one thing that has puzzled me all along, is why the preview looks perfectly smooth, with no artefacts in edit mode, yet the mp4 production introduces artefacts? Does anyone have any ideas?

thanks to everyone who has helped. I am going to try a few more times, but I am running out of time and may just have to live with the artefacts.

See this sticky: http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/45453.page to supply Part A and Part B for the Dxdiag.txt.

The horizontal resolution of 2100 pixels is sufficient for creating a HD 1920x1080p slide show whether it is 24 or 60 fps. I have never seen digital artifacts on a software encoded slide show. It is possible that something will show up in the diagnostics.

Instead of mp4 try avchd 1920x1080p60 @ 28 Mbps to see if this helps.

Thanks, here is the info. DX File is attached. (I did not compress because it is pretty small) Please let me know if I didn't do this correctly. Thanks!

PD 14 64 bitBuild: 14.0.2820.0

There is a GPU driver update available for your AMD Radeon R9 - http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Windows+10+-+64

It's possibly irrelevant in this case, but worth updating.

Cheers - Tony
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Quote: Thanks, here is the info. DX File is attached. (I did not compress because it is pretty small) Please let me know if I didn't do this correctly. Thanks!

PD 14 64 bitBuild: 14.0.2820.0

DXdiag.txt reports some Windows Errors in the bottom the file.

Error information starts at "Windows Error Reporting:"

A video card is reporting you have vertical orientation. I do not know if that is a factor, Nomal video is Horizonal.

Current Mode: 1050 x 1680 (32 bit) (60Hz)

Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor

Monitor Model: SyncMaster

Monitor Id: SAM0214

Native Mode: 1680 x 1050(p) (59.954Hz)

Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Hi Carl, I looked at the errors in the file, but its meaningless to me. Regarding vertical orientation, I have two monitors and the supplemental one is vertical but that shouldn't make any difference.

In the slideshow I have both vertical and horizontal images.

Tony, I just updated my AMD drivers, thanks for finding that. I need to reboot and can test after that. I finally heard back from technical support and they now have my project files to inspect.

Is there any chance that the problem is in my playback software rather than Power Director? I am using Windows Media Player to play the mp4 files.

I don't know what else to try!

Just throwing something extra in and for you to do. I note in one image you've still got Shadow Files being generated.
Uncheck shadow file generation.
Preferences/General
Preferences/Confirmation
You don't need Shadow Files running.

Suggestion:
Segment your project into multiple projects and see if you can produce the mp4 (for each) without any issue. Just an idea, it might also isolate where and what is causing your issue.

I haven't fully read all the above posts so if my suggestion has already been made, sorry.

Dafydd

Hi studioksr -

I've (more or less) replicated what you've done:

1. Selected 220 photos to build a slideshow


2. Resized them all to 2000px wide in PhotoDirector


3. Imported the resized photos into PDR - no motion applied.


4. Added transitions (overlap) and headers/titles


5. Produced to MP4 1080p @ 16Mbps.

The only glitches I get are in the transitions (mainly regular fades). Nothing like what you're seeing.

I seriously doubt whether Windows Media Player is the problem, but you can easily check that by using another player. The real test is when you view it on your HD TV.

You say you're getting the same problems even with smaller projects? What happens when you produce with NO transitions? Did you try producing to H.264 MTS, as was suggested earlier?

Cheers - Tony
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Hi Dafydd, I turned off Shadow File (had no idea it existed) I have tried breaking it down into smaller chunks, and also have tried recreating small new files with/without various components like titles, music, transitions, and every slideshow I make has these problems in the lower 1/4 of the screen.

Back in May I created a la one hour mp4 file with lots of video, some photos, but not slideshow and did not have this problem.


Ynotfish--I cant find the earlier suggestion for another type of production--a couple days ago I mentioned that I could not find that option in produce in PD 14.

Do you mean H.264 M2TS (was this the suggestion made a couple days ago-not sure where that is in the chain) ? I am trying variations on M2TS next. Can you clarify if you have time? Also, will M2TS play on all machines? this is a video I need to distribute to a bunch of people with all kinds of different computers.

Thanks!

a quick look at the M2TS file looks greatly improved. only one quivering lower section in the first minute, not the constant prolonged abberations. I can't do any more until tomorrow.

thanks everyone!

avchd is in the m2ts format. See this article on m2ts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.m2ts . I see no problems with my slideshows in this format at the highest bitrate and frame rate.

After reading the article, I think I can't use the m2ts format because I need to share the video with many people with many different operating systems and most are artists without much ability to resolve technical issues.

I should stay with mp4. I'll either need to keep troubleshooting and experimenting or else I have to live with the problem which is really frustrating. I bought this software in order to have more reliable video and slideshow editing than Windows Movie maker.

... most are artists without much ability to resolve technical issues

I hope there aren't too many artists reading this

MP4 is certainly a more universal format for wide sharing, so iy probably is best for your purposes.

Since others haven't been able to replicate the horrible artifacts you're getting, could you please upload a few of your original photos (i.e. before you resized them)? Also - a short recap of the steps you've taken. Maybe there's something in either the photos or the process that might point to a possible cause.

