Renate Schaaf

This way it works. Don't set the parent, set DimmedControl to self. The sizes and the anchors are set automatically when active is set to true. procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject); begin TransparentPanel := TDimPanel.Create(Self); TransparentPanel.DimmedControl:=self; TransparentPanel.Alpha := 140; TransparentPanel.DimColor := clBlack; TransparentPanel.Active := True; end; Note that once activated, the panel is on top of its dimmedControl, so you would not be able to click on anything on the form. The use of the panel is to temporarily disable input to a part of the application and to give the user visible feedback about it. It acts like a semitransparent glass layer on top of the dimmed window. Looks like you don't want to use it that way.

Yes, the update on resize should work automatically. For completeness' sake I'm posting the code of the Dimpanel-version which I presently use. I introduced a property Active, which is decoupled from the Visible-property and a propert DimmedControl which is decoupled from the Parent-property. Also, this version should work on Delphi 2006 and up. To dim the whole form this code works: procedure TForm1.Button4Click(Sender: TObject); begin //Dimmer is a TDimpanel created in OnCreate Dimmer.DimColor := clNavy; Dimmer.DimmedControl := self; Dimmer.Alpha := 150; Dimmer.DisableDimmedControlOnActive := true; Dimmer.active := true; end; And here is the code for TDimPanel: Unit uDimPanel; // by aehimself on https://en.delphipraxis.net/topic/4826-how-to-dim-a-tabsheet/ Interface Uses Classes, Windows, ExtCtrls, Graphics, Controls, Messages; Type TDimPanel = Class(TCustomPanel) private _bitmap, _scr: TBitMap; _enabledcontrols: TList; fActive: boolean; fDimmedControl: TWinControl; fDimColor: TColor; fDoDisable: boolean; fAlpha: Byte; Procedure DisableParentControls; Procedure EnableParentControls; Procedure UpdateBitmap(DoRepaint: boolean); procedure SetActive(const Value: boolean); procedure SetDimmedControl(const Value: TWinControl); procedure WMEraseBkgnd(var Msg: TMessage); message WM_EraseBkgnd; protected Procedure Paint; Override; Procedure Resize; Override; Procedure Notification( AComponent: TComponent; Operation: TOperation); override; Procedure Loaded; Override; public Constructor Create(inOwner: TComponent); override; Destructor Destroy; Override; // Set Active = true at runtime to dim the DimmedControl // Set Active = false to re-enable DimmedControl Property Active: boolean read fActive write SetActive; Property Bitmap: TBitMap read _bitmap; // for debug reasons Property Screen: TBitMap read _scr; published Property DimmedControl: TWinControl read fDimmedControl write SetDimmedControl; property DimColor: TColor read fDimColor write fDimColor; property DisableDimmedControlOnActive: boolean read fDoDisable write fDoDisable; property Alpha: Byte read fAlpha write fAlpha; property Align; property OnResize; property StyleElements; //comment for unsuitable Delphi-versions End; procedure Register; Implementation uses SysUtils; Procedure Register; Begin RegisterComponents( 'Custom', [TDimPanel]); End; Constructor TDimPanel.Create(inOwner: TComponent); Begin inherited Create(inOwner); Self.Visible := False; // Self.DoubleBuffered := True; // Might cause flicker if true, plus we are custom drawing Self.ParentBackground := False; Self.BevelOuter := bvNone; Self.Caption := ''; fDimColor := clBlack; fDoDisable := true; fAlpha := 140; if (csDesigning in ComponentState) then exit; _bitmap := TBitMap.Create; _scr := TBitMap.Create; _bitmap.PixelFormat := pf24bit; _bitmap.Transparent := False; _scr.PixelFormat := pf24bit; _scr.Transparent := False; _enabledcontrols := TList.Create; ControlStyle := ControlStyle + [csOpaque]; End; Destructor TDimPanel.Destroy; Begin if fActive and fDoDisable then EnableParentControls; fDimmedControl := nil; _scr.Free; FreeAndNil(_bitmap); FreeAndNil(_enabledcontrols); inherited; End; Procedure TDimPanel.DisableParentControls; Var a: Integer; Begin // Should be empty every time, but to be sure... _enabledcontrols.Clear; For a := 0 To Self.Parent.ControlCount - 1 Do If (Self.Parent.Controls[a] <> Self) And Self.Parent.Controls[a] .Enabled Then Begin _enabledcontrols.Add(Self.Parent.Controls[a]); Self.Parent.Controls[a].Enabled := False; End; End; Procedure TDimPanel.EnableParentControls; Var control: TControl; i: Integer; Begin Try For i := 0 to _enabledcontrols.Count - 1 do begin control := TControl(_enabledcontrols[i]); control.Enabled := true; end; Finally _enabledcontrols.Clear; End; End; // Loaded