Update 2007-10-10

If you have updated to windows mediaplayer 11 and do not want to reinstall liquid once more, this is how you create your own new codec profile for wmp11.

This is because wmp11 uses the new VC1 standard  of codecs and those are installed in your OS when you update to wmp11.

(  Liquid 7,2 comes with two folders of mediaplayer codec profiles, one for wmp10 and one for wmp11, the install program will install the codec profile links to the right folder depending of what version of wmp you have on your sys, this when you do a clean install. )

This is how to:

Mediaplayer 11 must be fully installed in the system and configured to work well.

This profile is for HDV2, ordinary stereo sound.

Open the tool in the mediaencoders suite named "media profile editor"

 Give the profile a name and a description, now or later, choose language.

Checkmark the audiobox, choose CBR, choose codec "windows media audio 9,2"

Checkmark the videobox, choose CBR, choose codec "windows media video 9 advanced profile"

Go down below the bitrate window, choose ntsc or pal, checkmark interlace -checkmark non square

Go to Bitrate, click on add, type your speed, I have tested both 5 mb/s 6 mb/s and 7 mb/s, all works, faster is bigger and better.

Remember to write " K " after, for example, 6000

Click OK in the bitrate window, you will be moved to the other tab.

Make sure that audio 192 kbps, 48kHz, stereo CBR is selected

Jump between settings with "tab" type 1440 in the first field, 1080 in the next field.

Box "same as video in" should be unchecked.

The fps should be what you decided in the first tab, 25 or 29,97

Set the "interval for keyframes" to 2 sec.

In the buffersize, checkmark "use standard"

And finally, type "100" in the last box, quality.

If you have entered name and description, go to "save and close", choose a folder that is easy to find from within Liquid.

Open Liquid and load the codec profile in custom presets as Dave has described. test to make a file, it should work now.

After that, we could start to change all the other settings and discuss the best settings, I really like the qualitybased VBR videocodec very much for HD, try with 80% 

Good Luck

Tomas

Agree with your procedure, I believe there is one subtle remark:

the reason why [some of] the standard AL WM profiles no longer work with WMP 11, is because the advanced video codec has been changed (but still appears as "windows media video 9 advanced profile"): AL 7 (and WMP 10) ship with the "preliminary" WMV9 AP codec, while WMP11 update this to the final version (SMPTE-approved) called VC-1.

IOW:

• the codec "windows media video 9 advanced profile" in WMP10/AL7 is WMV9 (coded "WMV3")
• the codec "windows media video 9 advanced profile" in WMP11 is VC-1 (coded "WVC1")

From my testing, the change from 9.1 to 9.2 for the audio codec is NOT the reason why the profiles don't work, the change from WM9 to VC-1 for HL profiles is the reason.

You can verify this by opening a lower grade profile on a WMP11 machine: the Profile Editor will successfully show the audio codec being 9.2, but if you try to open a HD profile, you get an error [because the expected video codec: WMV3 is no longer there]

Ok , nice it worked, as I said I am not an expert, more interested in how to get the best quality into the wmp-files, how about bitrate, keyframes and so?

I have just made a file, dolby surround hdv 2, from a 28,30 minutes sequense with some movie looks effects and timewarp, made it from uncompressed 2VUY (HD) , file speed 7237 kbit/s, size 1,42 gb, looks great .

Hello Tomas,

I don't have much experience with WMV in the HD era, but I do have some experience with WMV9 in SD and the WM Encoder tool.

There is still an area where I need to find more info: beside the bitrate, keyframes etc. you mention, the WM codec (WMV3 or WVC1) has a lot of  settings and tweakings not exposed in the Profile Editor tool, but either exposed in the WM Encoder tool, or controlled by registry keys.
(see http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/codecadvancedsettings.aspx)

I need to find out how to control [some of] these settings to use with AL7

E.G.: the WM Encoder has a little-known setting that significantly affects the encoded file quality and/or size: Windows Media Encoder / Tools / Options / Performance
-> when you set these sliders on the right side, you get better quality (for a given CBR) or a smaller file (for a given quality in VBR), at the expense or more encoding time. I wonder how this setting can be controlled from AL7, since it is not saved in a WM profile, AFAIK.

