Black levels and exporting

Hey there-
When I export anything through render cue using Lossless, Lossless with alpha or Custom Quicktime the black levels of the rendered file are 5-10 units high regardless of the program that I use to open it. I'm exporting to a local hard drive and not a server. I'm using After Effects CS6 and Final Cut Pro 7.0.3 on a Mac. The export settings in After Effects are the same as others in my office and no one else seems to have this problem.
Thanks for your time.

By “units” I mean pedestal units on a wave form monitor. Final Cut has a wave form/vector scope feature. The apps that I use do not have features to adjust gamma, video levels or pedestal. I'm not using color management. I've tried importing raw video (uncompressed Sony XPCAM) and Quicktime files from different sources, adding them to the timeline and exporting them without applying anything at all. The codecs that the files are being exported to are animation and timecode. As far as monitor calibration, everything with the exception of exported After Effects files looks normal in Final Cut Pro. (blacks have definition but are not washed out, whites and colors look normal). Could it possibly have something to do with how the files are being imported?

Similar Messages

Compressor 2 black level/chroma issue

I have discovered a problem about making MPEG2s with Compressor 2. I have two suites one of which has recently been upgraded to FCP Studio with Tiger; I used Compressor 2 to make a batch of MPEG2s and some QTs for the web. The QTs were fine but the MPEGs were oversaturated and had crushed blacks. I have tried both the new and old setting and the problem is common to both. I have tried recompressing material that I already have MPEGs of that were made with FCP 4.5 and Compressor 1. The new ones are different and all exhibit high chroma low black levels.
Since my second suite is still running FCP 4.5 and compressor I ran the same tests in the old suite and the levels looked fine, suggesting that there is an issue with Compressor 2.
I tried to alert Apple directly and was told that they had no way of putting me in touch with anyone directly. So I hope that for the sake of other users and myself this posting will ring some alarm bells.
Robb Hart
an ideal world
714-953-9501
[email protected]

Let me be clear, I am not seeing any significant differences in the black levels and colors between Compressor 1.2.1 and Compressor 2.0.1 and yes I am using the same decoder when I compare the clips (Apple's MPEG2 Playback component). I've compared the clips side-by-side on the same display under both OS X 10.3.8 and 10.4.2. However, I haven't done an extensive set of comparison with a wide range of source material (at least not in any detailed manner).
As for being CoreImage accelerated, under 10.4.X I do have support for CoreImage functions but they are not GPU hardware accelerated. Thus under 10.4.2 I do not get QuickTime's realtime color corrections. My PowerBook also supports Quartz Extreme.
However, if you're talking about the so-called Quartz 2D Extreme then my system doesn't support such acceleration (and as far as I know Q2DE isn't even enabled yet -- not on any system -- you need a developer debug tool to turn it on).

Export Issues: Green and black flashes and dropped frames

Hello,
So I've been having in issue in the last week exporting videos in Adobe (CS5, Premiere 5.0). It's happened both in AME and direct exports from Premiere. The sequence settings match the footage settings (1280x720 (1.0) 23.976fps MTS files). I'm using a mini matrox mxo2 hardware accelerator to speed up my export times. The sequences start with 5 seconds of a still image with a simple Title laid over it in Video two (the person's name, city etc. that is the focus of the video) which then dips to black into the footage. Everything plays back fine but after I output the sequences within the first 5 seconds (while the still img is up (a .jpg) there are flashes of green and black as well as dropped frames. It only happens a few times but it does happen in each video, only while that title is on the screen.
I've made hundreds of similar videos with the same export settings, same sequence settings, same footage settings. I know because it's a lot of the same cameramen and I've made templates for my projects, sequences, and export settings.This has never been an issue before this week.
I've tried mining Google and forums for an answer but can't even find other people having very similar problems.
Any help on ideas to troubleshoot this would be much appreciated and let me know if you want any more info from me.
Thanks!

