Rendering

bots wrote on 9/25/2001, 1:24 AM

This is a three part question:

1) I edited a 7 minute video in VF2 without a hitch, until I rendered a movie into an AVI.file. Some of the cuts came out with a film-like flicker effect. These occured only on a specific exterior scene which was shot. The scene was shot without any shutter speed changes. Also, I didn't apply any video effects to these cuts that I'm aware of. Has anyone encountered this problem?

2. I went into render another movie with the same video footage, this time with a letterbox effect. This was done in "pan/crop." When the rendering was finished, many of the cuts had video streak running through them. These were simple cuts, not dissolves. Also, the video footage on many scenes became jagged and broken up.

3. In Video Capture, I tried to transfer the final video back to Mini DV, via Firewire. Everything transferred well, until the hard drive light went on. This caused a blank section in the video. Is there a way to adjust the hard drive from not doing this "pause."

System: Sony VAIO PCV-R539DS
550 MHZ, 256 RAM, Pentium III, ATI Rage Video Card

Any feedback is welcome.

Comments

wvg wrote on 9/25/2001, 7:56 AM

For what it is worth I've seen similar problems when encoding either from or to AVI. It is important to note that viewing the source files prior to doing any work there is no jitter whatsoever and processing in a competing product does not produce any which strongly suggests Video Factory is the cause.

As I've said many times Video Factory is a great editor, however it leaves lots to be desired when it comes to rendering in AVI or MPEG forcing me and I'm guessing other to use different software to accomplish either preprocessing or post processing which greatly increases the time to get the job done.

Here's what I experience all too often after rendering in Video Factory version 2, builds 90 and 91:

Three or four seconds of normal video, followed by a second or so of vertical jumping followed by several seconds of normal video, followed again by more vertical jitter all through the processed file. It does not seem random, with the jitter happening more or less every several seconds.

JimHa wrote on 9/25/2001, 9:43 AM

I'm experiencing the same thing. I edited a 16 minute video from my
Sony Digital-8 CamCorder and rendered to an mpeg-2 for an SVCD.
(Dell P-3 866Mhz, 256Mb Ram, 20 & 30Mb ATA-100 HDU)
The SVCD exhibits the afore mentioned symptoms -- 3 or 4 seconds of
"normal" play followed by a second of "jittery" play. When I transfer the
.avi file back to the CamCorder, the same "normal" and "jittery" play
occurs on the tape (but even more pronounced than the SVCD)!
I always defragment the drives before performing any rendering.

I left MGI VideoWave 4 because of their audio sync problems. Now it
seems I've left one problem and "picked up" another. I have no
audio sync problems with Video Factory, but now have the "jerky" video
problem.

I really like Video Factory more than VideoWave, but I'm almost inclined
to upgrade my VideoWave 4 to the new VideoWave 5 and see if they've
corrected their "audio sync" problem (as they claimed they will). If that's
the case and VideoWave also doesn't exhibit the "jerky" video problem
I'm seeing in Video Factory, I'll have to see if I can return Video Factory
since it isn't living up to it's claims. (Unless Sonic Foundry can fix it)

Oh Well!

bots wrote on 9/26/2001, 12:18 AM

Thanks for the replies.

I've noticed jagged, horizontal breaking up in the images, as well. I printed a copy of the footage to Mini DV, hooked up the camcorder to my television, and the problems I mentioned before really show up badly!

I tried editing some other footage on Vegas Video, v2. Similar problems.

I've downloaded every possible "fix" that Sonic Foundry supplies, to no avail.

I'm a big fan of Vegas Audio, and I really like the features and ease of Video Factory. But after spending a lot of $$$ on upgrades of their video editing products, I'm relunctant to go back. I'm also reluctant to spend an additional $99 for technical service. The products should work right off the bat.

SonyEPM wrote on 9/26/2001, 8:45 AM

If you are using time-stretching (slo-mo) on your video, try turning on the "resample" switch for all timestretched events.

If you try the above and still get the jitters, try unchecking "Fast Video Resizing" in the VF2 render wizard. Expect longer render times if you do this.

djmd wrote on 10/1/2001, 9:28 AM

I am curious to know if "fast video resizing" disabled has fixed this problem for anyone? I just finished a project and noticed the jitter in 3 clips. After getting pissed off thinking my camera was doing it I finally looked at the original clips and they were silky smooth. So it is VidFact. Hopefully SonicEPMs suggestions work... I just didn't have any time to render this weekend to see. For the record - none of the affected footage in my project was time streched.

bots wrote on 10/1/2001, 12:29 PM

Unfortunately, I'm still seeing a flicker effect, despite turning off the "fast video resizing" button. The original footage is in pristine shape, both on the original tape and on the transfer into my PC.

