SUU-Design Forum

Hi,
I am having issues with the "choose shots manually" function with mp4 files. When selecting either option 1 or 2, I get a brief (less than 1 second) pop-up window, which I assume is the preview window, which then disappears. Have tried with both custom and simple (4x4) presets, but no help either way.

Note: the automatic modes work fine -- no issues.

I have a "Gold" activated version, and am running Windows 10.

I've tried re-running the program is compatibility modes for Win 7, 8, and XP, but get the same behavior. I've also tried various combinations of the video rendering engines (ultimate, crystal, system) but no help.

This function works fine with .wmv or .avi files using the ultimate and crystal rendering engines -- just not .mp4. Unfortunately, the vast majority of my video collection is in mp4 files.

Thanks in advance for any help or ideas!
- Bill H

Hi,
"Choose shots manually" uses Engine 2, so it is codec-dependent.
My advice is to change something in your codec-pack settings ot try to reinstall you codec pack or even try to install another codec pack.
Which one do you use?

Hi,
Thanks for your response. As soon as you mentioned "codec," I realized that I hadn't updated the codecs since I had switched to Win10. Both VLC and MediaCoder were working fine for me after the switch to Win10, so this had slipped my mind. But, read on.

I uploaded the current K-lite Codec pack, plus switched to other h64 codecs (FFDShow, Microsoft, LAV), which at least got me to be able to see the "choose shots" window, but got a situation where the extracted images were "slanted". See below:


Image URL: https://onedrive.live.com/?id=47C04C061 ... MQ&o=OneUp

I tried on some newer .mp4 files, and they work fine -- so I'm guessing the problem is somehow in how these particular files were encoded 3 years ago. I've tried re-encoding but no help -- maybe a problem with interlacing or something weird about the horizontal spacing?

I guess this probably isn't a problem with the program itself, but with how the files are encoding. They play just fine on VLC or other players, and just show this behavior with VTM.

----- Additional edit - Work Around! ---------

The skewed image got me thinking that the dimensions weren't quite right. The original file was encoded as 854x480 -- re-encoding to 848x480 (so the horizontal size was divisible by 4) did the trick -- now things work as advertised.

This points out a minor issue with the program -- in the "Chose Shots Manually" function, it doesn't correctly deal with mp4 video dimensions where the horizontal dimension is not divisible by 4 (works fine in auto). Most of the time this should be no problem, but some encoders don't enforce the "divisible by 4" rule.

I hope you find this helpful.
Bill H

Hi,

VTM v12.0.0.0 is released and you can use new codec-independent "Choose shots manually" interface.
Old "Choose shots manually interface" was moved to the second position in the mouse context menu.

New interface in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7-LvuqbZ3o