|
|
|
|
MuxMan 1.4 is expected to be the last major version in the MuxMan version 1.x series. This does not mean that development has come to an end, though,
as there are a number of projects in planning. Notable is Carbon, which is the compositor program based on MuxMan's compositor but no longer constrained
to DVD-SD resolutions, and with many more features. Also in planning is MuxMan 2 which will support angles and multiple stories. MuxMan's engine has always
had this capability but neither mxp or the GUI allowed it due to complications with the Windows file system. Our goal was to be able to multiplex 3 stories,
each having 9 angles with 32 subpicture streams and 8 audio streams. This is possible, but file limitations of Windows prevents it. So ways around the limitations
such as pre-compiling the subpicture streams into one file need to be implimented.
When MuxMan first came out it was tested by many people who put full faith in the Philips verifier. As a result we made compromises in the mux engine to pass the tests in that verification program even though higher performance could be achieved without violating the DVD specifications. It is now, hopefully, common knowledge that the Philips verifier is flawed in many ways. I also hope people have come to trust MuxMan and our comprehensive testing program. In this release the artificial restraint that prevented using the full video buffer has been removed. This constraint also limited the mpeg encoder, and it has been adjusted upward to allow higher quality still encodes. The problem with the verification program lies in the check of the final pack of video. The verifier ignores the length field and assumes the pack is full, and, therefore, will overflow the buffer. As a result, to satisfy those who trusted the verifier, the last partial pack of video in each VOBU was never utilized until now. Also in this release we've removed the fixed video delay of 25257 clock ticks and replaced it with an algorithm that looks ahead to the worst case scenario of audio and video. This results in a value that now allows multiplexing high bitrate audio with either motion video or slideshows that would have resulted in buffer underflow previously. And finally there is the addition of diagonal, iris, and clock wipes to the Transition Assistant all made possible by the addition of the early version of the Alpha Channel processor, also known as the Keyer. This adds 88 forward patterns to the Transition Assistant for a total of 132 forward patterns. The Keyer also makes possible effects such as spotlighting (a circle with different brightness to attract attention to a portion of the image) and color substitution (as in the "rainbow text" example). M |