Hi Mirsad,
Once again, at simple normal viewing, I do not see a difference or "darkening" on either the Corel or PD version of your video. I did download your whole project and tested it. And I will place my long and boring write up on my testing, below, for you or anyone who may be interested in reading it.
Hi All,
I download the 325MB project that Mirsad provided. It didn't appear to be a traditional "Packed Project" folder, as there are several .pds files contained.
(Any project that I have ever packed, only contained one .pds file.)
Before trying to load Mirsad's project in "my" PD8, I went to my Preferences and switched my PD8 to the PAL format, so as to conform with Mirsad's Pal project. And I ensured that my PD8's aspect ratio was set to 16:9 in my Preferences.
Initially, I could note open any of the downloaded .pds files in the folder. Every time I tried, I got the "Browse" pop-up window.
But by locating the files in Mirsad's folder, I was able to open the various versions, and settled on the BMP version for further investigation.
(Or at least the amount of investigating that I am capable of, hahaha.)
And upon first playback of this project in my PD8, I saw NO noticeable change in brightness values between the video footage and the Freeze Frames/Snapshots.
But here are a few other things that I did observe.
(And I don’t know if some of them necessarily apply to Mirsad’s "darkening" issue.)
- The H.264 AVC footage resolution is at 1920x1080 - which is a 16:9 aspect ratio.
- Each of the snapshots have a resolution of 640x480 - which is a 4:3 aspect ratio.
- The words "My Title" appear on each Freeze Frame, so the... "Add Titles and Effect when using Freeze Frame" option was definitely ON, when this timeline was built.
(I know Mirsad has now turned this option off)
- There were no Fix/Enhance tools applied to any of the footage or Freeze Frame/Snapshots
- When I opened the BMP project version, the preview screen suddenly changed to 4:3, thus introducing those black borders at the top and bottom of the 4:3 preview screen, that framed the 16:9 footage and Freeze Frame/Snapshots. I found it very odd that this change to 4:3 would occur.
- I then changed the projects aspect ratio to (or back to) 16:9, and now the 16:9 footage did indeed fill the 16:9 preview screen. But the Freeze Frame/Snapshots displayed at about 75% of the preview screen, with a 25% black border surrounding the still image. And upon again checking the properties of the Snapshots in the timeline again, they were 640x480 (4:3).
Why do the Freeze Frame/Snapshots, extracted from 16:9 footage, have 4:3 aspect ratio properties?
Note: At this point I used "save as" to save this project to a .pds file, and named it...
Mirsad-1. Then, in order to confirm, I opened a new project > imported some 16:9 (1280x720) footage from my archives > created a split > clicked the Freeze Frame button > Freeze Frame/Snapshot was inserted. I then checked the Properties of the Snapshot, and it’s aspect ratio remained at 16:9 at the expected 1280x720 resolution, as this is the normal way PD8 works for me.
So now I was even more puzzled as to why Mirsad's Freeze Frame/Snapshots dropped down to 640x480 (4:3) from the 1920x1080 (16:9) footage that the Freeze Frame was extracted from. So I can only assume that something is being done incorrectly in the procedures used to create this project. Though I'm sure what it may be, or if it is also the cause of the darkening that Mirsad is seeing on his end.
I then closed this confirmation test, and re-opened Mirsad's project (from the Mirsad-1 .pds file I created earlier.)
- I noticed that now that I had changed Mirsad's project's aspect ratio to
(or back to) 16:9, as mentioned above, that the text in the titles looked stretched out like they do when text is stretched from 4:3 to 16:9. So this can only mean that the text was originally applied to a 4:3 background (I think). Which again causes me to wonder why 4:3 segments were introduced into a 16:9 project? If one's footage is 16:9, it seems to me that one would want to maintain 16:9 throughout the project. Which always happens for me, even with snapshots, in a production that is created from/with 16:9 footage.
- When I tried to introduce the exaggerated brightness values to the production
(just as I mentioned in one of my my earlier post/reply), this time, in PD8, I could not see the value changes that I did observe when viewing Mirsad's "Produced" file in VLC Player. I only saw, and was distracted by the stills jumping down to 4:3 when they came on the screen.
So, what are my conclusions? Well, I'm even more confused than I was before I tried testing Misrad's project here.
- I can not cause or replicate the darkening.
- The aspect ratios are mixed up.
- When Mirsad's 16:9 footage, in the project library, is dragged down into the Master track, the preview window (and project?), changes to 4:3.
- Freeze Frames, purportedly created by just clicking on the Freeze Frame tool, have properties of 640x480, though they are Snapshots extracted from 1920x1080 footage.
- When "I" create a Split and make a Freeze Frame of "Mirsad's" footage, the Snapshots remain at 1920x1080, and display at 1920x1080 in my timeline.
So... perhaps these aspect ratio and resolution changes are causing the darkening that some do indeed see? Yet, through it all, I can not replicate the "darkening issue", and I am totally confused by the resolution differences, and the mixed aspect ratio changes, that are contained in this project.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Apr 27. 2010 19:53
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