Quote: JL_JL I dont seem to have this issue when I encode with HAndbrake and Mp4 H264.
All the audio is consistent and appears to be CBR?

Is it even possible to import some other audio codec into PD for rendering ?

'Morning, all. After sleeping on this I decided to try redoing one of my files that had the issue, since I have now done two since then that encoded at 192. I tried it, and unfortunately the file still shows 106 (192). Your question prompted me to make a search, and I found this 3 year old post by Dafyyd: http://tinyurl.com/nqgptf4

Then I searched for ffdshow and found it here: http://tinyurl.com/2ongjk. I couldn't find any instructions for configuring PD12 with it, so started re-rendering the file mentioned above for a third time. It'll be done in about an hour and 45 min., and I'll report my results here.

Meanwhile, if anyone knows of a procedure to incorporate different codes into PD it would be nice if you were to share that info here.

I think if this fails I'll resort to rendering the same file with H.264 and see what happens. Dell Precision 7510 Laptop
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit | Intel(R) XEON(R) CPU E3-1505M v5 @2.80 GHz
RAM: 32 GB
Windows Experience Index 7.5

Finished the rendering mentioned in the post above with the same result. Since no one has provided any info on a procedure to configure PD with different codecs, I've uninstalled ffdshow and begun rendering the same file as H.264 with the Dolby Digital codec.

I checked out a H.264 clip that I rendered some time ago and couldn't detect any artifacts, even when I magnified a screen capture in Paint by 2 or 3X. However, that clip was rendered at 22.7 Mbps, while the clips I'm dealing with here are being rendered at 3000 Kbps. When it's complete I'll compare the results of this clip with the same one rendered at MP4. Dell Precision 7510 Laptop
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit | Intel(R) XEON(R) CPU E3-1505M v5 @2.80 GHz
RAM: 32 GB
Windows Experience Index 7.5

I haven't uninstalled ffdshow yet

But I swear I'm my h264 profile I created I asked for 192kbs and the rendered file gave me 256kbps.

Anyways not sure if it's because my 1080p clips are using too low a bit rate but there's definitely a difference on h264 and MPEG4 still. I particularly noticed a loss of detail in say scenes where a person is wearing a polka dot dress in the distance .. The dots become blurry so there's no dots visible in the h264 and still visible in the mpeg4
That is with both clips rendered with a quite a low bitrate of 8500kbps at 1080p 30fps. (Trying to produce the best acceptable quaily with lowest file size)

I thought I couldn't tell whether the audio was at 128kbps or at 105kpbs or whatever it comes out to, but I think I can detect some sqealch. I wouldn't be happy in the back of my mind if there was any quality loss in audio since the source (GoPRo) isn't that great to begin with.

Well, I've now rendered 2 files since the last one that didn't encode at the full 192 Kbps, and they've both rendered properly (at the full 192). I'm in the process of rendering the final one of 16. If that one renders properly my score will be 14 - 2, the 14 being the proper bitrate and the two with the degraded bitrate. My files are 720p 25 fps 1700 Kbps downloaded from Israel, which is apparently a PAL country. It's a weird combination, but I'm trying to stay as close to the original parameters as possible. The only reason I'm encoding at 3000 Kbps is that's as low as PD will go for this size file. In spite of that, they look very good to my eye.

I've compared the same MP4 and M2TS on a 60" HDTV and still can't see any difference. Also can't see any difference on screen shots magnified 3X. However, like you, I CAN tell the difference between a 106 Kbps AAC sound track and a 192 Kbps AC-3 one, so I replaced that one with the M2TS. However, the 177 Kbps one was fine, so I kept it. So in the end, I only had to replace one clip, provided the one that's working now renders properly.

One more option, in future if a clip fails to render at 192, I'm going to try 256 and see what that does. Involves another couple of hours of rendering, but if it doesn't happen any more often than it has in this job that's not too bad. Hopefully it will be corrected, but if it happens too often I'll start using H.264 unless/until PD fixes it.

