Choppy Playback after adding Power tool effect

Bob Mc

Newbie Joined: Sep 24, 2009 20:50 Messages: 39 Offline

Solved by

Nov 10, 2010 22:10

Hello all..

I'm having an issue where I add in the Powertool video speed effect, slow motion, that when I view it in PD8 it shows very choppy, and actually causes the next few frames to show choppy as well. If I pause and start the playback, after the slow motion effect it will play normally, but the slow motion is terrible in playback and it effects the rest of the movie. If I produce it sometimes it works as expected and sometimes it doesn't.

Basically I'm going through game flim from our local HS and creating a highlight DVD, I have a hit that I'd like to play back in slow motion multipy times, twice, and then reply the final time in normal speed. When it gets to the slow motion portion it gets very choppy, very choppy. I guess its possible the clip is to small, 00:00:00:19 is the original length. I've attempted slow it down just about 50%, but the only thing I can do to keep it from jumping is slow it way down to like 20% of the original, but that doesn't really give me the effect I'm looking for. Is the fact its such a short portion of the clip I'm trying to alter is my problem? Any suggestions?

This is my system:
PD8
Win7 x64
Dell Studio XPS 9100 Desktop
ATI HD 5600s 1GB Video card
8GB of Ram

Thanks,
Bob PD15
Dell Studio XPS 9100 Desktop
Win 10 x64
32Gb Memory
Intel i7 CPU 930 @ 2.80GHz Quad Core
ATI Radeon HD 5670 -1Gb Mem

ynotfish

Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline

Nov 10, 2010 23:46

Hi Bob -

Without knowing what else is in your project, it sounds like your PC is having some trouble processing the slo-mo section.

The easiest way around it is to:

1. Open a new project
2. Import, insert & trim the clip you want (just the slo-mo bit)
3. Apply Video Speed
4. Produce the slow motion clip
5. Insert that produced slo-mo clip into your other project... that'll make it easier on your PC.

Cheers - Tony
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vn800rider

Senior Contributor Location: Darwen, UK Joined: May 15, 2008 04:32 Messages: 1949 Offline

Nov 11, 2010 04:33

If you apply slo-mo and then step through the clip frame by frame, I suspect you will see exactly how PD applies the slo-mo effect.

As far as I am aware (but someone may contradict me ) PD carries out no interpolation between frames but actually duplicates frames to get the correct clip time. From memory, the slower the clip the more duplicate frames are used (from my grandmothers knitting days "knit one , pearl 1, 2 or 3" so to speak). Thus the more slo-mo that is applied, the more "static" duplicate frames are generated.

This may also contribute to the choppy playback and production, in that whatever codec is processing the rendering (unless lossless?) it will relate previous and next frames in some way to generate the final file.

A similar problem can also arise when converting NTSC to PAL frame rates when panning - it can look really jerky in some formats.

Cheers
Adrian

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Nov 14. 2010 13:04

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Fraijameleahdot

Newbie Joined: Nov 13, 2010 20:01 Messages: 1 Offline

Nov 13, 2010 21:00

I'm having a very similar problem. When I use the Video Crop Powertool, it plays back in a very jerky fashion. as if it's showing one in every ten frames, perhaps. When I tried producing a video of the clip, it still played back in the same jerky way. However, when I played back the produced video on Windows Media Player, it worked fine! So it may well be doing the job in the background. Nevertheless, even if that's the case, it's not a satisfactory state of affairs. Can anyone therefore advise, please, how to get Power Director 8 to play back clips properly when they have been amended by Power Tools?

CubbyHouseFilms

Senior Contributor Location: Melbourne, Australia Joined: Jul 14, 2009 04:23 Messages: 2208 Offline

Nov 13, 2010 22:01

Hi welcome to the forum

Quote: I'm having a very similar problem. When I use the Video Crop Powertool, it plays back in a very jerky fashion.

Are you talking about the preview screen in PD8?

If so, then this is normal as it is only a preview. You can marginally improve the quality by clicking the rectangle and small rectangle box and adjust the preview quality.

If this is not the case try burning your project to DVD.

Good luck

Happing editing

Best Regards

Neil
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JL_JL

Senior Contributor Location: Arizona, USA Joined: Oct 01, 2006 20:01 Messages: 6091 Offline

Nov 14, 2010 08:28

Quote: PD carries out no interpolation between frames but actually duplicates frames to get the correct clip time. Adrian

That has been my observation as well, if you use "Slow motion video with frame interpolation technology" and step through as you say you can easily see just the added frames for my footage.

However, it appears CL claims frame interpolation.
"Smoothing Slo-mo Effects Cyberlink TrueTheater Motion enhances your slow motion sequences, using frame interpolation to reduce jitters and smooth out scenes."
http://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdirector/features_en_US.html

Jeff