VS X8 - Stuttering GoPro Video in Preview Window - FIXED!!

[herein2015]

Hi All,

I have VideoStudio X8 Ultimate and I am trying to figure out why the playback in the render preview window is not smooth. It previews at around 15-18FPS even though the source media is typically 1080P @ 60FPS. The source file type is MP4 and comes from a GoPro HERO 4 Black Edition. Needless to say, the stuttering preview window performance makes it difficult to edit the video and verify transitions are where I need them to be.

My video editing workstation is:

Platform: HPZ800
Mem: 48GB
Proc: Dual Hexacore Xeons
Storage: SSD
Video: Dual NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800's
OS: Windows 8.1 Pro
DX Version: 11

Sometimes it is suddenly perfectly smooth then it will go back to stuttering badly. I have tried enabling all of the hardware acceleration options under preferences. My CPU, HD, Memory, and GPU are all less than 5% while the preview window is stuttering, so I do not think it is a resource problem. I have also tried source MP4 media 1080P@30FPS but same problem.

I also noticed when rendering the final video that the CPU does not go over 10% and the GPU does not seem to move at all, shouldn't these hit 80 or 90% to render faster?

UPDATE: I did some testing, it looks like it is specifically the GoPro videos that X8 does not like. I imported a Hollywood trailer that was MP4 and 1080P and it had no problems smoothly playing. I even went so far as to import the GoPro clip and overlay on top of the Hollywood clip and then played both simultaneously. The Hollywood clip played fine, the GoPro clip was stuttering badly. Attached is a picture of the two clip's properties.

Are there some known problems with GoPro videos and X8?

[trailryder42]

I use VS8 for my Gopro 4 black footage too.

Be sure the configuration in "Project Properties" under Settings is the same as the Gopro video you import.

Also make sure in "Preferences" under the Performance tab you have Smart Proxy checked. Set it to use Smart Proxy at anything over like 720 if you're importing 1080p. And check "Auto Generate Template".

See if previewing with the window set to "Clip" rather than "Project" makes a difference.

[Ken Berry]

I also use X8 for all my Hero 3 footage on a much less powerful machine than yours, and have no problems. I also don't need to use SmartProxy, though would suggest you at least try that out. In effect it makes standard def copies ("proxies") of your high def originals. These are easy to edit and play back smoothly. When satisfied, the edits are than applied to the originals.

In Preferences. tick the box next to "Show message when inserting first clip into timeline". When you create a new project and insert the first clip you should then get a message asking if you want the Project Properties to match those of the clip. If you say Yes, then later, when you get to the Share stage, you can then select output to be "Same As Project Properties".

As for the suggestion made by Trailryder42 to watch in Clip rather than Project mode, that won't really achieve much. It plays the original clip (not the whole project) and does not show the effect of edits.

[herein2015]

In Preferences. tick the box next to "Show message when inserting first clip into timeline". When you create a new project and insert the first clip you should then get a message asking if you want the Project Properties to match those of the clip. If you say Yes, then later, when you get to the Share stage, you can then select output to be "Same As Project Properties".

That's what my problem was, I had tried matching project properties to the input media by hand but until I checked that box and let the software do it I assume something still was not matching properly.

[Ken Berry]

That's nonsense that their video is not meant for editing... I do it all the time with my own Hero 3 footage and obtain excellent results.

But you say you converted your Hero footage to mpeg-4... If so, what on earth was its original format? My Hero 3 only films in mpeg-4 using the extension ***.mp4. I imagine the other format GoPro recommends converting the video to is Quicktime .mov format. GoPro's own Studio software will do that. But while VS can also edit .mov video, it should be able to edit your original video with ease...

Please right click on one of the clips in the VS timeline and copy ALL its Properties here, or take a screen shot of the Properties box and upload it here as an Attachment. But I suspect we'll find it is the standard high def mpeg-4 which I thought all Heros produce...

[herein2015]

That's nonsense that their video is not meant for editing... I do it all the time with my own Hero 3 footage and obtain excellent results.