is called, when all properties of all components of the owner // have been read from the .dfm and have called their setters. // Now we can be sure that fDimmedControl has the correct dimensions, // and we just call its setter again. procedure TDimPanel.Loaded; begin inherited; DimmedControl := fDimmedControl; end; procedure TDimPanel.Notification( AComponent: TComponent; Operation: TOperation); begin inherited; if AComponent = fDimmedControl then if Operation = opRemove then fDimmedControl := nil; end; Procedure TDimPanel.Paint; Begin // Omit the call to inherited in general. We only need a black background // and the opaque bitmap we captured earlier. if (csDesigning in ComponentState) then begin inherited; exit; end; if assigned(_bitmap) then BitBlt( Canvas.Handle, 0, 0, Width, Height, _bitmap.Canvas.Handle, 0, 0, SRCCopy); End; Procedure TDimPanel.Resize; Begin inherited; If Self.Active Then Self.UpdateBitmap(true); End; procedure TDimPanel.SetActive(const Value: boolean); begin // if the parent is not the same as fDimmedControl it doesn't make any sense // for example if fDimmedControl=nil ... if Self.Parent <> fDimmedControl then begin fActive := False; exit; end; fActive := Value; If Self.fActive Then Begin // Make sure nothing can be interacted with while parent is dimmed if fDoDisable then begin Self.DisableParentControls; // Repaint the parent to reflect disabled state of controls Self.Parent.Repaint; end; Self.UpdateBitmap(False); // no need to repaint the parent at this time Self.BringToFront; Self.Visible := true; End Else Begin // Clear bitmaps to free up memory Self.Visible := False; _bitmap.SetSize( 0, 0); _scr.SetSize( 0, 0); if fDoDisable then // Re-enable all controls we disabled earlier Self.EnableParentControls; end; end; procedure TDimPanel.SetDimmedControl(const Value: TWinControl); var save: boolean; begin // Don't check <>, otherwise Loaded won't work! // if fDimmedControl <> Value then // begin fDimmedControl := Value; if (csDesigning in Self.ComponentState) then exit; if assigned(fDimmedControl) then begin save := Self.Active; if fDoDisable then // Re-enable disabled controls from previous parent // and clear DisabledList Self.EnableParentControls; Self.Active := False; Self.Parent := fDimmedControl; Self.Align := alNone; // clear any align set at design time Self.SetBounds( 0, 0, Parent.ClientWidth, Parent.ClientHeight); Self.Anchors := [akLeft, akTop, akRight, akBottom]; // Re-activate if necessary Self.Active := save; end else begin Active := False; Parent := nil; end; end; // Replace shr 8 by div 256, so we don't get a range check error. // Turn optimization on, so div 256 runs as fast as shr 8 // The optimizer sees that 256 is a power of 2. {$IFOPT O- } {$DEFINE O_MINUS } {$O+ } {$ENDIF } {$IFOPT Q+} {$DEFINE Q_PLUS} {$Q-} {$ENDIF} // AlphaBlend Source and Target using alpha/255 on Target, 1-alpha/255 on Source // and store result in target. procedure Alphablend( Source, Target: TBitMap; Alpha: Byte); var stride: Integer; ps, pt: PByte; i: Integer; begin Assert(Source.PixelFormat = pf24bit); Assert(Target.PixelFormat = pf24bit); Assert(Source.Width = Target.Width); Assert(Source.Height = Target.Height); stride := ((Source.Width * 24 + 31) and not 31) div 8; ps := Source.ScanLine[Source.Height - 1]; pt := Target.ScanLine[Target.Height - 1]; for i := 1 to Source.Height * stride do begin pt^ := ps^ + (Alpha * (pt^ - ps^)) div 256; inc(pt); inc(ps); end; end; // Restore optimization to original {$IFDEF O_MINUS} {$O-} {$UNDEF O_MINUS} {$ENDIF} {$IFDEF Q_PLUS} {$Q+} {$UNDEF Q_PLUS} {$ENDIF} Procedure TDimPanel.UpdateBitmap(DoRepaint: boolean); Var dc: HWND; Begin if (csDesigning in ComponentState) then exit; If Self.Active Then Begin if DoRepaint then begin // If the dimpanel is visible, it will be included in the screenshot. So // let's "hide" it... Self.Visible := False; // ...and kindly ask the parent to repaint so new dimensions can be // captured correctly! Self.Parent.Repaint; end; End; Try _bitmap.SetSize( Self.Parent.ClientWidth, Self.Parent.ClientHeight); _scr.SetSize( _bitmap.Width, _bitmap.Height); dc := GetDC(Self.Parent.Handle); Try BitBlt( _scr.Canvas.Handle, 0, 0, _bitmap.Width, _bitmap.Height, dc, 0, 0, SRCCopy); Finally ReleaseDC( Self.Parent.Handle, dc); End; _bitmap.Canvas.Brush.Color := fDimColor; _bitmap.Canvas.FillRect(_bitmap.Canvas.ClipRect); Alphablend( _scr, _bitmap, Alpha); Finally If Self.Active Then if DoRepaint then Self.Visible := true; End; End; procedure TDimPanel.WMEraseBkgnd(var Msg: TMessage); begin Msg.Result := 1; end; End.

