Strange rendering problem

[hadardo]

Hi,
I created a project in my new VS X5 in which I take 3 seconds long clips from an HD video (from a panasonic HDC HS900: mts, 1920x1080, H.264, 24bit, 25 fps) and put them together one after the other with no trasition effects.
On most (nearly all) of these clips I used some filtering, like auto level and pan and zoom.
When I created an HD video from these clips (same format as the clips themselves) I noticed something very strange: some of the frames got mixed between the clips (e.g. if clip A came before clip B, then somewhere in the middle of clip A there were a few frames - no more than 3 - from clip B and then back to clip A). In other places frames seemed to "get lost" and the result was jumpy.
Is this a known issue?

I'm using VS X5 Ultimate SP1
Hardware and software: intel i5-3550, ATI Radeon 7700, memory 4GB, win 7 64bit. All drivers are up to date.

Thanks,
Doron

[Ken Berry]

Does the same thing happen if you don't apply filters to the clips?

There used to be a similar problem with AVCHD video in VS X2 and I think X3, but when transitions were inserted. There was a momentary blip which appeared to have a frame or two repeating. But this was corrected in X4 and I can't recall it being raised by any user since then, including in X5...

[hadardo]

Hi Ken,
Removed all the filters and the blipping continued (the only thing stayed was the muting of the audio).
That made me wondering, so I started checking every video I created so far frame-by-frame and found all of them with "blips" like this. In most of them it was hardly noticeable, but with that 3 seconds long clip it was very noticeable.
The blipping is something like this: toward the end of the clip, about 10 frames before another one, transition effect or not, there are about 2-3 "future" frames, from the current or the next clip. The blips don't occur all the time, but at least 20% of the time.

When I changed the output method, instead of the same video format to BR-HD (1920x1080), no H.264 etc. the blipping seemed to be gone. However the results is now taking thrice the storage volume.

Doron

[erdna]

At what bitrate did you shoot your videos?

[hadardo]

13Mbps (HG)

[hadardo]

The plot thickens.
Just out of curiosity, I've tested the jumpy videos in another frame-by-frame tool and the blips were not there. Same video, same timestamp, different frames. Double checked and even rubbed my eyes and still, no blips. All the frames were in the right order when playing the video in another tool.
So my initial assumption was proabably wrong: it's not that VS writes the frames wrong - It probably reads them wrong, and probably only from the clip it created (that's how I got the choppy results, since I needed to use clips inside other clips, etc.)

[lata]

Hi Doron

Can you make the clips available to download, maybe using 4 Shared, unless you have your own sharing options.
Better still create a Smart Package, zipped, that way we will see your edits.
I think 4 shared limit is 2 Gb?

By the way, have you tried disabling Smart Render when you create the new file?

[hadardo]

Hi,
Sorry for not responding for so long but I had to meet the deadline of my project. During that long hours of rendering and re-rendering and re-re-re-rendering I stumbled upon more glitches, which seems, in my view, related to the same problem.
I'll upload some of the clips later today with a list of the glitches.
Thanks,
Doron

[hadardo]

Hi again,
Sorry for the delay, but I've been testing a few more things in order to disqualify external reasons for these "blips", such as hardware/drivers issues, and I have. I've downloaded VS x5 trial version to other PCs and found the same blips.
Then I remembered some odd behavior on my older PC with the VS x4 pro with the same video formats that were taken from my camcorde (Panasonic HDC HS900, PAL, recording at 13Mb, mts files, 1920x1080, H.264).
Take a look at this:

This clip was made with the VS x4 pro. In the last 10 seconds of the clip there somekind of a "rewind" to an earlier point in the clip. At first I thought it was some sort of glitch in YouTube and put no notice into it, but I checked the MP4 file that was created before the upload and the rewind is there.

Back to VS x5:
I've uploaded to 4Shared 4 clips that were created bu VS x5:
http://www.4shared.com/file/HmoTFUSo/a1_online.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/wr7TrN5A/a2_online.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/F7WcBlID/a3_online.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/JD0GFmuU/a4 ... furl=d1url
Let's start with a4:
Here is the example of the blips: on timestamps 00:00:08:17 (17 marks the frame) VS shows two frames from further ahead in the clip and not the correct frames (and when using this clip in a new timeline the blip stays). Also in timestamp 00:00:20:20 there are 2 frames that don't belong there (and in other positions along the clip). Pinacle studio shows the correct frames. (the correct result, after re-rendering the clip in a BR mode was used to create clip a3).

