Issues and observations mainly concerning geometry
Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 12:40 pm
First of all, thank you for an excellent program. It is certainly one of the best video converters, but I have a few issues and suggestions. ConvertXtoVideo 2.0.0.98 tested under Win7/SP1/x64.
Whenever Editor is opened, preview can't be toggled to side-by-side/dual display until we change the frame (advance to any frame in the film). It would be nice if the Editor remembered the last frame that was current in the timeline and auto-navigated to that frame on re-opening (instead of first frame of an enabled segment).
If the entire length of a video is cut (Video cut -> start=0, end=length of video), all sorts of things fall apart. It's a "corner case", but still.
It would be nice if output resolution (and AR) set by the chosen profile could be overridden on a file-by-file basis. This is particularly important if cropping/padding results in AR changes (currently, removing black bars at top+bottom stretches the output vertically). Editor could have options: "use profile" (ideally reminding us what the current profile's output resolution is set to), "no resampling" (to output original resolution or whatever it got cropped/padded to, but encoder restrictions on W/H should be handled - at least with a warning (e.g., W must be even or divisible by 16)), "custom" (allowing free entry of WxH, again, perhaps with a reminder of encoder restrictions).
It would be nice if preview in Editor reflected the output resolution (or specifically aspect ratio) set in the current profile.
Crop/pad settings for a file are reset to zero if the profile is changed. This doesn't feel sensible as crop/pad values are not part of a profile.
For some files or under some unknown circumstances (but not always), if the destination output file exists, I don't get a delete/overwrite prompt (BTW, auto-renaming the new output would be great as an option). Instead (and sometimes even after I do get that 'file exists' prompt), some new files are output to C:\ with slightly mangled names (prefixed by the extension: "C:\.mp4OutputFileName_2.mp4"). Sometimes this affects only a few files in the list (e.g., just 3 out of a total of 5, so 2 end up where they should).
Cropping issues. Context: these have been observed with various sources, e.g., two DVD folders with IFO/VOB files. Some problems were common to several sources, others were specific to one particular DVD. Some videos do not experience any problems, so debugging this might be tricky. Here are my observations:
C.1) With one DVD that has black bars at top and bottom (72 and 74 pixels respectively), hitting "Remove black bars" crops 104 pixels on left and right (wrong sides), whereas top and bottom stay at 0. This seems to affect just one source DVD though.
C.2) After "Remove black bars" is clicked and produces some non-zero values that change the output AR (as observed in the side-by-side preview), returning all crop/pad values to 0 does not return AR to what it was originally. Switching to another Fit Method (with crop values still all 0) resets AR properly.
C.3) Re-opening Editor with various Fit methods. If I set Fit method to Letterbox, this auto-sets all crop/pad values to 0 (fine); I hit Save and re-open the Editor: crop/pad values are now either L/R=8 or T/B=86 (depends on source file). Similarly, Fit method Automatic produces other 'random' values, Pan-Scan yet others (example video that spontaneously gets L=R=-2: "Evelyn Lambart (1974) Mr. Frog Went A-Courting.mpg", 46,036,116 bytes). Stretch method seems to always re-open properly with all zeroes, as expected. Re-opening with Fit method set to "User defined (aspect ratio kept)" shows all crop/pad values 0, but preview shows same (incorrect) cropping/padding as was observed in C.2 after clicking "Remove black bars". But like I said, this only affects some videos (but more than one).
Thank you,
Alex
Whenever Editor is opened, preview can't be toggled to side-by-side/dual display until we change the frame (advance to any frame in the film). It would be nice if the Editor remembered the last frame that was current in the timeline and auto-navigated to that frame on re-opening (instead of first frame of an enabled segment).
If the entire length of a video is cut (Video cut -> start=0, end=length of video), all sorts of things fall apart. It's a "corner case", but still.
It would be nice if output resolution (and AR) set by the chosen profile could be overridden on a file-by-file basis. This is particularly important if cropping/padding results in AR changes (currently, removing black bars at top+bottom stretches the output vertically). Editor could have options: "use profile" (ideally reminding us what the current profile's output resolution is set to), "no resampling" (to output original resolution or whatever it got cropped/padded to, but encoder restrictions on W/H should be handled - at least with a warning (e.g., W must be even or divisible by 16)), "custom" (allowing free entry of WxH, again, perhaps with a reminder of encoder restrictions).
It would be nice if preview in Editor reflected the output resolution (or specifically aspect ratio) set in the current profile.
Crop/pad settings for a file are reset to zero if the profile is changed. This doesn't feel sensible as crop/pad values are not part of a profile.
For some files or under some unknown circumstances (but not always), if the destination output file exists, I don't get a delete/overwrite prompt (BTW, auto-renaming the new output would be great as an option). Instead (and sometimes even after I do get that 'file exists' prompt), some new files are output to C:\ with slightly mangled names (prefixed by the extension: "C:\.mp4OutputFileName_2.mp4"). Sometimes this affects only a few files in the list (e.g., just 3 out of a total of 5, so 2 end up where they should).
Cropping issues. Context: these have been observed with various sources, e.g., two DVD folders with IFO/VOB files. Some problems were common to several sources, others were specific to one particular DVD. Some videos do not experience any problems, so debugging this might be tricky. Here are my observations:
C.1) With one DVD that has black bars at top and bottom (72 and 74 pixels respectively), hitting "Remove black bars" crops 104 pixels on left and right (wrong sides), whereas top and bottom stay at 0. This seems to affect just one source DVD though.
C.2) After "Remove black bars" is clicked and produces some non-zero values that change the output AR (as observed in the side-by-side preview), returning all crop/pad values to 0 does not return AR to what it was originally. Switching to another Fit Method (with crop values still all 0) resets AR properly.
C.3) Re-opening Editor with various Fit methods. If I set Fit method to Letterbox, this auto-sets all crop/pad values to 0 (fine); I hit Save and re-open the Editor: crop/pad values are now either L/R=8 or T/B=86 (depends on source file). Similarly, Fit method Automatic produces other 'random' values, Pan-Scan yet others (example video that spontaneously gets L=R=-2: "Evelyn Lambart (1974) Mr. Frog Went A-Courting.mpg", 46,036,116 bytes). Stretch method seems to always re-open properly with all zeroes, as expected. Re-opening with Fit method set to "User defined (aspect ratio kept)" shows all crop/pad values 0, but preview shows same (incorrect) cropping/padding as was observed in C.2 after clicking "Remove black bars". But like I said, this only affects some videos (but more than one).
Thank you,
Alex