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Rhozet Carbon updates
2.01.68 released
2.03.07 released
2.04.08 released
2.05.16 released
2.50 released
2.51 released





April 23rd, 2007 by Thomas Flummer

Rhozet Carbon 2.50 release notes

New Features:

New Import & Export Format Support

  • Avid MediaStream import and export (selected formats, not all legacy formats are supported).

  • Sony XDCAM HD import and export (including MPEG-4 proxy).

  • MPEG-2 audio 302M import and export.

  • Flash 7 import and export.

New Import-Only Formats

  • Panasonic P2-HD import.

  • QT-wrapped (.MOV file) HDV import.

  • QT-wrapped (.MOV file) IMX import.

  • SCC subtitling file import.

  • CC line 21 parsing from sources with VBI sections.

New Export-Only Formats

  • MPEG-2 ATSC export.

  • MPEG-2 CableLabs export.

  • MPEG-2 DVB export.

  • Leitch LXF long-GOP export.

  • Dolby Digital AC-3 export (import for preview of exported streams).

  • Quantel 720p and 1080i export.

  • Subtitling information export as XML file.

  • Carbon Coder interleaves ANSI/SCTE 20 closed caption and A/53B closed caption (aka EIA-708 closed caption in ATSC stream) into a CableLabs stream in a way defined in ANSI/SCTE 43 as required by the CableLabs specification (MD-SP-VOD-CEP-I01-040107). Since ANSI/SCTE 43 keeps the compatibility with A/53B, Carbon Coder uses the same method for other transport stream closed caption formats such as ATSC.

Other New Features

  • Marker metadata insertion into targets.

  • Gridded HDV exporter.

  • Gridded Fast Preview DVD exporter. This is a very fast preview-quality VOB exporter. If you need the normal high quality VOB exporter it is still available of course, but the Fast Preview can be useful for large projects where very quick turn-around time is needed for previews.

  • Gridded QuickTime I-frame only formats DNxHD, DVCPro, etc.

  • XML Titler now supports Image Scripting (specifying time placement of image overlays via XML).

Fixes & Improvements:

General Functionality

  • QT7 output multi-channel audio support.

  • Source segments (only decodes selected segment, not entire source file) selectable at frame precision.

  • Accelerated source segment handling.

  • Audio sync problems with duration changes during standards conversion NTSC to/from PAL.

  • Exports to GV servers with limited file-name lengths can now overwrite existing files or create new filenames with 11 randomly generated digits as part of the target filename.

  • Transcoding options are now sent per-job, from Carbon Coder to Carbon Server, and from Carbon Server to individual transcoding agents.

  • Speed of HD transcodes with equal frame heights improved.

  • Improved quality for conversions involving frame rate conversion plus scaling plus aspect ratio changes.

  • Improved target file naming in situations where video files do not contain audio and external audio files are selected.

  • Improved audio sync issues in MPEG-2 TS frame rate conversions.

Codecs/Formats

  • VOB import improved.

  • VOB export improved.

  • H.264 export improved.

  • Quantel MXF exporter can export audio tracks 3 and 4.

  • WMV importer handles multi-stream files with some empty streams, highest bitrate stream is automatically selected, but Carbon still allows for manual or API selection of other streams.

  • AAC source handling.

  • Omneon HD import.

  • Improved MPEG importer.

  • QT reference file importer handles more file types.

  • DVCPro100HD pixel aspect ratio handling improved.

  • MXF importer handles more file types.

  • H.264 exporter guards against invalid encoder parameter combinations.

  • MP3 exporter improved.

  • WM-HD exporter improved.

  • Expanded range of cases where closed captions can be used with Omneon targets.

  • GXF importer handles more file types.

  • LXF importer handles files with period characters (“.” ) in the file name.

Filters

  • Inverse Telecine (IVT) filter improved, allows auto-cadence lock after a configurable analysis time, and allows user-configured forced cadence.

  • Imprinting 608 roll-up style captions fixed (pop-up style captions were already working).

Third Party Codecs

  • VP7 TrueMotion import (with third-party codec installed).

  • Work-around implemented for problems with third-party Flash-8 codec.

  • DivX encoder configurations are communicated between Carbon Server and transcoding agents.

XML API

  • Can now add login credentials to multiple UNC paths for environments with distributed security.

