Calibrated Software XD Decode User Manual

User Guide

Calibrated Software, Inc.

Your rights to the software are governed by the accompanying Software License Agreement. Please read the entire User Guide and Software License

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Calibrated{Q} XD Options application contains the following source code:

The OpenGL Extension Wrangler Library Copyright (C) 2002-2008, Milan Ikits <milan ikits[]ieee org> Copyright (C) 2002-2008, Marcelo E. Magallon <mmagallo[]debian org> Copyright (C) 2002, Lev Povalahev All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

 Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.  Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the

documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

 The name of the author may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

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Contents

GETTING STARTED ..................................................................................................... 6

Overview ............................................................................................................................................................................. 6

DEMO MODE Limitation ..................................................................................................................................................... 6

Known Issues and Limitations ............................................................................................................................................ 7

QuickTime Gamma ............................................................................................................................................................. 9

Important note about 8-bit YUV colorspace ........................................................................................................................ 9

Performance ..................................................................................................................................................................... 10

Supported Formats ........................................................................................................................................................... 11

Windows Requirements and Installation .......................................................................................................................... 12

Installing on Windows .............................................................................................................................................. 12

Uninstalling on Windows .......................................................................................................................................... 12

MAC OSX Requirements and Installation ........................................................................................................................ 13

Installing on Mac OSX .............................................................................................................................................. 13

Uninstalling on Mac OSX ......................................................................................................................................... 13

Special Note: Avid Applications ........................................................................................................................................ 14

Special Note: Adobe CS Performance Enhancement ...................................................................................................... 14

Special Note: CatDV ......................................................................................................................................................... 14

Quick Note: Final Cut Pro and FC Studio Applications .................................................................................................... 14

GLOBAL OPTIONS ..................................................................................................... 15

Overview ........................................................................................................................................................................... 15

Options Interface ............................................................................................................................................................... 15

Version .............................................................................................................................................................................. 16

License .............................................................................................................................................................................. 16

YUV Matrix and Gamma Settings ..................................................................................................................................... 17

Quick Setup .............................................................................................................................................................. 17

YUV to RGB Matrix .................................................................................................................................................. 17

Report Source Gamma As ....................................................................................................................................... 18

Match Destination Gamma ....................................................................................................................................... 18

Default Platform Gamma .......................................................................................................................................... 18

Chroma Sampling .................................................................................................................................................... 18

Important Note about QuickTime Gamma Settings ................................................................................................. 19

Performance Options ........................................................................................................................................................ 19

Enabled Auto-Prefetching ........................................................................................................................................ 19

MT YUV->RGB ......................................................................................................................................................... 19

MT-X YUV->RGB ..................................................................................................................................................... 19

Colorspace Watermark ..................................................................................................................................................... 19

FourCC Output Support(Advanced) ................................................................................................................................. 19

Important Note about FourrCC Output Support ....................................................................................................... 19

Enable 8-bit YUV ...................................................................................................................................................... 20

Enable High-Precision YUV ..................................................................................................................................... 20

Enable 16-bit RGB(A) .............................................................................................................................................. 20

SOFTWARE LICENSE ................................................................................................ 21

Software License Agreement ............................................................................................................................................ 21

After Purchase - Software License Instructions ................................................................................................................ 21

Refund Policy .................................................................................................................................................................... 21

TROUBLESHOOTING ................................................................................................. 22

Seeing a white or black screen after installing ................................................................................................................. 22

DEMO MODE watermark still visible after licensing ......................................................................................................... 22

Misc. .................................................................................................................................................................................. 23

VERSION HISTORY .................................................................................................... 24

Getting Started

Overview

Calibrated{Q} XD Decode is a multi-threaded QuickTime Codec(Decode Only) that enables you to view QuickTime XDCAM HD/EX and HDV .MOV Movies in QuickTime Player and other 3rd party applications that support QuickTime.

Please see the Supported Formats Section in this Chapter for information regarding supported file types and formats. The Calibrated{Q} XD Decode Options application sets Global Options for use with the Calibrated{Q} XD Decode codec

(see Chapter: Global Options).

IMPORTANT: This version of software (v2.0 or greater) will require a new Software License and an upgrade fee if you had purchased a Software License for a previous version.

DEMO MODE Limitation

When run in DEMO MODE, Calibrated{Q} XD Decode will show the Calibrated{Q} XD Decode Logo as a watermark over the video – this is the only DEMO MODE limitation. In every other way, Calibrated{Q} XD Decode is fully functional. Using the software in DEMO MODE is for testing only and should not be used for commercial purposes.

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Known Issues and Limitations

The following known issues and limitations are associated with Calibrated{Q} XD Decode codec:

 Calibrated{Q} XD Decode will crash if run on a computer system that does not support SSE3 instructions which

were introduced in Pentium 4 processors circa 2004 (see the Windows Requirements section).

 Due to the long GOP nature of HDV and XDCAM, the Calibrated{Q} XD Decode codec stores two uncompressed

frames per clip. QuickTime does ask the codec to delete the uncompressed frames very often (i.e. flush the

frames) so this can lead to a slightly higher memory usage when opening many XDCAM/ HDV clips. Please note

this is NOT a memory leak.

 Some older applications may not be able to open/view XDCAM, HDV, XDCAM EX, or XDCAM 422 QuickTime

Movies due to the fact that applications must support new QuickTime enhancements for the viewing of video with

temporal compression.