If the file size of the photos is restrictive, it might be best to zip them and use Google Drive, DropBox or similar.

Members can then more accurately assess what's going on.

Cheers - Tony
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Hi Tony

My apologies to any other artists out there ; I am an artist, but not technically phobic. I know many of my intended audience though, and its a challenge for many!

I'll step through my workflow later, hopefully today. I'll see what I can do about uploading original photos, though that doesn't make sense to me because a jpg is a jpg right? if resized, then its a new "entity" ???

One thing notable is the photos are from a variety of sources, all jpgs, but some from phones of various sorts, some from DSLR. I have cropped some to different proportions also.

Will upload requested files later tonight or tomorrow.

Thanks! (I am still waiting for the support response now that they have my entire project files)

Quote: One thing notable is the photos are from a variety of sources, all jpgs, but some from phones of various sorts, some from DSLR. I have cropped some to different proportions also.

I've been intrigued as to what the cause of the problem is here. It seems very bizarre to me but this makes me wonder whether you are placing images on more than one video track thereby causing part of another image to appear briefly. That's how it seemed to me when I looked at your screenshot. If the images your're using are all different aspect ratios it might explain what is happening i.e. seeing parts of an image from another track or perhaps during a transition from one image to another.

Can I suggest that you prepare a test set of images in whatever graphics application you use. Make every image say 1920x1080 i.e. 16:9 and then create a project from scratch using only those images with whatever transitions you normally use.

p.s. Just to explain what I'm thinkingt. PD's default behaviour is to preserve aspect ratio of clips/images placed on the timeline. A 'mixed bag' of resolutions and aspect ratios could result in what you're seeing i.e. parts of two different images in the current frame. I'm looking specifically at your screen shot (I'm attaching the one I'm talking about).

I think . . . . the problem is resolved. Longedge, thanks for suggesting looking at aspect ratio. I believe that was the problem. I am a bit furious that PowerDirector is not smarter than this, or that the instructions don't tell you that consistent aspect ratio is critical.

I used Lightroom to change all jpgs in one section to conform to 1836 x 3264 (16:9) after first doing the same thing at 1920x1080 (16:9). I then made a very short slideshow by dropping them on the timeline and producing to: MPEG-4 1920x1080/30p (16Mbps). It worked perfectly. I then dropped transitions on all, and even added one mp3 file for soundtrack. Perfect!

I think I was doing at least two things wrong over the various trials.

1. too many different aspect ratios in all the various jpgs due to cropping and maybe multiple camera sources
2. sometimes working in 4:3 ratio setting in PD14, yet saving to a non- 4:3 MP4 output file (why does PD allow this???? There are warnings about so many other obscure settings . . .)
3. produced at a non- 16:9 profile (for example, I tried 2048 x 1080 at least once, with the new jpgs sized to 1836 x 3264, and had consistently bad results.

I wish PD would inform us in the Produce mode what the aspect ratio is of each profile that is available. I did not see anything in the manual under slideshow that aspect ratio of images needs to be consistent, or that aspect ratio of images needs to match the produce profile.

Maybe this is obvious to more experienced video editors, but I have done a "lot" of video editing over many years, and truly a staggering amount of still image editing of many kinds over the decades and this was not obvious to me. I did have a nagging question about this in my mind, but the program has so many parameters to consider that it was hard to figure out what could be the problem.

I am very grateful to everyone who suggested things to try. I learned a lot about the program in the process, though I had successfully edited several videos earlier in the year without much trouble, there is still so much to learn.

I will report back after the complete project is (hopefully!!!) finished. I need to completely recreate everything yet again, but now I feel much more optimistic.

I hope this thread helps someone else in the future!!!

Once you've decided this was the problem, please edit the title of this thread to include "Solved". Others can learn from your efforts...thanks! Regards,
Dan
Power Director 21-Ultimate
v 21.0.3111.0
XPS-8940, Win-10 64-bit,
Intel Core i9-10900 processor
(10 core, 20M Cache),
32GB DDR4 RAM, 2TB M.2 PCIe NVME SSD, 2TB 7200 RPM SATA HDD,
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8GB GDDR6

ok, will do!

It's great that you've been able to produce a slideshow without artifacts. Whatever you've done there has corrected the issue.

BUT - seriously - the issue was not that there were photos from multiple sources with a mixture of aspect ratios. It would be a mistake to be thinking that slidshows require a set of photos all cropped to the same AR.

To illustrate, here's a little slideshow I just made. Don't look for a theme because I deliberately selected a mixture of photos. 18 photos from 18 different cameras, with a wide range of aspect ratios including a stitched panorama.

https://youtu.be/wVDfEhE3Zdo

Whatever the problem was, it wasn't that.

Cheers - Tony
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Ynot, I am glad to know that PD is not that flakey or particular. I wouldn't expect it to be.

I will see if I can do a few other tests after I produce my projects. I am running out of time, way way behind schedule. I will check out #2, #3 in my list above and will use jpgs with same specs as well as the original variety and will report back. so long as time permits!