VFSource 4.6.2 Release Notes

Salient Sciences 2015

Contents

VFSource 4.6 Installation

This page provides information on downloading and installing VFSource 4.6 and provides a review of the new features.

Downloading VFSource 4.6

The latest version of the VFSource 4.6 installer can be downloaded from the following link page.

Save the download executable to a convenient location on your computer and when the download is complete run the executable to unpack the installer and automatically start the install process. The download file is an offline installer and can also be used to install VFSource on a machine other than the machine on which it was downloaded.

Running VFSource 4.6 and previous VFSource versions

If your machine has an Internet connection you should be able to install VFSource 4.6 alongside older versions of VFSource and run either but not both simultaneously (i.e. close 4.6 before opening older version and vice versa). Note that you can open your existing 4.5 cases in 4.6 using the File->Open Case menu, however cases (including existing 4.5 cases) that have been changed using version 4.6 will typically not open again 4.5. In general if you wish to work on a case created in an earlier version of VFSource we recommend creating a backup of the case (e.g. create a separate copy of the case directory and its contents) prior to opening it in 4.6

Activating VFSource 4.6 with a Dongle

VideoFOCUS dongles can only store one product activation at a time. For those users with a dongle and without an Internet connection on your computer please contact Salient Sciences for further information about upgrading. For those users with an Internet connection the dongle will be upgraded to a VFSource 4.6 code when VFSource 4.6 is first run. (The dongle can be downgraded back to a prior version code by running the older VFSource while the Internet is connected.)

Activating VFSource 4.6 with a Software Key

Running VFSource 4.6 requires an activation update from our license server and you will be prompted for your Installation ID when VFSource 4.6 is first run. Please use the Installation ID that you have been using for your VFSource 4.1 (this can be found under the Help->About menu of the installed version). If you wish to try VFSource 4.6 on a different computer please contact us.

New Features in VFSource 4.6

Fast Import For Many Media Formats

VideoFOCUS 4.6 has eliminated the need for transcode for a wide variety of video media formats. As a consequence import time for long duration or large frame size video are substantially reduced (in certain cases two orders of magnitude). Furthermore the disk space use for the import of such media is reduced substantially.

VideoFOCUS import now consists of a copy phase to create a copy of the media within the project storage with time taken comparable to a regular file copy and if required an indexing phase to produce an accurate frame index for those media types lacking a native frame index. Indexing is typically needed only for the import of media originally produced for live streaming.

Improved Player Performance for HD Video

This version includes a revised architecture for media handling which supports a more efficient approach to playing video. This provides notable improvements in player performance particularly for imported media with temporal compression and HD (1366x768 line) and higher frame dimensions.

The new import facilities allow for the efficient import of HD and larger frame sizes however many processing operations are intensive and for HD sized video require considerable computation per frame. Although HD video player performance is greatly improved, depending on the processing operations applied, playing processed HD video may result frame skipping if computation cannot keep up. If necessary the "self contained" option in the modify dialog can be used to create a rendered copy of the processed video to improve player performance.

Simplified Export

The export dialog has been upgraded to present a goal oriented approach to selecting export formats and codecs. The new dialog offers a set of default export profiles that represent appropriate choices of format and video and audio codecs for specific tasks such as full quality archive, email and high quality reduced space exports.

Export Profile Editor

Facilities are included under an "Advanced" panel to allow users to define their own export profiles appropriate for their export needs. Profiles can be constructed from a number of different media formats and accompanying audio and video codecs. User created profiles become available exactly like predefined system profiles as selectable output types in the export dialog.

When creating a user defined export profile consideration should be given to the fact that not all combinations of formats and codecs will create valid files. It is therefore suggested that any new profile is tested with familiar media and the anticipated media player to confirm that output is as expected before using more generally for export.

Of the three common players, QuickTime, WMP and VLC, we have found the VLC player to be the most accommodating in handling different formats, codecs, media frame rates and dimensions etc.

Demultiplex

The ability to demultiplex video containing video frames from multiple camera views is now available in VFSource. The processing dialog allows for demultiplexing where the number of cameras is unknown and does not rely on any special encoding provided by the multiplexing hardware so can be applied to any video.

