Those Ghost Images (continued) and FX connections

Richard Jones wrote on 2/21/2014, 5:42 AM

I should like to say a very warm thank you to everyone who helped me with the problem I described under "Ghosted Image on DVD and Nowhere Else" [Link=http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=884896&Replies=36] but as we've narrowed down the problem area I thought it would be sensible to start a new thread.

We know now that the problem is not with DVDA or the rendering but rests on the Timeline where it shows when previewed at Best (Full). It seems to be hidden when looked at in my usual Good (Full) setting and I have zoomed the Timeline but without being able to see it there. I also know that there are no overlaid events on the track and, as I mentioned before, the problem seems to disappear when I copy and paste everything to a new project.

I have now reviewed every event on the Timeline one by one (over 500 of them - tedious and time costly!) and have now found that the ghost (which is always of another event -- but not necessarily the same one -- from earlier in the Timeline) disappears if an FX is removed from the chain applied to the problem event. It is not always the same FX (e.g. Unsharp Mask) that causes the problem as sometimes the removal of any one of the other FX in the chain deals with it.

It's almost as though the FX itself might contain within it a copy of an earlier event to which it has already been applied and carried that copy with it to be downloaded with the FX when it's applied to a later event.

I'm baffled I'm afraid and would welcome your ideas (not merely to resolve the issue so much as to ensure that I don't get it when working on other projects).

Richard

[I'm working with an up-to-date version of Vegas Pro 12 in Standard Definition in PAL 4:3. My FX are mainly the standard Vegas Plug Ins although I do sometimes use Frederic Bauman's as well. GPU is Off]

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Comments

Grazie wrote on 2/23/2014, 11:25 AM

Paul, don't give up . . . .

Richard is running his video signal out via F/W. This suggest it is going to a CRT, in which case the "Adjust levels from studio RGB to Computer RGB" wouldn't show in the Preferences for his method. So what he is getting is going out to a CRT screen. Unless I'm totally wrong here.

Grazie

Richard Jones wrote on 2/23/2014, 11:31 AM

Sorry Paul but I've been away from home all day and am responding to this from my Tablet. I certainly intend to look at this again when I get back home tomorrow afternoon and shall report back then. I am certainly conscious of just how much everyone has been doing to try to help me and it's very much against my nature to be uncooperative or unresponsive to kindness.

My monitor is a Grundig Digital TFT LCD TV.

Richard

larry-peter wrote on 2/23/2014, 11:38 AM

Richard, I would hate to steer you toward spending money on a card that may not help your issue, but the Nvidia 500 series seems well supported and is what I use on one system (560ti). I had forgotten that in your previous thread you had mentioned this was showing up on DVD playback. Perhaps someone else can say if system memory or graphics memory is being used for buffering images during preview and rendering when GPU assist is off. I'm not smart enough in that area.

If none of the other suggestions are helping (preview levels, no hidden clips on tracks, everything quantized,etc.), it really seems related to image buffering looking at incorrect addresses when some FX chains are enabled. There was a recent thread dealing with an internal system setting for using graphics memory. If this setting is incorrect - perhaps set for more memory than the video card has - could this cause a problem? Just blind brainstorming...

Grazie wrote on 2/23/2014, 11:44 AM

Richard, why the f/w out to an LCD? Is that necessary? I don't understand? This is a real flaw in my understanding here.

G

paul_w wrote on 2/23/2014, 11:49 AM

Thanks Grazie for pointing that out. You are of course quite correct that in DV firewire mode there is no option for 16-235. Learned something new there.
Richard, my apologies i had jumped to an assumption but glad to hear we are all still working to resolve this.

But yes, there will be no 16-235 option to click. So its a pointless check anyway.

Paul.

Grazie wrote on 2/23/2014, 11:51 AM

No worries Paul. But I still don't understand the use of a f/w to go to an LCD? Please SOMEBODY put me out of my misery...?

G

Richard Jones wrote on 2/24/2014, 5:43 AM

Grazie,

I followed the firewire route because I was (and still do occasionally) editing a large number of VHS tapes which I needed to get into Vegas. This I do using a Canopus ADVC11 which can only be plugged into the PC via a firewire. The White, Yellow and Red leads go to the video player and the TV monitor.

Hope this puts you out of your misery :):) but I don't see how this linkage could affect the Timeline in any way. The material I'm using is on an external hard drive. It is old cine film which I've had transferred to the hard drive as AVI after conversion professionally via a Telecine machine. I've had a lot of films already transferred in this same way and have never encountered this problem before.

Richard

Grazie wrote on 2/24/2014, 5:54 AM

Ah, righto Richard, understood. You don't have the PC connected directly via HDMI, nor VGA from your GPU/CPU to that TFT LCD TV? If you did, then Paul's suggestion to check the Levels switch would/could come into play.

Interesting...

Grazie

paul_w wrote on 2/24/2014, 6:51 AM

Would it be possible to render out a very short segment of an offending section? say 5 seconds worth. So we can see it.

Paul.

Grazie wrote on 2/24/2014, 6:56 AM

Yes please.

G

Richard Jones wrote on 2/24/2014, 7:27 AM

Happy to do this but sorry to appear a nincompoop - how do I do this?

Presumably render a section out to MPEG2 as normal, and save in Dropbox and put this reference here (or do I have to do this as a veg and if so how?)