What do you mean by that? Do you mean the .dfm-file? I certainly did not suggest any such thing! You leave that alone (until you know what you're doing:), or there's hell to pay! The variables I put into the private part of the form-class in the form-unit. Please read my example. The .dfm-file is where the designer stores all the properties of the form and the controls and components it uses. If you change anything in that the form may become unusable. My favorite is "Delphi in a nutshell" by Ray Lischner, a bit aged now, of course, but great as a reference.

The compiler was probably not complaining for the reason you thought it did. Without code impossible to tell. I don't like lengthy explanations, so here is an example to get you started: program FillTestArray; {$APPTYPE CONSOLE} {$R *.res} uses System.SysUtils; var TestArray: array[0..3] of string; i: integer; begin try for i := 0 to 3 do begin write('Type input for ' + i.ToString +': '); readln(TestArray[i]); end; for i := 0 to 3 do begin write('TestArray['+ i.ToString +']: '+TestArray[i]); readln; end; except on E: Exception do Writeln(E.ClassName, ': ', E.Message); end; end. Make them fields of the form, that's the logical thing, since they are only used in that context. I've changed your unit, read my comments. Also, if you attach a form-unit, include the .dfm and zip it up. Makes it ever so much easier to give you an answer. unit Unit2; interface uses Winapi.Windows, Winapi.Messages, System.SysUtils, System.Variants, System.Classes, Vcl.Graphics, Vcl.Controls, Vcl.Forms, Vcl.Dialogs, Vcl.Grids, Vcl.StdCtrls; type TTest = class(TForm) MySG: TStringGrid; CBCycle: TButton; procedure FormCreate(Sender: TObject); procedure CBCycleClick(Sender: TObject); procedure MySGClick(Sender: TObject); private switch, A, B: integer; //make these variables of the form S: string; procedure AdjustMySg; //make this a method of the form { Private-Deklarationen } public { Public-Deklarationen } end; //This variable should only be used for auto-creation of the form. //Never use it in your code. //If you can comment these lines, and your form-code is still error-free //you've done it right. var Test: TTest; implementation {$R *.dfm} Procedure TTest.AdjustMySg; var I : integer; begin MySg.ColCount := 6; MySg.RowCount := 21; MySg.DefaultColWidth := 100; MySg.Cells[0,0] := 'Test'; MySg.Cells[1,0] := 'TESTA'; MySg.Cells[2,0] := 'TESTB'; MySg.Cells[3,0] := 'TESTC'; MySg.Cells[4,0] := 'TESTD'; MySg.Cells[5,0] := 'TESTE'; for i := 1 to 20 do Mysg.Cells[0,i] := inttoStr(i); end; procedure TTest.CBCycleClick(Sender: TObject); begin switch := switch + A; // switch starts at zero If Switch = 1 then // switch point to last button push begin // or 'the Selected' row if B<>0 then //not first time MySg.Cells[1, switch + B]:=S; A := 1; B := -1; S := MySg.Cells[1, switch]; // S as it 'is' MySg.Cells [1, switch] := '***' + S; end; if (Switch > 1) and (switch <= 20) then // include last row begin MySg.Cells [1, switch + B] := S; //replase '***' + S w just S S := MySg.Cells [1, Switch]; // new S MySg.Cells [1, switch] := '***' + S; // show as 'selected'. end; If (Switch = 20) then begin A := -1 ; B := 1; end; end; procedure TTest.FormCreate(Sender: TObject); begin AdjustMySg; //Do any initialization here switch := 0; A := 1; B := 0; end; procedure Ttest.MySGClick(Sender: TObject); Var I, J, K : Integer; begin AdjustMySg; K := 23; with MySG do for I := 1 to ColCount - 1 