Need help with Key Frames Movie Maker

[YanTS]

Hi everyone,

It is obvious I am doing something wrong here.
I tried to create some test movie with Kalles Fraktaler. Got myself some trivial location at about E40 zoom, saved all the zoom out locations at 3840 * 2160. Then I wanted to save it as 1920*1080 encoded with x265 without any intermediate encoding.
I found only Hand Brake free software that could really encode x265.
The process appeared suprisingly complex.

A. I couldn't get x265 encoding into Key Frames Movie Maker. So I had to save it without encoding. At 1920 * 1080 it took me some 10-20 GBs (don't remember exactly) for 1 minute 49 seconds. The output is cut in portions of 500 frames. When I tried to increase this amount arbitrary, every portion contained only last 500 frames.
B. HandBrake cannot concatenate, only encode. So I decided to concatenate first, with Virtual Dub (also couldn't get x265 inside Virtual Dub), thus I needed 10-20 GBs more with "Direct stream copy". Wasn't sure if Virtual Dub can successfully concatenate x265 encoded portions. Also, Virtual Dub doesn't like index of video portions from KFMM and rebuilds everything just to concatenate.
C. Encoded the result with Handbrake and some arbitrary high quality setting into nice 60-100 mb video.
The result video is nice, without any stutters, encoding artifacts or any other bad things. (though it would be better on the edges in 60 fps).

This process requires twice the amount of space for raw video, which will be too much for any video with reasonable lenght. I am definitely doing something wrong here.
So, my questions are.
1. Is there a way to get x265 into Key Frames Movie Maker? I didn't find the solution. So I can save directly encoded video from KFMM?
2. Is there a way to increase portion size KFMM saves without shrinking video resolution? Why 500 frames for 1920*1080?
3. Is there a way to get x265 into Virtual Dub, just in case?
4. Can I concatenate x265 portions in Virtual Dub?
4.1 Can I concatenate x265 portions in Virtual Dub with Direct Stream Copy without even having x265 as an option in Virtual Dub? Won't it break anything?




Misc questions.
5. When I am saving zoom-out *.kfr's files for creating the movie, can I skip creating jpg files? I haven't understood if KFMM uses saved zoom-out *.kfr files to create the movie, or does it uses *.jpg files.
6. The default is 30 fps in KFMM. Can I do the 60 fps movie with the same lenght and tempo? When I change fps to 60, KFMM just makes movie twice as shorter. What to change here?

[Dinkydau]

I think the right/intended way to do it is to use a program that can concatenate and encode the lossless video files.

My preferred way to make a video is to make a PNG sequence of the frames with SeryZone's software:
http://www.fractalforums.com/announcements-and-news/sft-map-visualizer/
You can use the map visualizer to create PNG images of the keyframes. The fractal video maker is to interpolate the other frames, as many as you like for any desired framerate and speed.

This allows for lossless compression before the final encode and you don't have to save the data twice. I know the avi file format has a size limit of 2 GB. Maybe that's what limits your lossless video to 500 frames and it's why I like to use image sequences instead. PNG practically has no limits. You can use ffmpeg to convert the png sequence to a video but your programs could work if they understand PNG sequences.

[panzerboy]

There is a x265VFW codec available here http://codecpack.co/download/x265vfw.html
I hadn't used it until now. Only the 32 bit version was available whenever I downloaded it.
Installed the latest 32 and 64 bit versions. Seems to generate a short video at 640x360 and fixed bit rate of 1777Kbs just fine.
This codec should work for virtualdub so no need for handbrake.

I always do a two pass encoding. It gives the most consistent quality for the lowest file size.
That's important for me because I don't want to spend hours uploading GB sized files to YouTube or MediaFire.
It should be possible to do a two pass encode with KF movie maker without having to generate a huge multi-part uncompressed video files.
But you will need to run the movie make twice.
Set the frames per movie to the the movie length time multiplied by the FPS (30 or 60?).
So for my 5 minute movie at 30FPS that's 5x60x30=9000 and I set to 10,000.
That avoids the multi part avis.
When you start the movie select the x265vfw codec, I use very slow preset and 16000 Kbps target bit rate.
That produces good quality with x264, should be awsome for x265.
Select multipass 1st pass in the rate control.
Before the 2nd pass run you'll need to delete the film.avi file created the by the 1st pass.
It will be small in size but its existence makes KF movie maker think you've restarting an existing movie.
For the 2nd run you'll need to select Multipass Nth pass in the rate control.

I've just tried it out on an 'audition' movie at 640x360. Had a lot of trouble with KF movie maker just stopping.
Perhaps moving the X265VFW log window upset things, it showed a not responding message then KF movie maker stopped.
By setting the start frame to the tenth to last frame I was able to test 2-pass encoding.
Trying now with a full size 3840x2160, hanging in there, just gotta leave the x265vfw log window alone.

[panzerboy]

Haven't had any luck with two pass encoding direct from KF movie maker using x265VFW.
The 2nd pass just creates a 0 byte length avi file, weird, the 1st pass generated the RIFF headers & stuff for about 6Kb.

Haven't had any luck doing two pass with VirtualDub either, & before someone suggest I did try the VirtualDub hack checkbox.

Constant bit rate (single pass) has worked okay from KFMM and VirtualDub.

To answer Yan's questions.
1. Is there a way to get x265 into Key Frames Movie Maker? I didn't find the solution. So I can save directly encoded video from KFMM?
Yes, install x265VFW codec(s).  http://codecpack.co/download/x265vfw.html

2. Is there a way to increase portion size KFMM saves without shrinking video resolution? Why 500 frames for 1920*1080?
Yes, the frames per movie box. Multiply the time of the movie in seconds by the FPS (Frames per Second) and add a bit (10%) for the extra frames of the final zoom through.

3. Is there a way to get x265 into Virtual Dub, just in case?
Yes, but its flakey as. You can tell this was a quick conversion of the x264VFW to use the public domain x265 stand alone encoder. Lots can and does go wrong.

4. Can I concatenate x265 portions in Virtual Dub?
I don't know, I've tried similar with x264 and had unpredictable results. Often dropping frames near the join.

4.1 Can I concatenate x265 portions in Virtual Dub with Direct Stream Copy without even having x265 as an option in Virtual Dub? Won't it break anything?
Again I don't know but I doubt it. VirtualDub likes to load the video file and to do thart it needs to understand it. I've had virtualdub complain and refuse to load unrecognised avi codecs.

Misc questions.
5. When I am saving zoom-out *.kfr's files for creating the movie, can I skip creating jpg files? I haven't understood if KFMM uses saved zoom-out *.kfr files to create the movie, or does it uses *.jpg files.
Yes, I seldom generate JPEGs now. I used to do a quick scan of the extra large icons of the JPEGs in the directory. But I so often missed glitches I gave up on generating JPEGs.

6. The default is 30 fps in KFMM. Can I do the 60 fps movie with the same lenght and tempo? When I change fps to 60, KFMM just makes movie twice as shorter. What to change here?
The default in the speed control is the number of movie frames per key frame. If the Frames per Second goes up then the movie frames will need to increase.
From 30 FPS to 60 FPS means doubling the movies frames per key frame.
Or you could use the time stamped option in the speed control.

[PieMan597]

I usually just let of generate all the avi files it wants to, usually taking up to 600gb of storage.

Then, I use ffmpeg to concatenate them together: [url]https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Concatenate[url]