Seriously, everything about navigating (original or preview), the timeline, etc. is a hot mess.
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Some devices NEED the black bars to properly display a 4:3 video. Otherwise they will try to stretch it.
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this! Because somehow for changing framerate Cronos is used anyway, right? Right??? 
Anyhow, resizing with lancros is not indicated anyway anywhere and itās counterintuitive to use AI program to upscale with Lancros. Like some popup could tell me if I click on only resize āWARNING! No AI will be used for upscale, only Lancros filter. To use AI - enable enhance!ā. Another popup on framerate change: āWARNING, no AIā¦ You get the idea?ā or āDefault model for frramerate is Chronos Fast v2, to change it, enable slow motion choose model and set it to 100%ā.
Once again, I think this division is confusing. Enhance and resize should be in one card. Slowmotion and change framerate in another card. So model or lancros or frame interpolation would be chosen clearly and by the user. Unlessā¦ popupsā¦ and we clearly donāt want that. Or there should be lists in resize/change framerate cards.
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Black bars are evil, unless for Nolan or cases you descibed in your last sentence. But thos would be done in post anyway, so. No to black bars, yes to correct aspect ratio (change aspect ratio).
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On that note, there could be a clear indicator for a non optimal resize. For example card design:
[Resize/enhance V( o)] - card name, card expanded (enabled)
[resize: ]
[150% ]
[Suggested model: ] - this string would say Manually selectted if parameter below is selected manually.
[Lancros ]V] - model selector with options. another option could be Proteus x2 downscaled with Lancros
Model parameters (auto) <] - colapsed model parameters
The same principals could be applyed to frame rate/slowmotion
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Can you please send me your log file from the same timestamp of the error from Logging > Open Log Folder? If you could also send me a screenshot of your Preferences > Folders in the app, please. Thank you!
Just tried out the latest beta and here are some comments regarding Stabilization:
-The stabilizing on some old vhs SD clips are great, better than others Iāve used like New Blue/Vegas. Will test more clips.
-The mp4 output is unusual. When trying to import the stabilized file into Vegas Pro, the video does not import, just the audio. I have to reconvert with handbrake to make it work.
-A number of my HD and SD file formats would not work which I have uploaded to dropbox for Topaz to check out.
Just to confirm I believe to prevent zooming in of the stabilized file, I need to go to āresizeā and choose āsame as inputā as well as āfull frameā for method.
Thanks for working on this. Proper stabilization is something Iāve been looking for unsuccessfully the last 10 years.
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Then those devices are not worthy for showing AI upscaled video! jokes aside, are you really really sure, there are no settings hidden somewhere deep for the original aspect ratio? Didnāt see a device without those in a long time! And if thatās really the case, there are cheap TV boxes that will show you anything on anything with any aspect ratio. Iām not saying, you shouldnāt bring up this issue, Iām just saying maybe thereās a cheaper/less time-consuming solution to your āproblemā. Because even black bars should be encoded and it will take some seconds of your computer/life. And I think, you will upgrade that monitor/VR glases/player/TV or whaterver to something more compatible in the (not too distant) future anyway.
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Have you tryed PRODad Mercalli? Didnāt test stabilization recently, but it was less capable than pro dad a few app generations below - Topaz could not correct sensor shift and warp. Anyway, Iām crossing fingers for a great stabilisation in Topaz app too!
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The Mercalli is a great stabilization software, it is much better than Premiere Pro Warp stabilization. They have just released a new version V6, which claim to use AI as well. (I havenāt tried V6 yet, I only used the V5.)
Quote: āArtificial Intelligence Applicationā automatically adjusts all parameters for optimal stabilization and CMOS correction, making it easy for you to produce amazing results where even the previous Mercalli version reached its limits.
It seem that the new Mercalli only use AI for adjust setting, so I believe VEAI real AI stabilization approach should have higher potential. VEAI stabilization will get better & better if they spend more time on training the AI model.
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Thanks for your replies rarimas and lhkjacky. I have tried two different versions of mercalli and they just did not work well for my vhs/dvd sourced audience filmed concert footage. New Blue was a lot better and my go to for a number of years
Strangely Iāve just tried stabilizing a second video clip and it did not work at all in Topaz. The after is almost the same as the before. Iāve noticed a similar situation with New Blue and Mercalli on some clips where the result is worse than the original. I wonder if itās the way the footage has been mastered via computer software or the specific dvd recorder that had been used that creates a recognition problem for the stabilizers.
I do believe in VEAI and feel they will come up with the ultimate stabilizer.
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Whatever path I try, in Preferences, I keep getting an error about the path being invalidā¦canāt even get to the start screen.
(MacBook Air M1, MacOS Monterey 12.5)
Why is the āLock output size to scaleā on/off toggle missing from the Resize section? Without it, I donāt see a way to customize my aspect ratio output (I want the ability to output 2920 x 2160, like I can easily do in 2.6.4). Please add this back in! EDIT: I just found the crop tool but thatās super counterintuitive and is not easy to use whatsoever. Plus, it only works to crop the input, when what I want to do is specify the output size.
And yeah, the timeline section is definitely a hot mess. Canāt even move the slider back and forth without it jumping while dragging it, and then when I let go of the mouse and do nothing, the slider still keeps moving back and forth on its own and wonāt stop. Yikes.
Also, what happened to frame numbers? I get the whole timecode thing but there are a lot of us who would like some sort of toggle to see the timeline in frames instead of timecode.
I also lose at least one frame when using Dione DV 2x FPS with custom scale set to 1080 px height, and no other processing done, no audio. (audio is added in later) Some times, hundreds of frames are lost. The Alpha 3.0.0.40a also seems to lose at least one frame in every clip, but I didnāt see it losing more than that. This messes with audio sync, not good!
Nice to see 16bpc support, Iād also like to see OpenEXR support for image sequences (import and export) and 32bpc processing would be great for visual effects and animation. VEAI works pretty nicely for upscaling and would be nice to have it in a pipeline. One alternative is something like NNSuperResolution for Nuke which has far worse performance and isnāt visually as good imo but a problem with VEAI is that it doesnāt seem to handle color transformations well, even if I bring in LOG footage (since I canāt use linear EXRs), it seems to mess with the values a lot when converted back into rec709 as well as some other visual artifacts which seem to be caused by the upscaling process.
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the one frame loss was all the time for me, in the 2.x.x version. but noticed that when using mkv as input, it was worst. and Avi, much worst.
iāll have to do more test to see if itās happening again, because what i reported earlier, exept with Avi/Xvid, the issue disapeared. maybe it was related to the fact i played the avi / xvid file before. iāll check that later.
used chronos with the avi/divx, and artemis for the mp4 file, so it seems itās more related to a change of Fps.
Out of curiosity, what is the definition of the Allow Recovery switch in the preferences? Now that VEAI is actually copying audio Iām wondering what this setting is forā¦
This is just my guess but Iām going to assume it will allow you to resume paused/stopped/crashed export jobs. Pretty sure itās just a placeholder until they actually implement it though.
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I had the same issue (MacOS 12.4 - M1 Pro) and mariolqnetoās advice worked for me. There should be a prompt upon first start-up that asks for the specific permissions needed.
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