do for J:= 1 to RowCount - 1 do begin K := K + 1; Cells[i, j] := IntToStr(k); end; MySG.Cells[1,1] := 'longtest'; MySg.Cells[2,1] := 'Blongtest'; MySg.Cells[3,1] := 'Clongtest'; MySg.Cells[4,1] := ' short'; MySg.Cells[5,1] := IntToStr(k); end; You could replace your unit2 by this one. In the designer you then need to attach TTest.FormCreate to the OnCreate event of the form. To the rest of your questions: No, and there are better ways to achieve what you want. When I changed from Borland-Pascal to Delphi (30 years ago) I read the manuals front to back, and then I thought I knew what I was doing (wrong). Don't get discouraged, read up on the stuff, download some simple sample projects and understand what they are doing! Renate

if (Switch > 1) and (switch < 20) then begin MySg.Cells [1, switch + B] := S; //replase '***' + S w just S S is a local variable. What it contains is undefined at the beginning of the procedure and independent of what you assigned to it in the previous click. Use the debugger, if you have a problem like you describe. Step through your procedure, and examine the variables. You will see why your code is not doing what you expect. The variable B has the same problem.

I managed to fix the root of all timing- and video-stuttering problems. It was me using a global variable for the media-buffer passed to the video-samples. Apparently this is not very threadsafe (who would have guessed ). Now there is no more need to put sleeps all over the code or to change the timer-resolution. As a side-effect, hardware-encoding got quite a bit faster. I also added support for encoding audio to (lossless) FLAC. Check it out on https://github.com/rmesch/Bitmaps2Video-for-Media-Foundation if you're interested. Have a nice weekend Renate I forgot to say that this version requires the newest version of Mfpack https://github.com/FactoryXCode/MfPack

I've been wondering about the same, maybe the setup isn't right. But I find it so hard to even figure out what settings you can specify. You lost me here. What 10m, and what's gps? Indeed, that looks interesting. Thanks, your links have already helped me a lot to understand better. Renate

I think I solved the audio-syncing ... kind of. First observation: Audio and video are perfectly synced if the audio comes from a .wav-file. You can check this using the optimal frame-rates 46.875 or 31.25. So for optimal synching, compressed audio should be converted to .wav first. I have added a routine in uTransformer.pas which does this. In the demo there are some checkboxes to try this out. Second observation: For compressed input the phase-shift in audio happens exactly at the boundaries of the IMFSamples read in. So this is what I think happens: The encoder doesn't like the buffer-size of these samples and throws away some bytes at the end. This causes a gap in the audio-stream and a phase-shift in the timing. I have a notorious video where you can actually hear these gaps after re-encoding. If I transform the audio to .wav first, the gaps are gone. One could try to safekeep the thrown-away bytes and pad them to the beginning of the next sample, fixing up the time-stamps... Is that what you were suggesting, @Kas Ob.? Well, I don't think i could do it anyway :). So right now, first transforming audio-input to .wav is the best I can come up with. For what I use this for it's fine, because I mix all the audio into one big .wav before encoding. Renate