Richard

paul_w wrote on 2/24/2014, 7:38 AM

exactly that Richard, render section, mpeg2, dropbox and link here. Just so we can see the ghosting effect.

Paul.

Richard Jones wrote on 2/24/2014, 8:58 AM

Thank you Paul. I've put it at:-

[Link=https://www.dropbox.com/s/bj6a90xs9s6n9km/Swiss%20Test.mpg]

and hope this works (I seem to be learning new skills (or at least techniques) quite quickly as a result of all this). You will see that the ghosting appears in a couple of places with the boy with the ice cream and the dogs being the ghosts appearing on two landscape events taken from a mountain top,

Once again, thank you.

Richard

paul_w wrote on 2/24/2014, 9:27 AM

Looking at it now. Not sure where to begin but here are some findings:

On first playing the footage, i could see the ghosting effect and many flickering random frames from different events. Really quite messed up.

I then changed the field order in project prefs to 'lower first' and with BEST full, it plays perfectly with no flickering.. Also, the dogs at the start and the boy with the ice cream does not appear at all! Its just smooth mountains fading from one shot to another. Then changing to a lower playback method shows the return of the flickers and ghosting.

This is very weird indeed. But its looking like random frames are being injected in the timeline, possibly during an interlace or bad keyframe position. So the rendered out file is containing frames from wrong positions and are only visible depending on the playback mode, or project mode.

Allow me to investigate further. This could get deep into single frame analysis. But in summery so far, this surely looks to me like a bug situation.

Anyone else like to comment on this - very odd.

Paul.

Richard Jones wrote on 2/24/2014, 9:48 AM

Thanks Paul. My Properties are Lower Field First. It's strange that it shows up for me at Best Preview!

Richard

paul_w wrote on 2/24/2014, 9:53 AM

Well when i loaded the test file in the first time, my project properties where not set to the footage, and thats when it looked crazy. But as soon as i selected the icon to match project to footage, its cleared up. Changing the field order had an effect but so does preview quality from BEST to AUTO for example.
if you match footage to project (top right icon on project prefs dialog) and select BEST, does this clear up the test file for you?

edit: Only seems to play nice when BEST (full) is selected. And lower field first. If i select BEST anything else, like half, it breaks up.

Paul.

Gary James wrote on 2/24/2014, 10:06 AM

Can you also post a screen shot of your Vegas Timeline showing all your Video and Audio Tracks, and the settings in the track headers?

Richard Jones wrote on 2/24/2014, 10:57 AM

Paul

I tried to match using the icon in File Properties > Video and went back to my source on the external hard drive and this seemed to make no change as I still had the ghosting under Best and Good Full although this disappeared under Good Half.

Richard

Imy

set wrote on 2/24/2014, 11:11 AM

Playing via standard Windows Media Player showing MORE flicker result than playing it via Sony Vegas...

It almost like having 'clip A' in upper field while Lower Field is showing 'clip B'...

Richard Jones wrote on 2/24/2014, 11:11 AM

Gary

This link gets you to the Timeline and ends near the spot where I made the mpeg2 submission above.

[Link=https://www.dropbox.com/s/u11vbpmmd2gu96f/Snipped%20Timeline.PNG]

Richard

paul_w wrote on 2/24/2014, 11:12 AM

Just tried rendering out your test file with success.

I rendered out with Main Concept MPEG2 but using "Interpolate Fields" in the project settings deinterlace method and "Progressive" in the rendering codec options. The resulting file then plays correctly without ghosting or flickering.

Maybe try rendering out a test section again but with these selected. Basically we are reducing the interlace information to progressive format, which seems to be removing the random frames.

Paul.

Richard Jones wrote on 2/24/2014, 12:02 PM

Paul

That's really very interesting. I did change both the Properties and Render settings to Progressive, I then rendered out the same section and this then played fine in both VLC and when opened in a new Vegas Project where I again set Progressive in the Properties. A rapid preview of the rest of the project suggests that the problem has disappeared although with the important proviso that a very few events now show a distinct shimmering effect

This is all very strange. I've never used anything other than Lower Field First in all my years (as an amateur) since Version 6 so cannot understand why I should now have to work with no field order, especially as a subsequent project seems to have gone through to a DVD using all my old established settings. Does this mean that there's a bug and, if so, how can I be sure it''s confined only to this particular project?

If this field order issue is the solution, I can complete this project using the Progressive Settings and can assume that the eventual DVD would then play on a modern TV --- but how would it look when played on an older CRT TV?

And would you suggest that I should always work in progressive in future? My normal stock comes from a DV Tape from a Canon MVX450 in SD (OK I know it's old!) shot and edited in Widescreen in PAL land. With this said, I do continue to have to transfer the occasional film from a VHS.(hence the Canopus and the Firewire link).

You've really gone to a lot of trouble and I'm very grateful..

Richard

OldSmoke wrote on 2/24/2014, 12:14 PM

RJ

Is there a reason why you have all tracks marked as SOLO? The exclamation mark button seems to be pressed on all tracks.

Richard Jones wrote on 2/24/2014, 12:24 PM

Old Smoke

Never noticed that before and although I occasionally Solo a track it's fairly rare and is usually for an Audio track anyway. I can't be sure but I think this must be the layout as it downloaded. Whether or not, the Solo/Non-Solo changes make no difference to the problem.

Thanks anyway.

Richard

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