Thought I was doing ok but final video is trash

[johnnyscience]

So I am new to video editing, messed around with youtube editor & then windows movie maker before trying out Corel Videostudio 2018.

While I do like Corel VS and have a pretty good grasp on things, the video that I spent 2 days working out turned out to be total trash!

I don't know what I did or didn't do, but the video scrambles/pixelates/scratches and I don't know why.

It was doing this during the creation of the video, but I just thought the video was acting that way because of my computer. I've uploaded the final video so you can see what's wrong with it.

Can anyone give suggestions on to what may have caused this? Would be dragging the video sections to adjust their start/stop time some how create this scrambling?

https://youtu.be/rpHADEvbbac

[Ken Berry]

Welcome to the forum.

You certainly have problems with that video! But before we can help, we need to know a few things:

1) What was the format of the original video? (Right click a clip in either the VS library window or timeline, and select Properties. Then copy ALL the details here, please, or take a screen shot of the Properties box and upload it here as an Attachment.)

2) Did you get a message when you inserted the first video into the timeline asking if you wanted the Project Properties to match those of the video? If not, what were the Project Properties.

3) What format did you choose for the output? Same As First Video? Same As Project Properties? Or one of the customized formats?

4) Did you use SmartProxy (if, say, your original video was 4K or high def, SmartProxy makes a standard definition copy ('proxy') of the original videos, and this makes editing and playback easier/smoother. When satisfied, you apply the edits to the original video and render. But there have been problems doing this with VS 2018. Corel is working on a fix, but in the meantime we advise people not to use SmartProxy with VS 2018.)

[johnnyscience]

Yes when first creating the video and adding my first clip to the time line, I did get the following message:

Do you want to change the project settings to match the video's properties so VideoStudio can perform SmartRender?

Of course I clicked yes because I have no idea what it even meant and "yes" sounded good at the time lol

I saved the file as an MPEG-4 - I really didn't know what to chose and was familiar with this file time being used in a lot of various media.

The content was 1080p, so I don't think SmartProxy was the issue and I'm not even sure if I used SmartProxy, unless it did itself because that wasn't something that I manually requested.

Also I should mention that the scrambling you see was visible to me during the creation of the video, I just thought it may have been my computer lagging during creation, so I don't think this wasn't a rendering issue?

Thanks for the help!

[Davidk]

WOW. What a torpedo hitting this version. Disabling smart proxy means all the benefits of HD go away in any end result unless you are willing to take wait-it-out attitude with any editing you might want to do.

I did a small test with 2 mp4 HD clips taken recently in Singapore, and reviewed the results:
- a playback of the original clips
- playback of the rendered (same as project settings) file
both using VLC as the player. The properties of the first clip of the vsp is in this image in storyboard view (easier to show relevant details in this view)

The image shows the clips with SP icon (thus a smart proxy file has been created), and the properties panel shows the HD resolution of the selected clip.

The play result of the rendered file - pretty disappointing. The rendered file has a jerky ( pan, then pause with image apparently frozen, then resume pan) image but the audio seems smooth, much more so that the original. It's not pixelated or apparently scratchy, but the pauses in the rendered file are a concern, esp since I've had this version since release and this is the first I've read about this issue (maybe I'm just behind the news).

I'd be cautious with using Youtube like this - they recommend upload using mp4, but then reprocess it so the result can be downloaded quickly. Calling the result mp4 slanders the inherent resolution of the mp4 specification. You would be better storing your test results on onedrive, dropbox, google drive or any other that is just a file store, not a re-renderer.

[lata]

Hi johnnyscience

You mention the quality issue was apparent before rendering.
If you play the original video using your PC media players is the quality acceptable.

If the quality is poor before using Video Studio then it would suggest a corrupt video file?

If it is ok
when you do Share choose the option Same As Project Settings, top left of Share options
You can change that option for Same as first clip. The quality should be same as original

[asik1]

Off topic, if there was a custom FX that would mimic that it could nice .

