Two issues with rendering: (1) Forced to use high encoding rate for MP4 (2) Can't render to MOV

[tanguero]

Hi all, I have two questions that are unrelated but both related to rendering so I thought I'd put it in one post since the questions are straightforward (hopefully the answers too).

1. In customizing the MPEG-4 encoder, it doesn't let me choose < 2 kb/s encoding rate for 720p video nor < 5 kb/s encoding rate for 1080p. This gives me over 2 GB/hr of file size in the latter case. I have any number of MP4 videos at the same frame rate and 1080p resolution which have perfectly acceptable quality at half that rate or less. Why won't VS let me choose 2 kb/s encoding for MP4 1080p? And is there a way around this (within VS, I mean--I know I can use post-processing software to convert formats or encoding parameters).

2. If I click on the MOV button in VS (v8), I immediately get a cryptic and non-helpful error message: "Encountered an improper argument" (don't even get to see what's in there). MOV is not something I would normally render to, but would be nice to know why this is happening in case one day I need to. No problem with any of the other encoding options.

[lata]

First "Encountered an improper argument" is one of those mystery messages, does not address the issue.
This error occurs from time to time and indeed sometimes can replicate with a series of mouse clicks. Its as though the program is saying, I know there is a problem but I don’t know what that is.
As it occurs selecting Mov I ask if you have the Quicktime Codec installed although I would think QT is provided with X8
Go to the PC start menu to see if Quicktime is listed.

To fix try resetting the program by renaming the 18.0 folder may address this issue
http://lata.me.uk/corel/all.htm
Otherwise a re-install may be required, but as I say the error message is very obscure

Data rates, 2000kbps is quite low as things go and the lower the data rate the lower the quality for a given format.
You could try creating a new profile using Movie Profile Manager
Add option allows you to choose your video file. Once done do not edit that profile in any way as the data rates may revert to default.
Otherwise
Share – Same as First video Clip may use your settings.

[tanguero]

Thanks Trevor, some followup comments:
On (2), which is the easier topic (no MOV): I do not have Quicktime installed. I uninstalled it some years ago as it the software was very buggy and causing problems with residual services and browser plugins, etc., and never missed it. VLC, 5K player, etc., have no problem playing MOV files (they have their own decoders, I guess), and other software I have like WinX HD Video Converter that encodes also seems to have it's own encoder for MOV. And yes, I would have expected VS to have its own codecs as well, and apparently it does for all formats except MOV??

If I go to the Share tab on VS > Custom > Format, indeed "QuickTime Movie file (*.mov)" is the only one greyed out (a more user-friendly version of "Encounted an improper argument," I guess!). I could install QuickTime and see what happens, but I think the path of least resistance for me is to leave things as they are and, in the unlikely event that I need to render to .mov, to render to something else and use my WinX HD converter to convert to .mov.

I'll consider this point closed (AFAIK) since it's not really that important to me. I'll post a separate reply with some additional discoveries on the more interesting Item 1.

[Ken Berry]

Data rates, 2000kbps is quite low as things go and the lower the data rate the lower the quality for a given format.
You could try creating a new profile using Movie Profile Manager
Add option allows you to choose your video file. Once done do not edit that profile in any way as the data rates may revert to default.

tanguero -- just to expand a bit on Trevor's suggestion here, you need to start with a video you already have which has the exact properties you want to fix as a template. You also need to know exactly where it is stored. Then with VS open, go to Settings > Movie Profile Manager. When that box opens, click on the Add button. Another smaller box will appear with two little windows in it. The top one is labelled File Path and has a button to its right with "..." in it. Click that and a File Explorer window opens. Use that to browse to where you have the video clip whose Properties you want to use as a template. When the path to that clip appears in the dialogue box under File Path, then in the second little window -- Profile Name -- give your new template a name you'll remember e.g. New Template01 or New Profile01... Then OK that and Close the Movie Profile Manager.

In future, when you go to Share and want to use that template, look for its name. But as Trevor emphasised, never try to edit that specific template. Doing so converts it into a standard template whose Properties you do not want. You would then need to go through this process to set up another fixed template.

[tanguero]

Thanks Trevor and Ken! Yes, this works excellently. I was just composing a followup with detailed instructions (to be useful to others) but you just did that, Ken! Since I already did my writeup, in which I added some additional details, I'll go ahead and paste it in here. This is a great "hidden feature" and I'm quite impressed that it works as well as it does!

