VSP 2018 AVCHD Smart Render/Optimizer Deceased

[plasmavideo]

I'm about to ditch 2018. Too many crashes, bugs, file incompatibility problems compared to X10.

The latest discovery is that Mpeg optimizer, Smart Render is totally hosed for the AVCHD files from my Panasonic camera that have worked fine in previous versions.

I place a file on the timeline I need to trim and remove certain portions within the file. Using either timeline cuts, or Right Click/Multi-Trim, I then go to share. I choose MPEG Optimizer and Smart Render. The dialogue opens in MPEG Optimizer showing 100% smart render. Once I click OK to render the file, one of two things happens. I either get a file that takes forever to render, and produces a large file that has, for example, a progressive property, and not the Upper Field First, interlaced property of the original, or I get a file that stutters or freezes at the edit points.

In my latest test, I put two short clips on the timeline, and multi-trimmed each for a total length of 1 min 41 secs. The "smart render" took 15 minutes to complete, and the output file stuttered and froze throughout.

I then used the same files in X10, did the same test. The smart render took 10 seconds, and produced a perfect file.

I'm trying to document the many other issues I've had, but the inconsistencies are making it difficult.

This latest problem was a real problem as I had multi-trimmed a large video file that had taken quite a while to do, and now that project is unusable in 2018.

However, I managed to save the day by saving the project as an X10 project, opening it and smart rendering in X10. I guess that points to the program, and NOT in the project or AVCHD files.

[Davidk]

Years ago, X7?, I experimented with the mpeg optimiser when rendering. Generally found that it gave quite variable results, some better and some worse but not by much, and compared to just rendering to mpeg, not worth the effort and pain. So I now as a practice don't use the optimiser.

Acknowledging your experience with the optimiser using X10 was good, have you tried just rendering to mpeg without the optimiser using VS2018?

[plasmavideo]

David, thanks for that suggestion. It appears that the problem goes deeper than I thought. I will need to experiment more, but a quick test reveals that 2018 cannot smart render OR re-render these files, or possibly others, using the AVC/H264 rendering engine. I'm not sure yet if it's the renderer, or the decoder engine for the file type.

More experiments tomorrow.

QUICK EDIT: One last a-ha moment. I turned off all hardware acceleration and it appears to be working. I'll figure out which setting tomorrow - progress . . . . . . . . . . .

[plasmavideo]

I have confirmed that the issue is the implementation of Encoder Hardware Acceleration in 2018. If I turned off Encoder Acceleration, files rendered properly. With it on, they rendered with many artifacts and stuttering. Without Encoder Acceleration turned on, the files encoded perfectly.

Next, I updated my NVIDIA drivers, turned on Encoder Acceleration back on and ran the hardware optimization. Now, trying to smart render these AVCHD files that have had edits, like simply deleting a portion of the file midway through, causes VSP 2018 to crash. The exact same exercise in VSP X10 causes no crash, and renders a perfect file with hardware encoding acceleration turned on.

It also appears that encoding, not just smart encoding, is also affected.

Standard MPEG2 files seem to work fine - it's apparently in the AVC/h264 encoder only.

[Charlie Wilkes]

I have confirmed that the issue is the implementation of Encoder Hardware Acceleration in 2018. If I turned off Encoder Acceleration, files rendered properly. With it on, they rendered with many artifacts and stuttering. Without Encoder Acceleration turned on, the files encoded perfectly.

Next, I updated my NVIDIA drivers, turned on Encoder Acceleration back on and ran the hardware optimization. Now, trying to smart render these AVCHD files that have had edits, like simply deleting a portion of the file midway through, causes VSP 2018 to crash. The exact same exercise in VSP X10 causes no crash, and renders a perfect file with hardware encoding acceleration turned on.

It also appears that encoding, not just smart encoding, is also affected.

Standard MPEG2 files seem to work fine - it's apparently in the AVC/h264 encoder only.

I have been doing some online research because I'm not at all satisfied with the way VS renders AVC source material, with or without hardware acceleration. I am learning all kinds of interesting things. One thing I have read is that nVidia graphics cards have video encoding hardware that is optimized for streaming games, so it sacrifices quality for the sake of speed, and it's not as good as CPU-based rendering. So you may want to avoid it in rendering your videos, even if you can get it to work.

[plasmavideo]

Yes, Charlie. I tend to agree with you. I don't use hardware acceleration in Handbrake, for example, for that very reason. This was more of academic interest, as even the smart render wasn't functioning for cuts/deletes, which, in theory, involved very little rendering. In X10, I had just left hardware acceleration on all the time, and it worked.

Now, here's the interesting thing. In another thread someone mentioned that VSP would, using the hardware optimization function, turn on or off those hardware functions that were not available on the particular PC. I hadn't paid much attention to that.

This morning, I used X10 and rendered a short AVI clip using the AVC encoder with both hardware acceleration turned on and off. The render times were virtually identical, so I now believe that X10 was not utilizing hardware acceleration at all, so my original thought process of "something got broke" between X10 and 2018 was flawed, and led me down this rabbit hole.

Ah well, I've trimmed my AVCHD clips to save space in the raw video archives successfully now, so I'm not pursuing this any further at this point. It was just my curiosity as to "why" that was making my technician side go nuts. I even installed 2018 temporarily on a different editing PC that had a newer and much more powerful NVIDIA card, and the same things were noted. Done for now. The only other thing I have not tried is removing the NVIDIA card and testing with the onboard Intel Quick Sync.

Tom