There is a new version at https://github.com/rmesch/Bitmaps2Video-for-Media-Foundation. New stuff: Some rewrite of audio, making sure that gaps at the beginning of a stream are filled with silence. 2 optimized frame-rates for audio-synching, see below. Most importantly: One can now run @Kas Ob.'s frame analysis from within the demo, if one enables the hidden tab "Analysis". I just made the lines a bit shorter, as the rest was just repeating the same values for all I tested, as far as I could see. The file ffprobe.exe needs to be in the same directory as DemoWMF.exe. ffprobe is part of ffmpeg-git-essentials.7z on https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/. I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out what I can and what I cannot control about audio-synching, tracing into the relevant code and running the analysis. Results of audio-rethynching follow (beware, it's long): The math is for audio-sample-rate of 48000 and the time units are all s. Audio-blockalign is always 4 Bytes for what I do. There are at least 2 different meanings of "sample": PCMSample: as in samples per second. ByteSize: Channels*BitsPerSample/8 = 2*16/8 = 4 Bytes. Time: 1/48000 s IMFSample: Chunk of audio returned by IMFSourceReader.ReadSample. It contains a buffer holding a certain amount of uncompressed PCMsamples, and info like timestamp, duration, flags ... The size of these samples varies a lot with the type of input. Some observed values: .mp3-file 1: Buffersize = 96 768 Bytes Duration = 0.504 (96768 bytes = 96768/4 PCMSamples = 96768/4/48000 s OK) .mp3-file 2: Buffersize = 35 108 Bytes Duration = 0.1828532 (35108/4/48000 = 0.182854166.. not OK) .wmv-file: Buffersize = 17 832 Bytes Duration = 0.092875 (17832/4/48000 = 0.092875 OK) Except for the first sample read, the values don't differ from sample to sample. Those are the samples I can write to the sinkwriter for encoding. Breaking them up seems like a bad idea. I have to trust MF to handle the writing correctly. The buffers seem to always be block-aligned. I've added some redundant variables in TBitmapEncoderWMF.WriteAudio so these values can be examined in the debugger. A related quantity are audio-frames. Similarly to the video-stream the audio-stream of a compressed video consists of audio-frames. 1 audio-frame contains the compressed equivalent of 1024 PCMSamples. So: AudioFrameDuration = 1024/48000 AudioFrameRate = 48000/1024 I can only control the writing of the video by feeding the IMFSamples of video and audio to the sinkwriter in good order. The samples I write to the sinkwriter are collected in a "Leaky-Bucket"-buffer. The encoder pulls out what it needs to write the next chunk of video. It hopefully waits until there are enough samples to write something meaningful. Problems arise if the bucket overflows. There need to be enough video- and audio-samples to correctly write both streams. So here is the workflow, roughly (can be checked by stepping into TBitmapEncoderWMF.WriteOneFrame): Check if the audio-time written so far is less than the timestamp of the next video-frame. Yes: Pull audio-samples out of the sourcereader and write them to the sinkwriter until audio-time >= video-timestamp. Looking at the durations above, one sample might already achieve this. Write the next video-frame Repeat In the case of mp3-file 1 the reading and writing of 1 audio-sample would be followed by the writing of several video-samples. The encoder now breaks the bucket-buffer up into frames, compresses them and writes them to file. It does that following its own rules, which I have no control over. Frame-analysis can show the result: A group of video-frames is followed by a group of audio-frames, which should cover the same time-interval as the video-frames. In the output I have seen so far, the audio-frame-period is always 15 audio-frames. For video-framerate 30, the video-frame-period is 9 or 10 frames. Why doesn't it make the audio- and video-periods smaller? No idea. Guess that's the amount of info the players can handle nowadays, and