Using different output frame and video rates on rendering than those offered by the built-in encoder options.

Just as background, my application is that I have a Zoom call that I screen captured (using the Corel Screen Capture module of VideoStudio) as a .WMV file (the only option offered by this tool) at 15 fps (the lowest frame rate offered by this tool) at 1920x1080 (which is full screen on my monitor). I edit this one file with VS to crop out extraneous boundaries and eliminate leader and trailer pre-call junk. The content is an essentially static power-point presentation on most of the screen with small video windows on the side showing the 3 participants. Anyone who's done a Zoom or other videoconference call knows the scoop.

Owing to the nature of the call and the jerky nature of Zoom videos anyway (more so when screen-captured), and emphasis on the static image over the heads on the video insets, 15 fps was more than enough as a frame rate (even 10 fps would have been fine). And with essentially minimal important motion (lip motion of the speakers on the tiny inset videos), a much lower video bitrate than one would normally use was acceptable as well. I did however want to keep the resolution at 1920x1080 so as not to lose resolution on some finer text on some of the Powerpoint images, otherwise sure, lowering to 1280x720 would have been the easier way to reduce file size. I guessed (and later confirmed) that a video bitrate of about 700 kb/s at 15 fps was adequate. There are some distracting moving patchy artefacts on some of the still images that perhaps 1000 kb/s would have eliminated, but this is till WAY less than the 24 fps, 5000 kb/s that is the lowest that the rendering encoder options permit, resulting in a minimum file size 5 times larger than what I really could have got away with.

Indeed, both suggestions by Travor (lata) and elaborated upon by Ken Berry worked! Hence proving that the built-in encoders indeed have much more flexibility built into them than the configuration options allow, but the nice "copy encoding parameters from an existing file" option in VS is a great backdoor way to do this. Here is the procedure step by step:

CREATING A NEW PROFILE USING YOUR DESIRED PARAMETERS

Step 1. Create or acquire, by hook or by crook (using third-party software you may have, finding a suitable video online, etc.), a video segment of anything that matches the parameters you want in your custom rendering configuration. The content of the video is unimportant as it is just its characteristics that will be used. The parameters that will be copied, and hence need to match what you want, are:
- Container format (e.g., MP4)
- Resolution (e.g., 1920x1080)
- Frame rate (e.g., 15 fps*)
- Interleaving (e.g., Frame-based)
- Encoder type, profile and video rate (e.g., H.264/Main profile/700 kbps*)
- Audio sampling rate and depth (e.g., 48000 Hz, 16 bit stereo)
- Audio format, compression and bit rate (e.g., MPEG AAC, 320 kbps)

In the example above, the two parameters marked with asterisks are those that cannot be set in any other way within video studio as they lie outside the allowed range of a manual configuration. Note that these settings cannot be edited later either, since if you try to do so, it will enforce the restrictions imposed by a manual configuration (in this example, it will not allow a frame rate < 24 fps nor a video rate < 5000 kbps).

Step 2.
a. Go to Settings > Movie Profile Manager ...
b. Set Format to the container format you want to create the new profile for (e.g., MP4 or WMV or AVI).
c. Click Add ... then click on the ... next to File Path to browse to your sample model file and click on it.
d. You can click on Info to check the parameters of that file, and then finally Open to use that file's parameters.
e. Type a descriptive name under Profile Name (perhaps including the text "NOT EDITABLE!") and click OK.
f. You now have a new profile with the parameters copied from the sample file available to you under the corresponding button for rendering under Share. Make sure not to attempt to change any of the parameters!

As Trevor points out, using the Share > Checkbox Same as First Video Clip can do the same thing as above, if your first clip happens to have the parameters you want for the rendered output file, or even by making your unrelated sample file the first clip (you can effectively remove it from the final project by reducing the size to a couple of frames, overlaying with an all-black image and muting the sound). But it seems easier and more flexible to create the new profile.

I will also point out VS does not seem to like this "fooling around with mother nature" very much, and crashed frequently in the process of making my custom profile (but I was able to complete it). Also, Smart Render crashed frequently at 99% with "Same as First Video Clip" checked, and created a corrupt file when enabled (only sound plays, no video), so you will probably need to disable it.

[lata]

A little concerned with the use of 15fps
Video Studio provides a great amount of video profiles generally settings being the industrials standards, good that it does that and indeed can match the project properties to our video files properties.
This allows us to auto set the frame rate and frame size to use our video files.
The option Show Messages being selected from Preferences (F6) will do that for the first video placed in the timeline, providing that video is compatible to be used as project properties.

