Jerky Output

[kinglerch]

I know this has been discussed many times over the years of VideoStudio, but I wasn't able to find a definitive solution. I have a 1080p/60 (59.94) video that I have imported into X6. I then outputted 1080p/60 (59.94) AVI from X6. During pans (of course) the output video is very jerky...almost jumpy. It seems to go slow for a spell, then catch up by jerking forward.

The odd thing is that this jerkiness is most pronounced where I I have left the original video at 100% speed. Some areas I have changed to 80% speed and others 160% speed, and these look better than the 100% speed...even though I have tried to set the input and output the same resolution, progressive, and framerate.

Is there some trick to getting X6 to output smooth pans? I am not asking for perfection, I realize that pans are extraordinarily difficult to display smoothly. But what I saw from X6 was something special, jerky, jumpy...far worse than the source video which showed none of this.

[lata]

Hi

And welcome to the forums

A little difficult to imagine how bad the playback is without seeing it.
Can you give more details regarding the original video, right click the clip and select Properties, what are they?
You can create an image of the window to attach to the post.
Then do the same for the new rendered video file, you mention AVI, why AVI.
Is Share Create Video File – Same as first clip available?

Video Studio X6 can edit 60P video, the timeline should be set to this Settings – Enable 60/50p Editing. That will allow all frames to be seen on the timeline. Otherwise playback will miss every alternate frame, playing 30fps.

You mention changing the playback speed, is this to try smooth the panning or an effect you are after?
Changing the playback speed will impact on the quality of the video.

Does the panning improve after rendering the project to a new video?

[kinglerch]

I will try to post a sample when I am in front of it. It is a set of moving slides (still images) going from right to left. It is an MPEG2 video 1920x1080 60p (59.94). This is what VS recognizes the source as, and the same format I am outputting. However, when I output it, the jerkiness/jumpiness is pretty bad. I slowed down some segments that were going too fast, they were set to 80% speed, and they did not show this jumpiness (or are maybe too slow to notice).

I don't know what you mean by "rendering the project to a new video". I realize there can be jerky motion while editing, which is fine. But once the project has been outputted to 1920x1080 60p (59.94) same as the input video, I would hope that the output video would look the same as the input...unless I changed the speed, of course.

But in this case, the areas where I didn't change the speed show the most jumpiness during pans, while the slowed down areas do not. But in either case, VS is changing the motion of my video, despite my input and output settings matching...or is there something I'm missing?

[lata]

I don't know what you mean by "rendering the project to a new video".

You say "outputting"

If you do Share Create Video File - Is the option - Same as First Video Clip available.

if yes use that to "output" your project, now what is the quality of the new video file.

Video Studio uses Smart Proxy files to smooth editing and playback so play using one of your media players, VLC Media Player is quite good.

[Ken Berry]

It is an MPEG2 video 1920x1080 60p (59.94). This is what VS recognizes the source as, and the same format I am outputting.

This is getting a bit confusing... In your first post you say you are outputting to an avi file. Is this still the case? That is certainly not the same as your inputting of mpeg-2. Where did the mpeg-2 come from, by the way?

And by way of explanation, when you say "outputting" we use the video editing term "rendering". You can render/output to a new format or the same format using Share > Create Video File.

[kinglerch]

The MPEG2 file came from a slideshow program that is somewhat limited, so I am doing further work in VS. By "format" I meant that the resolution and framerate of this MPEG2 file is the same as the AVI I rendered. I realize they are not the exact same format (MPEG2 vs AVI), but I didn't think VS would create the jerkiness because of it. In my mind, VS should simply use source (framerate/progressive)-> destination (framerate/progressive) to generate motion.

If you are saying that the fact that I rendered an AVI file from an MPEG2 file could cause this jerkiness, then I am happy to try it some other way. I just don't understand why VS seems to handle the frame motion so strangely. I will try a short segment and see if I can find where the problem is popping up.

[kinglerch]

What you suggested fixed it. I was not choosing "same as first video clip" during my render, though what I chose seemed the same to me. What I chose was either custom or AVCHD:

MPEG Transport-Stream 24 bit, 1920x1080, 59.94 Frame-Based (HDMV-NTSC), 16:9 H.264 Video data rate 20000 Variable

When I chose "same as first video clip" it says the settings are:

NTSC double (60 fps) MPEG Transport-Stream 24 bit, 1920x1080, 59.94 Frame-based (HDMV-NTSC), 16:9 Video data rate 60000 Variable

To me, they seem about the same (with regards to frames) but the first one is extraordinarily jerky and jumpy while the second one is smooth as can be expected, even if I slow down or speed up the clip. So I'm not sure what is going on (both of you probably do) but "same as first video clip" was the way to go. Thanks.

[canuck]

Is there any way you can upload a segment of the original mpeg file to a free web site or the "cloud" from which it could be downloaded so that we can take a look at it at play around with it?

[lata]

Hi

Good to hear you are able to render a better quality video.
Did you consider using Video Studio to create your slide show?

Reducing the amount of times you convert/render the files will help in retaining the quality.

Outputting / rendering to a different format is always gonna impact on quality so rendering to the original format is probably the best option.
As you are creating a slide show you can choose the properties at the offset to match your chosen final format, if that makes sense.

