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Old 8th January 2006, 01:46   #1081  |  Link
Romario
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Gyus, someone(my friend) told me yesterday that some options are still missing in MeGUI, I think on options which improve visual quality of the video on low bitrates?

Can someone explain me about that options.
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Old 8th January 2006, 02:46   #1082  |  Link
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Come on, Romario. MeGUI is supposed to have all of the x264 options (I presume that's what you are talking about). If something is missing, it should be you telling us, not the other way around. Also, read the first post in this thread:
Quote:
If you don't "speak" C# this is the wrong thread to post in.
You posted on the wrong thread, and it's not the first time. If there's an option missing, post it on the feature-request thread, where it belongs.
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Old 8th January 2006, 18:09   #1083  |  Link
Sharktooth
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CVS update:

0.2.3.2 8 Jan 2006
Added missing --bime turbo exclusion for conditional compilation
Fixed logic for "Turbo" in x264DialogTriStateAdjustment()

Bins on SF ( http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...roup_id=156112 )

Last edited by Sharktooth; 8th January 2006 at 19:09.
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Old 8th January 2006, 18:55   #1084  |  Link
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A few notes regarding the x264 configuration redesign. Generally a good job but I have some issues: weighted b-prediction.. isn't that a b-frame option?

And is the number of reference frame really a quantizer option? I thought it was an ME option.

Last but not least, I can't shake the feeling that the misc options which have been put in the first tab should rather be somwhere less accessible.. they are rather esoteric imho. FourCC only applies to AVI anyway and the default is generally no problem (we should even consider dumping that option). The Number of threads can be auto-set which I tend to think should be done for everyone.. it reliably picks up HT and dual core processors. PSNR calculations is really not something joe average needs, and SAR is an option for experts anyway.

I think moving the misc groupbox away from the first tab would be doing more justice to the "keep only the most important options on tab1".. I see this generally implemented with what has been kept in the first tab.
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Old 8th January 2006, 18:56   #1085  |  Link
Sharktooth
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CVS Update:

0.2.3.2001 8 Jan 2006
Fixed BiME and Chroma ME options not showing in command line preview

Bins on SF (http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...roup_id=156112)

Bah, i did already fix that... ensure you do a CVS update before committing new code to the CVS or make patches.

Last edited by Sharktooth; 8th January 2006 at 19:09.
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Old 8th January 2006, 19:08   #1086  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doom9
Let's take an example: I8x8mv. The control is enabled when the profile is set to high profile, and disabled otherwise. However, if you go to high profile, check it, then go to main profile, it should remain checked, but just be disabled. So the x264Settings.i8x8mv variable would still evaluate to true when it gets to the commandlinegenerator. Then in the method x264TriStateAdjustment, it would have to be set to false.
The problem I see is that the state of the GUI should exactly reflect the parameters that are going to be sent to the encoder. As a user, if I see that a checkbox is disabled, that just means I can't alter it myself as it depends on some other factor. But the boolean state of the checkbox (checked or unchecked) should reflect what the program is actually going to do.

To use your example, consider someone who knows a bit about the various options in x264 and is starting to use meGUI and is still a bit unsure. He first decides to use high profile and checks I8x8mv, but later on decides to switch to main profile and switches to that in the dropdown. As a result, several options become disabled, as they should. But wait! Even though I8x8mv is disabled, it's still checked! He knows that he can't use I8x8mv in main profile and it's not there in the commanline, but it's there in the GUI. Confusion! He knows the encoding is going to take several hours and he doesn't want to screw it up. The GUI is telling him one thing and the commandline another, which is right? TBH if that were me I'd switch back to high profile, uncheck I8x8 and then go back to main, just to be sure. But by then you've sown the seeds of doubt, and the user will start checking all the other options as well.