I took another look at the video footage that I edited on VF2. I encountered even more flickering and image breakup than I first noticed.

This is frustrating, to say the least. I bought VF1 & VF2 because the software was easy to use and had a lot of nice features. I have Adobe Premiere 5.0, but it constantly locked up on my computer--"fatal error," or something of that nature. So, I bought the Sonic Foundry software, due to the realiability of Vegas Audio. Video Factory 1 worked great. I could go back to it, but there aren't as many features on it as VF2.

This is a bummer, since I've spent almost $500.00 on Sonic Foundry products and upgrades for my PC. I hope Sonic Foundry has a remedy for these glitches, otherwise, it's off to Apple and Final Cut 2.

SonyEPM wrote on 10/1/2001, 1:20 PM

Please list your source file formats and your output file format.

Also, if DV, what is the DV codec that these files are rendered with. DVsoft or the MGI codec maybe? Is DVSoft on your machine?

mike10670 wrote on 10/1/2001, 7:53 PM

Being a tech dude, I couldn't help but notice that you are having problems running other software on your machine (based on your last post).

If you have the luxuary to do so, use a clean hard drive and install a clean copy of Windows, then the drivers you need to capture video, then VidFact 2.0. See if a clean Windows install might not fix your problems. If you dont have a clean HD, go get one at best buy, then return it when your done (I know, this is somewhat un-professional, but hey, someone will get a better buy on the drive after you return it).

It almost sounds like you might have some odd software or some funky driver running in the background which might be interfeering with the rendering process.

bots wrote on 10/2/2001, 1:13 AM

Video source- Mini DV
Camera-Sony DCR VX2000

Transferred via FireWire into Sony DVgate Motion
Codec-Sony DV

Output-Via Sonic Foundry Video Capture with Microsoft DV codec. Other codecs didn't work in SF Video Capture.

I don't have DVSoft or MGI on my machine.

Thanks for the help.

SonyEPM wrote on 10/2/2001, 9:50 AM

The issue could be a problem with the sony codec, which overwrites the Directx codec.

You could try running this:

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/download/step2.asp?DID=223

This utility removes the Sony driver and codec. You should get better image quality, but you will no longer be able to use DVgate. This utility does restore Sony DV gate if you need to go back.

djmd wrote on 10/8/2001, 9:12 AM

I think I have come up with a psuedo-solution to this problem. I noticed that the video in the timeline had the jitters, but the original clip from the media pool (straight off the camera) was smooth. So all I did was deleted the "infected" clips from the timeline and reimported them from the pool... so all this really tells me is that VideoFactory has some sort of problem, where it occasionally will jitter up video that you drag into the timeline for no apparent reason.

I tried the suggestions (turning off fast video resizing) and such, and it didn't fix anything. There were only 3 clips in the 12 minute movie that were affected, so I just re-did those and it all looks good now.

I did just buy Vegas 2.0 but haven't seen the same problem in it.

bots wrote on 10/8/2001, 11:35 AM

I tried rendering an avi. file in Vegas Video, but it too had horizontal video streaks running through the entire movie, just like in VF2 (minus image breakup).

As an experiment, I re-installed Video Factory 1, put together a simple movie, rendered it, and the final movie came out flawlessly! But now, I can't print-to-tape through Video Capture!

I've tried nearly every download available from Sonic Foundry, downloaded the "fix" of VF2a, print-to-tape fixes, Sony VAIO fix, and still nothing seems to work.

RichR wrote on 10/8/2001, 11:51 PM

I have VF1, VF2, and VV2. I use a Sony TRV900 and I've never seen these problems. I've rendered to AVI and RM formats with no problem

mkpett wrote on 10/9/2001, 6:53 AM

I have the same problem under WindowsXP after installing 91 it is fine under WindowsME (dual boot)

Another thing, capturing without dropped frames under WindowsME but get dropped frames under WindowsXP, they are setup similarly OS on own partition Apps on another and capture onto a seperate disk.

Luiyi wrote on 12/15/2001, 7:03 AM

I am having the same problems that all of you are mentioning here.

After rendering the video (in MPEG2) I have jagged images, missing frames all accross the video.

The original video footage in the DV camera is smooth.

The level of missing frames after the render varies a lot depending on the quality of MPEG rendering (the lower the bit rate, more flickering)

Did any of you solve this problem?

In VF1 I did not have these problems at all, even at lower bit rates, the rendered video was smooth...