Documentation (In progress)

Contents

1. Introduction
1.1. Structure
1.2. Changelog

2. Installation
2.1. Windows
2.2. Mac

3. Quickstart
3.1. Open the designer
3.2. Create a scene
3.3. Configure and save the scene
3.4. Open your NLE
3.5. Render

4. Usage
4.1. Designer
4.1.1. Registration
4.1.2. Scene creation
4.2. Video Export
4.3. Scene Test
4.3.1. Open the scene tester
4.3.2. Generic settings
4.3.3. Adding video input streams
4.3.4. Adding audio input streams
4.3.5. Reading the log message

5. Troublesooting
5.1. DaVinciResolve Studio
5.1.1. Plugin doesn't show up

6. Appendix
6.1. Advanced Filtering
6.1.1. CUDA

1. Introduction

Welcome to Voukoder Pro! This is the start of the continuously growing documentation.

1.1. Structure

Voukoder Pro consists out of more than one component. This diagram shows you how these components interact with each other on Windows. On MacOS the components have different type names (i.e. dylib instead of DLL).

voukoderpro-structure.png

1.2. Changelog

You can watch the whole change log on this page.

2. Installation

Voukoder Pro 2.0 requires the FFmpeg 7.1 shared libraries to be working.

2.1. Windows

You can either use the package I provide:

Or you can even use a custom built one. In this case please make sure you also add the installation path to your PATH environment variable. The installers above already do this for you.

1.1. Mac

You can install the required libraries using homebrew by executing this command in your terminal:

Code
brew install ffmpeg@7

2.1.1. Requirements

The minimal supported OS version is currently MacOS 15 (Sequoia) or MacOS 11 (Big Sur) but which is currently untested. Both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs are supported now.

3. Quick Start

This section requires the installation and registration process to be successfully finished. Please make sure "Voukoder Pro" has been successfully installed and is working properly.

3.1. Open the Designer

"Voukoder Pro" follows a different approach than "Voukoder". Instead of filling out some dropdown boxes it requires you to configure one or more so called "scenes". A "Scene" represents the workflow from input of raw frames to the output of "Voukoder Pro" (i.e. a file or a network task). Scenes can now be much more complex (i.e. filter chains or multiple node output links) which can be still supported using the graph design.

3.2. Create a scene

If no "Untitled" scene has been created yet after opening the Designer app you can create the "simple scene" by clicking in the menu bar "Scene" > "New" > "Simple". Here you can see the most simple workflow.

3.3. Configure and save the scene

Double click on any node item on the scene to configure it. In most cases you need to do this only for the encoders and muxer. Choose whatever you like. Invalid combinations of encoders and muxers will be shown as a red box in the muxer node.

Once you have configured your scene, save it under a name you can remember and reflects the settings you have made.

3.4. Open your NLE

Next you need to open your NLE (i.e. DaVinci Resolve Studio, Adobe Premiere CC, etc). As soon as you have opened your NLE and you have a project loaded you should be able to select "Voukoder Pro" as output format and select that scene you have previously configured and saved (VEGAS Pro requires to open any modify a template first). All non-NLE relevant settings are associated to that scene. All scenes can also be shared in all supported NLEs.

3.5. Render

You can now render your video using the normal functionality in your NLE.

4. Usage

4.1. Designer

The core element is the Designer. Here you have full control over all non-NLE related settings. You can also register your copy of Voukoder Pro here.

4.1.1. Registration

You can reach the license registration dialog via the top menu bar of the Designer App. The location of this menu depends on the operating system of your machine. On Windows this is located at the top of the Designer window, on a Mac it's at the top of the screen when the Designer Window is active.

Just click on the "Help" > "Register ..." entry and this window should open:

voukoderpro-license.png

Copy & paste the license key here and click on the "OK" button. Your copy of "Voukoder Pro" is registered now.

4.1.2. Scene creation

voukoderpro-designer.png

Here you can see the future encoding process. Video and audio signals run from "input" to "output" through the various stages of the chain, or graph. The representation of the graphs can be extremely extended. This is the simplest variant.

You can modify the various stages with a double-click:

  • Input: In most cases, no modification is necessary. The tracks to which the NLE is to react can be assigned here, or color values can be set.

    If you are sending multiple audio tracks from your NLE (currently only possible with DaVinci Resolve Studio) you can define here on which of the NLE tracks that input node should react. That means, more than one input node might be necessary.
  • Encoder: In this case, these are “Prores” and “Alac”. However, they can also be changed to a more end customer-relevant format with “x264” and “aac”, for example.
  • Multiplexer / Muxer: Here you have the option of setting the container or file extension that should ultimately appear for the user. Examples here are “MOV”, “MKV” or “MP4”
  • Output: “File” is selected here. What is new is that many other options are available and can even be used in parallel.The file name is taken from Adobe Premiere.
  • Post Processing: You can run external scripts here that will be executed and perform user defined task once an export has finished.

After any editing and display settings, save this “scene”. To do this, click on "Scene" > "Save as ..." or "Save" and give it a suitable name under which you will recognize the scene.

4.2. Video Export

Now start your NLE, load a video and switch directly to the export / delivery view:

voukoderpro-adobepremierecc.png

voukoderpro-davinciresolvestudio.png

“Voukoder Pro” should now be selectable under ‘Format’, and so should the ‘Scene’ you created earlier. You can also edit the scene directly from here. To do this, click on “Open Scene Designer ...”. Both ways of using the Designer are possible.

Now you can either transfer the video to the batch encoder or export it directly.

