conversion from flv to format suitable for UVS10

[pedro26]

Canuk,

Success, but a problem.

Clip imports, but when played in the clip window it has no sound.

In the RHS video tab (adajcent to the clip preview window) the volume is set to 100, if I increase that to say ~300+ I get sound, but weirdly it makes lines (edges) on the video images jagged (degrading tis quality significantly), so there is some cross interference. On the video properties (when you use the add video option and loook at it properties) the audio has 2 layers, is that anything to do with it? And once I increase that volume the jaggedness is permanent unless I delete the clip and then reload back into the media library, with the vol back at 100 so 'silent'.

Has anyone seen this before ? Is there a fix/way round this?


(if anyone is interested I used Stream Transport freeware capture to capture the online clips originally.)

[canuck]

Success with what?
Which clip are you talking about: the original flv clips, some converted clips or what? Please be specific when referring to item, programs, etc. It avoids a lot of confusion and wastes a lot less time if one does not have to keep asking for clarification.

[pedro26]

Canuk,

Clarification.

Success with watching the flv to mpeg converted clip in the UVS10+ clip window (i.e. selected in the media library window) but no sound, if I increase the sound (Using the RHS window video tab in UVS10+) to 300 then I can hear the clip, but it causes pixellation (weird or what!) of the video image when playing it. Only if I return the sound level exactly to 100, not even one higher 101 or just lower 99, does that pixellation disppear. How come the sound is affecting the picture ?

Any way round this unwanted effect ?

NB Cyber Link Power Director 8 told me my clip was NTSC not Pal so I guess I need to use 720 x 576 frame size and 25 fps during the flv to MPEG conversion with freemake.

(BTW I have Cyberlink power director 8 which came bundled with some leads/hardware video->usb interface and in that software the converted mpeg clip plays with sound. But no idea on best settings etc to use that instead of UVS10+ to make a DVD)

[pedro26]

Could the appearance of jaggedness have something to do with interlacing of the video stream, and does interlacing have a relationship with that upper field first business ?


Other people with no sound used this fix, but in my case it seems that for some reason the clip's volume (just in UVS10+) is extremely low.

"I found a fix for this problem and it works on VS 8-11 for XP users:
1.Make sure showing hidden files is enabled in Explore\Tools\Folder Options.
2.Go to All Users\Application Data\Ulead Systems and locate the uvs.ini file. Open it and go to [VIODRIVER], on PlayAC3 and DecodeAC3 set the value to 1. (You will find it set to 0.)
3.Under [VIODRIVER] add a line called ADVANCE=1, this will add advanced settings for MPEG encoding.
4.Exit and save.

I also added the ADVANCE=1 entry to the [MPEGVIO] section which is immediately above the [VIODRIVER] section because it seemed more relevant. The ADVANCE entry is supposed to affect MPEG encoding and this section appears to deal with mpeg files due to its name."

[canuck]

I am sorry I do not have UVS10 so cannot really comment about that.

Can you upload a converted clip (using freemake) so I can test it?

[Ken Veal]

Hi,
I use VS X5 and Free FLV Converter(easily found with an internet search).It converts .flv to a few formats that can be used with VS and burnt to DVD.It is very east to use, just click convert your downloaded files ten browse to where they are on your hard drive and its done, save to where ever location you want.It saves mine to quick time that can be imorted to a project.
..............Ken

[pedro26]

Canuk,

Upload failed, perhaps the clip is too large ~ 147 Mb ?

Ken,

I am thinking this might also have something to do with UVS10+'s capabilities/quirks, that you don't get in the much more modern VS X5 ? Free FLV rings a bell, I'll give it a whirl tonight, but freemake seems to be converting the clips ok, just for some reason the playback sound is very low in UVS10+, converted clps do not display the problem in a variety of computer based media players, or in the Cyber Link Power Director software.

I had another idea from an old post on UVS, where they split the audio stream, then applied filters to it, e.g. normalise, amplify etc.

http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?t=9909

Surely fiddling with sound in effect in separate track shouldn't affect the video stream ?

Does that (splitting) have any potential negative consequences ? (BTW I don't see another button in UVS10+ to re-join the audio track, does that then happen when the project is finally rendered ? I just want to see if I have the sound level OK without affecting the picture. )

[Ken Veal]

As far as I understand it, you dont have to rejoin the audio, it is still part of the project but in a separate audio track.Even if was still contained in the video track, altering the sound levels will not affect the video.

[pedro26]

Ken,

Spent a few hours going through the old posts relating to UVS10+ and other things, and it is said UVS just creates a duplicate audio track and mutes the original, crafty !

Ken, Canuk


However, as all the stuff is on an external hard drive I hooked it up to the older XP computer where I originaly installed UVS10+ circa 2006, and all those converted clips in all the different formats played perfectly (i.e. with normal sound). Would you credit it ? This old XP computer may have loads of CODEC packs, but I am thinking another key difference is that the other two computers have windows Vista OS.

Now I can not remember if I downloded patches as and when Ulead issued them and installed them on this XP machine, but I do remember forum talk of Windows Vista patches for UVS10+, and advice like load this patch first then that patch NOT VICE VERSA, from people like Ron P. Most people were avoiding Vista .