Known Issues in version 4.6

Issues that have been discovered but not yet addressed are listed below

• Applying a negative time offset in the modify panel sync control to media with negative audio track start times may cause instability in the resulting media.
• Although the interface allows the drag and drop of stills into the video area the resulting video is not correct. The video editor should be used to compose a video from stills.
• If a large number of images are exported at once via drag and drop the application may become temporarily unresponsive while all the images are created and saved to the disk.
• Exporting long duration videos with audio as AVI may not always play in Windows Media Player, but will play in VLC.

Features Introduced in Previous Versions

Introduced in Version 4.5

Audio Support

VFSource 4.5 introduces support for audio manipulation and gain control for audio that is present in a video and for audio that is standalone.

Audio Import

The import capabilities of VFSource are extended to allow for the import of audio media files. When supported media files containing audio are selected in the import dialog the import review player can be used to play the file. When opened an audio item will be added into the captured and imported session area.

Audio Project Items

Audio only media that is part of a VFSource case is displayed in the captured and imported session area and depicted by a speaker icon. Audio items can be viewed in the player in the same way as video items. The player shows a visualization of the audio signal that follows the play head position and the zoom control can be used to view fine structure of the audio signal down to the individual sample values.

Audio Extract and Combine

Extract

Video containing audio offers an additional "Extract Audio" action from the item popup menu or from the processing menu. The extract audio action will create an audio only project item containing all the audio tracks from the selected video.

Combine

When two or more audio items or a video item and one or more audio items are selected the combine popup or processing menu item will be available. In the case of an all audio selection the combine action will produce a new audio item containing all the tracks of the selected items, extending shorter duration audio items by silence where necessary. In the case of a combine with video the selected audio items will either be clipped or extended to match the duration of the video.

Audio Modification

The modify panel now supports basic audio modifications on audio or video items. When modifying a video item containing audio the panel contains an additional "Audio Properties" tab containing the controls. Changes in audio properties are reflected in real time in the modify player.

• Sync Adjust The sync adjust control allows for the relative advance or delay of a selected sub set of audio channels in the media.
• Channel Select The channel select control allows for the retention of a selected sub set of audio channels in the media. The other channels are removed from the audio or video item.
• Channel Mix When two channels are selected the channel mix "Stereo Balance" option provides the ability to adjust the balance between the two channels. When two or more channels are selected the "Mono" option will perform a equal weight mix of each channel to produce a single channel output.

Video Processing

The levels adjust filter can now be run on video in addition to still images.

Audio Processing

Audio gain control is available for audio items and video items containing audio. The operation can be selected through the Filter->Audio menu. The interface is the same as the video filter, offering original and processed displays, with the processed display player providing a real time update to audio and signal visualization for changes made to any of the processing parameters.

Media Player Updates

Looping and Selection Play

"Loop Play" and "Play Selection" menu items are now in the player popup menu and the view menu of the undocked player window.

The play selection will make the player play only the selected section of the video or audio instead of the entire duration of the media.

Loop play will cause the player to loop continually over the section selected for play. If loop play is selected when a selection of more than one frame is present the play selection option will also turn on resulting in the looping play of the selected section of media.

A shortcut to the loop play menu item is provided by a loop button in the player to the right of the time selection slider.

Volume Controls

The media player interface now provides a volume control and an audio mute button.

Audio Signal Visualization

When the media player is used to view video containing audio the "Audio Signal" popup menu item will control the visualization of the audio signal as a waveform. Each channel is displayed with channel 0 being the closest to the bottom of the player window.

The signal visualization is limited to a maximum time window of 10 seconds centered around the current displayed frame. The specific position in the audio signal corresponding to the currently viewed frame is indicated by the vertical white bar. The visualized audio signal time window adjusts according to the time scale sensitivity selected by the timescale zoom slider control

Introduced in Version 4.1

VideoFOCUS Video Format Converter

The VFSource 4.1 install now includes the VideoFOCUS Video Format Converter plugin install. This plugin provides extensive support for a wide variety of media formats and codecs and provides VFSource with the ability to import video with accompanying audio from a wide range of media file types.

If the VideoFOCUS Video Format Converter installation is successfully completed during the VFSource install no further action is needed to use this capability. VFSource will use this plugin to transcode all non MOV files to an uncompressed MOV format for subsequent processing within the application.

