[Bf-committers] Confusing Render, File Format and Encoding presets

[Troy Sobotka]

On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 10:07 AM, Ralph Giles <giles at thaumas.net> wrote:
> So in practice I always just render to
> png and encode with separate scripts. It would be nice if there was a
> way for blender to do all this. Perhaps some kind of output stage on
> the sequencer?

I think you nicely summarized almost everything having to do with the
issue at stake here regarding sync.

There is no way to avoid the accuracy required within Blender, but
perhaps there are more optimal ways to display the value choices. To
answer whether or not the UI could be "better" or "worse" we likely
look to answering who the audience is.

A) If there is a UI issue regarding framerate, it is a familiarity
with existing values. The common values an audience familiar with
other commercial tools would be either two or three decimal place
representations such as 24, 23.976, etc. In order to provide this
language of convenience, it matches Blender's preset values selection
boxes quite closely.

B) How can we provide further functionality without adding one more
option of preset value? The current Blender system also implements
progressive disclosure. Adding an "Advanced" option in the preset
framerate setting would open up the dual float values and enable one
to accurately relay any frame rate desired.

C) Transcoding is a deadly complicated area and is well beyond
Blender's scope. Taking this outside of Blender also has some current
bridging complexity, such as going from RGB to YCbCr and encoded to a
suitable codec. Within each of the conversions, there is a tremendous
amount of detail needed. To try and include all of that within Blender
would seem foolish. The qualitative "what is appropriate for within
Blender" can only likely be answered by someone like Ton.