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 1/50^th 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:

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.