Working with standard frame rates 25 / 30 / 50 / 60fps I believe is the best option project properties being compatible with these rates.
Your project properties will probably use 30fps for NTSC video, adding a 15 fps video to the timeline will be possible but will add duplicate frames one for each frame to increase the rate from 15 to 30fps.
Rendering that project to WMV 15 fps may create unusual effects with the frame rates at least my test showed strange results where every alternate frame was duplicated, that is for a 15fps video effectively only using 50% of the frames.
We can check for duplicate frames by adding the video to a timeline, then press Keyboard F to nudge through frames one at a time, viewing the change in frames, if some are identical ( no change) then they are duplicates.
Recording to 30 fps then rendering that to 15fps gave reasonable results even though every frame was duplicated it gave smooth playback. But then I would not downscale from 30fps to 15fps.

We can use Project Properties as AVI and set 15 fps depending on the codec used, just making more work.

and yes Video Studio prefers working with the standard settings which produce the best quality

Your best option is to avoid 15fps and use one of the standard rates, for NTSC 30 (29.97) or 60 fps.

Clear as mud

[tanguero]

Several points to Trevor's message:

1. Great pointer to the hidden feature of being able to set project settings based on an existing file--thanks!

2. Regarding 15 fps, my source material is 15 fps, created by VS in fact (its screen capture module that generates .wmv files with frame rates as low as 15 fps). There is no benefit in increasing the frame rate beyond this, as long as (a) I can get the editing software to deal with this (which, as I have learnt in this thread, VS does) and (b) my playback software doesn't complain (none of the 5 that I've tried so far has an issue with this--VLC, 5KPlayer, a couple of mobile phones, a hardware player from USB drive).

3. Interestingly, the editing timeline will NOT present 15 frames under any circumstances I could find. If you set your project properties to 15 fps as described by Trevor, the timeline will show 30 editable frames per second. Even if you use the AVI profile which explicitly allows 15 fps as a "standard" option, the timeline will STILL show 30 editable frames per second (no doubt artificially replicating), and even if your rendering profile is ALSO set to 15 fps. (Incidentally, in rendering, in addition to AVI, WebM also explicitly allows 15 fps but, unlike AVI, the WebM profile is not available in Project Properties, only in Share.)

4. Another reason to set the Project Properties (and then your rendering profile) to be the same as your main video clip(s), hinted at by the dialogue in the "Show Message when inserting first video clip ...," has to do with Smart Render. Apparently, Smart Render is not only smart enough to know when there are "previously rendered sections," as stated in the documentation, but also sections that don't need reencoding to render since they are already in the required format. It apparently deals with keyframe issues and so on transparently.

5. On point 4, I did two tests:
(i) I imported a 15-minute long video (1920x1080) at 15 fps 600 kb/s video rate (very low!) as project properties per the "Show Messages" technique above, made no editing changes, and "rendered" it using the "Same as Project Properties" and Smart Render. Indeed it took all of 5 seconds to "render" with no CPU usage to speak of, as opposed to 15 minutes with 4 cores at 100% with smart render off.
(ii) I added a title to the first 10 seconds (about 1%), leaving the latter 99% of the video untouched, forcing reencoding of the first 10 seconds. Smart render was still smart! It was slow for the first 3% or so (re-rendering the part with that needed to be re-rendered), and then zipped through the remaining 97%, perhaps 30 seconds total.

Conclusion: Benefits of using source video properties as your project properties in VS

1. If a large part of your input files for your video project happens to be in a format and coding that is reasonable for the final rendered output, it is advantageous, both in rendering time and, perhaps more importantly, in avoiding the quality loss that accompanies reencoding, to use those properties as both your project properties and then your rendering profile, with Smart Render turned on.

2. This assumes that there will be significant parts of your project that will not be edited (via FX, colour fixes, overlay effects, titles, etc.) so that Smart Render has something to be smart about.

3. The sequence to do this is:
i. Set "Show Messages when Inserting First Clip" preferences as indicated by Trevor;
ii. Insert the clip that has the project properties you want as the first inserted clip and respond "Yes" to the prompt about making this your project properties (doesn't matter if you later insert other clips with different properties in front of it--it's the first insertion that sets the properties);
iii. Do all your editing as you wish;
iv. When rendering, select "Same as Project Settings" and "Smart Render."