VideoReDo TVSuite & Professional - General Discussion Thread

[Marayong]

I'm not getting the pop-up, either when I open VRD directly or dragging and dropping a video onto a VRD link in explorer. I'm running the latest VRD6 non pro on W11.

In settings I have the following under "Automatic version checks"
* Check for new versions - set to 'disable'
* check daily for new builds etc - unticked
* Request permission to access internet - ticked

Note that there are three settings you need to adjust to block internet access.

On a different note ... as we all know VRD fully supports H264 and provides some support for H265. Time marches on and H266 is now on the market and H267 is now under development.

[Bridgy]

H265 has a lot more support in VRD than some might think, and the only problem that i now have with H265 (HEVC) in VRD is when i need to add titles to my 4k/60p files, it just doesn't work properly, and this is what Dan Rosen was working on at the time of his passing, but i have developed my own method of creating titles so that problem is now fixed.

I thought the lag that i was getting in the timeline and the video preview screen with my 4k/60p HEVC files was also due to issues with 4k HEVC, but it turned out to be my Metabox laptop just not having the grunt to handle it, my new Dell Pro Max SFF PC with the Ultra 7 265 CPU has sped that process up quite a lot now.

Video formats can be very confusing, H266 is supposed to be competing with AV1 but AV1 is already well advanced so i personally think AV1 is really competing with H265 (HEVC) and not H266 as expected, but AV1 is still not that well implemented into consumer hardware/cameras yet.

The so called H266 will most likely be competing with AV2 and not H267 as it was meant to be doing, but anything beyond AV1 and H265 i think are simply too far away, and i doubt we will ever see H266, H267, and AV2 in any consumer grade cameras, least not for a very long time, and i think that AV1 and AV2 might prevail over H266 or H267 because of the free royalty thing, which is one of it's main features.

Personally i don't see any point in moving from 4k and HEVC in phones and consumer video cameras, and i certainly won't be moving from it any time soon, so VRD will always be ok for me for the next 5 years at least.

[Bridgy]

Been pretty quiet in here lately, anyway, got the following news to share.

In reference to my original VRD Pro that was activated on my Metabox laptop (Win 10 pro) back in 2019, and was updated to the last Beta build just before Dan passed away.

I have finally worked out a way to install it and activate it on my Dell Pro Max desktop PC using the original license, it is no longer locked to the Windows 10 Metabox laptop, but it now won't work any more on that laptop.

This was an impossible thing to do with the Pro version since Dan passed away because of the way in which Dan set up the activation server, anyone who wanted it installed on a new computer had to ask Dan for a new activation code so it would be deactivated on the previous machine first, so what i have done seems to mimic what Dan used to do, only using the same serial key.

The Machine ID code had to be changed from my Metabox laptop to my Dell PC, which took a long time to work out how to do.

If this crashes out on my Dell PC then i will most likely lose my VRD activation all together.

[mocarob]

I have a HEVC file that VRD 6 Pro shuts down as soon as it gets to the first cut. I adjusted the TS mux rate but it didn't help.
It doesn't matter where I put the cut, I still have the same issue. I even ran it thru TS Doctor - no errors.. I was able to cut the file in half but any time I try to cut a commercial it has this problem. Any advice? Do the cuts have to be on key frames? If so, I see B's & P's showing on screen when looking at single frames. What do they signify? TIA

[Bridgy]

I don't use VRD for TV broadcast stuff so i can't help you, my use for VRD for the past 15 years has been for working with video recorded on a camera, so my usage is very different.

Be aware that the HEVC format was still being developed at the time of Dan Rosen passing away, and obviously VRD has never been continued with development, but the only issues i have had with VRD and HEVC is on my 4k recorded files, doing my cuts was or is a very slow process as the seeking in the timeline is laggy, if i work with 1080p HEVC files it is ok.

VRD is frame accurate with cut points, no need to cut on keyframes that i am aware of.