By making sure that the GUI state perfectly reflects what is actually going to happen we remove this confusion. When the user switches to main profile I8x8mv is unchecked (telling the user that the program isn't going to use it) and disabled (telling the user that he can't change that) - two different messages.
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Old 8th January 2006, 19:18   #1087  |  Link
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Well.. actually turbo DOES NOT DO THAT, coz i patched it to behave as doom9 said.
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Old 8th January 2006, 19:20   #1088  |  Link
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Quote:
The problem I see is that the state of the GUI should exactly reflect the parameters that are going to be sent to the encoder.
It used to be exactly like that. What you see is what you get. Then people came along asking why if they set an option and then switched from high profile to main profile (where it gets deactivated), it stays deactivated when they go to high profile again. That's where the whole tri-state thing comes from.
This is rather useful behavior when switching between things, but it does require the user to realize that deactivated means just that.. those options you can't edit, they are not active either.
Two-state is much easier to handle and there are less ways to screw up, but it's less convenient for those that know exactly what they're doing. Bottom line of tri-state as I have started it is deactivated = no influence on the outcome.

I've never read Microsoft's design guidelines.. I'm wondering if anybody has and know what a disabled control signifies.. if it should still have an influence no how the program reacts or not.
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Old 8th January 2006, 19:21   #1089  |  Link
Sharktooth
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doom9
A few notes regarding the x264 configuration redesign. Generally a good job but I have some issues: weighted b-prediction.. isn't that a b-frame option?

And is the number of reference frame really a quantizer option? I thought it was an ME option.

Last but not least, I can't shake the feeling that the misc options which have been put in the first tab should rather be somwhere less accessible.. they are rather esoteric imho. FourCC only applies to AVI anyway and the default is generally no problem (we should even consider dumping that option). The Number of threads can be auto-set which I tend to think should be done for everyone.. it reliably picks up HT and dual core processors. PSNR calculations is really not something joe average needs, and SAR is an option for experts anyway.

I think moving the misc groupbox away from the first tab would be doing more justice to the "keep only the most important options on tab1".. I see this generally implemented with what has been kept in the first tab.
Yeah, i will do that in the next updates.
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Old 8th January 2006, 19:25   #1090  |  Link
Sharktooth
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doom9
I've never read Microsoft's design guidelines.. I'm wondering if anybody has and know what a disabled control signifies.. if it should still have an influence no how the program reacts or not.
Exactly as Charleski said (a disabled checkbox that's checked has still a "checked" value but it cant be edited = forced). However we have different needs so we may stay away from the MS guidelines for a better usability.

Last edited by Sharktooth; 8th January 2006 at 19:28.
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Old 8th January 2006, 19:27   #1091  |  Link
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(a disabled checkbox that's checked has still a "checked" value but it cant be edited)
Yeah, but what does that mean, is still has a checked value? Isn't a disabled control essentially not playing any role?
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Old 8th January 2006, 19:29   #1092  |  Link
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It's a "forced on"/"forced off" option that has a checked/unchecked value (respectively).
However we dont' need forced options coz we have a dependancy rule: we require the "parent" option to be set to be able to select "child" options.

Last edited by Sharktooth; 8th January 2006 at 20:38.
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Old 8th January 2006, 20:34   #1093  |  Link
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CVS Update:
0.2.3.2002 8 Jan 2006
Some small design fixes in x264 configuration dialog

(Mostly groupboxes alignment)
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Old 9th January 2006, 05:00   #1094  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doom9
Yeah, but what does that mean, is still has a checked value? Isn't a disabled control essentially not playing any role?
There's not a real design guideline for that, but I've seen the disabled property used both ways. Since we need to default values but not allow user edits, we actually use a 4-state control: on, off, disabled on, disabled off. The user should always be able to see the defaulted value even if they cannot edit it. The values should always be displayed to the user.

If this is a basic mode versus advanced mode problem, usually the visible property is used rather than disabled.

Just my view on it.
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Old 9th January 2006, 09:13   #1095  |  Link
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Since we need to default values but not allow user edits, we actually use a 4-state control: on, off, disabled on, disabled off.
Well.. disabled on and disabled off is the same thing in the current tri-state approach and everybody should stick to it when making any changes in that particular dialog.
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Old 9th January 2006, 13:15   #1096  |  Link
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I've been thinking about this problem, and i came up with this solution.

What we have at the moment is controls that are either Enabled and Checked, Enabled and Unchecked or lastly Disabled and unchecked.

What we need want is to "remember" previous states so that if an item is auto-disabled, we can restore its' previous state later.

