Preview Screen always pixelated or black - making product useless

Kraig-Atkinson wrote on 1/19/2021, 6:42 AM

I consistently have issues using this product - which I only bought last week, so there may be a fix that I’m not aware of.

I purchased movie studio 17 platinum to edit screen recordings of lectures I do. We’re talking 15-25 minute videos - that I want to clip/cut down to remove silent periods and save. The screen recordings are 1080p/30fps and are typically 200-300mb in file size.

My issue is every time I load it into the timeline, as soon as I make any clips or cuts in the video, the entire preview goes fuzzy and won’t restore. Even if I click further along the time line - the preview never recovers.

its 50-50 between the preview going fuzzy and completely black.

this is making the product unuseable. I tried recording a fresh lecture and saving in both .mp4 or .mov - I get the same stability issues with both.

is there a recommended video rendering/saving file type and setting?

is there a recommended file type I should be saving my lectures in so that they’re the most compatable with the application?

I am running the program on a Ryzen 7 4800H 8-core with 16GB of Ram and 2060 Graphics - so it should be more than capable of supporting the application.

Comments

j-v wrote on 1/19/2021, 7:20 AM

is there a recommended video rendering/saving file type and setting?

Magix AVC as mp4 and covering your projectsettings

is there a recommended file type I should be saving my lectures in so that they’re the most compatable with the application?

Look here: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/faq-what-obs-studio-settings-work-well-with-vegas-pro--109925/

I am running the program on a Ryzen 7 4800H 8-core with 16GB of Ram and 2060 Graphics - so it should be more than capable of supporting the application.

Which exact driverversion is used for your GPU?

Kraig-Atkinson wrote on 1/19/2021, 7:30 AM

Thank you very much. Unfortunately the recommended settings, are the settings I used when doing .mp4.

how do I check my driver version?

j-v wrote on 1/19/2021, 7:41 AM

Go to device manager and open the display adapters.
Right click on the GPU and look at properties / driver.

Teagan wrote on 1/19/2021, 7:57 AM

The most recent driver for Nvidia caused trouble with me and Davinci resolve, regarding HEVC files, and this might be connected to your issues, so I'd suggest falling back to the latest "studio driver" as those are more stable than their game ready drivers.

You could also try disabling hardware acceleration in Vegas first. Options > Preferences > Video > GPU Acceleration of video processing > Off. Restart the program and try again.

Musicvid wrote on 1/19/2021, 7:59 AM

We’re talking 15-25 minute videos - that I want to clip/cut down to remove silent periods and save. The screen recordings are 1080p/30fps and are typically 200-300mb in file size.

Those numbers project an "unbelievably" low bitrate (1-2 Mbps?), and if so, they would not be suitable for editing or encoding in Vegas in any imaginable sense because of physical constraints.

We have a means to determine correct units of measure and to circumvent spurious conclusions about your files, by asking you to provide your exact file properties as requested here. We won't be able to give you meaningful advice without them:

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/faq-how-to-post-mediainfo-and-vegas-pro-file-properties--104561/

Kraig-Atkinson wrote on 1/19/2021, 8:22 AM

We’re talking 15-25 minute videos - that I want to clip/cut down to remove silent periods and save. The screen recordings are 1080p/30fps and are typically 200-300mb in file size.

Those numbers project an "unbelievably" low bitrate (1-2 Mbps?), and if so, they would not be suitable for editing or encoding in Vegas in any imaginable sense because of physical constraints.

We have a means to determine correct units of measure and to circumvent spurious conclusions about your files, by asking you to provide your exact file properties as requested here. We won't be able to give you meaningful advice without them:

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/faq-how-to-post-mediainfo-and-vegas-pro-file-properties--104561/

Can you elaborate on what you mean by saying it's unbelievably low? ...and why this video would not be suitable for editing? I am following the same settings as in the OBS Studio recommendation link posted above. The only difference I noticed was I recorded in 1080/60 rather than 1080/30. The video is just a screen-recording of me talking through a subject for educational purposes, with essentially slides. No videos/fast moving images during the screen-record.

Here's the Mediainfo:

General
Complete name : C:\Users\k17at\Videos\2021-01-18 20-41-09.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41)
File size : 233 MiB
Duration : 15 min 4 s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 2 160 kb/s
Writing application : Lavf58.29.100

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.2
Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 4 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 15 min 4 s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 1 956 kb/s
Maximum bit rate : 40.0 Mb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 60.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.016
Stream size : 211 MiB (91%)
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709
Codec configuration box : avcC

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC LC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity
Codec ID : mp4a-40-2
Duration : 15 min 4 s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 20.8 MiB (9%)
Title : simple_aac_recording
Default : Yes
Alternate group : 1

Musicvid wrote on 1/19/2021, 10:50 AM

2 Mbps, as confirmed by your MediaInfo readout, for 1080 p60 video, is too low. Even if for a stationary talking head. It is not very suitable for re-encoding in any scenario I can imagine.

Also, you did not follow "the same settings as in the OBS Studio recommendation link posted above." You used a hardware encoder, not x264 or intraframe, and that is likely the root of all the symptoms you reported.

Here is the basic math for you to figure this yourself:

Time (sec.) x Bitrate (Mbps) x .125 = Size (MB)

For AVC motion video, 1080 p60, we would expect "reasonable" quality for editing and re-encoding to occur in the neighborhood of 20 Mbps, or about ten times the bitrate you have chosen. For a talking head, you might get by with half that at 30fps; obviously there would be no need for 60fps.

Suggest you read carefully again, and follow the advice in the link that was provided as your starting point, and post back here with additional questions.

If you'd like to upload an original sample to Drive or Dropbox, we'll be happy to have a look at it.