[kinglerch]

While I agree with you in principle, to me the formats didn't appear to be different in a way that should have affected motion. And the AVCHD output was *so* extremely jerky, I don't know that anything should have accounted for it. So I uploaded a zip file (~200MB) with 3 videos in it: http://www.genesismuseum.com/tests.zip

test.mpg - the original slideshow (10 sec)
testavchd.m2t - new VS project rendered in AVCHD format, same exact resolution and framerate as the source
testsafvc.m2t - new VS project rendered with "same as first video clip" option, strangely same resolution and framerate again

You can see that the original and "same as first video clip" are smooth as silk. The AVCHD version looks fine, but the motion is terrible.

[lata]

Hi

Thanks, I am downloading that now and will have a look and reply later.
That’s if the forum speeds up a little, so slow today?

[Ken Berry]

I'll be interested to hear lata's comments. However, I have now downloaded those clips and played them in a variety of players, and have had no trouble at all with the AVCHD clip. It played perfectly smoothly when inserted into VS X6. The other two did as well, although both of those showed some shimmering in the thin frames surrounding each image. No shimmer was apparent in the AVCHD version. Note that this was the way they played in Clip mode. In Project mode all three had identical judder throughout -- making them effectively unwatchable, with the Original and Same As also showing the shimmer around the frames described above.

VLC Player started off playing the Original video with the type of jerk you describe though it quickly smoothed out. I replayed it just in case but got the same result. The AVCHD had one slight jerk in the same spot but less than the original. Curiously, the 'Same As' video would not play at all in VLC. It simply stuck on the first frame. I repeated this twice, reopening VLC each time, with the same result.

In DVDFab Media Player, the Original clip had one noticeable jerk in the first second, but after that played smoothly. Both the AVCHD and Same As versions had two noticeable jerks, the first at the same spot as in the Original, and the second a half second afterwards, but both in the same spot.

In Windows Media Player, the Original played with a very noticeable jerk right at the beginning and then again when the koala appears. The AVCHD clip had less of a jerk at the beginning but a bigger one around the koala. The Same As clip had a very minor judder at the beginning but otherwise played smoothly, including around the koala!!

In Media Player Classic, the Original had some judder throughout. The AVCHD initially crashed MPC but when reopened, it played with a similar amount of judder to the Original. The Same As clip played smoothly, with only a small amount of judder in the yellow flowers at the end. After doing the above, I noticed that MPC had an update available, which I installed. The Original again played with some judder throughout. The AVCHD played with slightly less judder up to the koala, but then smoothed out. The Same As had a slight judder in the opening frames (penguins), then was smooth until the sea anemone, when it juddered again, then was smooth again.

So how's that for a variety of results??!! But as I said at the outset, for the most part the AVCHD clip performed well, or just as badly as one or the other of the Original or Same As clips.

[kinglerch]

I did some further comparisons on a 3rd computer and found some of the varying results that you did. I think we are discovering there is a difference between the output formats, but they are related to the differences in playback, rather than VS ability to produce smooth motion. Thanks.

[lata]

Hi guys

Sorry for the delay in testing these.

All clips are jerky when played using Video Studio, clip mode and Project mode +Smart Proxy.
VCL Player all jerky, I rendered my own Same As which froze the player.
WM Classic all smooth, (avchd being a little twitchy)

There were some shimmering going on but WMC seemed best quality.

I would suspect the high data rate of 60000kbps may be causing some issues.
Can you create the original video file using say 20000kbps, then edit in Video Studio to see if that improves quality. as there is little movement on the video a lower data rate could be used.
Then try using Constant Bit rate rather than Variable that will retain 20000 for all frames.

Saying that what are you intending to make, a DVD HD Disc or video for the internet as that will determine what properties you can use.

I am not surprised you are disappointed in those qualities

[Ken Berry]

Strange that we are all getting such widely disparate results. I just produced my own render of the Original using 'Same As First Clip' and again it played just fine in X6 though with the shimmer in the frames I have already mentioned. I also rendered to NTSC Blu-Ray format, changing the audio from its current mpeg layer 2 to Dolby, and dropping the bitrate to Video Studio's 35 Mbps. Again the resulting video played very smoothly though again with that same shimmer.

I then adjusted the Project Properties to AVI Uncompressed 1920 x 1080 60 fps, then used Share > Create Video Clip > Same As Project Properties. I did this just to see if this improved things in Project mode playback. It didn't. Moreover, the resulting video played very slowly. When the jog slider below the preview screen had reached the end, the video itself had only just reached the end of the second image...

I even adjusted the Project Properties to use the MJPEG format with the above properties and then again used Same As Project Properties. This proved to be a mistake as it took over 30 minutes to render the 13 second original. The resulting video was a series of 13 large jerks from beginning to end in Clip mode, and a larger number of smaller jerks in Project mode.

Anyway, that was all just to see what happened. Like Trevor, I agree the original problem probably has something to do with the 60 Mbps original bitrate, though I think -- from my own set-up at least -- that X6 can deal with that just fine. But what confuses me about the Original file is that the audio is mpeg layer 2, which makes me wonder what program produced the original. The properties of the Original would normally make you think of Blu-Ray mpeg-2, though the only Blu-Ray format which allows 50/60p is 1280 x 720p. And the Blu-Ray audio is always (?) Dolby, either stereo or 5.1...

kinglerch -- I know you said the Original came from a slideshow program. Which one? Or at least, can you adjust the output settings of this program to make it more consistent with "standard" high def settings e.g. a lower bitrate (such as the max. 35 Mbps X6 uses for Blue-Ray) and/or changing the 59.94 from p to i. I acknowledge, however, that the latter will depend to a degree on what you are intending to do with the final video.