artifacts when producing mp4 from slideshow

studioksr

Newbie Location: Madison, Wisconsin Joined: Jan 01, 2016 17:27 Messages: 26 Offline

Solved by

Aug 10, 2016 15:02

When I create slideshows, and output to MP4, there are artifacts in the lower third of the video.
When the slideshow previews in edit mode in PD 14, everything looks and sounds perfect. I usually produce without the
preview, but after having problems, I enabled preview during production and everything looks fine until I try to play the mp4 after production.

My project is: a slideshow with about 200 jpgs, fade transitions, about 5 title slides, and several music files.
The slideshow is about 22 minutes long.

Desription of problem: After saving to MP4, H.264 AVC the resulting mp4 file is
corrupted and shows artifacts that seem to be related to previous images or
titles in the lower 1/4 of the video window.

I want to produce at high quality for viewing in HD on I used the two highest quality settings (4K at 50Mbps and 2K
at 40 Mbps ). when these both failed repeatedly, I tried a lower res setting 640x480 (6Mbps) --
this lower setting worked without corruptions, but the image quality was quite poor so I don't want to use this setting.

I have also tried deleting the transitions -- no improvement

I have tried deleting music track -- no improvement

I have attached screencaps of the corrupted mp4 and the same
image screencap shown inside PD Edit window. the third screencap shows an image
of the title style I am using.

My computer has an AMD FX-8350 Eight-Core processor runs 64 bit Windows 10, with AMD Radeon R9 200 Series graphics card.


Filename	editViewPD14-titleSlide.jpg	Download
Description	this shows the style of title that I am using to introduce slideshow topics
Filesize	163 Kbytes
Downloaded:	31 time(s)


Filename	mp4-corruptedViewafterProduce.jpg	Download
Description	this is what it looks like after producing mp4-note bottom is corrupted
Filesize	224 Kbytes
Downloaded:	37 time(s)


Filename	editViewPD14-correctView.jpg	Download
Description	this is how this slide looks in edit view, and the way it should appear in the mp4
Filesize	238 Kbytes
Downloaded:	31 time(s)

tomasc

Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 25, 2011 12:33 Messages: 6464 Offline

Aug 10, 2016 17:22

Try this: Uncheck both checkboxes in Preferences/Hardware Acceleration. In the produce module uncheck Use hardware encoding.

Let us know if this fixes the issue.

studioksr

Newbie Location: Madison, Wisconsin Joined: Jan 01, 2016 17:27 Messages: 26 Offline

Aug 10, 2016 19:01

I did a short test with just a few photos and no music and it worked. I next did the full slideshow with music and transitions and it had the same corrupted lower portion all the way through.

What else can I try? any other settings in Preferences?

Carl312

Senior Contributor Location: Texas, USA Joined: Mar 16, 2010 20:11 Messages: 9090 Offline

Aug 10, 2016 19:50

Quote: I did a short test with just a few photos and no music and it worked. I next did the full slideshow with music and transitions and it had the same corrupted lower portion all the way through.

What else can I try? any other settings in Preferences?

Are you using a Slideshow template?

Also what is the resolution of the JPGs used in the slideshow.

The corrupted image looks like a part of the previous picture is showing in the bottom 1/4 of the image.

Maybe a screen shot of your project in Powerdirector showing the entire interface. 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.

studioksr

Newbie Location: Madison, Wisconsin Joined: Jan 01, 2016 17:27 Messages: 26 Offline

Aug 10, 2016 19:51

ok
will have that to you in a minute

studioksr

Newbie Location: Madison, Wisconsin Joined: Jan 01, 2016 17:27 Messages: 26 Offline

Aug 10, 2016 19:55

here it is


Filename	fullScreen.JPG	Download
Description
Filesize	283 Kbytes
Downloaded:	30 time(s)

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Aug 10. 2016 19:56

studioksr

Newbie Location: Madison, Wisconsin Joined: Jan 01, 2016 17:27 Messages: 26 Offline

Aug 10, 2016 19:58

I did not use a slideshow template, I dragged the jpgs onto the timeline, added music, added title slides in between.

Also, the only way I can access slideshow edit mode is after I insert some photos on the timeline and select them. for some reason, my launcher takes me directly into the full edit mode. I have been searching for a way to set the launcher so that I have the various options.

studioksr

Newbie Location: Madison, Wisconsin Joined: Jan 01, 2016 17:27 Messages: 26 Offline

Aug 10, 2016 20:27

I just did a small test creating two small slideshows using the slideshow tool, then added music separately and produced an mp4 file successfully. In some of my earlier experiments I was having trouble accessing the slideshow option after selecting slides on the timeline, so I had abandoned that method. is there any trick to this?

tomasc

Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 25, 2011 12:33 Messages: 6464 Offline

Aug 10, 2016 20:36

Deleted.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Aug 10. 2016 20:37

Carl312

Senior Contributor Location: Texas, USA Joined: Mar 16, 2010 20:11 Messages: 9090 Offline

Aug 10, 2016 20:45

studioksr,

Thank you for the view of your project. I do notice that your Audio "Middle of Nowhere" is clipped, Yellow on the top and bottom of the waveform. (Means the level is too loud).

