MI Panel Frames

Panel Frames is for the visual analysis of a video. It shows the frames of a GOP (Group Of Pictures) as bar chart and as list. These indications are the main means for navigating in a video. With a mouse click in the bar chart the figures of the selected frame will be shown, clicking a line in the GOP list will center the bar chart to the selected GOP.
In panel Frames MI shows the selected frame as decoded picture and can play the video (* not in the trial version) on condition that a suitable DirectShow filter set is installed on the computer and is selected with menu Open / DShow filter sets.
A selected frame in panel Frames is the "entry point" for the analysis with panel Details and Dump. The other way round selecting a frame in panel Details or Dump will automatically select the same frame in panel Frames.
                                                 Please click the areas in the picture below to get information !!!


GOP figure (bar chart)
The GOP figure shows the MPEG typical structure, which results on the method how the MPEG file is compressed. Not each frame covers the whole information of a picture. Only the blue indicated frames, the I-frames, are having the full information. The red indicated P-frames and the yellow indicated B-frames contain only the differences to the previous and the next frame. You can gather  the result of the compression from the size difference between the P-/B-frames and the leading I-frame.

Above the bar chart you can see the number of the first frame (left) and the number of the last frame (right) shown in the bar chart. In the middle the number of the GOP with the selected frame (vertical black line) is indicated. In addition this GOP is indicated by a lighter background.
With the slider, labeled with Zoom and with the mouse wheel you can vary the zoom level. Minimum is 60 frames, maximum is 720 frames respectively the maximal number of frames in the file if its less 720 frames.
The key Multiply (*) and and Divide (/) of the numerical keypad are causing the drirect jump to max/min zoom level

Important:
The zoom level and the shown range of frames has an effect on panel Details as well as on the length of a snippet that can be created with menu Export / Video Snippet.

With the keys Plus (+) and Minus (-) you can alter the scale factor for the heights of the bars. In case of small differences in the heights so you can spread the vertical axis. The actual value of Scale is shown above the bar chart.

The slider below the bar chart represents the position of the shown frames within the whole video. Moving this slider modifies the range shown in the chart, but has no effect on the selection of a frame or GOP.

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With the check boxes Show Birate Lines the display of the GOP and/or SequenceHeader bitrate curves can be switched on or off.

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GOP list
The GOP list shows GOP related data in an alpha-numerical way.
With the indicated frame and GOP numbers and the time of the first frame of the GOP you have a quick orientation of the position of the video.
Clicking a particular line in the GOP list moves the bar chart that the selected GOP is shown. On the other hand the GOP list will follow all navigations modifying the selected frame in the bar chart.

The GOP list can be exported with menu Export / GOP list into a text file for creating a table e.g. with MS Excel.
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In the area Current frame info   the data of the selected frame are shown.
The bars Q-Levels and GOP-Bitrate represents the corresponding values as bar chart. Please note that the indication of the Q-Levels (Quantisation levels) is corresponding to the selected frame while the GOP bitrate is the average bit rate of the frames of a GOP.
Some of the indications can be used for navigation. Clicking to the field size navigates to the frame with the biggest size (number of bytes of the frame information). Clicking the peak values of Q-Levels or GOP-Bitrates navigates to the corresponding frame respectively GOP.
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Navigating in the Video
In the area Step/Play you will find the buttons for navigation related to the selected frame. With selecting Decoder order or Stream order you can prescribe how stepping through the video shall be done.

The Decoder order is the order the frames will be displayed by the decoder, the stream order is the physical order the frames are arranged in the file.
The buttons << and >> will navigate to the first respectively the last frame of the video.
The buttons < | and | > will step frame wise back or forward in the selected order (see above).

In addition to the above mentioned possibilities for navigating some keyboard keys can be used.
The cursor keys left and right have the same effect as the step buttons, Home and End navigates to the first or rather to the last frame of the video.
Cursor up and Cursor down are navigating GOP wise while Page up and Page down are shifting around the shown zoomed range.
All keys and buttons will lose their function if its useless. For example its not possible to step forward when the last frame of a video is reached.
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Play mode
With the button Play/Pause a loaded video can be played or paused (* not in the trial version).

Clicking this button MI changes to play mode.
All frame related indications disappears and the buttons in the area Step/Play will become ineffective as well as the matching keys.
Only the button Pause and the space bar, which acts like the button Play/Pause, will be available.
The bar chart zooms to maximum frames. The actual position is shown by a lighter background and the position of the slider below the chart.
The video will be played in the video window until the button Pause is clicked or the space bar is pressed.

The playing will be stopped automatically either when the slider will be selected, the video has reached it's end, another panel was selected or MI isn't the active window since the desktop or another window becomes active.


Video picture / Playing video :
Showing the selected frame as decoded picture and playing the video is only possible, when MI can create a suitable DirectShow filter chain while loading the video.
For more information please refer to the MIPlayer’s user guide.

The actually used DShow Filters will be displayed if you click to the edge of the video picture

After changing the FilterSet with Open / DShow filter sets MI will rebuild the complete filter chain and will try to re-position to the selected frame.
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