HD Black/Red Frame Prob - Is Sony in Denial?

2G wrote on 6/26/2008, 9:17 PM

I have been getting random solid red frames on the timeline on m2t files. The audio usually drops out and flatlines at that point. When I'm playing the clip or when I'm rendering it out, the screen goes black and the audio goes silent IF I'm lucky enough not to have Vegas simply crash completely when it hits that point. (I'm on 8.0b) This is happening way too often and is affecting my delivery of videos to my clients since I'm continually having to work around this.

I initially thought it was a capture problem and/or the actual media file was corrupted. But I now realize it has nothing to do with a corrupted media file. The same media file that red-frames and crashes vegas reads and plays fine in Premiere. I needed some audio from a clip that vegas wouldn't play. I ended up having to read the clip into Adobe Audition and re-render it out as a WAV from Audition. This is inexcusable for a supposedly 'professional' product. Today, I rendered a project from vegas to an m2t file and brought the m2t back in, and IT has the red frames and crashes (and where the red frames are in the rendered file, there are no red frames in the vegas project at that time point.

I only moved to HD a few months ago. But I remember reading complaints about the "black frame" issue for what seems like a couple of years. Come on.... there has never been a more obvious blantant BUG in the program. Is Sony in denial? Has anyone actually been successful in talking to Sony about this?

I would open a formal problem report like I would do with any legitimate software vendor. But the last two times I've found and reported bugs through the formal channels, it was a joke. In both cases, it took TWO WEEKS to get even an acknowledgement from Sony. Then I got what looked like an autoresponder suggesting I read an article on what digital video is.... I replied and NEVER heard back... that is, until I got the "survey" telling me Sony values my opinion and asking how much I liked their excellent service. I replied and never heard anything else, and the problems never got fixed. I just finally figured a way to work around them. Tell me why I want to go through that useless effort again....

I want this problem fixed. But I don't need the pain and zero results from trying to open a formal problem report again.

Sorry for the venting. But I'm building my video production business with a dependency on having a working product from Sony. And to me it's inexcusable that this severity 1 bug has been reported for as long as it has with no apparent interest by Sony to address it.

Has ANYBODY gotten an official word from Sony on this problem? Is there anything that can be done short of wasting my time going through the useless Sony problem report channel?

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2G wrote on 6/28/2008, 3:52 PM

>> I forwarded the link to that file to Sony, and volunteered to help track it down. They did not pursue my offer.

Thanks, John... this pretty much sums up my point. Yes, this is a technical problem we're dealing with. But it's STILL a problem after 2 years due to a much bigger management problem at Sony.

farss wrote on 6/28/2008, 4:56 PM

Many of your comments are in line with my thinking.
What has always concerned me is Vegas started out life as an audio only application that had video added to it. Not long after video was added progress on the core audio functionality ceased. That produced a huge outcry from the audio users who would seem to have left the building long ago. One feature that was in heavy demand was to have Vegas run as a Rewire slave. Pretty much the answer was it couldn't be done. That left me wondering if they'd painted themselves into a corner when they added video.

At the same time I have to wonder to what extent the feature set on the video side is trapped by the need to support the audio side of the product. Audio and video are two very different beasts. Every other NLE seems to have started out life as a video editing tool that have had limited audio capabilities added over the development cycle but still make you use other modules / 3rd party code for heavy audio work. Is every other developer being lazy or stupid, did Sonic Foundry really find a way to do something that no one else could or did other developers look at it and decide it was too risky an approach trying to mary unlimited audio and video capacity in the one application.

Someone above claimed Spot said he'd never had a black frame problem. I don't recall that claim. Others have found the errant black frame problem in VASST training DVDs so I doubt he'd have said that.

I'd hazard a guess that Vegas isn't a huge money maker for SCS, ACID would have to be where the dollars are when you factor in Acid Planet etc. Also worth keeping in mind that SCS is a very small company that's not exactly located in the middle of where the action is for software development.

Another problem that shows something is wrong at the core. Vegas still has issues exporting an EDL. At random there's a one frame offset. There's been other manifestations of the black frame problem too with a couple of users reporting instead of getting a black frame they found a frame from somewhere else on the timeline.

Apart from all the above we still don't have a competant video capture solution. Vidcap is tragic. That capture logs are not embedded in the project file is another issue that many users have been left to find that out the hard way.

Bob.

