing CCDR-‐123 Error occurs during conversion when frame size is smaller than 64x64 CCDR-‐166 T-‐21734 T-‐22425

Echostar and ATSC closed caption on 29.97i H.264 target do not have the same payload size for both fields. Moreover, the end of NAL unit is not "80"

Exporter – Http Live Streaming

Nr. Description

CCDR-‐191 Extra blank lines are created in the Manifest files

Exporter – MPEG-‐2 v2

Nr. Description

B-‐8749 Error observed in Sencore analyzer for certain MPEG2 TS output

Exporter – VC1 Smooth Streaming

Nr. Description

CCDR-‐190 Needed to add new UI option to disable adaptive GOP


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Appendix – Changes to H.264 Parameters in WFS Preset “Audio Passthrough with TS Transcode” Important: the “Audio Passthrough with TS transcode” preset in WFS has only been qualified for the specific use cases of two customers. Other customers are advised not to use this preset.

The following improvements have been made.

• Adaptive QP assignment at the macro-‐block level. Macro-‐blocks are adaptively assigned QP (Quantization Parameters) based on the complexity of the content.

• Adaptive deblocking. The original adaptive, in-‐loop deblocking filter has been replaced by a new and better one.

• CBR rate control. CBR rate control has been improved through better use of look-‐back (past) and look-‐ahead (future) picture information for VBV buffer planning.

To enable QP Assignment, set the parameter “Adaptive Quantization Strength – Simple” to a value other than 0. The recommended value is 50. The alternative is not to use the Simple mode but to individually set the quantization strengths for Brightness, Complexity and Contrast. For the new adaptive deblocking filter there is a checkbox that is enabled by default.

The following obsolete parameters have been removed from the GUI for the WFS preset:

• Use Hadamart Transformation

• Use Weighted B-‐mode

• Search Range

The removal of these parameters does not impact previously saved presets.

Several new parameters have been added, many of which were already available for the H.264 Exporter. There are dependencies between these parameters and some may not be used, and indeed not be displayed in the User Interface, depending on the settings of other parameters.

Name Description Values Default value (recommended value)

H264Codec Select a codec to use. Harmonic H.264 Encoder / Mainconcept H.264 Encoder

Harmonic H.264 Encoder

UseOutproc Use external encoding process to reduce the process address True / False False


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space usage

Use Fixed I-‐Position

This parameter is used to keep a fixed I frame position also in case of scene cut detection enabled.

True / False False

Isolated GOPs This flag is used to limit referencing to frames from the previous GOP, it may be useful for avoiding certain stream seeking problems when DecoderRefreshFrequency is not equal to 1 (i.e. some I frames are not IDR). Available values are false (do not limit referencing) and true (only allow the first group of B frames to use reference frames from the previous GOP).

True / False True

Use Rate Distortion Optimization

Use rate distortion optimization True / False True

CPB Removal Delay [fields]

Specifies the CPB removal delay for the first IDR frame (this information is delivered via Picture Timing SEI message). cpb removal delay value should be equal to the distance to the previous IDR frame given in field units. The parameters may be used for segment re-‐encodings or seamless joining of several H.264 streams.

Unbounded 0

I Frame Max Size [bits]

Specifies the maximum number of bits for I frame. Unbounded 0

P Frame Max Size [bits]

Specifies the maximum number of bits for P frame. Unbounded 0

B Frame Max Size [bits]

Specifies the maximum number of bits for B frame. Unbounded 0

Reference B Frame Max Size [bits]

Specifies the maximum number of bits for reference B frame. Unbounded 0

Use SAFF Use scene adaptive field/frame. Currently, it's available only in 25 fps sequence without MBAFF.

True / False False

Single SEI message per NAL unit

Writes single sei message per nal unit. True / False True

SPS Frequency behaviour of writing sequence parameter set. Every IDR / Every I frame

Every I frame

PPS Frequency behaviour of writing picture parameter set. Every IDR / Every I frame

Every I frame

Log2 Max POC Specify the number of bits to code picture order count. Valid range is 4..16, default: 8

4 .. 16 8


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Log2 Max Frame Num

Specify the number of bits to code frame num. Valid range is 4..16, default: 8

4 .. 16 8

POC Coding Type

Specify picture order count coding. POC 0 / POC 2 POC 0

OutOfPicMV Allow out of picture motion vector. True / False True

Constrained Reference List

This parameter controls using certain motion compensation constraints defined for Blu-‐ray, AVCHD and Sony PSP.

