Adjusting I-Frames and Half-Pels in X2 Pro?

[blplhp]

In VS10+, when making your own custom Movie Templates, on the "Compression Tab", there was an "Advanced" Button, where you could manually adjust the I-Frames and B-Frames, the Half-Pels, etc. I don't see that button in X2 Pro. Did Corel remove that function?

[Black Lab]

Probably. Corel is becoming famous for dumbing down its products.

[blplhp]

After thinking about this some more, the fog from my bad memory seems to be lifting enough for me to recall that I think there was a tweak file that had to be installed that would add the "Advanced" button, and subsequent options menu, to the "Compression" tab to tweak the I-Frames, P-Frames, half-pels and vector settings. I confirmed this by installing VS10+ on my work laptop, and the Advanced button is not there either. So it was definitely an add-on feature. Now I just have to figure out where that tweak file came from and is it compatible with VS X2 or is there one specifically for X2. Adjusting those settings seemed to make a slight quality increase in the video. I burned two DVD's of the same project 2 years ago using VS10+ from my older computer, one without the advanced changes and one with the advanced changes. I want to say that Terry Stetler gave me the suggestion of this tweak 2 years ago.

Edit: I just found the thread that talks about this: http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=10880. Indeed, Terry was the author of this thread. Great thread BTW!! Very informative!

You have to add the "Advance =1" code to the uvs.ini file within VS10+ at this file path location in XP: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Ulead Systems\Ulead VideoStudio\10.0\uvs.ini. Double click on the file to open it up and look for this heading and entry;

[VIODRIVER]
Advance=1

If Advance=1 isn't there, then enter it and save uvs.ini back out to that location.

Now the question is......does this same file (uvs.ini) exist in X2 Pro? Does it work in X2 Pro? Does having Windows 7 instead of XP or Vista matter at all if its suppose to work? What's the path to get to it in Windows 7?

I just noticed that Terry Stetler hasn't been active in this Forum since August 2008. Is he still around in another Forum?

Once I made this tweak to the uvs.ini file and reopened VS10+, and went to these tabs, I compared the default settings to the ones shown and suggested by Terry in his tutorial. I noticed that on the Advanced Video Settings tab, the default selection for "Matrix Coefficients" is "SMPTE 170M. In Terry's example in the thread link above, Terry's screenshot shows this box with the setting "ITU-R Rec. 624-4 System B, G", which by the way, is the only other active selection in the drop down window. What's the difference here with this setting? He never explained this one in his brief tutorial.

Sorry if I'm getting way too technical, but I do alot of sports/action video, and this customized MPEG setting is valuable for me.

Thanks,

[blplhp]

Well I found the uvs.ini file on my Windows 7 machine with X2 Pro installed. Its in C:\Program Files (x86)\Corel\Corel VideoStudio 12\Ulead.dat. Its the same 6KB uvs.ini file that VS 10+ loads in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Ulead Systems\Ulead VideoStudio\10.0\ using XP. However, when I type in "Advance=1" under the [VIODRIVER] heading inside that file, it does NOT work with X2 Pro as far as creating the "Advanced" button on the Compression tab of the Make Movie Template Manager.

Has anyone with X2 Pro and Win7 been able to get this button to appear? How about anyone with X2 Pro and Vista? Or on XP? I'm wondering if X2 Pro allows this tweak at all? I guess I will have to load X2 Pro on my work laptop that has XP and see what happens.

Any help would be appreciated!!

Thanks,

[Ron P.]

I can get the button with X2 Pro on my Vista machine. It's found at : C:\ProgramData\Ulead Systems\Corel VideoStudio\12.0. Before you can edit this file in Vista, you need to first give yourself Full Control of that file. To do that, right-click on it and select Properties, then the Security Tab. Select your user name, then press the Edit button. In the next dialog window (Permissions for uvs.ini), again select your user name, then in the bottom pane, click the box beside Full Control-Allow, click Apply.

[blplhp]

Thanks for the advice Ron, but unfortunately, it did not work for me. Glad to know it worked for you and works on Vista. So i'm still not sure if its my particular set-up that is having difficulties or if its a Windows 7 thing?

Anyone with VS X2 Pro and Windows 7 able to get this "Advanced" button to show up in your Make Movie Template Manager "Compression" tab?

Thanks,

[rguthrie]

Bryan,

Currently I'm using X3, and the Advanced option works for me using (using AVI for the format).

[Ron P.]

Bryan,

Currently I'm using X3, and the Advanced option works for me using (using AVI for the format).

Ok Ron, so how in the world did you get this to work? I tried getting it to work on both my XP and Vista machines, both failed. This is not the Advanced option that brings up this..

avi_advanced.jpg (52.26 KiB) Viewed 4831 times

In VS X2 the Advanced being referred to by Bryan is only for the MPEG compression, and found on the Compression tab..

mpeg_advanced.jpg (60.98 KiB) Viewed 4831 times

Again I have not been able to get this to work in VS X3 on either of my machines. I do note that the file needed to be modified for this button (uvs.ini) is not found in VS X3.