I rendered an MPG2 (DVD quality) file using the "opening album" montage theme (same as S14 montage tutorial). Original video is a DV AVI (same resolution: 720x576).

The problem is that final video, during the montage animation, shows strong and disturbing flickering at the bottom of the squares containing the pictures/video ( the shadow below the dropzones).

The remaining video has no problems at all, so it depends on how montage renders the animation. Any suggestions ?

 

Also, is there an easy way to sync the "expanding video" (zooming out to full screen ), at the end of the montage, with the main video track below ?

Thanks in advance.

Stefan 

  

Allow me to reproduce this, and let me get back to you.

Marc,

any updates on this problem ?

Anyone else got the same problem ?

Regards

Stefan

Thanks for following up. I am unfortunately unable to reproduce the problem. Can you render a short sample clip showing this issue along with a list of steps you took in making the said sample clip? This will help us reproduce and pin point to the problem.

Mark,

 thanks for your support.

I uploaded a short clip of the video showing the flickering problem, you can get it here ( "save object as").

 I just used a standard Montage animation, placed 3 images and 1 video in the dropzones. Another video is playing in the background (just like Pinnacle's montage tutorial video).

Original video is 720x576 DV avi

Rendering options used: MPG-2, DVD compatible. (720x576)

Regards

Stefan

 

If by flickering you meant to point out the pixels on the bottom of the album, they seem to be appearing in my tests as well. See here.

Yes, your clip also shows flickering. It is most noticeable, in each image inside the album, on the bottom border (dark line recreating shadow effect below each image).

Unfortunately on a TV  you see the flickering even more.

It seems the Montage rendering engine has some problems.

 

 

Athlon xp 2000+ Nvidia geforce4 ti4600

IMO, that PC Spec is below Pinnacle's Recommended Spec for Running S10/11/ 12 & 14. Even then, Pinnacle's Recommended Specs aren't always sufficient for Running all Features, especially the 3rd Party Plugins.

IMO, the problems you are having with Montage are directly attributal to your nVidia TI4600 GPU. I had one, with S8.

If the PC Spec you have, is the one in your Profile, then, IMO, you need to have a more powerful PC for Running S14..

I've recently seen S14 described as a "High-End" Consumer Video Editing Prog. For that, you need a reasonably "High Spec" PC , but not a "High End" Gaming PC. Judging by Forum Posts, S14 win't Run with those either.

Anyone-else like to comment re: the above?  

Sorry but I did not update my Pc config since first registration.

Now it is correct: Q6600, 4 GB RAM, ATI 4850, Vista 64... enough to run S14 without any problems (bugs apart!).

Anyway, concerning the flickering, whatever system you got, if  MONTAGE runs correctly and is able to complete rendering of the video, the video card model has no influence on the quality of the rendered video (IMHO).

 

 

I believe this is a limitation of how it is seen at 29FPS.

If you play back the video on a computer, it doesn't matter about 25 versus 30 FPS, since a computer display is (usually) 60FPS progressive or better, as opposed to 25 or 29.97fps interlaced for broadcast spec.  Or did I completely miss your point?

Interesting:  If I play this video back in WMP 11, I see the flickering dots at the bottom of the screen.  However, if I play the same file back using VLC or Virtualdubmod, the image doesn't flicker.  It's definitely interlaced, but it definitely does not have "flickering dots" like it does in WMP.  Strange.

I changed the Windows Media Player background to white, and yet I still see a black stripe at the bottom of the screen, and it's in that black stripe that the flickers seem to happen.  I don't see the same black stripe in VLC or Virtualdubmod.  I wonder what's up with that?

BittMann

I don't think it's a "viewing"  FPS issue.  

HFX transitions, that are rendered as Montage does (same fps in the final video, of course!), do not create this flickering effect (as far as I know) .

So it must be the rendering engine of Montage: how may FPS is Montage using to GENERATE the animation ? This surely impacts final video smoothness.  

 

Bittman,

do you see most flickering part at the bottom of the screen ?

On my PC, and even more on TV ( 42 plasma - PAL), most disturbing (as written before) are the lower borders of the pictures in the album.

If this cannot be fixed I think I'll not use Montage at all in my videos.

 

sdawid:

Bittman,

do you see most flickering part at the bottom of the screen ?

On my PC, and even more on TV ( 42 plasma - PAL), most disturbing (as written before) are the lower borders of the pictures in the album.

If this cannot be fixed I think I'll not use Montage at all in my videos.

 

In both your and Mark's samples, yes.

Idea:  Does it still "flicker" if you output as DV AVI?  If not, you may be able to do the montage sequences in 2 parts...first, render to DV AVI, then render that DV AVI to your target format.  Just a thought.

I'll test it out in PAL AVI-DV. I'll post up the result here.

Update: Posted. Am I still seeing it? I'm having a hard time seeing it.