New Info re: AVCHD transition "blips"

[maxfrost01]

You still there, Geoff?

[geoffschultz]

I re-ran my tests using multi-trim and didn't see anything unusual. All of the mid-clip segments were assembled correctly. The only places where the clips were assembled with glitches were at the either end of the clip if it hadn't been trimmed by at least 2 frames. So, you can use multi-trim without problems as long as you trim the first/last 2 frames.

-- Geoff

[maxfrost01]

Hi, Geoff

I just want to be clear on what you're saying................

When I use multi-trim I start with one long video clip and chop it down into many short video clips (which I'm sure is exactly what everyone else does).
Are you saying that you need to trim both ends of the long video clip or of every short clip?

[geoffschultz]

Just the 2 start and end frames of the master clip. All of the intermediate clips are fine. At least that's what I saw.

-- Geoff

[maxfrost01]

Just run some tests of my own and the blips are back.

I tried editing in X3 using the Multi-trim and I'm getting blips just before or after most of the cuts.
I tried editing in the Timeline and I'm getting the blip in exactly the same place.
I tried cutting out a few frames and the blip is still there - happens at the same number of frames into the clip.
I tried editing in X2 and I'm getting the blips there too! Same place. This never used to happen before I installed X3.
I tried editing in X3 then exporting to X2 (this was the workaround that saved me on my last project) but the blips remain.

Have to say, I now feel completely stuffed.
The good news is that, with the help of this forum, I managed to get my last project finished and (somehow) blip free.
The bad news is that I have no reason to believe my next project will be anything less than a complete nightmare.

The only way forward I can think of is to completely uninstall X2 and X3, then reinstall X2 in the hope that I can get back to some trouble-free X2 editing (which is what I had before the upgrade).

[geoffschultz]

As I mentioned in another post, your other option is to batch convert your clips to MPEG Transport Stream files and use those. Specifics on settings that I found to work are in a previous post from me.

Personally I consider this ridiculous. I can't imagine why Corel can't figure this out. I've used other AVCHD editing software which doesn't have these issues. Corel has had plenty of time to resolve this and either something is seriously broken in their code or they don't consider it a priority. I could never recommend VS to someone just getting into AVCHD editing given these issues and Corel's lack of a solution to such a fundamental issue.

-- Geoff

[maxfrost01]

Geoff, I'm not entirely sure what mpeg Transport Stream files are!
I'm already working in mpeg, unlike you working in AVCHD.

[pthev]

At last my blip problem has come to an end, and I think I found what caused it... I don't pretend to know all the details about H264 compression, and I don't know if this solution will help others, but here are the details:

Sources: AVCHD files coming from a Sony Handycam, and from my own Sony DSC-HX5V (1080i/50, High@L4.0, 16MB/s , MTS container)
Symptoms: never had a blip until recently, as I was rendering in 720p/25 through external x264 vfw codec. When I decided to render in 1080i/50, I noticed, like others, a degradation wherever VSX3's built-in AVCHD codec was summoned (would that be the full file, or only transitions, effects, and title frames when Smart rendering was activated). But there were no blips to be seen in the final result, at least until I decided to view the files on my Samsung TV (Series 7 LCD), through USB and the TV built in player.

In short, at least in my case, I have the exact same blips described everywhere when I play the video in Samsung player. But playing this same file on a Windows 7 (Pro, 64 bits, fresh install by me, all built-in codecs untouched) under Windows Media Player (?!) gives a perfectly smooth, blip-free result.

Assumptions
Comparing the details between my original files and the VSX3 smart rendered file, I noticed (through MPC Home Cinema player's detailled file properties, although MPC can't play these files properly) a weird difference: my MTS files have a "Format settings, GOP: M=1, N=26" that has just disappeared on VSX3 end result, although Smart Rendering has copied raw segments in it. I may be completely wrong here, but this seems weird, as this would mean that the final smart-rendered file contains a mix of segments with a defined GOP of 1/26, others (VSX-generated) with some default (I guess) GOP values, and a possible explanation would be that some players accept some kind of a dynamic GOP (Win7?), while others don't (Samsung Series 7 and many others?), and would blip when a cut happens at the worst moment within a GOP.
Now, why does VSX3 also produce these exact same blips when Smart Rendering is deactivated, I don't know - but it sure does.

From there, all I thought was needed was a conversion tool that would accept my blip-full VSX3 generated files and ignore the blips in there, just like my Media Player does, re-save them in 1080i/50 without too much loss, and with no blips...

