Thanks.
Chris, take a look at http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/366/avchd-quantization-process

Per Vitaliy's request I'm posting the StreamParser update here. I'll post updates here from now on.

This version fixed a bug where video bitrates were displayed incorrectly because of a overflow error.

Chris

Sorry, I have no plans to produce other versions of StreamParser at this time. Any additional version would be quite a lot of work.

Chris

Per Vitaliy's request I am posting a new version of StreamParser here.

Several minor improvements and bug fixes.

The main new feature is the integration of a couple of new tools:

Under Tools you can now produce a H.264 elementary video stream file from a MTS file. The new file has a suffix of ".264" and is saved in the same folder as the original MTS file. These files are compatible with several editors and analysis programs.

There is also an option to analyze elementary stream files with h264_parse (integrated) once you have created such a file. h264_parse provides a lot of analysis information such as Quantization Scaling Matrix information, among other things.

Be sure to uninstall previous versions of StreamParser first (the program name is "GH13 Stream Parser" in the Control Panel.

Chris

Great job and thank you for all of your effort.

Does this version display the new 1080p @ 30 FPS video as 1080 30p or does it still say 1080i?

No problem. It is in a 1080i wrapper so that is expected. I just thought people will get confused when they still see 1080i for the 25p and 30p modes if they ever install 1.1 Not a big deal though.

Thanks Chris!

Announcing version 2.3 of StreamParser. This is a fairly significant update. There are numerous refinements and improvements. The major new feature is a new analysis tool based on the JM decoder. It can provide lots of information about a stream; like frame quality metrics, quantization tables in use, deblocking filtering, and many other things. It replaces h264_parse in the previous version (which had too many limitations).

Many thanks to Lee Powell and Nick Driftwood - they were super helpful in testing all of the new features.

As always, remember to uninstall previous versions first.

Chris

Brilliant idea.

Very nice idea! Thanks.

We'll need more information - saying nothing works isn't much to go on.

You have to unzip the file into a folder and run setup. Also, it's a Windows program - I don't think it will work on Apple computers. Also, if you don't have .NET installed it will need to download it from Microsoft - so you will need an Internet connection.

@cbrandin Wow!!! It's very useful! Thanks for your hard work. :-)

I've put up a wiki page for Streamparser here: http://www.personal-view.com/faqs/streamparser

The attachments below are only there for the wiki page - nothing to look at.

StreamParser 2.6 is now available.

Per VK's suggestion I have added a "Snapshot Report" feature under "File>Generate Snapshot Report". This creates a graphics short-form report suitable for posting on forums, etc... The report generated when StreamParser in in Frames mode looks like this:

A similar report for Time Mode can also be produced.

Other changes include a user guide that can be accessed by clicking on "Help>User Guide".

Other changes include minor bug fixes and prettying-up some windows.

Chris

This just keeps getting better and better. All serious testers should be using this.

Can we donate for your hard work as well? Your program is fantastic.

@mpgxsvcd

You certainly can donate to VK!

Thanks for the kind words.

Chris

@duartix - Thanks for making the file available.

I looked at the file with the JM-SP decoder in StreamParser and got this:

The problem is that the clip has many invalid elements in it and it is confusing the stream player. I don't think I can do anything about it. The problems are:

1) Fallback matrices are being used - resulting in very low frame quality.

2) There are empty (I assume - the headers are invalid so it's hard to tell) frames that contain invalid parameters per the H.264 spec.

3) The only frames (almost) containing data come in pairs - I frames and the P frames immediately preceding them. It seems that there are a couple of extra lone P frames in there as well.

4) There are huge numbers of skipped (not encoded) macroblocks - even in frames that are actually encoded.

You can look at this yourself by first creating an elementary stream file ("Tools>Create Video Elementary Stream File"), and then running the JM-SP decoder ("Tools>Decode Elementary Stream File (JM-SP Decoder)").

Chris

DC is the effective QP value within a macroblock for the DC coefficient after scaling tables have been factored in. The values that show up are impossible - so there is something terribly wrong with the clip.

Yeah, that's why it's happening. Also, the I frames are a little strange - the even lines are encoded with normal matrices and the odd lines are encoded with the 255 matrices. Interlaced I frames are actually two slices - one I slice and one P slice. If you run the JM-SP decoder with trace on the trace file shows these slices separately and you can see the matrices used.

@cbrandin @duartix

Use PM

@cbrandin: I was wondering if you could add just one more column to your I/P/B size summary saying how much percentage of the total bitrate was spent on each of these types of frames considering the GOP structure. Thanks.

I don't know - they are the same in the GH2. You'll have to load custom tables that are different to figure it out.

Hey Chris, absolutely stunning tool thanks.

One thing, can you avoid writing the .YUV file when decoding via JM, or make it optional (disabled by default)? This contains uncompressed frames and takes a lot of disk space & time to write, especially for longer frame counts. It's not actually used in the analysis right?