 In extremely rare circumstances, XDCAM video frames can have errors in the MPEG2 stream – these MPEG2

errors can cause crashes and/or artifacts when trying to playback or view the video.

 To import XDCAM HD ‘slowmo’ MOV files into Avid MC via AMA Linking, (while Avid MC is closed) please enable

the ‘Enable Avid MC AMA Patch’ in the Calibrated{Q} XD Options application – see the section ‘Avid AMA Patch’

in this User Guide for more details.

 If you get a ‘-2002’ QuickTime ‘atom’ error when attempting to open a HDV .MOV file in QuickTime Player or you

cannot import the HDV .MOV file in an application that supports QuickTime which previously worked AND you

have installed iTunes 10.5 and/or QuickTime Player 7.7 – the reason is that due to security enhancements in

iTunes 10.5 and QuickTime Player 7.7, QuickTime is no longer able to open the HDV .MOV file. Please note that

this is not an issue with Calibrated{Q} XD Decode and so it is not an issue we can correct. Please contact the

software company or hardware company that generated the HDV .MOV file to learn of any possible workarounds

or when/if the issue will be resolved in a future release of iTunes and/or QuickTime Player.

 For reasons unknown, performance in Quantel applications will be extremely slow – apprx. 1 frame a second.  For reasons unknown, playback performance in Vegas on Windows will not be in realtime.  Playback of files is dependent on both the speed of your CPU and harddrive, as well as the application that you

are using the movie files in. Please note that Calibrated{Q} XD Decode can be used in a wide-variety of

applications; however some applications do not use the QuickTime SDK in an optimized way (i.e. the Software

Developer's Kit that applications use to integrate QuickTime) which would cause a notable decrease in playback

performance in those applications. Before purchasing a Software License, please test the software in DEMO

MODE using your own computers and applications to ensure performance is suitable for your particular workflow

needs. Using Calibrated{Q} XD Decode in DEMO MODE is fully functional (including performance speed) except

for the watermark over the video. Please see the ‘Performance’ section for more details.

 CATDV: If you experience any problems in creating proxies and/or playback in CatDV, please enable Protected

Mode in CatDV. To enable 'Protected Mode', go to the CatDV Preferences and select 'Media Playback' and then

check the option 'Protected player: Use separate QuickTime helper process'. Playback performance is a little less

smooth in ‘Protected Mode’ but it will be more stable. Also, in newer version of CatDV you may wish to also

disable ‘scrub audio when dragging play head’ in the ‘Media Playback’ CatDV Preferences to make scrubbing in

CatDV faster.

 When using XDCAM MXF files in conjunction with Calibrated{Q} MXF Import: If you are working with MXF

files where the audio is stored in its own separate MXF file (i.e. Panasonic P2, Ikegami GFCAM, Avid, Sony SAM)

it can help in CatDV to enable the Audio Small Segments in the Calibrated{Q} MXF Import Options application.

Please see the BETA Features - Audio Only MXF Segment Size in the Calibrated{Q} MXF Import User Guide for

more details.

 10.9 (Mavericks) or 10.10 (Yosemite) - QuickTime Player X and Finder Preview in Mavericks or Yosemite do not

work with our software. The workaround for QT Player X is to install QuickTime Player 7 and use that for

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playback. You can download QuickTime Player 7 from Apple here: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL923 and it will

install into the /Applications/Utilities folder and can co-exist fine with QT Player X on the same computer.

 Mountain Lion (OSX 10.8). QuickTime Player X may show the DEMO MODE watermarks over the video if you

are licensed due to the license file being ‘sandboxed’ by OSX 10.8. This issue is being investigated – the

workaround is to install QuickTime Player 7 and use that for playback. You can download QuickTime Player 7

from Apple here: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL923 and it will install into the /Applications/Utilities folder and can

co-exist fine with QT Player X on the same computer.

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QuickTime Gamma

QuickTime Gamma Correction (by Default ) is TURNED OFF – we have found that this is what the vast MAJORITY of users prefer – however in certain applications this can produce rendered video that is slightly brighter/darker than the source video usually when rendering to another QuickTime codec - to correct please TURN ON QuickTime Gamma Correction. Please see the Gamma Settings in the Global Options Chapter.

Important note about 8-bit YUV colorspace

Calibrated{Q} XD Decode supports decoding to 8-bit YUV422 (the colorspace that XD is encoded in*) - however it is up to the application using Calibrated{Q} XD Decode to request 8-bit YUV422 colorspace. Many applications that support importing MOV files only request 8-bit RGB(A) 444(4) colorspace, which requires a colorspace conversion of YUV->RGB in the codec – which slows down performance. Please see the Colorspace Watermark in the Global Options Chapter to see which colorspace on application is requesting, and also see the Enable 8-bit YUV, Enable High-Precision YUV, and Enable 16-bit RGB(A) in the Global Options Chapter to learn more about the various colorspace support.

*XDCAM EX and XDCAM HD 35Mb are encoded using 8-bit YUV4:2:0 – however since the YUV422 colorspace has

much wider support in QuickTime and applications that support QuickTime, YUV422 is used instead of YUV420. The YUV420 is quickly converted to YUV422 with little loss in performance when 8-bit YUV422 colorspace is requested from XD Decode by an application.

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+ 18 hidden pages

Calibrated Software XD Decode User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual