My video render is flickering

[courtneybee]

Hi, I'm relatively new to working with video. I ripped two videos off of youtube using savefrom.net. I then imported them into VideoStudio Ultimate 2018. I attempted to cut off a little bit of each video and then stick them together and render as an MPEG-4. It worked, but for some reason the video in my render flickers in and out a bit. I have no idea why, it doesn't do that in the files I ripped from youtube or even when I'm watching in VideoStudio Ultimate 2018. It's just in the render that it does this.

Here are my source files: video 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjKpxagZXTk, video 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rkJQp4MqwY
Here's my flickering render: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSfqywe ... e=youtu.be

Does anybody have any ideas?

[Ken Berry]

Welcome to the forum!

What you need to tell us, though, are the Properties of the two files you downloaded, and the Properties of the output new video. To do this, please right click each clip, either in the Video Studio library window or timeline, and copy ALL its Properties here. You could as an option also take a screen shot of the Properties boxes and upload them here as Attachments. That should give us a better idea of what might be going wrong...

[courtneybee]

Hi there,

Thanks for responding.I followed your directions and am including screen shots of the specs from the various videos I used and my final render. I'm also including a screen shot with more detailed specs from the machine I'm using. Hopefully this helps. Thanks!

Video 1 Properties

Video 2 Properties

Flickering Render Properties

More Details Specs for My Machine

[Ken Berry]

I hope others jump in here with their own views... But to me there are at least a couple of likely causes for your problems. Thanks for providing those screen shots. However, they tell us that your original two clips have widely differing properties.

Video 1 has used what is called a "cinematic" frame rate of 23.976 frames per second (say 24 fps) and has a frame size of 1280 x 720. That is a standard frame size. Video 2 on the other hand has a much smaller and unusual frame size of 540 x 360, but has a frame rate of 29.97 frames per second. It also has a very low data rate of just 279 kbps, though this probably has nothing to do with your problem, but just adds to the rather low quality of this clip.

Your final video from this project uses a frame size of 1920 x 1080 (again a standard high quality and high definition size), a frame rate of 30 fps (which is much the same as Video 1) and a higher data rate than either of the two clips.

It is Video 2 which is the main problem. Given that the final render used a frame rate of 30 fps, whereas Video 2 only had a frame rate of 24 fps, Video Studio has had to invent 6 frames per second for those bits of Video 2 that you included in the project. To invent these it merely repeats existing frames, and almost invariably this creates a flickering effect which can be quite serious especially if there is fast moving action in the clip. In addition VS has had to stretch out the original frame size of 540 x 360 to match the final frame size of 1920 x 1080. This would not of itself cause flickering, but would make that particular video look even lower quality and probably thus enhance the effect of the flickering from the changed frame rate.

Given the video involved, personally I would have chosen 1280 x 720 as the final frame size for your output. This would decrease the degree of expansion of Video 2 and thus make the quality a little bit better. But I can't think of anything which would change the flickering from those invented 6 frames per second.

[aljimenez]

I agree with Ken. The number one issue is the frame rate. Try rendering your output video at 24fps instead of 30fps

[courtneybee]

Thanks guys. I dialed down the frame resolution and I was able to get rid of the flickering in the first part of the video (from the higher quality file), but it's still flickering in the second (lower quality part). The rendering specs I used were 24 bits, 720 x 480, 30 p, 2.5 Mbps. Not very high quality, I know. I couldn't find a place to change the FPS rate though. Where would I look for that?

[aljimenez]

The frames per second is 30p = 30 fps. I looked and in MPEG-4, none of the provided profiles have 24p. You can create a profile by clicking the big + icon. The AVC/H.264 has some 24p profiles provided.

I don't think the frame resolution has anything to do with the blinking

[courtneybee]

Ok, I scaled it back to 23.976 FPS. The first part of the video isn't flickering, but the second part still is. My guess is that the second part was filmed on a cell phone. Should I just give up on using that part?

Here's just a general question. The file that's become the first part of the video originally had a FPS rate of 23.976. The second part of video, the part that's still flickering, originally had a FPS rate of 29.970. Given that the first part of the video had the lower FPS rate, it would seem like that should be the part of the video that's flickering, whereas the second part, with the higher FPS rate, seems like it should have enough "content" to fill in those flickering gaps. Why isn't it working like this?

[aljimenez]

Depends how the adjustment from 30p to 24p is done. It may be that six frames are dropped and that would create a wierd result that could be interpreted as flickering. It's not easy to adjust framerates in a quality manner and I am guessing VS doesn't do it as good as it could be done.

If your 30p clip is from a cell phone, it may even be worse: variable frame rates. It has been determined that VS does not handle variable frame rate video clips well. Try using an external program to convert your cell phone video to 24p to see if you can get a higher quality fixed frame rate 24p clip before working in VS.

[courtneybee]

Which external program would you recommend?

[aljimenez]

I use Format Factory, free but one has to be careful other stuff does not get installed. However I don't know if it does accurate conversions of framerates. I would google converting video framerates, or some better terms, and read what results.

EDIT: Audio may be a problem when changing frame rates

[canuck]

I downloaded the 3 files from youTube. When I use MediaInfo to look at the properties, they show different properties from those shown in the posters screenshots.
MediaInfo also shows a variable frame rate for video 1.

[gewb]

Well, I tried (link to file on Box):
https://app.box.com/s/r181kue5emtn6mf8uozv7yoqnjpuq9n0

Regards,
GEWB