4.3. Scene Test

A "scene test" gives you the possibility to test your currently open scene within the Designer app but with the real Voukoder Pro exporting engine. You can even watch the full logfile while it's working.

4.3.1. Open the scene tester

Select Tools > Perform Test ... from the top menu bar or click on the Play icon in the toolbar and the Scene Test window should appear.

Here you have the possibility to run a simulation of an export to test if all your settings in Voukoder Pro are working. You'll also get a log file that helps the developer to assist you if something is not working as expected.

voukoderpro-scenetest.png

4.3.2. Generic settings

In this window you have the possibility to adjust some settings for the simulation:

  • Video Tracks
    Click on Add ... to add a new video track. You can also Edit ... it again to make changes or Delete the marked track again if you don't need it anymore.
    (For details see section 4.3.3)
  • Audio Tracks
    Click on Add ... to add a new audio track. You can also Edit ... it again to make changes or Delete the marked track again if you don't need it anymore.
    (For details see section 4.3.4)
  • Frames / Iterations
    You can adjust this value to define how many frames or iterations the test should loop through.
  • Output File Name
    The default is set to NUL (Windows) or /dev/null (MacOS, Linux). If you specify a valid filename it will store the generated test file on your file system, so you can play or inspect it.

4.3.3. Adding video input streams

voukoderpro-addvideotrack.png

Normally you can just click OK using the default settings, but you can also adjust the various video frame settings in this window:

  • Width
  • Height
  • Timebase
    A time base is the opposite value of the frame rate and defines the temporal distance between frames. 1/30 means 30 fps and 1001/60 means 59.94 fps.
  • Pixel Aspect Ratio
    The pixel aspect ration for modern systems is mostly 1:1. But you can define a different aspect here.
  • Field Order
    Mostly this is Progressive, but for some encoders you can also define an interlaced format like Bottom Frame First or Top Frame First.
  • Format
    The pixel format of the generated frame data. Currently this is yuv420p only. But it will be automatically up- or down converted if a different format is required. But the data will remain the same. (i.e. The visual data remains like 8 bit even it it gets upconverted to 10 bit)
  • Color Range
    The color range the frame data gets interpreted as. This can be either TV / Limited (means values from 16 to 235 in 8 bit) or PC / Full (means values from 0 to 255 in 8 bit). Most encoders prefer TV / Limited when work with YUV data and PC / Full with RGB data.
  • Color Space
  • Color Primaries
  • Color Transfer

4.3.4. Adding audio input streams

voukoderpro-addaudiotrack.png

Here you can adjust the audio frame settings:

  • Channel Layout
    Here you can freely define the layout of the channels. i.e. you could add multiple mono channels or one 5.1 layout.
  • Sample Frequency
    You can define the sample frequency here. Normally this is 44100 Hz or 48000 Hz.
  • Sample Format
    This is how the uncompressed data is stored in (i.e. Float means (basically) floating point values between 0 and 1, 16 Bit Integer means integer values between -32767 and +32767). Normally 32 Bit Float has a better precision.

4.3.5. Reading the log messages

After clicking on the Start button a new window appears containing the log messages from Voukoder Pro. The real Voukoder Pro engine is used here, just the input data is fake (as defined in the earlier steps).

Successful Export

A successful log file of the "Simple Scene" with 10 iterations could look like this:

Explanation

LineDescription
1Audio Phase PRE-INIT has been started
2The audio filter chain has been parsed and has been converted to an format that FFmpeg understands
3Audio Phase INIT has been started
4 - 12The audio filter graph has been successfully applied
13 - 29A graphical representation of the audio filter graph
30 - 31The ALAC encoder has been successfully initialized
32Video Phase PRE-INIT has been started
33The video filter chain has been parsed and has been converted to an format that FFmpeg understands
34Video Phase INIT has been started
35 - 47The video filter graph has been successfully applied
48 - 64A graphical representation of the video filter graph
65 - 66The prores_ks encoder has been successfully initialized
67Phase PRE-OPEN has been started
68 - 72The audio and video streams get registered at the muxer node
73Phase OPEN has been started
74 - 75The audio encoder ALAC has been opened with no params (null) as 24 bits per sample
76 - 175The video encoder prores_ks has been opened with no params (null). As no params has been set the encoder uses its default settings
176 - 194The MOV muxer prints a debug output of its settings
195 - 197The OPEN phase has been finished, everything has been set up and we are waiting for video and audio input frames
198 - 223The loop where 10 frames are getting sent to the encoder. They are buffered only because it's just 10 frames, so no direct muxing appears.
224Phase PRE-CLOSE has been started
225 - 226The video and audio buffers get flushed. So the encoded frames will be sent to the muxer.
227 - 236All 10 video frames get muxed with the audio frames (currently they don't logged)
237Phase PRE-CLOSE has finished
238Phase CLOSE has been started
239 - 242The audio and video encoders get closed
243 - 245The finishing lines
247 - 249Some performance data with ignoring rendering and decoding parts in the NLE.
Note: This data is also slightly incorrect and will be fixed in the next release.

Export failure

Code
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5. Troubleshooting

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5.1. DaVinci Resolve Studio

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5.1.1. Plugin doesn't show up

Are you using the studio (paid) version or the non-studio (free) version?

The free version doesn't support external plugins. Thus Voukoder Pro works with the paid DaVinci Resolve Studio version only.

Did you select to install the DVRS plugin in the installer?

You need to do this and check for the right install directory. Otherwise the plugin does not get installed.

6. Addendum

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6.1. Advanced Filtering

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6.1.1. CUDA

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