X5 vs X10 and Smart Rendering AVCHD and x264

[JaceTheAce]

I just updated Windows 7 x64 with the "Convenience Rollup", only to discover my existing VideoStudio X5 (yes I know it's old) won't run. I liked X5 because it smart renders my Canon HF100 AVCHD clips almost flawlessly, and it supports DebugMode Frameserver. I disliked X5 because it refused to smart render x264 clips.

Questions:
1) Is there any way to make X5 work with Windows 7 with the "Convenience Rollup" applied? Is there some sort of hack I use do to get it to work?
2) If I upgrade to X10:
a) Will X10 Smart render AVCHD clips from my Canon HF100 like X5 does?
b) Does X10 support x264 clips without re-rendering? Will it smart render them?
c) Is there ANY way to get any type of frame serving working in X10?
d) If frame serving is not an option in X10 is there any other way to export to x264?

[Ken Berry]

If what you call x264 is the same (as I think it is) as H.264, then I don't at all understand what you are talking about when you say X5 can render AVCHD video but not 264 video. AVCHD video is in fact mpeg-4 video rendered using the H.264 codec. In other words, they are one and the same... No ifs, no buts...

[JaceTheAce]

Thanks for taking time to reply.

Yeah, I should have been more clear about that. When I say "x264" I mean H.264 footage generated by the VideoLAN x264 toolset. For whatever reason, VideoStudio X5 refused to smart-render any H.264 footage produced by x264, even when it was explicitly Blu-ray compliant. After spending a couple weeks tweaking and troubleshooting, I turned to Google and discovered I wasn't the only one with this issue. To be clear, X5 would accept the footage and let me edit it, but would always re-render everything when I tried to export it.

Also, Yes, I understand AVCHD _is_ H.264. That makes the problem that much more perplexing because X5 will smart-render my AVCHD footage, but never any H.264 stuff produced by x264.

If X10 has better support for H.264 and will smart-render H.264 footage rendered by x.264, I'll buy it today.

[Ken Berry]

If you can upload a short clip of your x264 video to a website like Dropbox or OneDrive, we can download it and test it at our end.

[JaceTheAce]

Sorry it took me a couple days to reply - work has been insane. I uploaded a short 15 second sample clip at:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7fBDJ ... sp=sharing

This clip was encoded using x264 in MeGUI using a standard Bluray compliant profile with CBR quality = 12. I can give you the profile settings if needed, but I'm guessing you'll scrape them with MediaInfo if necessary.

[JaceTheAce]

Bump. You still there Ken? I really appreciate any help you can offer.

[lata]

Hi
Seems your post was missed, Ken is in NZ and probably in slumberland at the moment.

I was able to use that video in X10, the Show Messages details showed the properties as below, seemed quite normal.

MPEG Transport-Stream Files
24 bits, 1920 x 1080, 29.97 fps
Frame-based
(HDMV-NTSC), 16:9
H.264 Video
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 39000 kbps)
Audio data rate: 384 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio, 44.1 KHz, 2/0(L,R)

However a little concerned with the video frames shape as showing in preview screen, which appears as 4:3 rather than 16:9.
The video appears to have a black border left and right as though a 4:3 video has been inserted to a 16:9 frame.
Taking a snapshot in Clip mode clearly shows those borders, as does displaying in overlay track, and changing background colour.

Anyway I had no problems editing the video which ok using Same as first Clip, and appeared to use Smart Render.

[lata]

Questions:
1) Is there any way to make X5 work with Windows 7 with the "Convenience Rollup" applied? Is there some sort of hack I use do to get it to work?
2) If I upgrade to X10:
a) Will X10 Smart render AVCHD clips from my Canon HF100 like X5 does?
b) Does X10 support x264 clips without re-rendering? Will it smart render them?
c) Is there ANY way to get any type of frame serving working in X10?
d) If frame serving is not an option in X10 is there any other way to export to x264?

Hi

Reference running X5, please view this post.

http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php ... 31#p325077

[Ken Berry]

I'm dreadfully sorry -- I simply don't know how I missed your earlier post with the link to the sample video. Now downloaded and, like Trevor, I have no trouble inserting that clip in X10 and editing it. I also get the message asking if I want Project Properties to match those of the clip when I insert it in the timeline. The only mystery, as Trevor has already said, is why it appears to be a 4:3 frame format inserted in a 16:9 frame. But the quality is excellent and the baby is very cute!

[JaceTheAce]

Trevor & Ken: Thank You both for the replies!

The video is intentionally letterboxed. The original footage was 4:3 MJPEG from a Canon ELPH. I'm compiling various types of footage onto a BluRay so the final footage needs to be BluRay compliant. I used AviSynth + NNEDI3 to upscale the footage to 16:9 1080P then used x264 to encode as H.264 raw. I wanted to maintain the original aspect ratio, and the only ways I know to do that are either zoom or letterbox - I chose letterbox.

My main question was if X10 will smart-render H.264 footage rendered by x264. I'm asking because my old version of X5 will NOT x264 footage no matter what I try, but TMpgEnc smart renders flawlessly. Based on your replies it appears Corel has fixed this and it is now working in X10.

Thanks again for taking time to look at this.

[JaceTheAce]

lata: THANK YOU for pointing me to http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php ... 31#p325077. I looked for days and could not find anything like this. I'm going to reinstall X5 and see if the patched/updated MUIHelper.dll fixes my problem. If it does, you are a godsend. I really love X5, aside from the fact that I could never get it to Smart Render x264 footage.