Blacklist Mode for So4 Compound Reader. What are the modes?

NickHope wrote on 10/26/2020, 1:35 PM

In VP15-17, the internal preference "Enable Blacklist for So4 Compound Reader" has a TRUE or FALSE value which enables or disables C:\Program Files\VEGAS\VEGAS Pro 1X.0\FileIO Plug-Ins\so4compoundplug\so4_blacklist_vp15.xml so that tricky formats can be made to still get decoded by the old compoundplug decoder without totally disabling so4copoundplug (See https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/blacklist-for-so4-includes-fix-for-gopro-dji-xiaomi-yi-avc-lag--111716/ ).

In VP18 it's replaced by the internal preference "Blacklist Mode for So4 Compound Reader" which now has a numerical value which seems to accept and retain any integer I enter.

Anyone any idea what exactly the numbers do?

I'm guessing 0 would be FALSE and 2 would be some form of TRUE. But 1? 3?

Comments

lan-mLMC wrote on 10/26/2020, 6:38 PM

It is a Interesting detail.

VEGASHeman wrote on 11/5/2020, 10:15 AM

The So4 blacklist behavior has been modified in VEGAS Pro18 from earlier versions. The old Enable Blacklist for So4 Compound Reader internal preference has been replaced by a new internal preference, Blacklist mode for So4 Compound Reader, which has possible values of:

  • 0 = OFF (no blacklisting of files)
  • 1 = ON (blacklisting of certain files, as listed in so4_blacklist_vp15.xml: these are currently AVC files produced by certain DJI, GoPro and Xiamoi Yi cameras)
  • 2 = AUTO (this is the default value, where blacklisting is disabled when a hardware decoder is detected on the system)

If you do not find the default behavior working as intended, even with hardware decoding enabled, you can change the value to 1 to get behavior that is similar to that in older versions of VEGAS Pro.

lan-mLMC wrote on 11/5/2020, 5:44 PM

Thanks for @VEGASHeman 's explanation.

NickHope wrote on 11/6/2020, 1:05 AM

@VEGASHeman Thanks for the explanation. I see that if this internal preference is left at 2 and the user manually turns hardware decoding OFF in the File I/O preferences, the blacklisting is then disabled. Perhaps it would be better for blacklisting to be enabled by default in that situation.

I'm thinking of a scenario where a user has problems with GPU-decoding, but is using DJI/GoPro/Xiamoi Yi footage that is troublesome for so4compoundplug in CPU-decoding mode. They may turn off hardware decoding and still have problems, because they don't know they can manually change that internal preference to 1.

In other words, I'm suggesting:

  • 2 - AUTO (this is the default value, where blacklisting is disabled when a hardware decoder is detected on the system and enabled, but enabled when hardware hardware decoding is not detected or not enabled).

Of course they can also get compounplug to decode DJI/GoPro/Xiamoi Yi AVC by enabling legacy AVC decoding, but that's a blanket setting and so not ideal if they have other footage that is better decoded by so4compoundplug than compoundplug.

VEGASHeman wrote on 11/9/2020, 9:25 AM

@NickHope: I agree with your suggestion - I think that would be very helpul in those scenarios, and we will modify the code to do exactly as you suggested. It should go in to the next update, and I will update this post too when that happens.