Sorry to hear about the problems you're having, and thanks very much for the detailed description and for attaching the screenshots and DxDiag results.

I don't see any obvious problems that might cause this in the DxDiag, and Snip 2 shows that the pixel resolution has dropped considerably, probably to something like half (960x540) but I don't know why that would be.

You can try turning off OpenCL and hardware decoding in the Hardware Acceleration panel of Preferences and see if that makes a difference. Are you using shadow files? If so, try turning them off then close and reopen PD.

If neither of those suggestions work, it would be very helpful if you were willing to share your entire project here so other forum members can download everything and see what happens on their systems. To do that, use Pack Project Materials from PD's File menu and save everythign to a cloud folder on Google Drive or OneDrive and paste a shareable link to it here.

Please see the Share a file publicly section in this Google FAQ page, or check this OneDrive support page if you need more info on how to do that.

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Quote Sorry to hear about the problems you're having, and thanks very much for the detailed description and for attaching the screenshots and DxDiag results.

I don't see any obvious problems that might cause this in the DxDiag, and Snip 2 shows that the pixel resolution has dropped considerably, probably to something like half (960x540) but I don't know why that would be.

You can try turning off OpenCL and hardware decoding in the Hardware Acceleration panel of Preferences and see if that makes a difference. Are you using shadow files? If so, try turning them off then close and reopen PD.

If neither of those suggestions work, it would be very helpful if you were willing to share your entire project here so other forum members can download everything and see what happens on their systems. To do that, use Pack Project Materials from PD's File menu and save everythign to a cloud folder on Google Drive or OneDrive and paste a shareable link to it here.

Please see the Share a file publicly section in this Google FAQ page, or check this OneDrive support page if you need more info on how to do that.

Hi -

Thanks for the quick response.

I was using Enable OpenCL and Hardware decoding as well as shadow files. I turned all of these options "off" and regenerated the movie. The results are the same. About 30 seconds into the video, the quality changes.

Here's a link to the Project Materials - https://christchurchfl-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/cstanley_christchurchfl_org/EnuKG5-c3QlHnILFaz3jSTQBFXdyWDTDLTucXdgf8RhjOw?e=tp3yhm


Thanks for your help!
chuck

Thanks for sharing so quickly

I have at least a partial answer for you - the reason for the poor quality in the produced video is because there are too few rows of pixels to give you smooth edges to the pedals. With an HD quality source clip that's been reduced by about 4x in size, you're always going to end up with a "staircase" on diagonal lines like those if you produce to HD, but you can improve on that by producing to 4K.

4K gives PD many more pixels to work with, and even when a media player has to downscale the clip to display on an HD monitor the edges are much smoother than in the HD version.

Take a look at the 2 clips I produced and you should see the same results on your end. I didn't see any difference when producing with the CPU or with my nVidia card at HD, as the pedals in both were noticeably jagged. I made the 4K version with hardware encoding and it took about a minute and a half.

I don't have an explanation for why the preview looks sharp at the start and then becomes pixelated on your computer, though.

I get a crystal clear view all the way through if I set the Preview Resolution to Ultra HD, but it's always pixelated if I use the Full HD or HD settings. I'm using the subscription version (PD365) and it's at v18.6.3120, so it's possible that the previewing differences are due to the different PD versions.

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Hi,

Just by way of a quick and dirty approach.

Your original clip is from an iphone using HEVC.

I converted the original to h264 near enough the same specs.

Both play fine outside of PDR

Place both the original HEVC and the h264 on adjacent timelines and resize in PiP.

The screen cap shows the comparison.

That degradation of the HEVC file carries through into the final production @h264 1920x1080 30fps 16mbs

So, it seems that PDR doesn't like the iphone HEVC file too much??

Cheers
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Quote
I don't have an explanation for why the preview looks sharp at the start and then becomes pixelated on your computer, though.

I generated the movie at 4k and that does seem to work, although the file size is considerable larger - 897M vs 327M. I chose H.265 HEVC MPEG-4 4K 3480 x 2160/30p (37 Mbps). Is there a better option?

Just to be clear, it's not in the "preview" that the quality changes, but in the actual generated movie. Here's a link to the complete movie. At least on my computer, the movie is fine until about 40 seconds in when it instantly changes the resolution.


https://christchurchfl-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/cstanley_christchurchfl_org/ERzyKa1uOLtAmvMgxcX7eoYBPcvtpU2CaZ90q52N4ZlzXw?e=pJL5cF

I'd be interested to know if you see the same change in quality on your computer.


Thanks again for your help! I've been working on this for a couple of weeks.

Quote Hi,

Just by way of a quick and dirty approach.

Your original clip is from an iphone using HEVC.

I converted the original to h264 near enough the same specs.

Thanks for the reply. I'm pretty new at video editing. Can you tell me the best way to "convert the original to h264"? Do I need to purchase additional software?

Quote


I'd be interested to know if you see the same change in quality on your computer.

Yes, it coincides with the change of title text, at first glance???

Does it still occur with no titles active?

Ther are lots of converters out there, many members use Handbrake or FormatFactory for quick conversions.

Cheers
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Quote So, it seems that PDR doesn't like the iphone HEVC file too much??

Cheers
PowerDirector Moderator

That seems to be the actual issue. I converted the original clip to AVC using VirtualDub2 (although I also had to rotate it to keep the vertical orientation), but when I replaced the MOV clip on the timeline with the new MP4 clip, everything looked great and I was able to produce to HD with good results.

I've added both clips to the OneDrive folder linked to above.

ChuckFTL, all you need to do is import the new MP4 clip into PD's media library, then drag and drop it onto the original clip on the timeline. When the pop-up window appears, choose Replace and the new clip will take the place of the old one.

PDM, this sure looks like an issue that RD should look into. Should one of us file an official support request?

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Quote



ChuckFTL, all you need to do is import the new MP4 clip into PD's media library, then drag and drop it onto the original clip on the timeline. When the pop-up window appears, choose Replace and the new clip will take the place of the old one.

Converting the file to MP4 first worked!

A big THANK YOU to both of you!
chuck

Quote So, it seems that PDR doesn't like the iphone HEVC file too much??

In my view, maybe even more generic than that. I think the issues stem from anything that has variable framerate and the rate is truly variable in the file. This file has ~28.5-30.0fps, from my experience that's enough to cause this issue and often why I recommend conversion as you suggested which brings the file to a constant framerate which PD handles.

Jeff

I've recoded the original HEVC MOV clip to have a constant bitrate and have uploaded it into the OneDrive folder. Replacing the timeline clip with this new one should work well if the variable bitrate is the only issue with your HEVC clip.

SInce you may not be able to control the encoding bitrate on your iphone, it may be quicker and easier to have it record in H.264/AVC rather than having to convert every clip afterwards.

YouTube/optodata

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