CClub wrote on 6/28/2008, 5:40 PM

"I have built my video production business around Vegas."

If anyone is running a business based SOLELY around Vegas and is wasting more than one afternoon with this problem without plunking down $250 for Cineform Neo, you should take a refresher business course at a local community college. I'm not trying to be rude -- although that statement above I guess can sound pretty rude -- but I picked up pretty quickly that people using Cineform are not having this problem. I just do this as a side business, and I wasn't too keen on spending $250 for what I considered an "optional" piece of software, but I'm not sure it's optional if you waste more than one afternoon with this problem.

Himanshu wrote on 6/28/2008, 6:53 PM

Quoting 2G:
I would love to start a dialog with a customer support person on this problem. But as I mentioned earlier, the last two problems I filed a formal report on (I was professional in the problem definition and not at all belligerent), it took 2 weeks to get a note from an autoresponder, and I never could talk to anyone in person about the problem. They simply wouldn't respond.

I've had better luck with SCS support with regards to versions 6 & 8 of Vegas Movie Studio. I'm still new to Vegas 8, and haven't had a need to file a support case yet. So if it's a different team handling the cases, this may not apply.

My experience has been that after the auto-response and long delay, SCS does eventually get to the issue. If I don't hear from them, I update my question and keep adding information when I find out something new. Eventually I do get some sort of resolution. In one specific case when I asked for my case to be escalated to the appropriate development team the response was quite swift, and the resolution even better. A couple of developers responded, and they not only solved my problem at that point, but also gave me a heads-up to a problem that I eventually would have encountered in the next stage. In response to my request (I think, I could be wrong) they posted an update on their web site very soon after.

ObBlackFrameInfo:

P4 HT system, used with VMS v6 & then v8 with an NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti 4200, during which I have encountered the black frame issue once, while working with m2t files from a Sony HC3. Somehow the problem disappeared, and haven't seen it since. I work mostly on SD projects (90%), though sometimes I work on HD m2t files (10%).

johnmeyer wrote on 6/28/2008, 8:14 PM

Peter Wright was nice enough to send the black frame test file to me again. It is a very nice file because it gives me two black frames in the same place every time.

However, figuring out a consistent workaround is probably impossible. I can definitely get the black frames to disappear by doing something as simple as changing the preview resolution. It doesn't seem to matter what I change it to, but after changing it, the black frames disappear.

Also, I suspect that there may be more than one underlying problem causing the black frames, so this may not provide a solution for everyone. For instance, when I rendered the clip, the black frames were not in the render, but obviously almost all of us who have seen this problem have also seen it make its way all the way to the render. If I get time, I will see if I can come up with a way to make the failure show up in the final render as well, so I can see what affects that.

However, as I said before and as I have just proven to myself again, there is a test clip that shows the problem every time and where the original video is still actually there (i.e., there really are not two blank frames in the capture). Thus, a good engineer should be able to use this to help find the problem.

We'll see if anyone from Sony comes knocking at my door ...

Cliff Etzel wrote on 6/29/2008, 11:14 AM

Well, I've become the latest casualty of the Red Frame bug.

Problem is - it's shown up in a project that never had it before - one that has already been edited.

So now I'm left wondering if using Cineform Neo will even make a difference.

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com

LJA wrote on 6/29/2008, 2:07 PM

[I]"There's been other manifestations of the black frame problem too with a couple of users reporting instead of getting a black frame they found a frame from somewhere else on the timeline."[/i]

Never had a black frame problem in three years of working with HDV in Vegas, but I have had the misplaced frame problem twice. Actually not bad, I suppose, considering the amount of usage.

2G wrote on 6/29/2008, 2:39 PM

Maybe I've had my head in the sand for a while, but until this thread, I've never really heard anyone talk about Cineform. What is it, and what is so great about it? Why are so many people recommending moving off of Vegas to it? And what do you get for $250?

If I'm going to move from Vegas to something else, what is so compelling about Cineform over just moving to Premiere, Edius, or one of the more mainstream NLEs?

Cliff Etzel wrote on 6/29/2008, 2:48 PM

2G - Cineform Neo is a codec - not an NLE. Cineform Aspect or Prospect are utilized with Premiere Pro and is an add on. Cineform Neo is used with Vegas Pro.