In any case, it looks to me like you've discovered a fault in this program, confirmed by me (although mine is intermittent while yours seems to be constant), and you may want to report it to Tech Support. Dell Precision 7510 Laptop
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit | Intel(R) XEON(R) CPU E3-1505M v5 @2.80 GHz
RAM: 32 GB
Windows Experience Index 7.5

I'd probably submit it to support and see what they say. I'd like to read the response. I still believe they must be using some form bitrate control based on complexity of audio. That thought may also fit the wondering experience documented by BillyR for his clips.

I created various audio forms of increasing complexity. My time line was nothing more than 30second black color board and then my imported WAV audio in track 1. For the last documented case, the white noise stereo was added to track 2 while keeping the simplistic mono sound in track 1.

I created 3 custom MPEG-4 profiles based on the default 1920x1080 13Mbps profile with audio bitrates of 96, 192, and 256.

The results are in the attached table. One can easily see the final result from PD encoding is a very strong function of audio complexity which really hints towards some form of bitrate control.

Jeff

Quote: I'd probably submit it to support and see what they say. I'd like to read the response. I still believe they must be using some form bitrate control based on complexity of audio. That thought may also fit the wondering experience documented by BillyR for his clips.

I created various audio forms of increasing complexity. My time line was nothing more than 30second black color board and then my imported WAV audio in track 1. For the last documented case, the white noise stereo was added to track 2 while keeping the simplistic mono sound in track 1.

I created 3 custom MPEG-4 profiles based on the default 1920x1080 13Mbps profile with audio bitrates of 96, 192, and 256.

The results are in the attached table. One can easily see the final result from PD encoding is a very strong function of audio complexity which really hints towards some form of bitrate control.

Jeff

If that's the case it's a good argument for using H.264 for HD video. I don't know about others, but the bitrate I specify is the bitrate I want. However, as I mentioned, I got that result for 14 of the 16 files I recently rendered at 720p 25 fps and 3000 Kbps. One rendered at 177 Kbps, which was acceptable, but the other at 106 Kbps was not, so I rendered it as an H.264 AC-3 and got 192 Kbps.

The puzzling thing about all this is that the two files that didn't render properly came from the same master file from which I rendered 3 clips. The first one rendered at 106 Kbps, the second at 192 and the third at 177. Subsequently I rendered 3 more clips from another master file from the same source, which I examined in Mediainfo and all the specs were the same as the first one, and all 3 of those clips rendered at 192.

This was a special case and doubt if I'll be working on those types of files again, so for me this issue is over. Dell Precision 7510 Laptop
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit | Intel(R) XEON(R) CPU E3-1505M v5 @2.80 GHz
RAM: 32 GB
Windows Experience Index 7.5

Thanks JL_JL and Billy for taking time to look into this issue. I've raised a support ticket any way to see what they say .

All my source videos so far are from the GOpro camera so I tried to render a short clip from a movie with Dolby digital 5.1 down to 192kbps and media info says 177kbps.
If this was some sort of bitrate control I would still expect it to be closer to 192.

As an interim measure I'll go to mpeg2 or very high bitrate h264 then use handbrake to convert to a compact mp4

It will be interesting to see what Tech Support says about this. Until now I had never seen this phenomenon, and in my case it's an unusual occurrence while in yours it seems to be the "norm." I had begun to trust this program so much that I hardly ever looked at the Mediainfo of my clips, but I think I'll pay closer attention now. Dell Precision 7510 Laptop
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit | Intel(R) XEON(R) CPU E3-1505M v5 @2.80 GHz
RAM: 32 GB
Windows Experience Index 7.5

but is the audio quality really lower when you listen to your produced mp4 file?

If yes? Then is it only safe to make h.264 files?

this topic really confuses me

Please post the answer of what support says about this!

Quote: but is the audio quality really lower when you listen to your produced mp4 file?

