[vlmc-devel] VideoLAN Movie Creator evaluation - bug list - objective refocus to output WebM only

[rhoward21 at kc.rr.com]

Dear Hugo and Ludovic,

Today I evaluated VLMC v0.2.0 alpha on Windows XP Pro service pack 3.  Please consider this evaluation as a positive critique regarding the development efforts for VLMC.  (I am a software engineer but not a C or C++ programmer).

Chronologically:

1) Wizard to create project fails to delete the created directory when going back to undo or rename the project.  Going forward next then fails to re-create any project in that created directory.

2) Also the File: Export to file: dialog title incorrectly states "exporting settings" instead of exporting to file. (The File: Save and File: Sav As... menu items unexpectedly refer to saving the project settings file (*.vlmc).  The user is focusing to want to save their work: that is, the movie, and not a project file which is not even saved by default after going through the wizard to create a project).

3) Dialog list items for Audio settings increment/decrement at too fine a resolution for Hz.  It should show the common audio frequency settings instead (i.e. 44 kHz, 22 kHz, 11 kHz).  Same for Video settings with option to refine resolution.

4) Attempt to transcode a WMV one hour one minute video: 320x240, 30 fps, 233 kbps, mono 22050 Hz into a WebM file failed after about five minutes of rendering at 99% frame 109688/109770.  Also audio playback works in clip preview but not in project preview.

(The file size of the WMV original is 100,868 KB and the copy of the WebM file produced at 99% rendering was 355,462 KB).  I had to then cancel the modal dialog about rendering progress.  VLMC did not delete the WebM file it created.  VLC v1.1.9 played the WebM but it lacked audio.  WebM file duration was 1:00:45 but original WMV duration is 1:00:59.  The original file is at http://shepherdschapel.com/ broadband link for broadcast 4_18_2011_hi_vid.wmv

5) Also, the saved MyWebM-Project.vlmc incorrectly has project properties: key="audio/NbChannels" value="2" and key="general/ProjectName" value="Untitled Project".  And the video/AspectRatio value is 16/9 which I doubt because the video is for standard definition USA TV broadcasting originally.

6) Lastly, I doubt the output file is actually in WebM format.  The "File: Export to file" showed H.264 constant string for video setting and AAC constant string for audio setting just prior to letting me name the file a WebM of file type: default list of all types, not separately listed file types.

Listing the output file reveals H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec Copyleft 2003-2010 http://wwww.videolan.org/x264.html and some name=value settings such as vbv_maxrate=4000 and vbv_bufsize=33333.

7) Conclusion, there is no such thing as "Copyleft" unless it is just doubletalk for stealing.  I am trying to transcode an unencrypted copyrighted public broadcast daily Bible Study work into a copyrighted yet open format WebM of similar size so I can use a WebM player (such as a browser) for my private video library.

Why don't you focus on this legal objective too when enabling movie creation?  I don't want to output H.264/MPEG-4 movies!  Output WebM movies only and let the user decide to use third-party software or VLC to transcode into other proprietary or non-proprietary formats.  I still can't get VLC to transcode with audio.  I have an AMD 4-core 3.2 GHz and XP Pro SP3 so it should do it.

I appreciate your time in reading this.  Thank you for your consideration of my evaluation efforts.

Sincerely,
John