Batch Image Import

Image Sequences

VFSource now provides full support for the import of image sequences. Multiple images, typically representing a time sequence, can be imported directly and will be transcoded at a user specified frame rate into a video. This capability is available when using either the media import dialog or drag and drop import.

VFSource will automatically detect cases where multiple images could be considered as an image sequence and will order the images intelligently according to the filename name of each image in the sequence. An option to handle such sequences as a regular batch image import is also available.

Unified Media Import Dialog

The image and video import dialogs have been unified into a single new import dialog. This dialog allows for the individual and batch import of both images and video and the import of image sequences. To make selecting media to import simpler the dialog contains a visualization panel with a media player that allows for the instant review of video and images prior to their import.

If a set of images is selected all with a common file type the dialog will offer the option either to import them as individual images or as an image sequence.

Drag and Drop Import and Export

VFSource now supports drag and drop for media import and image export.

Drag and Drop Media Import

VFSource will import media files that are dropped into the application. Individual or multiple video files can imported by dragging from the desktop or a file explorer and dropping them into the "Captured and Imported Sessions" area. Similarly individual or multiple image files can be imported by dropping them into the "Session Stills and Frames" area.

Collections of two or more image files of the same type can be also be dragged into the "Captured and Imported Sessions" area and they will be imported as an image sequence. When these items are dropped VFSource will prompt for the desired frame rate for the video.

Drag and Drop Image Export

VFSource can export video frames and images using drag and drop. When frames are selected from the video thumbnail view or images from the "Session Stills and Frames" area they can be dragged out of the application and dropped into a suitable location such as the desktop or a file explorer window. The images will be saved in the image file format specified in the Edit->Preference dialog.

Internal Drag and Drop of Images

In addition to import and export drag and drop, drag and drop can be used to copy individual or selections of frames from the thumbnail video view into "Session Stills and Frames" view. Frame thumbnails may also be dropped into "Captured and Imported Sessions" to produce a video.

Administrator Privilege No Longer Required

VFSource no longer requires elevated privileges when running.

This change allows for more flexibility in user security configuration on systems where VFSource is installed and reduces the risk of inadvertent modification of protected material. It does however mean that permissions on the file system must be configured sufficiently to allow each VFSource user full control over areas designated for storage of their cases or for any cases that they wish to open. (VFSource does not yet support read only access to cases). In order to support per user configuration all settings established from within VFSource including open case lists are stored on a per user basis.

Introduced in Version 4.0

Cases

VFSource 4.0 introduces the concept of cases to allow for better organization and management of separate work efforts. Each case is displayed as a tab of the main window and the contents of each tab are the familiar 'Sessions' and 'Stills' windows of previous versions of VFSource.

The following case related actions can be found under the 'File' menu.

• New Case Creates a new empty case. The location of new cases can be changed by changing the in the directory specified in the preferences dialog ('Edit'->'Preferences').
• Open Case Opens an existing case directory. Cases are identified in the open dialog by a VFSource icon. When a case is opened a tab will be added in the main window containing the case contents.
• Archive Case Creates a complete zip archive of the entire contents of the case. The zip archive contains can be un-zipped at a later date and then opened using the 'Open Case' action.
• Close Case Closes the tab associated with the case. This does not delete any of the case data. The case can be re-opened using the Open Case action.

Notes on Case Media

Video and image data may be freely copied between cases (using copy and paste). When pasting into a different project VFSource will create a copy of the media. This ensures that the data will be still be available in the destination project if the source project is deleted or relocated.

The same applies for imported media. VFSource 4.0 will create its own internal copy of imported images and video and will not require access to the source material after a successful import.

Images

Images can now be imported into VFSource. Images are imported using the 'File'->'Import Image' action and will appear in the 'Session Stills and Frames' panel. Once imported the image is treated just like any other still and can be processed as such.

Other Features

A rotation option has been added to the modify panel ('Processing'->'Modify'). This allows for the arbitrary rotation of both images and video by a specified number of degrees.

The WAV file type option has been added to movie export. This will be available if the session being exported (or any session in the case of a batch export) contains audio. It will produce a WAV format audio file.

The screen capture source selection dialog can now be resized to allow for more precise selection of the capture window area.

Change Log

This list contains the changes for both the VideoFOCUS Pro and VFSource products, however not every version is offered as public release for both products.

This list will be updated with information on fixes as new versions of VideoFOCUS are made available for download.