these periods are a compromise between optimal phase-locking of audio- video- periods and the buffer-size the player can handle. Theoretically, at framerate 30, 16 video-frames should phase-lock with 25 audio-frames. Here is one of those video-audio-groups. Video-framerate is 30. video stream_index=0 key_frame=0 pts=39000 pts_time=1.300000 duration_time=0.033333 video stream_index=0 key_frame=0 pts=40000 pts_time=1.333333 duration_time=0.033333 video stream_index=0 key_frame=0 pts=41000 pts_time=1.366667 duration_time=0.033333 video stream_index=0 key_frame=0 pts=42000 pts_time=1.400000 duration_time=0.033333 video stream_index=0 key_frame=0 pts=43000 pts_time=1.433333 duration_time=0.033333 video stream_index=0 key_frame=0 pts=44000 pts_time=1.466667 duration_time=0.033333 video stream_index=0 key_frame=0 pts=45000 pts_time=1.500000 duration_time=0.033333 video stream_index=0 key_frame=0 pts=46000 pts_time=1.533333 duration_time=0.033333 video stream_index=0 key_frame=0 pts=47000 pts_time=1.566667 duration_time=0.033333 video stream_index=0 key_frame=0 pts=48000 pts_time=1.600000 duration_time=0.033333 audio stream_index=1 key_frame=1 pts=62992 pts_time=1.312333 duration_time=0.021333 audio stream_index=1 key_frame=1 pts=64016 pts_time=1.333667 duration_time=0.021333 audio stream_index=1 key_frame=1 pts=65040 pts_time=1.355000 duration_time=0.021333 audio stream_index=1 key_frame=1 pts=66064 pts_time=1.376333 duration_time=0.021333 audio stream_index=1 key_frame=1 pts=67088 pts_time=1.397667 duration_time=0.021333 audio stream_index=1 key_frame=1 pts=68112 pts_time=1.419000 duration_time=0.021333 audio stream_index=1 key_frame=1 pts=69136 pts_time=1.440333 duration_time=0.021333 audio stream_index=1 key_frame=1 pts=70160 pts_time=1.461667 duration_time=0.021333 audio stream_index=1 key_frame=1 pts=71184 pts_time=1.483000 duration_time=0.021333 audio stream_index=1 key_frame=1 pts=72208 pts_time=1.504333 duration_time=0.021333 audio stream_index=1 key_frame=1 pts=73232 pts_time=1.525667 duration_time=0.021333 audio stream_index=1 key_frame=1 pts=74256 pts_time=1.547000 duration_time=0.021333 audio stream_index=1 key_frame=1 pts=75280 pts_time=1.568333 duration_time=0.021333 audio stream_index=1 key_frame=1 pts=76304 pts_time=1.589667 duration_time=0.021333 audio stream_index=1 key_frame=1 pts=77328 pts_time=1.611000 duration_time=0.021333 pts stands for "presentation time stamp" and pts_time is of interest. Video-time-intervall: from 1.300000 to 1.600000+0.033333=1.633333 Audio-time-intervall: from 1.312333 to 1.611000+0.021333=1.632333 Audio is a bit ahead at the beginning and a tiny bit behind at the end. pts should be multiples of 1024, but they aren't hmm. The difference is still 1024, but they are phase-shifted. Phase-shift is 62992 mod 1024 = 528 (or -496). The interval from a bit further ahead: Video: From 8.066667 to 8.366667+0.033333=8.400000 Audio: From 8.053667 to 8.352333+0.021333=8.373666 pts-phase-shift: still 528 (-496) Audio is lagging behind. To really see what is happening I will have to implement better statistics than just looking at things 🙂 One further test: I tried to phase-lock audio and video optimally: VideoFrameRate: f. AudioFrameRate: 48000/1024, so f = 48000/1024 = 46,875. I've added this frame-rate to the demo. Result: Perfect sync for the first audio-video group. In the middle of the second group the pts-phase-shift is again 528, and audio lags behind. For the rest of the groups the lag doesn't get bigger, it is always corrected to some degree. But the file should have identical audio and video timestamps in the first place! There is another new frame-rate, which is the result of trying to phase-lock 2 video-frames to 3 audio-frames. 2/f = 3*1024/4800 results in f = 2*48000/3/1024 = 31.25 I will try to find out what causes the phase-shift in audio by parsing the ffprobe-output a bit more (sigh). Maybe generate a log-file for the samples written, too. (Sigh). No, so far it's still fun. For those, who made it up to here: Thanks for your patience. Renate