If yes? Then is it only safe to make h.264 files?

this topic really confuses me

In my case, an MP4 file I produced which rendered at 177 Kbps showed no noticeable degradation, but the one I rendered at 106 Kbps had definitely inferior sound quality. This topic confuses me too. Before it came up, I trusted PD to render files at the bitrate I specified. That doesn't seem to be the case with AAC files, which is the only option we have for MP4. So, if you want your files to render at the specified rate it would seem to be only safe to use H.264, where you can use the Dolby Digital or LPCM encoder, in lieu of MP4.

I've looked back at some of the old TV shows I've converted to MP4 in this program, and the bitrate is degraded in almost all of them. That is not acceptable to me, so in future I'll be doing those at H.264. I'm also going to check my old editor, Brand "N" and see if that is the case there.
Dell Precision 7510 Laptop
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit | Intel(R) XEON(R) CPU E3-1505M v5 @2.80 GHz
RAM: 32 GB
Windows Experience Index 7.5

I havent heard back from Support yet. They asked for more info and I did so lets see what they say...

At the moment my workflow is double..
Convert to H264 at the highest bit rate (22mbps-30mbps) and then use that to Handbrake to a smaller bitrate file for storage (8-10Mbps)

o ok so you have mp4 files and you have to convert them to h264 now to get the audio quality you want ?

keep this topic up to date! This is really important to everyone who wants to produce video's with the highest audio quality as possible!

Quote: o ok so you have mp4 files and you have to convert them to h264 now to get the audio quality you want ?

keep this topic up to date! This is really important to everyone who wants to produce video's with the highest audio quality as possible!

Correct, my source files are MP4.. convert to h264, as lossless as possible to ensure I get the audio bitrate at what I want too, then Handbrake to shrink.

Of course I would prefer to just do it all in the one program

hmm, so you can't import the mp4 file, work with it, import audio and sync them together to the file you want and then save it as h264? (i'm very sorry if i misunderstand or missed something in the topic)
I will think further for any possible sollutions after I get some sleep (it is 3:20 am here in belgium) pretty late!

Here it is


Dear Daniel,

Thank you for writing back.

Please note that our RD has successfully reproduced this issue in our lab. This issue is now in queue for analysis. The root cause is unknown for now. Thanks for reporting this issue.

Thank you for your understanding and patience.

Please feel free to contact us back for any further clarification or for any assistance related to CyberLink Products. Use the below mentioned link to get back to us for your further queries:


Glad it has been recognized by support atleast

Quote: Here it is

Dear Daniel,

Thank you for writing back.

Please note that our RD has successfully reproduced this issue in our lab. This issue is now in queue for analysis. The root cause is unknown for now. Thanks for reporting this issue.

Glad to see that Tech Support has recognized this issue and plan to take steps to correct it. Meanwhile, your work-around, described here:

Quote: Correct, my source files are MP4.. convert to h264, as lossless as possible to ensure I get the audio bitrate at what I want too, then Handbrake to shrink (convert the file back to MP4).

seems to be the best solution until this defect is corrected. Thanks! Dell Precision 7510 Laptop
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit | Intel(R) XEON(R) CPU E3-1505M v5 @2.80 GHz
RAM: 32 GB
Windows Experience Index 7.5

thnx for the reply

Another question:

I record my keyboard in my computer and then i vid it. But the audio of my video isn't that great so i sync my audio that I recorded with my video together in PD, could this cause problems to?

Do I have to save in h.264 or can I save in mp4 then?

Quote: Another question:

I record my keyboard in my computer and then i vid it. But the audio of my video isn't that great so i sync my audio that I recorded with my video together in PD, could this cause problems to?

Do I have to save in h.264 or can I save in mp4 then?

On the last few times, it didnt matter if I used the sych separate audio method or not, it still caused wrong bitrate on MP4.
So i suggest you stick to H264 for now.