Starlight mini won't export - Unrecognized FFmpeg option: 'aq-strength'

[rob.weber]

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Starlight mini won’t export - receive error, unrecognized FFmpeg option: ‘aq-strength’

I have updated graphics drivers, full uninstall of TVAI7 and reinstalled but same error using Starlight mini on multiple different sources.

TVAI also is not saving projects, every time I open TVAI, it opens to a blank project screen. Previous projects are wiped after every restart.

2025-05-15-10-25-42-Main.tzlog.txt (86.5 KB)

[jonas.klose]

I experience similar issues.

The one I encounter most is this one:

• Unrecognized FFmpeg option: ‘b_ref_mode’.

But I also encountered ‘2’ as unrecognized option. It seems that the parameters with which ffmeg are called are invalid. I also tried to replace the built-in version of ffmpeg with a current full build of ffmpeg but that didn’t change anything.

Here are some parameters that failed:

ffmpeg -f rawvideo -framerate 30/1 -pix_fmt rgb24 -s 1280x1600 -i pipe: -aq-strength 15 -b:v 0 -b_ref_mode disabled -bf 0 -c:v hevc_nvenc -g 30 -movflags frag_keyframe+empty_moov+delay_moov+use_metadata_tags+write_colr -pix_fmt yuv420p -preset p7 -profile:v main -qp 17 -rc constqp -rc-lookahead 20 -spatial_aq 1 -tag:v hvc1 -tune hq ???/797563321.mkv -vsync passthrough -y

[jonas.klose]

I just noticed: The ffmpeg version that is loaded on my computer isn’t the one from the directory of Topaz Video AI. Instead it’s the one that came with ImageMagick that I’ve installed, too. ImageMagick added its version of ffmpeg to the global Path variable.

@TopazSupport:
Topaz Video AI should force to use its own version of ffmpeg and only load other versions that are included in the Path variable or in a different directory when the user tells it to.

I will remove the Path variable (at least for testing) and will see if that changes the issue in any way.

[jonas.klose]

@rob.weber
Can you check whether you have another version of ffmpeg on your system, too, that conflicts with the one in Topaz Video AI? If you open a regular command prompt with cmd or Terminal (in Windows 11) and type ffmpeg.exe or .\ffmpeg.exe, you should get a file not found error if no version is installed and the ffmpeg help if any version is installed globally on your computer.

[rob.weber]

I ran ffmpeg.exe at command line and it does appear that it opened, per attached,

would this not be from the built in ffmpeg in TVAI though?

[rob.weber]

I’ve also tried various codecs and get the Unrecognized FFmpeg opton, but the give various other reasons, here is latest log
2025-05-15-13-42-55-Main.tzlog.txt (194.7 KB)

[jonas.klose]

Update: After removing all ImageMagick directories from my Path variable, encoding works as expected. It’s slow, but it’s running.

@TopazSupport:
You should try to recreate, post a known issue and workaround and ideally fix this in the next version.

[jonas.klose]

It’s probably not. The version bundled with Topaz is from 2025, the one you show in your screenshot is from 2024. Can you have a look at your Path variables to see whether there’s another conflicting version of ffmeg that’s loaded from there?

You can follow this guide:
How To Add/Edit Path Environment Variable In Windows 11

You can see the important information on your computer as seen in step 6 of that guide.

Edit:
That’s not entirely true. While the Topaz version was actually compiled in 2025, they still use an older version from 2024, but a different one.

[jonas.klose]

@rob.weber
According to your screenshot before and your log, your version of Topaz Video AI loads an ffmpeg version 7.0. However bundled with the current version of Video AI 7 is 7.1.

Your output:
ffmpeg version 7.0 Copyright (c) 2000-2024 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 9.3-win32 (GCC) 20200320

Version installed in my Topaz Video AI folder:
ffmpeg version 7.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2024 the FFmpeg developers
built with Microsoft (R) C/C++ Optimizing Compiler Version 19.43.34809 for x64

This seems like something is off on your computer.

[kyle.topazlabs]

Thank you for sharing this, I have sent it to the devs to review along with the follow ups from you and Jonas to help with resolving the issues in a future patch update.