studio 12 plus problem again

[Peter Stedman]

I'm in front of a PC with studio plus 12 open, some clips on the time line the video shows but doesn't move but the audio plays. If I scrub along the time line on these clips the video moves as it should, as soon as I press 'play' the pause button shows and the video doesn't move.

Pete

[tom hardwick]

Sounds like it's met some sort of internal conflict. Reboot the pc and see what happens.

[Peter Stedman]

Thanks Tom,
We have tried that several times. Further ideas?

[Peter Stedman]

I have deleted from the time line one of the offending clips and re-imported it from the album. Pete

[col lamb]

Peter

I do not use Studio but I have a few questions

Is the problem just with the one project?

Are other projects OK?

Is the Project Preset all set up to match the properties of the video files?

Do you have windows Bit Defender active?

Is there any virus checking software active?

Has Windows updated itself?

Have you made any hardware changes?

Have you installed any more software?

[Dave Watterson]

While awaiting your reply to Col's questions ... may I ask a naive question.

Does the footage need to be rendered or processed first? This can be the answer to such problems, for example when footage is imported that is different from the normal - e.g. in Britain if you add some NTSC footage or video shot at 29fps as so many cameras intended mainly for the stills user shoot when in video mode.

[fraught]

Hi Pete,

When you reimported the clip from the album, did it now work?

Have you tried Deleting Auxillary files and then letting the timeline rerender?

How about if you go to 'Make Movie' and create a File? Does it play ok when you view your finished product?

[Peter Stedman]

Thank for the previous replies that I haven't been able to follow up. I reply to Cols posting now and you will see why. (Phew!)

Thanks Col.
Points arising. I was not at my home PC at the time but with this lady I have been trying to assist with Pinnacle Studio 12plus.

Is the problem just with the one project? Yes. I have tried with a couple of other short projects she has and they seem OK.

What I have now discovered which may certainly explain a lot. The original footage was on mini DV tape from several years ago. It appears that the footage may have been edited on a PC because some titles have been added - then transferred back to tape. I then gather this footage was put back on the PC. When a new PC was bought recently, this footage was transferred to the new PC. At this stage Pinnacle 12+ was bought and then I came on the scene and managed to import into Studio 12+ the tape which Pinnacle in its own wisdom, worked ‘scene detection’ and so the project was split into many, many scenes. It is several of these scenes that have the aforementioned problem. I haven’t looked all through the entire project to see how many more scenes in addition are affected and am unlikely to visit the lady again for at least another week.

Wow – what a story. Pete

[col lamb]

The light at the end of the tunnel.

Pinnacle has to use a techincal term....................thrown a wobbler.

She has corrupt files in that project.

Normally scene detection works on detecting the date and time changes on a tape (and hence identifying individual clips), Pinnacle seems to be doing the same in a smart (but with a low IQ) method of detecting changes in the input signal which determine likely scene changes or it may be that it is just has a dislexic bug.

I would guess that it is possible to turn off scene detect and if the tape was then re-captured there should be no problem with playback.

Below is the Metadata information that is on a specific clip in my system (Dave, this file info is what you will have on your PC 100 recorded clips)

General
Complete name : D:\Video Editing\SonyPC100\Rome 41.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
Commercial name : DVCPRO
File size : 18.5 MiB
Duration : 5s 160ms
Overall bit rate mode : Constant
Overall bit rate : 30.0 Mbps
Recorded date : 2008-01-30 10:33:39.000
Writing library : Tdattc_O

Video
ID : 0
Format : DV
Commercial name : DVCPRO
Codec ID : dvsd
Codec ID/Hint : Sony
Duration : 5s 160ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 24.4 Mbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 2.357
Stream size : 17.7 MiB (96%)
Encoding settings : ae mode=full automatic / wb mode=automatic / white balance= / fcm=manual focus

Audio
ID : 1
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Codec ID : 1
Duration : 5s 160ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 024 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 32.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 645 KiB (3%)
Interleave, duration : 860 ms (21.50 video frames)

[Mike Shaw]

Not necessarily corrupt capture files, but recapturing just the problem scenes and using those in the edit could well solve the situation. This problem is not new with Pinnacle Studio: usually, but not always, it is the edl (edit decision list) that has become corrupt. If you know what to look for (and it is over six years since I did anything like this), you can switch the timeline to text view - again, I believe Studio 12 had that option - rightmost of the three strange little icons top right on the control bar that separates assets and view from the timelines.

Another solution that sometimes worked - delete the Auxiliary file folder: I cannot remember where it is now, but that folder holds the render files, and files in there often became corrupt for some reason. If the auxiliary folder - or the files within it it - are deleted, Studio regenerates them all. That sometimes works - if it was indeed a bad render file.

Studio renders in the background. You are supposed to be able to work while it is happening - but that, I have found, depends on the power of the PC and graphics card. Best thing is to watch that 'render line' over the timelines and wait until it indicates rendering has been completed before continuing: not doing so could create a corrupt file.

Scene detection - Studio offers two methods - by time, which means a new clip every time the camcorder RECORD was stopped and restarted, and by scene change - where every frame is compared with the previous frame, and if there is a major change, a new clip is created. This method fails miserably for example when people are taking flash photos. I cannot remember whether Studio has an option to adjust the tolerance level for the scene change - it is now more than six years since I actually used it (though tested it up to S14). Scene detection can be switched off altogether I think, and it can be performed after the capture has finished rather than during capture. I'd recommend performing scene detection after capture has finished ... Studio could possibly get itself in a twist - and make mistakes of a buggy kind - detecting scenes while capturing, especially on PCs that aren't 'over-specced' for the job.

Anyone currently using Pinnacle Studio and wanting to upgrade should take a serious look at Avid Studio: similar principles and workflows, but far more robust - and amongst other things it has those extra timelines that are so sorely missing in Pinnacle Studio. In my opinion Avid Studio has a better future than Pinnacle Studio and, since both come from the same stable, one wonders why both ....

I should add that, although ostensibly from the same development team, the code for Pinnacle and Avid Studios is completely different. Avid Studio was developed from scratch, and tips its hat in many respects (some workflows and paradigms for example) to the big daddy of all video editors, Avid Media Composer.