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Dear All
I have seen the following problem:
I use VS10, my source material are mpeg2 files coming from a camcorder. I have created a movie that contains the following elements(CT refers to a crossfade transition):
black color,CT,clip1,CT,clip2,CT,black color,CT,clip3,CT,clip4,CT,black color...etc
In addition I have several titles, each title starts in the middle of a black color element and ends in the middle of the clip right after the color(clip1,clip3,etc). Each title has a fade-animation applied(crossfade).If I render to a mpeg2 file and have turned on the smart-renderer then the rendered file has short video-distortions(about 200ms) inside clip right at the timepoints where the titles end(middle of clip1,clip3,etc).
The source clip files do not have these video-distortions so they were produced by VS10. If I turn off the smart-renderer and render again then the distortions disappear so it seems that they are produced by the smart-renderer.
Has anyone else ever seen such a problem?
Is this a bug in VS10 and is there a way(except turning off smart-renderer) to avoid these distortions? I can provide a screenshot of such a distortion if required.
Regards
Sektionschef

Your MPEG files may be corrupt. MPEG2 Files imported into Video Studio from a capture device such as the ADS DX2 will render perfectly with Smart Render disabled, but will be corrupted if Smart Render is enabled. The MPEG2 encoding performed within the DX2 takes a lot of the load off the CPU and produces perfectly acceptable MPEG2 files if you don't use Smart Render. Enabling Smart Render with such files will also put your audio out of sync. Disable Smart Render and you'll be fine.

Many Thanks for your answer. My mpeg2 files aren't corrupt.
I made further investigations and found out that this problem defenitely comes from the smart-renderer.
If I view the generated mpeg2 file frame by frame using virtualdub then I can see that all portions that were reencoded by the smart-renderer have the sequence IBBPBBPBBPBBIBBPBBPBBPBBI...etc.
If the last frame of that sequence does not meet with an I-frame of the clip from the video track then VS generates this distortion.
In VS I did the following to fix the problem:
-switched to max. zoom on the timeline that the cursor will jump frame by frame
-enlarge the title by so many frames that the last frame of the title will meet an I-frame with the movie on the video track.
If I render the modified project but leave smart-renderer enabled then the distortions have disappeared and the resulting video is excellent.
Unfortunately VS can not tell you which frame of an mpeg2 file is I,B or P frame so an external program(like virtualdub) is required to see this.
This is defenitely a bug in VS10, I hope some project leaders at ulead will read this and apply a fix(a patch) in a future release.
Regards
Sektionschef

Ulead have been unable to make 'Smart Render' work correctly ever since they introduced it. Those using the AVI format have much more success with it than those using MPEG2. Personally, I've given up on 'Smart Render' and I get exactly the results I want without it. Your posting is interesting though.

Hi
smart-rendering is essential for me that's why I am looking for ways to solve such problems. I would switch to a different product if I could not use the smart-renderer in VS10.
My source material is mainly mpeg2 and therefore the more I can use the smart-renderer the higher the quality(preventing reencoding) will be. In addition the rendering time dramatically decreases when using the smart-renderer.
At the moment I can live with the current situation although it is a little bit annoying to do these manual corrections.
However, I feel that there maight be many other problems with the smart-renderer that haven't occoured on my system so far. I have checked my last smart-rendered project carefully but everything is perfect.
My last project doesn't have any synchronous audio to video, it just consists of video with background music. However, I also made a short test putting a 3GB mpeg2 movie onto the timeline, cut it into server parts and inserted transitions just for test. After smart-rendering I checked whether all parts of the movie were still in "lip-sync" and yes, there were no problems so far.
Would be interesting what other problems coming from the smart-renderer were observed by other users?
Regards
Sektionschef

Hi
I read somewhere in this forum that you can enable access to advanced mpeg-settings by adding the following line into uvs.ini file:
[VIODRIVER]
Advance=1

I tried it and afterwards I could see the button "advanced" on the compression-tab.
After pressing this button I can modify advanced mpeg settings like the GOP-structure. Perhaps the right setting here will also solve my problem with the smart-renderer.
I will do some investigations....
If someone has already some experiences with these advanced settings then please let me know.
Regards
Sektionschef

With 'Smart Render' be sure to check audio sync after the burn and not just on the rendered file. In many cases in previous versions of VS, a smart rendered file was in sync prior to the burn, but out of sync after it, and this was not a driver/firmware issue relative to the burner, but could be traced back to 'smart render'.

Thanks for the hint.
Do you mean the problem has occoured after burning the DVD with VS?
I often had problems with mpeg files where audio and video were out of sync but I never had the situation that the mpeg file was in sync but after burning the resulting DVD was out of sync.
In general I neither use VS for DVD authoring nor for burning. Maybe the problem comes from the authoring process...
Regards
Sektionschef

You're wise to use VS that way. I've found that the best way to use VS is to edit and render with it, but to capture and burn using dedicated software.

Hi
I just want to report that I made a test with Magix Video deluxe 2006/2007plus sw.
Put some mpeg2 clips onto the timeline with transitions and titles and rendered to mpeg2 with smart-renderer enabled.
Result:
Magix seems to have similar problems with their smart-renderer than Ulead. With Magix I got artefact distortions at the beginning of a transition while with Ulead VS10 I have mostly seen them at the end of a transition.
Regards
Sektionschef

Sektionschef,
here is a link to a tutorial on using the "Advanced" settings in the MPEG encoder that you were looking for:

http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic.php?t=10880

Thanks, Lancecarr
I think that was the thread that I have read once.
Regards
Sektionschef

Hi
I just want to report that the new UVS10 servicepack1 does NOT fix the problem with the smart-renderer.
Regards
Sektionschef

TDK1044,

In one of your responses in this thread you wrote,

You're wise to use VS that way. I've found that the best way to use VS is to edit and render with it, but to capture and burn using dedicated software.

Currently, I am using VS10+ to capture, edit, render, DVD author and burn. I just recently bought and installed DVD MF5+ and intend to use it now for DVD authoring and burning instead of VS10+, but still intend to use VS10+ for capturing, editing and rendering.

Your quote intrigued me, however, about using dedicated software for capturing. Does VS10+ not do a good job in accurately capturing DV_AVI from a camcorder and transferring to the computer? What capturing software do you use or would you recommend that costs a reasonable amount of money? Also, what software do you use for DVD authoring and burning?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Sektionschef,
I do the crossfade to/from black sequence often - with and without titles. I just checked several of my smart-rendered mpeg2 project video files with Virtual Dub Mpeg, doing a frame by frame movement through the transition and do not see the distortions that you see.

What tools are you using to view the distortions.