-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PGPlayer 1.0.0 en - 2024/03/03 Free version only delivered for personal or familial use of the video hobbyist -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PGPlayer is a prototype to test a number of ideas that I exchanged with an english friend called JASON CROASDELL, and who recommended that I buy the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 camera. This camera produces video files in mp4, possibly in very high definition for example 4K. So I wanted to create software, like my DVdate software, to manipulate these files and process them. At the current stage which is a very preliminary version, PGPlayer is not trying to do much useful apart from three things which are already quite interesting: 1) It can scan your hard drives and build a database of all the mp4 files it found. When we ask him to load an mp4 file for the first time using one of the buttons on the left of the toolbar, he takes the time to analyze the file and in particular to collect its EXIF data using the excellent exiftool tool. exe from Phil Harvey which is freeware available on the web: https://exiftool.org/. It stores this data in its database. The following times, when asked again to load the video then it is much faster. 2) When we have loaded files, it displays them in a drop-down list. Currently this list displays videos in alphabetical order. In a later version we may have other sorting criteria. You can then click on the name of a video in the list to play it. In principle, video playback benefits from very comfortable elements: navigation buttons to move forward or backward, volume adjustment using the + or - keys on the numeric keyboard, the possibility of putting the video in full screen (with Alt+Enter ) or return to the PGPlayer window (with the same shortcut). You can also play the video in an external window, which can then even be placed on another monitor (ALT+Backspace shortcut). WARNING: to play videos in very high definition, you need very powerful resources, and in particular a good graphics card with Hardware acceleration capable of quickly decompressing these large files. At home with an NVidia GeForce GTX 1650 card everything is going well, if the Private LAV filters that PGPlayer uses are correctly configured. On another computer with an old AMD Radeon HD 7600 card it is not possible to play 4K videos smoothly, but for smaller videos it is correct. In the options page (F10 key) you can test different Hardware decoders that the LAV decoder knows how to use. You can try to see if one of these decoders gives good results on your system. Otherwise, do a test with VLC software: if it can't play your mp4 video well, then there's a good chance that PGPlayer won't be able to on your system either. 3) When a video is playing, then the EXIF data read from its file is displayed. A button marked "Exif" allows you to alternate between complete data, which is often very numerous and where you can get lost, and summarized data which immediately gives the main information about the video. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) How to install PGPlayer The PGPlayer zip includes an executable setup file named for example PGPlayer_10en_setup.exe. Just launch it and follow the directions. WARNING: Sometimes Microsoft or certain anti-viruses are very suspicious of my software that they do not know. They then issue stern warnings while pretending to refuse the installation. However, there are generally (discreet) ways to override the warning. I guarantee that you can use it without worry. There is nothing harmful or malicious, or advertising or hacking your data in my software. PGPlayer is built on the principle that it should not disrupt your system, so it brings with it everything it needs, including LAV filters that it installs in a "private mode" that does not interfere with any LAV filters already installed. Likewise it brings a version of the exiftool.exe file which will not interfere in any way with your exiftool file if you already had one. -------------------------------------------------- ---------------- 3) How to uninstall PGPlayer PGPlayer is uninstalled according to the normal Windows 10 or 11 procedures with Parameters, then Applications. Normally once uninstalled it should not leave any traces. If by chance you still find a trace, for example a folder even empty, a registry key, let me know, because the systems are very varied and I was not necessarily able to check everything. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ 4) Using PGPlayer I repeat that PGPlayer is a very preliminary version of a project which will ultimately be much more ambitious. This is a step to test a certain number of ideas and then complete the software. Among the ideas not yet realized is the goal of classifying videos into coherent groups. So if you have series of videos made during a trip to Italy, you will probably want to classify them under a section (which I call a "Tome" as in a library) entitled "Travel to Italy". But if you your trip lasted several days, you could also classify the videos from that Tome into subsections (which I call Chapters), one for each city visited: for example "Venice", "Florence" and "Naples". And even then we could still cut these Chapters into Sequences, for example for "Rome" we would have "The Colosseum", "The Trevi Fountain" or "the Vatican Museum". This is what PGPlayer will offer in future versions. These elements are already outlined by the display under the video of a banner which gives the Tome in the form of the year of the production of the video (if it found in the Exif data), then the Chapter which gives the month of this achievement, and the Sequence with the full day name. But at this stage we cannot modify these elements, nor use them. Another idea will be to be able to search the database. If it includes many videos, typically several thousand, it will be interesting to list those which meet certain criteria, for example date, or name, or video characteristics (image size, duration, compression, etc.) . While waiting for future versions, I repeat that the present version is purely a test prototype. It is not recommended to use it for any other activity and it is at your own risk. I am making it available to the public only for these tests. I would appreciate in return reports as detailed as possible sent to my e-mail contact@paulglagla.com In your reports, clearly specify the configuration used: characteristics of the computer, its processor, its RAM, the graphics card, the Windows 10 or 11 operating system (in 32 or 64 bits), and also the characteristics of the videos that had incidents or that worked well, including the size of the images, the number of frames per second and the compression ID. Thanks in advance. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ Visit my website https://paulglagla.com/en/ to see my other work, and if you like my contributions, click on the ads that appear on my web pages!