True / False False

Enable 16x16 Intra Prediction

Enable 16x16 intra-‐macroblock prediction. True / False True





Enable Pcm Intra Prediction

Enable Pcm intra-‐macroblock prediction. True / False False

Enable 16x16 Inter Prediction

Enable 16x16 inter-‐macroblock prediction. True / False True





Enable Pcm Inter Prediction

Enable Pcm inter-‐macroblock prediction. True / False False

Fast RD Optimization Mode

Select RD optimization mode. Greedy / Simple / Mix

Mix

Quant Mode Select quant mode. Mode-‐2 quant mode produces better results than Mode-‐1 especially for chroma components. It is recommended to increase CBOffset and CROffset by one or even 2 luminance component becomes even much better while chroma will be the same as for Mode-‐1. All modes are very close in speed (maybe 1-‐3% difference in speed), so in general it is recommended to use Mode-‐2 method with CBOffset = CROffset = 1.

Mode-‐1 / Mode-‐2 Mode-‐2

Live Mode Hint for the encoder to process input frames with less delay. True / False False

Low Delay Forces minimum encoding delay if needed. Available values are True / False False


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false (default) and true.

Air Mode Defines intra refresh mode (it may be useful for improving error robustness of encoded video)

Off Off

Maximum Slice Size

Enter the maximum number of bits to allocate a slice. Specify 0 for automatic.

Unbounded 0

Constrained Intra Prediction

Enable this for improving error resilience at the expense of video quality

True / False False

Use Bi-‐P Reference

If enabled, bidirectional P slices are used as reference. This is only allowed for Baseline profile, and is disabled by default.

True / False False

Use Bi-‐P Pyramid

If enabled, bidirectional P slices are used to build hierarchical GOP structures such as I-‐biP-‐biPref-‐biP-‐P. It is only allowed for Baseline profile and only when MaxIPDistance=4 and Bi-‐P Reference is enabled.

True / False False

Adaptive Quantization Strength -‐ Simple

Enter the adaptive quantization strength. The value is an integer that ranges from 0 to 100 with a default of 0.

0 .. 100 0

Denoise Strength For Luma

Denoise Strength For Luma in [0 .. 100] 0 .. 100 0

Denoise Strength For Chroma

Denoise Strength For Chroma in [0 .. 100] 0 .. 100 0

Enable No Underflow Guarantee

Can be enabled for CBR when MaintainHRD is enabled. It will prevent underflow even at the expense of VQ.

True / False False

ABR Window Duration [second]

ABR bit rate mode targets to encode a sequence as a set of consecutive video segments (also called ABR window or chunks). Each ABR window should start with an IDR frame. The user may specify the duration of the ABR window in seconds. The exact duration of every ABR window may vary to align with GOP boundaries but it will be as close as possible as the parameter specified. The rate control with ABR mode ON will target an average bitrate for every ABR window.

0 .. 20 1

Look Ahead Delay [millisecond]

Specify the look ahead period in millisecond. 0 .. 10000 1000

I-‐Flicker Reduction

Specify I-‐Flicker Reduction in [0 .. 4]. 0 .. 4 3


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Refined Rate-‐Distortion Motion Detection

If enabled, after inter modes are evaluated using SAD/SATD, the obtained motions vector can be refined using the true rate-‐distortion cost with sub-‐pel accuracy (half-‐pel and quarter-‐pel). Bitrate reduction of 2%-‐4% can obtained for the same PSNR. Note that there is a significant complexity overhead if enabled (around 200%).

True / False False

Color Description

The Color Description is used to set the VUI colour_primaries, transfer_charactistics, and matrix_coefficients. If Automatic is selected, the system will choose the colour description based on the input frame-‐size and frame-‐rate which may not be correct if the input has been resized or frame-‐rate converted. It is suggested that the proper value be selected based on the original input.

Automatic / BT709 / Unspecified / BT470M / BT470BG / SMPTE 170M / SMPTE 240M

Automatic

Amount of information in the SPS VUI section

The default stores all the information that is available. The SPS can more than double when all information is included. The minimal configuration will remove the HRD information from the VUI section.

Full VUI Information in SPS / Minimal VUI information in the SPS

Full VUI Information in SPS

Carbon3 19 1 Releasenotes A

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