Black frames in rendered video!

phonelover wrote on 1/21/2003, 3:18 AM
I have captured (via a 3rd party application, which comes with my Matrox G450eTV video card) a VHS tape and I have edited/rendered it with VV3.0c and the new MPEG-2 encoder (the one with no pulsing effects).

I have made a SVCD with this source, but I have found what follows:

In the rendered video I sometimes have 11 black frames instead of the correct frames, so basically half a second whitout seeing anything on the video. These black frames are generated randomly and occur quite often (I have had 6 sequences of 11 black frames in a 41 minutes video). These frames are generated in the video even if there is no transition effect.
In the original source file, there is no black frame at all.

It seems like the program/encoder inserts a wrong header in a frame sometimes. I have rendered the video with the standard SVCD templates and I have analyzed what has happened, maybe this could come useful to you.

The I frames of my rendered video are at these timeframes:

...
32.42,00
32.42,15
---
32.44,10
32.45,00
...
37.40,05
37.40,20

The black frames start-end at the folloing timeframes:

32.42,05--32.42,15
...
32.44,15--32.45,01
...
37.40,09--37.40,20

As you can see, the first black frame ALWAYS occures 4 or 5 frames after the I frame and lasts 11 frames.


If you can help solve this annoying thing... because sometimes these black sequences appear almost contiguosly, and in that case watching the video becomes difficult.

Best regards,
PL

PS: I am using WindowsME with an AMD 1600+ processor.
PPS: The same problem occurs while rendering a VCD project (MPEG-1 encoder).

Comments

Tyler.Durden wrote on 1/21/2003, 6:41 AM
Hi phonelover,

Perhaps you are capturing an MPEG file? They are not so hot as editing source material... MPEG is primarily a distribution format.

You might try capturing an avi (if you aren't).


mph

craftech wrote on 1/21/2003, 9:12 AM
This is a problem which SF has been unable to resolve:

It was discussed at length here:

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/Forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=137083&Page=0

John
Tyler.Durden wrote on 1/21/2003, 9:34 AM
>>>>"This is a problem which SF has been unable to resolve:"<<<<<<


This does not sound the same to me... This is 3rd-party captured footage which is most likely mpeg.


mph
mikkie wrote on 1/21/2003, 10:00 AM
A few alternatives if it helps.

If you wanted to try avi capture, avi_io is popular & they offer a working download that's not severely crippled. A lot of folks use Virtual Dub for analog capture to avi's & it's free. The SF capture utility works with analog, but doesn't allow you to capture with non-hardware compression so you need a *WHOLE LOT* of drive space.

You'll probably want a fast codec to compress the video on capture. HUFFYUV is good, & it's free, but you'll have to set it to force rgb or VV won't display the frames. It's also a little rough for playback as it's designed for capture & editing, & I have had problems on occassion pre-rendering in v/dub and importing the video into VV3 staying in this format.

Morgan is not free but it's good & inexpensive. Same for Picvideo. Both have lesser requirements when it comes to a fast drive then HUFFYUV.

Alternative stuff you can try vs the ulead stuff that came with your card, includes capturing directly into Realmedia or Winmedia9. Going to avi capture is going to take more drive space, so you might want (or have) to go this route. You'll still be in the same boat when it comes to editing -- you won't have the individual frames that are stored by the mentioned avi codecs, but it might get around your current problem. If you weren't editing the video you could use one of mediostreams products to capture into VCD or SVCD format directly.

Finally, if none of the previous stuff appeals to you, & if you have the disk space, render to avi from VV & do the mpeg2 elsewhere.

mike
phonelover wrote on 1/21/2003, 10:10 AM
Thanks for your help.
Anyway, VV3 is made for editing MPEG-2 video (this is the main feature of the new version of this program!) and I capture directly in MPEG-2 becuase it's easier and dones't waste too much space in my HD.
If then VV developer make something which doesn't work... this means I'll move to Ulead MediaStudio Pro!

Thank you for your help guys!