Many who use Premiere Pro more often than not, purchase Cineform Aspect or Prospect which integrates directly with PPro. It changes your editing from Long GOP m2t files to frame based Cineform AVI or MOV files - at the expense of larger file size. It has it's advantages and disadvantages - I'm trying to determine if I should get NEO and stick with Vegas Pro or move to something completely different. I've already discovered the Neo codec WILL NOT work with Premiere Pro FYI.

The other disadvantage to capturing native m2t files is their is no provision that I can find to do logging - you basically have to use scene splitting and as many have already discovered, that is a hit or miss affair when it comes time for editing in Vegas Pro - ie; Red or Black frames bug.

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com

CClub wrote on 6/29/2008, 4:51 PM

2G,
There is a forum http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=76Here[/link] just those who use the Cineform codec, and one of the "stickies" at the top is for Vegas users ("Cineform and Sony Vegas 8" actually started by ME with questions I had). You can also get a lot of great information at the http://www.cineform.com/products/NeoHD.htmCineform site[/link]. As Cliff stated, it's not a new NLE, it works within Vegas and other NLE's as a codec. You can use it to capture your footage, and it's in an "intermediate" format. This has a number of advantages (and some disadvantages as stated), but I think the advantages FAR outweight any negatives. Then, once you're done editing, you can render with the Cineform codec to a format that is extremely useful with better quality than m2t's after multiple renders. If nothing else, until Sony fixes these issues, it prevents you from wasting time. It has made its money back many times over since I've had it just due to the time it's saved me. And, even though the Neo version can't be used in Premiere Pro, I believe that you can upgrade to the next higher version without losing money.

2G wrote on 6/30/2008, 8:00 AM

>> no provision that I can find to do logging - you basically have to use scene splitting

Sorry... you lost me. What kind of logging are you referring to? And what is it about m2t that prevents it?

Thanks for the education...

2G

Cliff Etzel wrote on 6/30/2008, 8:05 AM

2G - logging a batch capture means when using tape, you can select portions of the tape by specifying in and out points (beginning and end points) and save those as a reference in a patch capture log. Once you have selected all those sections of the tape, you can then tell the capture utility to reference all those points to capture only those sections you specified - make sense?

AFAIK, there is NO provision to do logging and batch capture when capturing native m2t files - from what I can surmise - this has to do with the Long GOP m2t file format. Maybe someone with more knowledge on this can expound upon why batch capturing isn't possible with m2t files.

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com

2G wrote on 6/30/2008, 11:39 AM

Thanks. I understand the function. Just never paid attention to what it was called. I always just capture tapes in full. So that's why this limitation hasn't shown up in my process.

And nothing but curiosity and a little education, can you define what "Long GOP" refers to?

Thanks again.

Gary R. Brown wrote on 6/30/2008, 12:38 PM

I believe Long GOP means - Long Group of Pictures - Mpeg is a constructed file. There is an index frame and then ~1 to 30 frames later another. In most Mpeg files there are frames in the middle (Bi-directional) iof that group. The computer looks at these and 'constructs' the rest. That's how it saves so much space on your hard drive and why editing can be so dicey. Capturing the whole stream means the file is intact as recorded, and then the editing app has to create the two frames in question to do an edit. There is mighty wizardry and muscular processors behind any Mpeg editor. Cineform NeoHDV uses a two frame Mpeg stream so frames are easy to find and easier to edit.

I have only had red frames in Vegas 7 when using M2T files. In Vegas Pro 8, I have rarely had some files that didn't want to work, but usually a recapture (with cineform or Vegas native capture) fixes the issue. All these files (avi, mpg, divx, mov, etc.) are made with myriad codecs within the specification. Just because it's is an mpg doesn't mean it uses the same codec as the mpg next to it from a different source.

I have had issues with vegas only when using multiple MOV HD files. It is the port for the plugin codec that has the issue. So I convert the second or third MOV to AVI or mpg and all is well again.

In deference to Sony and all the coders out there, there is virtually no way they could test all combinations of all codecs. We are just spoiled because Vegas lets us use doggone near any file format.

IMHO
GB-)

2G wrote on 6/30/2008, 3:37 PM

>> there is virtually no way they could test all combinations of all codecs

Maybe so if you're talking about codecs sold separately by other companies. But they should test and stand behind the ones they ship even if they are 3rd party. I'm not using anything purchased separately. I capture using default Vegas HD capture. I render using Main Concept m2t render, I play either one on Vegas and get red frames and crashes. That is a Sony problem that Sony owns.

winrockpost wrote on 6/30/2008, 5:51 PM

Sony knows they have a problem, otherwise vegas 8c would have been out a long time ago, lets hope its time well spent so all can get back to editing instead of troubleshooting

2G wrote on 6/30/2008, 7:16 PM

I'll second that one....

