Hi thanks for the reply....
Now I'm really confused, in one of my previous posts Sonicfoundry suggested I UNcheck 'quantize to frames ' this was to improve slow motion playback (which some of the clips have,)am I to assume that for best 'rendered as *.avi' I must check 'quantize to frames?
I do ignore the preview..my problem is the playback stutter from camcorder to TV.

I have quite a few frames starting in midframe as a result of editing!

would appreciate if someone could list ALL the IDEAL settings I should use!

thanks fuzzzzy

If you have slow motion involved have you made sure that you have resample selected ?

Yes I have it selected..
slow-mo is not the problem but stuttering after rendering to avi is....
what I need is somone to 'please...please' tell me what settings are best when rendering to "PAL *.avi" from the timeline to avoid stuttering.

fuzzzzy

You shouldn't be seeing any stuttering with any settings.

Have you updated to 3.0c?

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/download/step2.asp?DID=375

A change was made in 3.0c related to video stuttering.

///d@

Describe 'stuttering'. Do you mean audio or video?

In my case, I have 'stuttering' that occurs on videos I render to either Quicktime (really stutters), Windows Media (stutters a bit), or AVI when there is lots of motion. For example, if I videotape a nice view of the mountains using a slow pan (not slow motion but a slow pan of the camera) from left to right for about 10 seconds. When I playback my rendered file, most of the playback is smooth, but once and a while, the playback seems to skip, or stutter. If I playback the video again, the skip does not occur in the same place - sometimes it doesn't occur at all but usually I can always see at least one stutter during playback. I don't believe the stuttering is a problem with the video itself but rather that the video is not very computer friendly for playback. At least that's what I've been told. The amount of motion going on may be very demanding on the computer. Even on my P4 1.6Ghz computer it stutters.

I'm not really sure, but I'd like to hear other opinions on this.

Ron

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to _be_ any 'ideal' settings for everything. My last project rendered earlier today is stuttering like crazy but the one I finished 2 days ago is fine. Something really odd going on here. Only difference I can think is that I rendered today's on a different machine from where it was edited.

And yes, I'm in 3.0c.

Just getting ready to do the jump to version 3. Crap. Oh well, we will figure it out and SF will make it right.
Fuzzzys doing PAL. Fuzz, does your DV AVI file stutter going out OHCI from VidCap playback ? Control Z, are you PAL or NTSC. Is anybody out there getting perfect renders everytime, all the time to DV avi files? What about printing from the timeline, is that a solid thing ?
I've been editing on the frame markers in version 2 for some time now. When the beta of 3 was out it got me going on the idea. Now I step my cursor with ALT/arrows and drag media to snap to cursor. I found it makes for easier editing, vs. fighting the cursor. Works great from the trimmer also. Vegas timeline is so good though, I don't use the trimmer all the time. I have no jitter problems with DV avi files rendered, ever. So seems it would have to be either the quantize feature or the new SF codec in version 3.
Fuzzy, you can horz. zoom the timeline. Jump from edit to edit with the ctrl/alt/arrow kothey combo. Alt/arrow left or right to park the cursor on a frame, then drag an event edge to it. Most edits shouldn't get funky with a half frame tweek. You won't be messing with things down the timeline and you won't screw up other tracks either.
Hang on here, could this whole mess be caused by your ruler format settings ? There are two NTSC 29.97, heck there is even a absolute frames setting. SF, what should we be using (DV PAL and DV NTSC)? Could this cause quantize to frames problems ?

Craig H.

WoW,
that was a lecture :)
I have a question that maybe SF could answer or maybe someone else..but 1st..
There is no stutter palyback problems when I render from timeline to camera!
Stutter only ocurs( on playback from camera to tv) when I render to AVI (PAL DV)and then capture to camera..

BUT!!!! i reinserted the stuttering clip from media pool and the stuttering was gone,

WHY???
fuzzzzy

I don't know if this is your issue since you were speaking PAL in an earlier post.

But that said, there are times when having the wrong field selected will cause stuttering of video on playback. For example, if your TV system prefers the odd field or field 1, and you have VV3 render field 2 first, then you will have an issue.
To see if this is the case...render a small sample area (range) of your movie in Frame mode to DV tape, then play that back on the TV. IF the stuttering is gone, that's the problem. If still there, then the easiest solution is to un-install VV3 (move all your projects, etc., to a safe temp area), and then re-install. Then open a new timeline, and recreate the movie (pain in butt).

I had stuttering and that cured it...never had it again. Best support could come up with (they worked hard on this with me) was a corrupt file somewhere in the project that caused the entire timeline to stutter on playback from tape. Timeline itself played fine, so what ever caused the problem was a render issue....

Hope this helps...

David

I agree that for some reason VV3 is misinterpreting DV footage as being the wrong field. *Why* it does this is anyone's guess.

I just spent the day re-rendering my opening photo montage and closing slo-mo as progressive and while that makes the problem tolerable it's hardly a solution.

In an attempt to re-create the trouble I tried this:
1) Drop a solid green background for 10 seconds
2) drop and overlap a solid blue background for about a 9 second transition
3) apply the first spiral transition
4) render

When I play back this file on TV the blue box always jerks as it comes on, sometimes pretty badly (tough to see on the computer screen but there too). Trying it in Premiere nothing I can do will make it stutter. I hope someone else will try this and report back. I have no idea if this relates to the field stutter.

I've already reinstalled VV3 too many times to count, including VV3c just last week.

WoW,
that was a lecture :)
--------------
Fuzzy, if that is directed at my response, sorry my wording hits you as a lecture.
: )
I try to take the time to share lots of info in my post in a short version. Not a rude person, honest.
Your saying you have a project with lots of edits offset from vegas frame spacing because you didn't use quantize, and it plays fine now with problem media replacement ? Hmmm. Did you happen to look at the problem events field order before replacing. Is the event speed adjusted/resampled/fx'd/ ?