What we can use is another method, which is called first before any GUI updates are processed when a dropdown is changed or a checkbox checked etc. This method will save the current settings as they are.

Then another one is run after the GUI updates are done. This second method takes another "snapshot" and compares what controls were disabled as compared to the previous snapshot. The second method then stores all the information relating to what controls were disabled in an array, along with the name of the control that caused the enabling/disabling to happen.

So array[0] might hold data like the following:
array[0][0]: MainProfileSelected
array[0][1]: Control1Disabled
array[0][2]: PreviousControl1Value
array[0][3]: Control2Disabled
array[0][4]: PreviousControl2Value

Then, what could be done is that the next time a control flicks, we run a scan through this array and see if we can find any element in the array with that controls name (i.e. we check position [0][0] to see if anything matches) and if we find a match, we "undo" the autochanges and restore the previous value.

Hopefully that makes sense to someone out there

EDIT: I'll implement it unless someone thinks it's a bad idea, or comes up with a better one.

EDIT2: There will have to be validation done to make sure that the values that are being restored fit with the current profile and suchlike.

Last edited by Mutant_Fruit; 9th January 2006 at 13:24.
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Old 9th January 2006, 13:41   #1097  |  Link
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Why is this necessary? What's wrong with the "disabled = not used" approach? That works out just fine.. the only problems that creep up again is that somebody makes changes without going through the entire logic again to see if it still works out, or forgets that we have this kind of logic. Plus, anything has to survice the closing of the window (which the current tri-state does).. I really don't see keeping that mount of data someplace, it's a hassle and it blows up things beyond proportions.
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Old 9th January 2006, 13:59   #1098  |  Link
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Well, it'd be handy in some ways. For instance i'm selecting a load of options, and i accidently select one that disables 3 controls on a different page. When i reset the accidently changed control, i still have 3 controls which could have been previously set to certain values that are now definately not at those values anymore. I mightn't spot this. Being able to restore previous state would stop this.

Once the window is closed, the "restoration" data could be dropped safely. There'd be no point in persisting it beyond the life of the dialog.

I dunno whether its worth implementing or not, its just a few people seemed interested in having the previous state saved when controls got disabled/re-enabled so i thought this might be the best way to implement it if it were considared worth doing.


We're still using "disabled = not used", but with this we'd have the additional feature that if the control becomes reenabled, it gets restored to its previous value.
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Old 9th January 2006, 14:15   #1099  |  Link
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When i reset the accidently changed control, i still have 3 controls which could have been previously set to certain values that are now definately not at those values anymore.
That's not correct. Say you check turbo in 2 pass first pass. Then the ME, subq and nb reference settings become deactivated (if they do not, they should). In the commandline, subq goes to whatever is preset for turbo, me mode goes to dia and nb references goes to 1 (I think.. I don't have the code before me right now). The now disabled controls still show what you previously selected, so for instance subq6, me hex and 5 references. Now if you uncheck turbo again, those three controls become active again, the commandline shows -subq 6, -ref 5 as it should. So you have lost nothing at all.
And that's even preserved if you close the window. Since subq is still set to 6, and ref set to 5, and me to hex, once you close, then reopen, first the controls are all set to the values stored in x264Settings, then the final method call of the load method is "adjustSettings" or whatever the method is called that does this currently, and since turbo is set, the subq, me and nb_references controls are disabled, and the commandline once again contains -subq 1, -me dia and -ref 1. Come to think of it I've seen plenty of programs that behave the same way, and I, too, first didn't trust them to not make use of disabled but checked options.. but since we do have the commandline preview in MeGUI, that's not so much of a risk. the user clearly can see that a certain option is no longer contained in the commandline.

Perhaps it wasn't correct of my to equate disabled with not used, it can be used but set to a different setting that we control, as the example above shows.
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Old 9th January 2006, 14:25   #1100  |  Link
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Aye, but checkboxes (currently) don't keep their value.

For example (as said before), if i choose High profile, then enable all the macroblock options (such as adaptive DCT) and then i change to main profile and back to high profile, those boxes are no longer checked.

I'm not sure how many other checkboxes are affected by this kind of thing, so it mightn't be worth the effort to write the code to save their state, but it'd be possible if it was useful.
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