Finatic13 wrote on 7/1/2008, 9:40 AM

Many thanks for this thread and the suggestions contained in it.

The black frame issue has been a thorn in my side since editing my first HD wedding video.

So far my work around has been to put my video in the timeline and render it out twice. The black frame issue doesnt appear in the video at the same place/time so I just stacked the two files in the timeline and started to playback and when I found the black frame issue i would just cut the black frame out and use the 2nd file to fill in the blank.

Time consuming but its the only thing I could figure to do.

I will look into the Cineform solution and see if that might be the way to go.

Meanwhile our local mall is going to have some Sony executive type visiting all the Sony Style stores and I plan on visiting when he is there to pitch my bitch about the black frame issue. I was going to gripe about the lack of Architect 5 but I see its been released today so that gripe is out the door but I will certainly let him know about the black frame issue and how it affects us.

Bluray is their baby, if they cant work these bugs out then how can they expect we videographers to continue to use their products. I have been a Vegas user since version 3 and have been happy with every new release but this black frame issue has me very hesitant to continue with Vegas. I cant send a wedding video out to a client if its going to be riddled with random black frames/dropped audio.

I use a HP Media Center with an Intel Quad Core 6600, 3 Gig RAM.

blink3times wrote on 7/1/2008, 10:15 AM

"AFAIK, there is NO provision to do logging and batch capture when capturing native m2t files "

This is ALMOST untrue. Avid Liquid 7 is quite capable of HDV batch capture as well as logging.... and it's bang on frame accurate every time. The only difference is that Liquid captures as M2V/WAV instead of M2T.

I suspect the secret in part is the fact that it captures as a separate M2V video file and WAV audio file as opposed to a straight M2T. It also does not physically split the file when doing scene splits. It instead captures the file as a whole and writes a scene split reference file to accompany the captured file. I brought this up once before in an effort to enlighten those that there may be a better way of capturing HDV for possible future Vegas capture upgrading... but I was basically told to put a muzzle on it.

Avid liquid is reaching End Of Life status and there are those on the Liquid site (myself included) trying to show Liquid users the ways of Vegas. Most of them are pretty impressed.... but they say the show stopper for the most part is the Vegas capture utility. They say it's quite a "step down" from what they are used to.

BG wrote on 7/1/2008, 11:16 AM

I've had success by taking the "bad file" and running it through a program called mpeg streamclip (free program) which changes the file to a .ts. The program works fast and has cured my audio flatlines and redframes. I bring the new file to V8 and so far have been 100% with fixing the problems. It has saved me tons of re-renders and alot of anger!!!

LReavis wrote on 7/1/2008, 11:39 AM

VERY interesting. When you say "changes it to .TS" - does that mean that the file has gone through another compression cycle (with concerns regarding degrading image quality), or merely demuxed (presumably without such concerns), or ???

rmack350 wrote on 7/1/2008, 2:14 PM

Let us know if the Sony Rep at the Sony Style store has ever heard of Sony Vegas.

Rob

2G wrote on 7/3/2008, 8:44 AM

Not sure how useful it is for us to continue explain the symptoms here, since I doubt anyone from Sony support even knows they have a forum... but here goes anyway.

I had two different renders to pure m2t from the same veg project. The first one had the red frames and dropout. I rendered it a 2nd time, when I brought the rendered m2t back into vegas, it didn't have the red frames.

I then started a new project, and brought both rendered m2t's in on separate tracks. BOTH had the identical red frame at the same spot on the timeline.

But get this..... I expanded the timeline horizontally to where I could see every frame.... and all of a sudden, the red frames disappeared on both tracks. I deleted one of the tracks and rendered it out to mpg for my DVD, and it rendered clean.

This just continues to strengthen my argument that it has nothing to do with corrupted data in the m2t file. The m2t files are fine. Vegas is screwing up reading it.

I just wish (hope) that somebody other than us users care....

2G wrote on 7/3/2008, 9:13 AM

OK.... I just saw the sticky post from Sony. I'm thrilled that they've finally acknowledged the problem and hopefully have a fix coming. Whew.... this has been painful....