[Bridgy]

In the following link below, some person keeps going on about this so called "Smart Media Cutter" tool and how superior it is to any other cutting tool out there, including VRD, and suggesting that SMC will out do VRD, well they fail to remember that VRD is not just a cutting tool, it also converts to other video formats too, something that SMC and even LosslessCut cannot do, the issue with VRD is that it is no longer being developed, if it was, then imagine just how far it would have advanced during the past 3.5 years since Dan Rosen passed away, these other Tool developers would not even stand a chance.

I tested one of my 4k/60p HEVC files in VRD, LosslessCut, and SMC to show how each one handles playback of the file (let alone try to seek to cut points) and the results speak for themselves.

SMC was by far the worst of the 3 as far as playback and the shit quality of the video file in the preview screen.

VRD was better, still a bit laggy, but the preview screen is better than SMC.

LosslessCut is hands down and by far the best tool for handling these 4k/60p HEVC files, no lag in preview mode or in the timeline seeking, and the quality of the video in the preview screen is stunning compared to the others.

I still don't get why these developers cannot create or mimic the cutting tool setup the same as it is in VRD, some seem to claim that it does, but that is crap, it may look a bit like it, but it certainly doesn't work the same.

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/415875-Smart-Media-Cutter/page2#post2793873

[Alwyn]

@Bridgy, I suggest you take your foul-mouthed language and toxic attitude somewhere else. You're an embarrassment to Australia. There are other civil ways of getting your point across without carrying on like a complete knob.

[Bridgy]

@Bridgy, I suggest you take your foul-mouthed language and toxic attitude somewhere else. You're an embarrassment to Australia. There are other civil ways of getting your point across without carrying on like a complete knob.

You know what you can do with your stupid comments, you always had a beef with me so you need to stay away from my business and just keep your own fingers off your keyboard.

I have no idea what you mean by my Foul Mouth Language, but if people in forums want to make stupid claims about something, then they need to accept that some might come back and have a go at them.

SMC has issues, i am not the only one saying it, maybe those users are just too dam scared to say it like it really is.

You have made about 6 posts in this thread and not contributed anything in those, so i recommend that if you don't like what i say, then go find another hole to bury your head in, and stay out of my business, or post content about the topic of the thread, not poke insults.

[Marayong]

bridgy .. good news the licence transfer worked. I trust you fully documented everything so you know what to do when you next upgrade the PC running VRD. I presume you are imaging the drive so if the drive carks it, you can pop in a replacement and still have VRD working .. assuming the the VRD Pro licencing transfers via cloning/imaging (as long as the Machine ID doesn't change.

mocarob ... whilst I do use VRD to cut out adverts, my hardware records as H264 (and I don't have VRD pro), so I can't replicate your issue. Maybe try turning hardware acceleration & encoding off for VRD. There have also been a few reports of people having issues with VRD & HEVC files because VRD does not support the latest codecs. There have also been reports of o/s updates breaking VRD for some videos, especially those with new codecs. The only solution I can think of would be to run the unedited files through handbrake (or similar) and convert them to an older codec or even H264 and then seeing if they will edit with VRD. BTW, I assume you have a licenced install of VRD and not a trial version - since VRD is payware, any trial version is of course going to be crippled.

As for smart media cutter .. I also had a look at it a while back and agree, compared to VRD it is rubbish. Mind you, it does work as an editor, but the results are subpar and its capabilities inferior to other pay-to-use and even free software. Maybe it will improve with time. It'd be great if there was a decent single replacement for VRD.

[Bridgy]

Yes, but SMC needs to add the Export to other formats feature to make it even remotely close to VRD, and this has always been my issue when people out there make these stupid claims that XXX software is going to be better than VRD, when it is absolutely impossible unless they add every feature to their software that VRD has had since it was created.

Give us a better smart cutting tool, and an option to export to other formats, and do both better than VRD.

As for cloning my current Dell Pro Max drive with VRD, yes i always run my Hasleo Disk Clone Pro every sunday night to my spare Crucial T500 drive so i can toss it into the PC if my current X-Lite drive fail.

I have tested the VRD license activation on another laptop yesterday by running a clone from my Dell Pro Mac PC onto the NVMe drive from that laptop, and when it booted up, windows ran it's usual driver updates for the Dell laptop, and glad to report that even though the Dell laptop has a different hardware ID code than the Dell PC, my VRD stayed active as we hoped it would.