Craig

Control Z: I followed your test exactly:

1) Drop a solid green background for 10 seconds
2) drop and overlap a solid blue background for about a 9 second transition
3) apply the first spiral transition
4) render

No stuttering after prerender, on either internal preview or external monitor- nice and smooth.

Questions:

1) Are you using SF Vidcap to capture DV, y/n?
2) Captured DV , untouched by Vegas, plays back smoothly y/n?
3) You are rendering/prerendering using the unmodified DV template, y/n?
4) Your renders and prerenders are saved to the same drive as the captured media, y/n? (meaning, are the renders being saved to a slower drive, perhaps by accident?)
5) Do you have "Ignore 3rd party DV codecs" checked in general prefs?

Hi,

Actually the comment to the "LECTURE" is meant as a compliment to you because it was so thourough :)
anyways....
I just deleted the clip that stuttered and replaced it with the new one from the media pool. there is only a crossfade transition.

Qustion.. during editing must qantize to frames always be on ?

SonicDennis!! if you read this post, do you have a possible explanation as to why the replaced clip does not stutter ?
fuzzzzy

fuzzy:

Update to Vegas 3.0c.

Set up a new PAL DV project using the unmodified PAL DV project template.

Keep quantize on at all times during editing.

Render to PAL DV (using the unmodified PAL DV template) and output that file to tape from both the Vegas timeline and using SF Video capture.

You should not see any stuttering, and you should see no difference in the ouput with either a timeline-print or vidcap-print.

If both clips were DV, and replaced through the media pool, I don't know why one would stutter and the other wouldn't, unless the stutter is "in" one of the clips.

3.0c fixes a bug that could potentially cause stutter, so if you haven't updated, please do.

///d@

Hi there,
thanks guys... will follow the advice

I think the problem is that I did not have qantize to frames on during editing.
It was however on when I deleted the stuttering clip and then replaced the same clip from the media pool again.
Noteworthy however is that when i print to tape from the timeline there is no stuttering..only if I first render as AVI and then print the rendered AVI to tape, also, stuttering is always in the same place.

fuzzzzy

Well Fuzzzy you're not alone. I've been watching this thread and withheld commenting waiting to see what others have noticed if anything. I'm using version C, and qantize to frames is set. The other day I rendered a 40 minute video to DV using the NTSC format defaults, then burning a DVD. Everything fine on the DVD. I next rendeded my "backup" as a AVI, default settings then printed to tape (file). After completing I started to transfer to my camera, it stopped cold about a third of the way through. I backed up the tape and sure enouch severe vertical jitter in the last 3 seconds.

I still had all my project files, so I played back from within Vegas watching playback through the Preview Window and on a external monitor. Again fine. So I first assumed it got to be how Vegas rendered to AVI since the render to DV was flawless from the same project file.

I zeroed in on the area of timeline where the jitter was in the AVI rendering. I zoomed way in and went frame by frame. Sure enough right where the jitter started up I noticed about a quarter frame where a few small green blocks showed up. They go by so fast at normal playback speed easy to miss. I've seen these before, but only in corrupt files. Anyways I snipped out the bad frame and the frame on either side just to be sure I got it and rendered to AVI again. No problem.

My conclusion is it seems at lease under some conditions the AVI render engine is more sensitive to very minor file corruption and can result in the render doing strange things such as jitter. I'm just guessing, but maybe if you take a real close look you may see somthing similar.

HI ,
Unfortunately I read your post to late as I've deleted the edited section that caused jitter and re edited from the clips I still had.
Jitter is gone now!
I agree with you that some type of editing causes jitter when you render to avi.
I had qantize to frame on now, but if there is a slow-mo section in the time- line...SonicFoundry tells us to switch on resample and uncheck qantize to frames.
All very confusing!!! because I STILL don't know if qantize to frame should be on or off during editing especially if there are slow-mo sections??
fuzzzzy

I do slow motion or fast motion lots of times and always leave qantize to frame on and I have yet to see any jitter in, before or after the altered frames and they play smooth. Maybe how you do the slow motion. I usually use the drag method rather than the envelope method. What I do:

1. split where I want to add slow motion
2. right click on event string to right, select all events to end, push out of way
3. click on ending edge of event I want to slow mo, holding down Ctrl key drag.
4. right click on event to right, select all events to end, drag back left to butt.

No inserting time, no "holes", none of that really needed. I just eyeball it. If you need to fill a precise time period, that's different.

I am also having exactly the same problems as you fuzzzy. I will try quantizing. I got so frustrated that I ended up capturing in Premiere (imported in VV) and got no stutters after that?? Could be something in the VV capture????????????

I went zooming on the frames one by one, and with "quantize to frames" checked in the options menu, the edits and frames actually didn't match the exact timecode.
I'm always working with PAL DV projects and what I saw was when dragging a clip from one position to another, it jumped to various positions between the exact frames in the timeline. It looked like VV was "thinking" in 30fps, while my timeline is set to 25 fps (PAL). So, most of the events happen between two frames instead of on top of a frame.
Don't know how I came to this, but I have to admit that this was in some kind of "test project". When I started back from zero, with a complete new project and PAL settings, everything worked fine. So did the "quantize to frames" function, now when moving a clip, it really "jumps" from frame to frame like it has to be.

summary-

Please download and install Vegas 3.0c

When starting a new DV project:

Set the project to the DV format of your choice (PAL or NTSC)
Keep quantize to frames ON at all times
Check event>resample for all slo-mo events

Do this and you should have smooth slo-mo and otherwise great looking DV output.