  • Can submit any XML to “JobSubmit” folder, not just render jobs.

Known Issues:

  • Most third-party applications that process Quantel MXF files do not respect or correctly set the Quantel Aspect Ratio metadata. Files can be marked as “4:3” aspect ratio regardless of whether the contents are 4:3 or 16:9 or other, and the inverse is also very common, i.e. files marked as “16:9” while the contents are actually 4:3. To support legacy workflows using such third-party tools Carbon will always interpret Quantel MXF files as having a 4:3 aspect ratio. Should there be a requirement to interpret Quantel MXF files as having 16:9 or other aspect ratio content, it may be necessary to use the “Video Source Properties” video filter with source files or target files. Since Carbon always tries to write the correct metadata, a side effect may be that Quantel MXF files exported from Carbon may not always automatically import into Carbon, use the Video Source Properties filter in this case.

  • The Video Source Properties video filter offers cropping options for conversion workflow requirements such as removing letterboxes or pillarboxes from source video before transcoding. An application note for common cropping scenarios is available on our website.

  • For Carbon Server, if you occasionally see jobs that seem to remain in the “Queued” state without being processed, please inform us by using the support contact page at the following address: “http://rhozet.com/support_contact.html”. These jobs have actually already been executed and delivered, but a duplicate entry may sometimes appear. This is purely cosmetic and does not affect quality or performance of Carbon Server.

  • For Windows Media sources, in- and out-point selection may not always yield frame accurate results, exactly as with Window Media Player for example. In order to work frame accurate, use the Source Segment selection mechanism.

  • When working with source formats which allow flexible frame rates, such as QuickTime and Windows Media, and conforming to targets which need to have fixed frame rates (i.e. for closed captions) , you should add the “Pulldown” video filter. An application note for common pulldown/IVT scenarios is available on our website.

  • If you have custom presets or XML API files which create Leitch LXF targets you should recreate those presets in v2.50. Carbon v2.50 is not backwards compatible with LXF presets created in earlier versions of Carbon, because many new features and options were added to the LXF exporter, i.e. LXF-HD, Long GOP, Format-2 wrappers. This made maintaining backwards compatibility impossible.

  • The preview window does not always *exactly* represent the end results of applying filters to a transcode (i.e. for crop lines, aspect ratio, crop area, distances, positions of keys). It is suggested to always attempt a quick transcode using the “Convert” tab in the Carbon Coder UI to verify that the filters have the exact intended effect. You can press the “Stop Conversion” button for very long sources and play back the partially completed file for verification, Carbon always tries to create a playable file even when the transcode is interrupted (some exceptions for multi-pass transcodes).

  • Because of the architecture of QuickTime, using QuickTime multi-pass targets presents some challenges. When a multi-pass target is selected, QuickTime will not report back the number of passes it is actually performing, nor will it report the expected duration of the multi-pass generation. This has two effects, the first is that QuickTime multi-pass targets cannot be used together with any other targets (QuickTime or other) in a Carbon project or preset, and second, the progress bar will not be an accurate representation of the total time required for the transcode.

  • The Windows 2003 Server “Data Execution Prevention” (DEP) security feature can sometimes prevent the proper loading of Carbon Coder. If you see Carbon Coder loading properly initially but then stall on the “Loading Sharpen filter” message, you should configure the DEP setting on your Windows 2003 Server system as detailed in the “Troubleshooting” section of the Support part of our website (http://rhozet.com/support_troubleshoot.html).

  • When using the XML API, the settings “TargetFolder” and “Overwrite” may not work as expected. There is currently no workaround.

  • When previewing MPEG conversions, you may not hear the audio for channels 3 and 4 in a 4-channel configuration. This only affects the audio preview -- the conversion will actually properly convert all audio channels.

  • When using the XML API to encode to Windows Media, some parameters can only be specified in a binary chunk, as generated in Project Files by the Carbon Coder UI. An application note for common WM output scenarios is available on our website.

  • If you need to use the QuickTime iPod exporter with Carbon, don’t install any newer version than QuickTime 7.1. Subsequent versions of QuickTime, including QT7.1.3 and QT7.1.5 do not allow the iPod exporter to work properly with Carbon. You can still generate iPod-compliant video in these cases however, just use the QuickTime H.264 exporter and create video compliant with the iPod requirements (http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html).