I have no idea why you are getting the corruption. 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.

studioksr

Newbie Location: Madison, Wisconsin Joined: Jan 01, 2016 17:27 Messages: 26 Offline

Aug 10, 2016 20:48

is it necessary to produce a slideshow before saving to mp4? could this be the problem?

also can you advise me how to reset the launcher so I can always have the option of starting out in slideshow?

tomasc

Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 25, 2011 12:33 Messages: 6464 Offline

Aug 10, 2016 20:58

Quote: I just did a small test creating two small slideshows using the slideshow tool, then added music separately and produced an mp4 file successfully. In some of my earlier experiments I was having trouble accessing the slideshow option after selecting slides on the timeline, so I had abandoned that method. is there any trick to this?

If your selection include a video along with images or a gap between two images then slideshow can't be accessed.

In your earlier timeline you use the cross type transitions instead of the overlay transitions used in the Normal slideshow style template. At 55 sec. and at 1:40 on that manual timeline those 2 short transitions can be removed to stop some possible ill effects.

Since you are now able to use the slideshow templates now just use those.

Glad that you are able to use the slideshow templates.

ynotfish

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

Aug 10, 2016 21:37

Hi studioksr -

is it necessary to produce a slideshow before saving to mp4? could this be the problem?

Yes - the only way to turn it into a video - MP4 or something else - is to produce it.

also can you advise me how to reset the launcher so I can always have the option of starting out in slideshow?

In Preferences > Confirmation, uncheck "Always enter the full feature editor at startup" - then you'll get the other options. It's just the same as selecting your images and clicking Slideshow.

Are you now able to produce your slideshow without the artifacts?

Cheers - Tony
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studioksr

Newbie Location: Madison, Wisconsin Joined: Jan 01, 2016 17:27 Messages: 26 Offline

Aug 10, 2016 21:47

Sorry, I was not very clear in my previous question. What I meant was: is it necessary to create the slideshow (not sure if I am using the right terms) in Edit mode, before producing as mp4.

What I had done before is to lay out all the jpgs on the timeline in the order I wanted, then add transitions and music and then proceed to produce to mp4. I bypassed the slideshow tool

By the way, I should have thanked you much earlier for your help! I have been tearing my hair out for days, and researching without a clue what to look for or to try! I really appreciate your help.

ynotfish

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

Aug 10, 2016 22:39

I see what you mean.

If you use the Slideshow Creator (templates) there's no need to return to the timeline - you can produce the video straight away. If you build the show manually, as you've been doing, you have more control over durations etc, even though you may miss out on some of the effects.

They're just two ways of doing the same sort of thing - manually or with templates. They're not dependent on each other.

AND - whatever workflow you follow, you definitely shouldn't end up with glitches like you showed in your screenshot!

As tomasc suggested, it could be a transition misbehaving... hardware acceleration... who knows? The project itself may have even become corrupted in some way, in which case starting again may be the only option.

Cheers - Tony
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studioksr

Newbie Location: Madison, Wisconsin Joined: Jan 01, 2016 17:27 Messages: 26 Offline

Aug 10, 2016 22:54

Hi Tony

Darn, that is disappointing to hear. I had hoped I found a solution. I have started over a few times, and I had created two separate slideshows as I described, without actually using the slideshow tool. Both had the same kind of corruption. then I tried a series of very minimal projects and all had the same problem.

However an earlier project that was much more complicated with lots of video, title slides, and some photos did not have any corruptions like the recent projects that only had jpgs, titles and music.

I created a new project tonight and will proceed to try using the slideshow tool. I discovered that it is much easier to work with slideshow using the storyboard view than the timeline view. wish me luck, and please hang in there with me in case I have more questions? I will post results if successful.

studioksr

Newbie Location: Madison, Wisconsin Joined: Jan 01, 2016 17:27 Messages: 26 Offline

Aug 10, 2016 23:51

OK, reporting back on my latest test -- again a failure but not as consistently corrupted. This time I started from scratch and created two separate slideshows from jpgs using the slideshow tool with motion transition template and chose advanced editing to place individual slideshows on the timeline.

there is no music and no titles. on about 1/3 of the images, the lower quarter shifts and wiggles sometimes, similar to the corruption in the earlier versions.

Anyone else have any suggestions?

Are there any other settings like frame rate? Jpgs don't have frame rate but there is still a setting to choose in the settings preferences.

tomasc

Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 25, 2011 12:33 Messages: 6464 Offline

Aug 11, 2016 00:08

Carl312 did ask you earlier what is the resolution of those jpegs you put on the timeline. Resolution that is too high and of unnecessary large size could overwhelm an underpowered pc. This information and a Dxdiag.txt of your pc can tell the story if you actually disabled hardware acceleration.

studioksr

Newbie Location: Madison, Wisconsin Joined: Jan 01, 2016 17:27 Messages: 26 Offline

Aug 11, 2016 00:24

Sorry, I missed Carl's earlier question about the jpg res.

I sized all jpgs in Lightroom to 2100 longest side. most are about 2100 by 1400, with file sizes that range from 1.2 MB to about 2.5 MB max.

I have an eight core processor, I can't remember the bus speed or the processor, but the computer is not that old and was custom built. I don't usually have trouble with it.

One thing I have not done is to see if my graphics card has any updates.

What is a Dxdiag.text?

I definitely disabled hardware acceleration in all subsequent tests. thanks!

studioksr

Newbie Location: Madison, Wisconsin Joined: Jan 01, 2016 17:27 Messages: 26 Offline

Aug 11, 2016 00:43

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.