But you say you converted your Hero footage to mpeg-4... If so, what on earth was its original format? My Hero 3 only films in mpeg-4 using the extension ***.mp4. I imagine the other format GoPro recommends converting the video to is Quicktime .mov format. GoPro's own Studio software will do that. But while VS can also edit .mov video, it should be able to edit your original video with ease...

Please right click on one of the clips in the VS timeline and copy ALL its Properties here, or take a screen shot of the Properties box and upload it here as an Attachment. But I suspect we'll find it is the standard high def mpeg-4 which I thought all Heros produce...

I thought the problem was fixed by matching project settings but the very next clip did the same thing. I opened a ticket with Corel. Will update this post with the results when I get them. For some of my more demanding customers I can't afford to have a problem like this. I need faster footage turnaround times and more accurate editing. If I can get past this problem I will finally have settled on my new NLE. The more I dig into X8 the more I like it, I hope they can figure this one out.

I agree Ken, the GoPro statement does seem like complete BS, it's probably just their way of trying to get you to use their software. But so far I've had more problems editing GoPro clips than any shot from any of my other cameras so I have to get this working to stick with X8. Personally I just want to get out of the troubleshooting business and back into the video production and editing business. It did seem odd to me too that I managed to dig up some old X4 forum posts where GoPro clips specifically did not work until a patch was released.

I'm really close to just flatenning my whole system and reinstalling just the OS and X8 to see if it fixes the problem but I'll wait and see what tech support says.

[Ken Berry]

It did seem odd to me too that I managed to dig up some old X4 forum posts where GoPro clips specifically did not work until a patch was released.

The problem then was that GoPro was in a sense ahead of its time, and its mpeg-4 had features which had not at that stage been worked into VS. That was fixed with the patch. The problem is that every year more and more variants of mpeg-4 are released. The latest seems to be variable framerate mpeg-4, rather than the more standard 25/50 fps or 30/60 fps. VS is now having trouble with that. But I bought my Hero around the time of VS X5, and since then I have had no trouble at all editing it and outputting it in the same format, with successive versions of VS and on both Win 7 and 8.1 computers...

[herein2015]

Ok that makes sense. I did notice you are using a HERO 3, I'm using a HERO 4 not sure if they did something different for the 4. Also I typically shoot at a framerate of 1080P@60FPS then bring it down to 30FPS for the final output, not sure if you have tried 60FPS with your HERO 3.

Its pretty strange that after I ran the same clip that was stuttering through a converter but left it at the same as the source format the clip then worked great in X8. I suppose I could go the "GoPro Recommended" route and run all of the footage through their software first, but since no one else seems to have this problem I figure there's got to be a better answer.

[Ken Berry]

...not sure if you have tried 60FPS with your HERO 3.

I live in a PAL country but leave my Hero 3 virtually always in 1080p 50 fps mode. So no difference there -- though I also output the final video to 50 fps.

It is just conceivable that GoPro might have changed tags in the Hero 4's mp4, but I doubt it. Do you have an account with something like Dropbox where you can upload a short (e.g. 30 second) clip that I can download and test at this end?

[herein2015]

My problem is finally fixed. Thank you Ken for your endless suggestions to try, but tech support did figure out my problem. They told me to install the following codec:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow-tryout/


And sure enough it fixed the problem. My GoPro videos now play just like the originals in the preview window. I really dislike installing codecs because the wrong combination can seriously impact your system, but in this case it was definitely the problem.

The codec has quite a few options after installing, but I just left everything at the defaults. I'm not sure why no one else is having this problem, but I assume tech support has seen this before or they wouldn't have figured it out so fast.

The render performance did not improve, my system still barely registers above 30% on the CPU, 3GB of memory, 0.01% on GPU, and 2% disk when rendering but now that I can see what I'm doing when I'm editing the video clips the render time really isn't a big deal.

[trailryder42]

I assume since you're running 64 bit windows, your VS version is also 64 bit? That ffdshow file doesn't indicate whether it's for 32 or 64 bit Windows like other ffdshow versions do.

So if its 32 bit, it will work with 64 bit Windows and 64 bit VS properly?

I was about to install that codec pack myself when I noticed this.

[trailryder42]

Here is the 64 bit version of the file ffdshow codec file posted earlier.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow ... %20builds/