DV Media Player
DVMP Pro is a specialised DV media player and a variety of tools. This page
describes the player functions - see the Tools
section for details of the operation of the tools.
DVMP Pro plays a variety of DV
file types, while simultaneously displaying the timecode, date and time of recording,
aperture, shutter speed, white balance and other camera settings that were recorded when the footage was being shot.
This information is called "DV Metadata" and DVMP Pro allows you
to view it while playing or frame-stepping through the video. It also allows you
to jump quickly between scenes.
DVMP Pro plays the following DV file types (separate specialised codecs are not
needed):
- AVI Type 1
- AVI Type 2
- Raw DV (.dv)
- Canopus AVI
- DVCPRO25
- DVCAM
and simultaneously displays the following DV Metadata items:
- Timecode
- Date and Time of Recording (datecode/datacode)
- Shutter speed
- Exposure (f-stop)
- Image stabiliser on/off
- Gain in dB
- Exposure Mode
- White Balance Mode
- White Balance Setting
- Audio details
The player has the following features:
- NTSC and PAL compatible
- Displays 4:3 and 16:9 (widescreen) format correctly
- View metadata in real time and frame-accurate
- Dropped frames are highlighted
- Pause and frame step forward or backward
- Jump forward or backward in 1 second or 1 minute increments.
- Jump to next or previous scene
- Redefinition of "scenes" based on selected metadata
- Full/Half resolution selection option
- Resize window and video automatically resizes to fit
- Drag and drop files onto DVMP Pro
- File properties dialog
- Does not install any codecs or DLLs
and also a set of DV tools for converting, burning-in and splitting DV AVI
files.
The DV metadata information is displayed per frame and appears in real time beneath
the video as it is playing. You can pause, step backward or forward a frame at a
time, or jump to the next or previous scene and the metadata is displayed with
frame accuracy. You can view the time and exposure settings used by the camera
when the footage was shot.
DVMP Pro does not
install codecs, DLLs or anything else on your system and does not change any of
your system settings. It couldn't be simpler or safer.
DVMP Pro does not need any specialised codecs to be present on
your PC to play DVCPRO25 and DVCAM AVI files. Also it is independent of
Quicktime, so can play Raw DV files without Quicktime being present on your PC.
Buttons
The row of buttons along the bottom of the window are split into 3 groups:
- Play, Pause and Stop
- Step to previous/next frame
- Jump to previous/next scene
Metadata Display
The metadata is displayed in five columns immediately below the main video
display. If any items of metadata are not present in the file they will appear
as a series of "-"s.
1st Column (Timecodes)
- Timecode - semi colon between secs and
frames denotes drop frame
- User Bits (also called "Binary Group")
- File Progress Timecode - this is a
timecode generated by DVMP Pro to show the progress into the file. It is not
an item of metadata and is therefore displayed in grey. The timecode always
starts at zero at the beginning of the file and increases unbroken to the
end of the file. It effectively shows the absolute frame number of the
currently displayed frame.
When paused or frame-stepping the file progress timecode turns yellow if the
current frame is a "dropped" frame.
2nd Column (Date and Time)
- Date of Recording - dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy
selectable via Tools>Options>General menu
- Time of Recording - hh:mm:ss
Date and time of recording is sometimes referred to as "datacode"
or "datecode".
3rd Column (Exposure)
- Shutter Speed - e.g. "50"
denotes 1/50th of a second
- Iris - Aperture setting (F-stop)
- Image Stabilizer - ON or OFF
4th Column (Exposure)
- Gain - in dB
- Auto Exposure Mode - Automatic, Gain
Priority, Shutter Priority,
Iris Priority or Manual
5th Column (White Balance and Audio)
- White Balance Mode - Automatic, Hold,
1-Push or Preset
- White Balance - Candle, Incandescent
Lamp, Fluorescent Lamp (Low Temperature), Fluorescent Lamp (High
Temperature), Sunlight or Cloudy
- Audio Details - sampling frequency in kHz
(32, 44.1 or 48) / L=locked or U=unlocked
Jumping Between Scenes
When you first install DVMP Pro, a scene (or scene-change) is defined as a discontinuity in the date and time of
recording. This discontinuity happens when you stop or pause the camera during
recording. By searching through a DV AVI (or Raw DV) file for these
discontinuities DVMP Pro can locate where these "pauses" took place,
and you can use the previous scene and next scene
buttons to jump instantly between scenes.
This "jump to previous/next scene" feature requires that DVMP Pro scans
the whole file to detect the scene-changes. Depending on the size of the
file, this scan may take a while. Consequently when you open the file, DVMP
will not perform this scan until the first time you click the Previous Scene or
Next Scene buttons - this will save time if you don't need to jump between
scenes. When the scan completes, a tick mark will appear on the slider showing
the location of each scene-change detected.
You can change the definition of a scene by ticking/un-ticking
metadata items in the Scenes tab of the Tools>Options menu. By default only the
Recording Date/Time is ticked which means (as described above) that
a scene is a discontinuity in the date and time that was recorded by
the camera. But you can tick or un-tick any of the other metadata items to change
the meaning of a scene. The tick marks on the slider will change instantly - the
file does not need to be rescanned.
For example, if you have been using free-running
timecode and wish to quickly locate every frame where the camera was paused you
would tick only Timecode discontinuity in the Scenes tab. The scene-change markers will then update to show where the timecode
discontinuities occur, and you can jump directly to these points using the Previous
Scene and Next Scene buttons.
Also, by
ticking any of the other metadata items in the Scenes tab you
can choose to locate where there are changes to white balance, iris or shutter
settings etc, and jump instantly between them.
Other Features
Any changes you make to the settings in Tools>Options will only apply to the currently running DVMP Pro program. The settings can be saved as the default for all future invocations of DVMP Pro by ticking
Save settings as default in the General tab of Tools>Options.
DVMP Pro allows you to use drag and drop. Just drag and drop a DV AVI file onto the DVMP Pro window and the file will be opened as if you had used the
File>Open menu.
This feature is not available in the demo version of DVMP Pro.
You can jump back and forth through the file via the Play menu, or by pressing the left or right cursor keys in combination with the
SHIFT or CTRL keys like this:
| Cursor key only |
SHIFT+cursor key |
CTRL+cursor key |
| jump 1 frame |
jump 1 second |
jump 1 minute |
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The File Progress Timecode can be displayed as either a timecode or as an absolute frame number. This can be selected on the
General tab of Tools>Options. Frame numbers start from 0.
If you have an older PC, you can reduce the load on the CPU by selecting the
Half Resolution option under the Tools>Options menu.
You can also choose between the VMR9 and VMR7 renderers. It is recommended
that you leave VMR9 selected, but some older graphics cards (or buggy drivers)
may play "blank" video using VMR9 - in such cases choosing VMR7
may solve this problem. Note that VMR7 may use video overlay if your graphics
card supports it. Also VMR7 is not supported by Microsoft on Windows 2000.
All of the settings in Tools>Options are described on the Menus
page.
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