PiP Video Grainy/Fuzzy/Pixelated upon export

[Brian54]

I'm running HLT (Grand Prix, V.20.0.8) on an iPad Mini 4 connected to a Hero 4 Silver GoPro; when I export laps to videos, the main video is clear (coming from the GoPro), but the overlaid PiP video (coming from the internal camera) is very "grainy" looking (i.e. it has a very fuzzy, pixelated, low-resolution look - see pic below). Both the GoPro and internal cam are set to record at 720p resolution, although I am using the iPad's "Facetime" front-facing camera. Raw videos from both sources look clear and full resolution when viewed independently before exporting.

Am I missing something in the export/overlay settings that would be causing the lower resolution PiP? (I did not find anything in the video documentation, or on the forums, specific to the issue). I've noticed when the reference lap is overlaid as a PiP, it also shows up as very grainy and pixelated, which leads me to believe the issue is NOT specifically related to the source camera's resolution, but rather something I've missed in the settings.

Also, is there an option somewhere to disable reference laps from being included as a PiP in other laps?

Screenshot from the video (nevermind the PiP is upside down; that was user error):

FullSizeRender.jpg (149.51 KiB) Viewed 2068 times

[Harry]

Hi,

The upside down is probably the known issue with video orientation, will be (finally) fixed with the next bugfix release.

Videos shown as PiP are downscaled before adding them to the overlay. I need to check if I can reproduce the issue.

To turn off the reference PiP, goto Overlay Configuration (the dialog coming up to select the lap range after pressing Export) and swipe to the second page (yes, there is one). There is a switch for the reference video.

- Harry

[Brian54]

Here's what caused my upside down video (was able to reproduce): I opened the iOS camera app and switched the camera to the self-facing camera. Then I went into HLT and started lapping/recording. Voila! upside down.

Thanks for how to turn off the reference lap; I didn't realize there was a second page of options on export.

It seemed like I got less fuzzyness when I changed both cams to record at 1080, and reduced the FPS of the GoPro to 30 instead of 60. But the reference lap was still showing up pixelated, so I'm not sure if any of my changes "fixed" the issue, or if it just reduced them because of the higher starting resolution.

Thanks for the prompt response!

[Harry]

LapTimer reads the PiP video frame by frame. To save memory, the frames are down sampled to a comparably small size. This small frames in turn get overlaid. Maybe the downsampling is too aggressive. I need to check that and come back. Thanks for your patience.

- Harry

[Harry]

Checked the code. The problem is that the thumbnail is down sampled by a factor of around 3 to strong for iPads. For iPhones it is down sampled too strong too, but this is around 1.5 only. I will add a quick fix for 20.0.11 but will not be able to test it on an iPad. So once the version is getting available, let me know if there is still an issue.

- Harry

[Brian54]

Checked the code. The problem is that the thumbnail is down sampled by a factor of around 3 to strong for iPads. For iPhones it is down sampled too strong too, but this is around 1.5 only. I will add a quick fix for 20.0.11 but will not be able to test it on an iPad. So once the version is getting available, let me know if there is still an issue.

- Harry

Great, thank so much!

[Brian54]

... I will add a quick fix for 20.0.11 but will not be able to test it on an iPad. ...

Just wanted to give a quick update: v20.0.11 resolved the graininess for me; I verified that it worked on iPad.

[Harry]

Great, thanks!