Video randomly drops to black??

endcontra wrote on 10/9/2003, 4:29 AM

I have an MPEG2 file, a little over an hour long. When setting chapter stops, Ive noticed that when I play the video, there are a few random places where the video is lost (I still have audio but video is black) for about 5 seconds. Any idea what is causing this?

Comments

DJPadre wrote on 10/9/2003, 7:37 AM

if teh source file is either wmv, or m2v, converting directly to mpg2 FROM these formats may cause dropouts. Its a known issue apparently

what you need to do is convert these to avi, THEN encode to mg2.

also some players "jump" at the chapter points... most highend players dont do this thou...

endcontra wrote on 10/9/2003, 2:48 PM

Ok, I screwed up my original post (it was early in the morning and I wasnt thinking). I captured the video in MPEG2. I then used VirtualDub to cut out the commercials and saved it as an AVI using Microsoft MPEG4 Codec V2. Yes, I realize it would be better to capture to uncompressed AVI, but that requires more disk space than I can afford to use and results in horrible audio sync problems. Soooo...since these are in AVI actually, what else could be the problem?

DJPadre wrote on 10/11/2003, 9:20 AM

is it DV avi, or MPG4 format, coz MPEG4 codec v2 is basically a highly compressed format... even if it does say its avi, these drop outs shouldnt occur... (thats if it strue avi...

it seems ur using mpg4 and not avi....

this prob pops up when using a non "true" supported format

kameronj wrote on 10/13/2003, 6:49 AM

I agree with DJ on this one.

I've seen this issue myself on a file or two I've rendered. Mine too were programs I captured, took out the commercials and keep in my library. Kinda like old VHS - but now on DVD.

I've learned to just live with it - or edit around the drop outs (bring in other footage)....or sometimes, I drop in little funny sayings like "Eat at Joe's" or "Pepsi...mmmmm good stuff!".

Since the productions are just for my collections, it's not really a big deal - but, if I were going to (somehow) be charged with a production that I was going to be paid for...I would probably re-render the file to such a format at to not get the drop outs - or, work really hard to replace the dropped out video prior to DVD Production.

But....that's me. And....I'm not getting paid for this anyway so it's not a big deal. But....it's fun to find these issuse and to find good editing ways around it.

I've got this recurring "thing" I do with some of the video where my nephew drew his own versions of the Southpark characters....but used our family instead of the SP kids...so I scanned in his drawings and brought them into Vegas. Every now and then, I have these characters "pop up" in the video I'm producing.

They either pop in from the left or right, on a TV screen every now and then...just for a second or two. Kinda like in the Mortal Kombat game with the "Toasty" guy.

So....sometimes when the screen blanks out...I have one of the characters streak across the page....it's quite funny.

But I digress.