The big thing with the new mediaplayer, is that you can go to a specific part of the file (but I miss "show marks" ) and view the file directly on a hd big screen from, for example, a good laptop.

You can make a presentation on a big hd-screen in real hdv-2 for a lot of people.

Many people has also bought hd screens without being able to watch hd yet, this is one of the ways for them to watch it I think while we are waiting for blue-ray, hd-dvd and other coming tech.

Ah, just noticed this:

the WM HD profiles that come with AL7 (and based on the "temporary" Advanced Profile of WMV9) are limited to single-pass CBR or constant quality VBR.

It looks like the final advanced profile (WVC1) now supports bit-rate limited VBR :-). But this means of course two-pass encoding....not sure how AL7 will support this...I'll try it out when I have some spare time unless someone does it before me ;-)

One more thing on the checklist list when we try to build a best practices sheet for WM encoding in AL ....

cheeers

Benoit

mjolnarn:

Ok , nice it worked, as I said I am not an expert, more interested in how to get the best quality into the wmp-files, how about bitrate, keyframes and so?

If you are interested in getting the best quality for the bitrate, then forget about WMA. Both quicktime with H.264 and Flash with On2 Vp6 produce better output at lower bitrates, they play quicker, and are much more universal then WMA. Not everyone in the world use Windows, and it's a much much smaller percentage that use Media Player 11. Flash on the other hand is on 98% of desktops independent of the OS, and quicktime isn't far behind.

If you are intending to use it on the internet a bit rate of 7327 kbits/sec is not going to fly, divide that by at least 10 and you will be in the ball park.

We should probably not enter the debate if codec X is better than Y: there are too many non-technical arguments that can potentially pollute the debate ;-)

Let's assume people on this thread have reasons for choosing WMV / VC-1 and focus on finding solutions to their questions...(BTW, WMA is an audio-only codec, we're discussing WMV/VC-1 here)

While WMP11 is the reason why the AL7 WM (HD) profiles are "broken", WMP11 is not needed to decode and play any WMV file produced with the VC1 codec: new codecs are automatically installed on earlier versions of WMP and so the popularity of WMP11 is not a point. (note: one might even argue that WMP -any version- is more prevalent amongst Windows users than QT e.g.)

Obviously, it is not the intention to produce 8 Mbps 1080i HD files just to stream on the internet ;-)

B.

Well, this tread was meant as an answer to the question "is wmp 11 working together with LE? " and the answer is "yes"

I hope that I have been able to help some of the members on this forum who are using wmp 11 or have wondered if they could use it.

Good Editing

I am taking me some time right now to fix all the presets, have wmp 10 on one machine and screen and wmp 11 on the the screen and machine beside, windows profile editor opened on both machine importing the presets from Avid Liquid to profile editor and watching and comparing both screens.

Strange, ntsc seems to work better with the old presets from wmp10 than pal, have anybody noticed that?

Hello Tomas,

Well, I was planning exactly the same: 2 machines with LE, one with WMP10 & one with WMP11 then compare and recreate the profiles using WMProfile editor ;-)

I would also suggest to change the CBR rate to 8 Mbps for the "high quality" 1080i/50 profile; 8 Mbps seems to be the sweet spot for this picture size with WMV/VC1.

I also plan to test VBR with this (VC-1) advanced profile codec - will post the results here

No idea for NTSC, no NTSC files/hardware to test with.

B.

Jepp, I will test with 8 mbps.

About the ntsc, I don´t have any such files, only noticed that I was able to import the ntsc-settings for hdv2 into media profile editor, the codecs for ntsc.settings did exist in wmp 11.

Sorry, forget that with import of ntsc-settings, it was the wmp10 - machine, to many machines right now.

Ok, made a hdv2 file bitrate 8254 kbit/s inkl audio, made it from uncompressed hd.

Quality is, of course, very good.

It is still the same clip, 28.30 long, the file took less than 3 hours to make, seems that those new codecs makes AL go faster or if it is because I am making the file from uncompressed, must make some more tests.

Even so, a factor of 1/6 is very good, I think that I haven´t been lower than 1/10 before.

The size of the file is  1,62 Gb, that is nearly 5 gb for 1,5 hour or 1,15 or so on a dvd- disk.