Previously without my mod, if i cloned my original windows 10 drive from my metabox laptop onto the drive from another PC or laptop, the original VRD would not be activated any more, now we have overcome this issue with the mod that we created, so i can now install it on any machine and apply the original activation key given to me by Dan Rosen, and it will over ride the hardware ID and register.

Would be nice if certain members of this forum would mind their business and stay away from this thread if they are not able or capable of adding something relating to the topic instead of throwing mud all the time.

[Marayong]

Absolutely. My hardware records in the ts format, a format that is not particularly noted for widespread hardware playability. But it is a good recording format since there is little processing done as it is recorded, which means less demand on the computer and less chances of glitches in the recording. For me, an editor being able to save as a different format, be it mp4 or mkv, is absolutely essential. If the editor/cutter does not do that, then for my uses it is rubbish. After all, converting from one format to another is not exactly a complicated process ... there are plenty of freeware/open source software that does just that which the producers of any editing software could incorporate. So any editor that does not also offer that ability is, as I said, rubbish.

Looks like your modification (or that of your tech mate, more to the point) has done the job and made a licenced VRD pro install transferable to another computer just as was already possible with the non-pro version.

[Bridgy]

Yeah, it's ok for some to use a stand alone cutting tool, if it is absolutely frame accurate and not rely on working properly on cuts made on Key frames only, then use another stand alone video converter, but as i have already found out with cutting my files with LosslessCut, when i import the file into VRD then i have issues with the final exported file, and more so if i also try to add my own custom titles made using a different tool.

I have not bothered to try cutting out a 4k/60p HEVC file with SMC because the file is almost unplayable in the preview window and on the timeline below it, so getting cuts done is impossible, so i probably won't know if VRD will play nicely with those files anyway, but i could try testing with a 4k/60p AVC file from my camera and see what happens.

At least SMC does support cutting and playback of 4k/60p AVC files.

EDIT: i wonder if the SMC paid for version will support my 4k/60p HEVC files without any of the issues i have with the free version, and i wonder what do we get in the paid version that is not supported in the free version ???

At least LosslessCut not only supports 4k/60p HEVC, it also supports 8k video as well, if only the developer would sort out the frame accurate cutting, i would use it in a heart beat.

[Marayong]

It's all about horses for courses ... SMC may be suitable for some users .. many even ... but not everyone has the same needs and any piece of software may meet the needs of one person and not another. For me, every time you manipulate a file, you run the risk of introducing glitches or degrading the quality, so I [refer to do everything at once, which VRD does. For degrading quality ... think old school with making a copy of a copy of a copy of a cassette tape. Or photocopying a photocopy. Each time you process it, you lose quality. Sure, that's analogue media and VRD etc edits digital files, but the principle remains.

For the time being, I'm only recording as H264, so no need to look beyond VRD as long as it continues to work. The only worry I have is if a future windows upgrade breaks VRD .. and if that happens, I'll just run VRD in a VRD-compatable Windows VM, whether I buy a Win11 licence for the VM or use a Win7 licence I have lying around.

[Bridgy]

yep, i agree, we all have different needs, especially me, because i only ever edit or convert video files from a camera, i don't do TV broadcast stuff.

I might as well go back to recording video in 4k/60p AVC given there is no visible image quality difference between that and HEVC (except for lower file size) and then do my editing in VRD, then export to HEVC in 4k or 1080p as required.

when my mum passed away last month i recorded her memorial service and cremation, it decided to record it in 4k/60p AVC @ 71.0Mbps (for editing purposes) and it was 40 minutes long after editing, the file size was 20gb, i did the titles and credit, then converted it to 4k/60p HEVC in VRD and it came down to 13.8gb, i then exported the finished 4k/60p AVC file to 1080p hevc and it ended up at 3gb in size, and this is the file that i used to share the video privately in Youtube, and to send a download link to those who wanted a copy of the video.

Imagine sending people a link to download a 20.0gb video file ?