Solution that works like a charm for me:
Render my videos in VSX3 with smart rendering on, to preserve original quality as much as possible
Re-compress the resulting hybrid MPG h264 file with XMedia Recode - the best, easiest, and more configurable tool I've found to do 1080i/50 x264 compression (since x264 normally doesn't do interlacing).

I personally use XMedia Recode with the following settings - still have to do more tests:
MP4 container
MP4 AVC/H264 high@4.1, 16MB/s, 2-pass average bit rate, interlaced TFF (for a MBAFF result), deblocking on at 0/0, CABAC on
And while I'm at it, I often duplicate the audio channel to get one with MP3, the other in AAC or AC3 (MP3 stream helps if you want to hear something on some devices like Samsung TV without having to turn the volume to max)

Resulting file (after long rendering time, I must say) is slightly smaller than the VSX3 source, which makes sense, and visual result is really, really, close to the original. It plays perfectly, with no blips on all my devices - only VSX3 can hardly swallow it back on the timeline (due to MBAFF?): it works, but edition becomes damn slow.

Again, some of my conclusions on the root causes may be completely wrong, but at least, I now have what I need to produce good results that stay within video format standards. Almost good, that is, because the transition, titles, and effects sequences generated still suffer from VSX3 built-in h264 encoder, and it's still a real problem to me. So, I'm keeping my sources, in the hope that future versions will either improve quality by default, or include fine-tuning possibilities for h264 interlaced encoding....

Pt.

[pthev]

@Geoff, FYI, I don't see any blips into your uploaded Stutter videos, at least when playing them with W7 Pro 64 Windows Media Player.

Aside from that, re: triming first two frames of every clip on the timeline, and still in my very theoretical theory explained in the previous post, could it be that triming clips would result in deleting all non-VSX3 GOP parameters from the resulting sequence?

Pascal

[geoffschultz]

Pascal,

I've been flat out after traveling to 2 different cities for Christmas and now having 30 people over for a New Year's Eve party, so I haven't had a chance to look at any of this for about 2 weeks. My suggestion to you is to walk through the output frame by frame to look for assembly "blips". My post on this tells you exactly where I saw these errors. Perhaps with a different camera, they appear elsewhere.

Regarding the example that I posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLSG_q5gd-0 you can see the waves move backward at the very beginning of the clip. It appears at frame 17. The correct frame sequence should be

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20... and it assembles
1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 11 12 13 14 15...

Note that I have been unable to figure out any way to get the first frames to assemble in the correct order, but this is just a 1 frame blip and isn't really all that visible. However, going from frame 14 back to 11 is very obvious.

-- Geoff

[RickMen]

(I have lost track of where this issue is up to) Does XS V4 fix this issue?

[amateur]

Come on!

What about those frustrating "blips" in VSX4?

I am really curious about it but I have no time to play with the trial.

This is the time to get rid fo them in the new version.

I'm still a believer.

[geoffschultz]

I'll download the VSX4, but I will be really pissed if they fixed it in there but didn't release a patch to X3 to solve a basic error in their encoding. It's ridiculous to force your users to keep upgrading to a new version simply to fix things that should have worked in the first place. I'm not looking for new functionality. X3 does what I need and the fact that they want $80 for an upgrade really grates me!

-- Geoff

[geoffschultz]

I just ran my small test file which only consists of 3 video segments and is only 11 seconds long and it exhibits the same issues as X3. So, don't waste your money on X4 as they still haven't solved this basic issue. It's time to look for a new product. Sony Vegas here I come!

-- Geoff

[amateur]

60EUR for an upgrade just to have the "blips" problem fixed is simply disgusting (this is a well known fault for years...).

OK, I didn't check the VSX4 trial, I just can rely on other's experience.

Somehow I acknowledged that Corel released VSX3 without fixing this bug and without providing a patch for the users of VSX2.

But now I think Corel did it deliberately.
They must have the solution, but if it would have been included right in VSX4 there would be much more customers being angry with them due to the idea of upgrading for only one fix. Now a few users are disillusioned (including me) but that's all. And surprisingly in a few weeks they will come up with a patch or service pack to calm down the folk.

Until that a lot of customers will buy the VSX4 just for the childish new features (rest of them).

Shame!

A professional software company organizes a promotion campaign on their website before any new releases (eg. Coming soon..., The great exposure on...).
Instead of this on Monday Corel still sells VSX3, next day they release VSX4 and withdraw the old one. If someone doesn't like this behaviour then they offer to contact their fantastic Call Center or the money-back guarantee. Hahaha!

They are playing with us!