Support Issues / Video Studio vs Pinnacle for VFR support

[Tomasina]

Hello,

I have been struggling to work with Corel support over the past month on an issue. To say I am unhappy with their support would be a massive understatement. I cannot seem to get them to even read the issue in its entirety, or provide any meaningful information. I have used Corel for years, and feel that I am slowly being pushed towards another company due to my ongoing frustration with the business behind the products.

I am curious if anyone knows if there is a way to escalate a support ticket.

Lastly, perhaps someone on the forum can answer a few of the questions that the support is unable to:

I have been struggling as VideoStudio does not support variable framerate which I encounter a lot due to smartphones. Does anyone know if VideoStudio 2019 includes support for variable frame rates?

In looking at other products it looks like Pinnacle Studio (also by Corel) does include variable frame rate support. Does anyone know if the features and functionality of this product is similar to VideoStudio? If so, I am thinking I might just switch to that.

Thanks!

[lata]

My own thoughts are that Iphones and tablets record video to share over our media, facebook etc. and not particularly intended to be edited.
There are some variable frame rates that Video Studio will accept, when this fails I would assume it is a codec issue either video or audio that could be causing the problem and not just the frame rate.
Recommendations to convert the video to a more editable format do help although on occasions conversions also fail.

Phone manufacturers tweak the codecs to create a smaller sized file whilst retaining quality without regards for the customers need to edit the video. As technology advances this leaves Video Editors playing catchup. Not surprising that the phone manufacturers do not provide a simple editor or converter.

As for Pinnacle I cannot say if it supports variable frame rates, I would think not
As far as I know Pinnacle can be installed as a trial, you could give it a run
If any Pinnacle users read your post hopefully they will reply regarding variable frame rates, as I say I think it may be a codec issue.

if you can provide a sample of the problem video we can try on our programs
you would have to upload to a sharing site due to the size of the files

[Tomasina]

Thanks for the thoughts. I dug around deeper into the Pinnacle website and found the following statement:

Get the performance you expect from a pro-quality video editor with Pinnacle Studio’s powerful 64-bit performance. Work with video from iPhone® 6 and other new-generation cameras with support for Variable Frame Rate video and enjoy HEVC (H.265) import support on Intel 6th generation or specific NVIDIA cards.

So it looks like it may work with VFR videos from smart phones. I will try the demo.

[Ken Berry]

Just to back up what Trevor/lata has said, I am one of the lucky ones whose smartphone (a Nokia 6.1) uses a variable frame rate for its mp4/H.264 HD/4K videos. And both VS 2018 and 2019 have no trouble at all editing those videos. Both versions of VS even come up with the message asking if I want the Project Properties to match those of the video when I insert a clip into a new project.

However, as Trevor indicated, others have given us samples of variable framerate video from their own phones, and VS either won't play them or will provide mysterious error messages like "File format mismatch", or else will play the audio but not the video, leaving black and white tracks in the timeline. We simply have no clear idea why VS will play some but not others. And if your video will not play in VS 2018, then it is highly unlikely to play in VS 2019.

Like Trevor, I have no idea what Pinnacle Studio can do in this regard as I simply have never used it. Hopefully someone else will be able to provide an answer.

I see you have found the relevant statement about Pinnacle accepting variable framerate. Good luck in finding the trial version -- I have looked for it a couple of times without success.

That Pinnacle statement raised another prickly issue for me personally, though, in its reference to H.265/HEVC video. I have a high level all-Intel computer which Intel says can play and edit HEVC. Moreover, I have a number of other video editing programs on this computer which have no trouble with HEVC. So which program won't play/edit HEVC? You guessed it, both VS 2018 and 2019. And nothing Corel has suggested has altered this situation for me!

[lata]

Hi Ken

Took a few google searches
https://www.pinnaclesys.com/en/free-trials/

[Ken Berry]

Thanks Trevor!

[Tomasina]

https://www.pinnaclesys.com/en/free-trials/

Thanks, I will grab the trial and give it a try. Thanks for all the help, you are all much more knowledgeable than support.

[iNate]

The only VFR files I've had issues with in VideoStudio (X9, 2018) are H.264 MOV video from iPhones. In fact, I've had tons of issues with iPhone video with Windows NLEs - I eventually just got rid of my iPhone and got a Note 9.

The audio would play, but I would get Black or Green Frames for the Video until I installed QT7.

The HEVC files would play, but we know what the performance is like with that

There is something about the flavor of H.264 that Apple uses that simply doesn't work well.

I also tested by downloading the video format examples straight from Apple (samples from them to test if your player/editor supports the formats they use) and multiple of them produced White, Black, or Green Frames with Audio (usually H.264 in MOV or M4V containers). Installing QT7 fixed all of those issues. I tested with VS2018 (maybe SP3 patch level).

I wonder if VS2018 will even Import or Export Alpha Channel MOV files without QT7 installed. Can someone say whether or not the support is native, or dependent on that out-of-support software component (QuickTime 7). I know VS2018 could not import the Alpha Channel MOV files rendered by Titler Pro 5 without QuickTime 7 installed

Pinnacle has a history of really shoddy stability, even though the feature set is pretty tight... I'm skeptical of it. They do seem to have better CUDA support, though... so I'd be curious to see what the decode and playback performance for formats like H.264/HEVC are in that NLE in comparison to VideoStudio. I like the Pinnacle Studio layout better. They allow you to have a Source and Timeline editor, and the track layout is a bit more "traditional." Similar prices. I guess which one is appropriate has much to do with how much of a noob you are, and whether or not you can handle Pinnacle's higher learning curve.