First of all, thanks. I'll be back as soon as I understand better what the analysis is showing, and then I might be able to do the "little code changes" you mention :). Just keep in mind, that the sinkwriter isn't giving you any control over dts, pts., or how video and audio are interleaved. Renate

Hi, Anders, CreateFmt uses internally constructor Exception.CreateFmt(const Msg: string; const Args: array of const); begin FMessage := Format(Msg, Args); end; and help says that this version of Format isn't threadsafe, since it uses the locale for the decimal separator. Now I'm not using decimal-separators here, and I guess once the exception is raised in a thread thread-safety doesn't really matter anymore? Another thing: Is %x.8 doing the same as IntToHex(hr,8)? Renate

With a little change you can perform that test from within the demo, I think. Just put a little change into TBitmapEncodeWMF.AddVideo: procedure TBitmapEncoderWMF.AddVideo( const VideoFile: string; TransitionTime: integer = 0; crop: boolean = false; stretch: boolean = false); var VT: TVideoTransformer; bm: TBitmap; TimeStamp, Duration, VideoStart: int64; begin if not fInitialized then exit; VT := TVideoTransformer.Create( VideoFile, fVideoHeight, fFrameRate); try bm := TBitmap.Create; try if not VT.NextValidSampleToBitmap(bm, TimeStamp, Duration) then exit; if TransitionTime > 0 then CrossFadeTo( bm, TransitionTime, crop, stretch); VideoStart := fWriteStart; // fill gap at beginning of video stream if TimeStamp > 0 then AddStillImage( bm, Trunc(TimeStamp / 10000), crop, stretch); while (not VT.EndOfFile) and fInitialized do begin BitmapToRGBA( bm, fBmRGBA, crop, stretch); bmRGBAToSampleBuffer(fBmRGBA); // !!!!! Change is here for extra hard sync-check: // WriteOneFrame( // VideoStart + TimeStamp, // Duration); // Write the decoded video stream in exactly the same way as AddFrame would. // I.e. with the same timestamps, not taking any timestamps from the // video-input WriteOneFrame( fWriteStart, fSampleDuration); if not VT.NextValidSampleToBitmap(bm, TimeStamp, Duration) then Break; end; // FrameCount*FrameTime > Video-end? (shouldn't differ by much) // if fWriteStart > VideoStart + TimeStamp + Duration then // Freeze((fWriteStart - VideoStart - TimeStamp - Duration) div 10000); finally bm.Free; end; finally VT.Free; end; end; Then transcode a movie on the Demo-Tab "Use TBitmapEncoderWMF as a transcoder". It uses the procedure TranscodeVideoFile, treating the video- and audiostream of an input-video as totally independent inputs. AddVideo decodes the video-stream into a stream of bitmaps, and the input-video is used again as audiofile. I encoded 40 minutes of "Fellowship of the Ring" this way, and did not see any desynching. You'll probably say that's no proof, and you'd be right, but it might be an indication that the problem isn't as severe. Or the video player is just very good at making something usable out of the input.

I don't think that's quite true, if it fails the rest of WriteOneFrame isn't executed and in Line 1713 an exception is raised with errorcode hr. I could translate it into an EAudioFormatException, though, at the spot you indicate. It was meant as an extra safety check, since the code already checks for EndOfStream, and that hasn't failed so far. But I've put it back in.

presentation time = image time + effect time (2000).

Thanks everybody. Now I have a lot to think about, a great chance to expand my horizon at the age of 74:). I'll fix the code. But then I need a bit of time to think. The info is great. Because my poor debugger didn't run the code, because I didn't tell it to do so. I pasted that compatibility code in without checking, probably missed another piece. Mistake I won't do again. So I need to disable LogicalCompare for more compiler versions, or write a header for StrCmpLogicalW.