And now for another blip:
Rendering a project with clip a1 that is followed by clip a2 in a BR format (m2t, 1920x1080) resulted in a quirkey behavior of Windows Media Player (not in the VS viewer): When the content of clip a2 was to show up in the video, it "shrank" to a 4:3 video, "crushing" the image. The workaround was to re-render clip a1 and then add a2 to the new project. Here is to place to say the WMP suffers the most out of these blips.

Thanks,
Doron

[lata]

Hi Doron

Are you able to upload an original video clip, so we can compare that.?
Working with clips already rendered from the originals only shows there is a problem?

[hadardo]

Hi Trevor,
Do you need the clips that these rendered videos were made from or any video clip from the camcorder will do?

[lata]

Hi

Wow what a mess.............

I have just looked at a4.m2t, there is all sorts of strange things happening.

Duplicate frames, black bars, slow playback...totally ridiculous.

But these videos have been created using Video Studio, rendered from the originals.
Now it could be Video Studio fault, the original clips may be faulty, your pc may not be doing the job.

So to be able to make any sense out of this we do need samples or the original clips.

It does look as though you have added several clips together in the same project, i assume these are the originals and maybe applied filters/transitions/Pan & Zoom???

Are you able to create a Smart Package of the project (zipped) and uploaded to 4Shared, the size should be similar to the files already uploaded. this would include the original video.

[hadardo]

Don't be so alarmed
Yes, I used scenes from a lot of clips (the total clips use in the entire project exceeded 150 in order to create 30 minutes long video).
I'm uploading some sample right now. The samples are the originals that were used to create the first 25 seconds of clip a1), but before the upload is finished, here are a few remarks.
As I initialy wrote, in most of the clips I use pan and zoom, autolevel and somtimes slowdown. I don't know which black bars your refering to, but I assume those are the black sides when using pan and zoom (I needed to keep the main image fixed in the center, left or the right of the screen in order to achieve clip a3).
As for hardware/driver issue - You can mark it off. As I wrote two days ago, I tested it on other PCs with the same result, and even the "old" VS x4 on my older PC gave a similar error (the YouTube clip).
So it's either the clips are faulty - somehow the files got corrupted during copy - which doesn't explain why Pinacle studio is able to overcome the problems, or either something is wrong with VS.
There is another reason which make me suspect VS and not the clips: Clip a1 (the problem with the "shrinked" a2 clip) has still images in its last seconds. The still images were take from various cameras, most of them with the Canon SX20IS (Jpeg, 4000x3000,24 bit,180 dpi ) or iPhone 4 (Jpeg, 2592x1936 ,24 bit, 72 dpi). So the clips and the Jpegs are all faulty? and only when rendering to ACVHD 1920x1080 with H.264 and not to BR without H.264? Forgive the tone, but I find that hard to believe.
I've searched a bit in this forum and found quite a lot of questions regarding erros from the same or similar make of the camcorder (Panasonic HDC 900 series - the other letters in the model represent the memory type: Harddrive, built-in memory or memory card only). Can it be that VS has a problem with clips from this camcorder?

Doron

[lata]

Hi

Thanks for the explanation, so the black portions are part of Pan & Zoom, ok

I did notice that although the timeline showed frames apparently in the wrong order, when you nudged through frame at a time they did not all show in the preview screen.
Some did and were clearly out of position. Strange........
---------------------------
Jpeg images, what do you mean by "Jpegs are all faulty?"
Are you saying you cannot import then into Video Studio?
--------------------------
Panasonic clips, to upload to the pc you have two options, drag and drop from the memory card, or use the software that came with the camera.
As far as i know one uses MTS and the other M2TS, not sure what the difference is. But one of these options produced better quality, cannot give any details, its just what i read on the forum.
-------------------------

One thing i have noticed with all clips from the Panasonic is that the first two frames are always duplicated, that is the same for every sample I have.
--------------------------
I will download the samples and create a project to see how it performs on my set up.
From your tests its gonna be pretty similar.
Can only try?

[hadardo]

Hi,
It seems I didn't explaing myself very well:
I know how to copy clips from the camcorder to the PC (and to the timeline). I was only suggesting that the only place where the clip may have been corrupted were in the copying process, which (again) can only be right if the camcorder itself has issues, since I copied the clips to 3 different PCs (having a hard drive on my camcorder is actually raising the odds for that, but then again, why Pinacle studio is able to "overcome" these allegedly problem?).
Same with the Jpegs: different cameras, differenct PCs, same result with VS.
So what are the chances that the Jpegs and the clips are all faulty in all the PCs?

Anyway, here is the link for the samples:

http://www.4shared.com/file/3uDAdczh/samples.html

Thanks,
Doron