VSX2 Stuttered movement in imported projects

[pyvo]

Hi,

When importing a HD project (not rendered footage) into another HD project in VSX2, the movement of objects in the rendered AVCHD is 'stuttered' - why ?
This is NOT a transition or title stutter as per one of my previous posts - which was resolved by downloading the trial version of VSX3.

In VSX2 I have cut down my AVCHD source film into smaller, more manageable chapters - each a separate VSX2 project.
When assembling these chapters, I chose the "import project" (ex chapter 2 into chapter 1) as I used to do with UMSP7.0
Once BD-RE is cooked, the first chapter looks fine but the subsequent chapters have very noticeable problems with movement - especially vehicles moving accross the screen - it looks like the frame rate has gone right down to 10fps (iso 25 for PAL).
Oddly enough (I would have thought it should be the opposite), if I render each chapter to AVCHD and then import the rendered chapters, image movement is much smoother (virtually same as original).
The project properties are all the same in each project (PAL AVCHD 1920X1080 25fps); I have tried activating the 2-pass render and have tried switching on and off the anti-flicker but no improvement.

Thanks for any ideas.

Does anyonw know if this also happens in VSX3 ?

The "import project" feature that I used in UMSP7 is great because it allows you to create the chapters independently but then put some uninterrupted music over the links between chapters in the final project to ensure continuity if desired.

Rgds,
pyvo

Win Vista, Pentium Core Duo 2.26GHz, 4Gb DDR2 300Gb HDD + 2 x 250Gb USB-connected HDDs, BD-burner, Sony HDR-CX550

[pyvo]

p.s. I also checked that the field order is the same in each project - default set to "Lower first (DV)". Why DV even though the projects are all HD (AVCHD) ?

[Ken Berry]

First, the field order should definitely be Upper Field First, not Lower... Essentially, you can ignore the Project Properties for High Definition video since the program is incapable of setting them correctly.

Second, I think your problem flows from nesting the projects. AVCHD is the most demanding format currently on the consumer market, and requires lots of computer resources to play smoothly. Your computer has enough resources to do this, but not enough to nest AVCHD projects. If you think about it, you are asking your computer not only to process the overall project and render it into a final AVCHD project, but at the same time to process a whole series of nested AVCHD projects into final AVCHD videos as part of the overall project. Your computer just doesn't have sufficient resources to do this successfully.

Oddly enough (I would have thought it should be the opposite), if I render each chapter to AVCHD and then import the rendered chapters, image movement is much smoother (virtually same as original).

This is exactly what you should be doing...

[pyvo]

Thanks for the info Ken - I will try setting "upper field first" ASAP.

Regarding the "import project" vs "import rendered AVCHD", I take your word and it does seem to concurr with observation.

However, I am surprised as I would have thought that:
1/ import project makes reference to the original (captured) AVCHD (i.e. only 1 render between capture and share) whereas
2/ import rendered AVCHD re-renders the intermediate file (2 renders between capture and share) = slightly more loss in picture quality compared to original.

It seemed to me that it worked as case 1/ in my UMSP7 projects but maybe it is different with AVCHD and/or VSX2 ?
Would this explain why, in VSX2, you don't immediately see each track detail (titles, overlays, audio, etc) after importing project - as you can in UMSP7 ?

If you have any more details or know of a link to more information, then I would be very interested thanks.

Rgds
pyvo
p.s. and may the best team win on Sat 6th Nov

[Ken Berry]

...but maybe it is different with AVCHD

I have never used Media Studio Pro, so I cannot comment on that precisely... but from memory, I don't think MSP could deal with AVCHD. And that was really my point: AVCHD is just so incredibly demanding of computer resources, even when the computer would be able to handle less-demanding formats with no trouble at all, that you cannot make comparisons with products which cannot deal with AVCHD...

Your assumption in your para 1/ is correct. But the "only one render between capture and share", while correct in a sense, ignores the fact that the nested project must still be rendered, and that rendering has to take place as a separate sub-process of what is already an extremely complicated and demanding process of rendering the principal project. And that is what the computer is unable to do smoothly enough because of 'insufficient' resources for dealing with AVCHD.

Your para 2/ is also correct from my own personal point of view, but ignores the possibility of using Video Studio's SmartRender: if that is used, then theoretically, if you have already rendered the sub-projects into new AVCHD, and your principal project is also going to be rendered into AVCHD with the same properties, SmartRender will not in fact re-render those new pieces of AVCHD. However, I stress "my own personal point of view", since I consistently recommend that people don't use SmartRender with AVCHD (or HDV for that matter) because it seems to cause a lot of other problems, and particularly with VS X2. While this would lead to two renders and thus two degrees of quality loss, as you say, I would argue that your "slightly more loss" is the important element here... If you are using the same properties throughout, on all sub-projects and on the main project, then AVCHD quality is so high that two renders is simply not going to be detectable to the naked eye.

That, in any case, has been my own personal experience. Ou peut-être mes yeux sont trop vieux ou fatigues!!! (Et bonne chance dans le match de 6 novembre...!)