[johnnyscience]

Hi johnnyscience

You mention the quality issue was apparent before rendering.
If you play the original video using your PC media players is the quality acceptable.

If the quality is poor before using Video Studio then it would suggest a corrupt video file?

If it is ok
when you do Share choose the option Same As Project Settings, top left of Share options
You can change that option for Same as first clip. The quality should be same as original

The quality of the original video is fine, it's when it was in CVS preview pane that showed this glitchy scrambling that I thought was just my computer lagging.

Does anyone have any advice as to what I need to do to re-make this video with no distortion?

[lata]

Hi
Ken asked in his reply asking what format you chose for your output
Did you choose Same as first clip?

[johnnyscience]

I saved the file as an MPEG-4 - I really didn't know what to chose and was familiar with this file time being used in a lot of various media.

Any ideas on what settings I need to change from the start to fix this?

So do I NOT want to choose "Do you want to change the project settings to match the video's properties so VideoStudio can perform SmartRender?"

[Ken Berry]

So do I NOT want to choose "Do you want to change the project settings to match the video's properties so VideoStudio can perform SmartRender?"

No -- in these circumstance your definitely SHOULD choose to change the project settings to match the video's properties. The video is already mp4 using the H264 codec. Then when you have done your editing, you go to Share and at the very top you can then choose Same As Project Settings which will produce a new video of your project with exactly the same properties as your original, and with little to no degradation in quality.

If the first video in the project is indeed one of your original videos (and not, say, a title you have added) then you could click on that white downward pointing arrow which my red arrow is pointing at in the attached image, and choose instead "Same As First Video Clip" which will produce the same result.

[johnnyscience]

I should also continue to note that this scrambling was an issue during preview. Could I have been dragging the scrubber wrong and forced this to happen?

[Ken Berry]

IMHO the preview aspect of VS is not one of its strong points. Your computer appears to be strong enough, but when previewing in Project mode, in effect the preview function is doing a temporary render of the video but on the spot. This is a pretty big ask for any computer, and especially if you are previewing high definition video, as I think you are. So the preview of a project will often not look to good, though should at least give you a general idea of how things look. It is really only when you do a formal render and play that back that you can see whether the defects in the preview are also present in the final version of the video.

Have you done a final -- or even a test -- render using Same As Project Settings yet? If so, how does it look?

[johnnyscience]

Ok so I tried to make another new video like 5 or 6 times, nice and easy just a short intro and a couple minute interview, so 2 clips in total.

Still getting the scrambling/glitching in the preview pane - what settings do I need to check?

I'd imagine my computers specs are plenty for this, so what is causing this major issue?

[iNate]

So do I NOT want to choose "Do you want to change the project settings to match the video's properties so VideoStudio can perform SmartRender?"

No -- in these circumstance your definitely SHOULD choose to change the project settings to match the video's properties. The video is already mp4 using the H264 codec. Then when you have done your editing, you go to Share and at the very top you can then choose Same As Project Settings which will produce a new video of your project with exactly the same properties as your original, and with little to no degradation in quality.

If the first video in the project is indeed one of your original videos (and not, say, a title you have added) then you could click on that white downward pointing arrow which my red arrow is pointing at in the attached image, and choose instead "Same As First Video Clip" which will produce the same result.

It really depends on what the OP is doing. If you’re ingesting 4K or 720p to use in a FHD project, then selecting that can completely wreck your project as you would choose the wrong project resolution.

That setting is only safe when your media is all the same resolution and your output resolution is the same. I would not develop a habit of checking this every time as a default.

[johnnyscience]

I've rendered a full video and followed your suggestions of enabling "Same as Project Settings" when saving the file.

The final version has the exact same scrambling/glitchy issues that the preview showed and the very 1st video had.

What in the world could make this do this?

Yet when I create and render the same video in windows movie maker it renders perfect.