Also the debate on don't edit MPEG do it on AVI (DV 1 or 2) was interesting, reading the old posts Ken was a bit of exception in being to do this no probs.

Anyway I have mugged up again on AC3, LPCM, MPEG audio, Not totally nailed the DVD 'flavour' of MPEG2, but it is a subset of MPEG2, just need to find the UK settings as this tells you 'resolution', using the term in a wider sense to mean its max spec.

Of course all the old ftp links do not work any longer as Corel can be bothered to maintain them, (although it does for its own legacy products). So no chance of correcting those patch issues, although Ken did kindly send me an old UVS 10 patch he found, but that did not sort the lack of sound at a setting of 100 in that little volume window. (only way to fool outlook was to rename as a *.bak file before e-mailing.

So it might be a Vista/unpatched UVs10+ issue ? Did Ulead just bring out UVS11 as its first Vista comaptible version?

Anyway, as recomended by Steve back in the day I have a UVS profile on this XP machine, so I guess I will capture on one of my new machines, convert using freemake, then do the UVS10+ stuff on this old machine.

[pedro26]

Dear all,

I spent several frustrating days, with kind people on the forum trying to help me convert FLV clips to suitable formats for eventually burning to DVD.

When I loaded those converted clips in UVS10+ I was getting no sound (unless I hiked the clip volume to 300+ %). Suspicion fell on improper conversion, lack of the correct CODECs, but by chance because the clips were on a portable hard drive, I eventually tried those clips on the same software, UVS10+, still installed on my old windows XP machine, and the clip's sound at the normal 100% was perfect,and was also fine for all the clips converted to all the different formats suggested.

This led me to think that the problem was with my recent installation of UVS10+ on to these much newer Vista machines. Searching the archives I discovered there was a Vista Patch, but the ftp sites of Ulead are now defunct, you just get re-directed to a main Corel page, and they no longer host the files on a dedicated ftp server, at least I can not locate it.

The required file is UVS_VistaPatch_5in1.exe doing a search for it on Google led me to loads of dodgy sites purporting to host it, torrents and the like, but persistence paid off and I found the file here http://www.bergfiles.com/i/bf46965bbfh32i0
Where after manoeuvring past the wrong download buttons (which they all seem to have to try to put crap onto your PC), could be download after entering a bot fooling (refreshed code)
I was somewhat concerned that it might have an unwanted extra payload (virus/malware) so I checked it a couple of times and it appears to be clean, so I launched it and it ran ok. Then after the requisite re-start fired up UVS10+ on the Vista desktop machine loaded up the clips and they played fine complete with sound.

I thought it was worth a separate post so that anybody else with the leagcy UVS10+ software on a Vista machine who has this same problem, can quickly get to a possible solution.

Regards,

Pedro

ps I have done some more trials on the different FLV to X,Y,Z format conversions for the Vista machines, and there is one issue, and that is when the audio is coded as AC3 type (i.e. the Dolby compression). The clip with this audio compression loads into the media library, but if I look at properties under audio compression in the info box it states "Unknown ACM format" (with XP computer for the exact same clip it states the audio compression correctly as "AC-3 ACM" in the same property box. On the Vista machine loading the same clip over and over again (deleting the thumbnail each time to do the re-load) gives variable results sometimes a black thumbnail is loaded which plays in the clip window but can not be dragged into project time line, and you also get a pop-up message that the file is unreadable. Other times no message and it does drag into the timeline. So its a bit flaky. As you know UVS10+ should have the AC3 codec built-in because it paid Dolby the royalties for its inclusion. The file that seems to be causing the problems is in C:Program files\common\Ulead\Vio\DVACM.ACM. (Gspot indicated a problem with it, and it crashed Gspot, which just about manages to fail gracefully and points the finger at the offending file. It changes its settings so that it does not load up the codecs) I tried just copying over the same file from the XP machine. But that gave no change in behaviour, perhaps there is in fact an XP version of DVACM.ACM and a Vista version ?

NB All those earlier tips in the forum about setting decode AC3=1, advance=1 etc. in the corresponding section in the uvs.ini file were not relevant as in the Vista macines the values were already set to 1 rather than zero. In some cases people had found theirs was set to =0 and prevented the correct working of the Dolby AC3 compression. NB in SE version and some earlier versions AC3 was not included/available anyway, going back through hundreds of posts, circa 2005-2007, this came up over and over again, the admin guys were surprisingly patient in their repeated responses (Steve Jones tended to provide links to FAQ which gave the answers).

Anyway I remembered that for some other reason on the XP machine I had installed years ago the K Lite basic codec pack, so I installed that on this Vista machine, just now. So running Gspot instead of finding the 'broken' DVACM.ACM file it probably now finds the codec from the K Lite Pack, and Gspot has stopped crashing with that clip.

I was wondering how does UVS know where to find the codecs, can it be made to ignore its default (Problematic) ACM file and use that now provided from the K Lite pack ?

Just a thought ?

[Ken Berry]

Pedro -- just so you know, I have merged your separate solution topic with your original thread. It makes more sense then and other users who might be suffering the same problem won't have to search all over the place to find the original topic you referred to. Hope you don't mind...