Thank you for the reply J_Heffernan.
So my understanding of the issue is more clear. The green fields is from a rendered clip, not from playback.
Please try the following:
- in control panel, go to user accounts, and locate your account, and confirm its UAC level is all the way down, reboot if required
- if you downloaded the Matrox driver with another browser, besides IE, then redownload it again, with IE. Once completed, right click the file, go to properties, if there is a message stating its blocked, click the unblock button
- uninstall the MXO2 driver, reboot and reinstall it
- go to http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect?iid=dc_iduu let it scan to see if there is an intel chipset driver update availalble, and install it, reboot
- lets try with a brand new project - select matrox.avi as your capture mode
- select a matrox HD/SD sequence - try HD 1080i 29.97
- give a new name
- place colour bars on the timeline and streach it out
- now do a file export, use a Matrox h.264 option, and let adobe media encoder export it
- after it is completed, how is the playback?
Typically you can have premiere and media encoder open at the same time.
Regards
MTS

OpenGL inaccuracies and black levels

Here is an sRGB file consisting of 0,0,0 background, with five overlaid squares at one level increments, from 1 to 5.
On my Eizo CG246, calibrated with Eizo ColorNavigator, all five squares are discernible against the black background, as long as Graphics Processor > Advanced is set to "Basic" mode. This means that the color management logic (the conversion to the display profile) is performed in the CPU.
In "Normal" and "Advanced" modes, color management is shifted to the GPU. With these settings, black levels disappear. It's not dramatic, but it's there. The difference can be illustrated in a screenshot, as long as the display profile is assigned and the screenshot is pasted in the Basic mode. Here's how it looks straight up (should be viewed against a dark background):
Here I put a Curves layer on top to exaggerate:
And here I read out the numbers from this exaggerated version:
So far it seems this can not be reproduced on another monitor I have, an NEC P232W calibrated with Spectraview II. It also seemed a bit more pronounced on a different Eizo I no longer use, an S2243W, calibrated with Eizo EasyPix.
This suggests that the problem is in the interaction between the display profile and the Open GL engine that does the conversion. I think this is related to the ProPhoto cyan banding issue previously reported, because that also seems to behave differently between these two systems (I'll do some more testing on that).
In all cases and all scenarios, all irregularities disappear with Open GL in the "Basic" setting.

You neglected to include your test image with black and levels (1,1,1) through (5,5,5), but no matter, I have the one I made...
http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/DarkGrayColorLevels16Bit.png
I've found that here I'm not seeing a visible difference between GPU and CPU color-management with the image in the sRGB color space. In other words, no crush. With the image in the ProPhoto RGB color space, some slight crush was apparent, along with color shifts almost exclusively toward red.
However, that's not to say there are no differences between the two. They're just more subtle than what you're seeing. What I did to test was this:
Open the image I linked to above using Advanced mode OpenGL.
Float it in a window.
Screen grab it.
Pick it up and start to drag it.
While still dragging, screen grab it again.
Overlay the two images, and pixel align them.
Set the top image to "Difference" blending.
Add a couple of Curves layers over the top to greatly enhance the differences to make them more visible.
Since my test image has a dark grayscale gradient expressed in 16 bits/channel, it's not only testing for accuracy at the visible level, but also for very subtle changes. Lo and behold, changes are revealed. Note:
Enhanced differences between GPU and CPU rendering of the image in the sRGB color space:
Assigning the ProPhoto RGB color space to my test image, then comparing GPU vs. CPU rendering...
-Noel

FCP7 export problems - black frames and text irregularities

I'm on FCP 7.0.3 and have recently started editing stuff from my new Panasonic HDC-HS900.
I started a small project just to get to grips with the new workflow and realised that I had made the mistake of trying to import .mts files. However, I found a plugin from Panasonic's website which allows this but editing with the imported files is a nightmare because FCP starts running so slowly that it is impossible to make any kind of precise edits - the scrubber bar jumps all over the place and moving it forward one frame with the arrow keys takes about three seconds.
So, I realised my mistake and having discovered that using ClipWrap circumvents all these problems, I devised a new workflow and resolved to stick to it.
The only problem is that I showed the test edit to my girlfriend and her parents and despite it being full of bad stuff (I mean very rough edits caused by the slowness and audio problems that I couldn't be bothered sorting out also because the process was so frustratingly slow), they all liked it. So, whilst I would like to consign this experimental disaster to the bin, I need to at least iron out some of the problems so that I can give my girlfriend a copy which does not look quite so awful.
So, after labouring through this excruciatingly slow process, I try to export the finished thing only to find that the opening ten seconds, where I have used a slow motion sequence (which, ironically, is not an .mts file - it's a 10s .mov file I exported from FCP in order to convert it from 50p to 25p slow motion without losing frames) and a bit of text which dissolves in and out, there are a few single black frames and the text disappears momentarily several times.
Everything else is fine (apart from the awful edits!).
Having now left FCP to render the whole sequence, I managed to inspect it frame by fram much quicker and on the timeline it looks exactly as it should - the edit itself couldn't be much simpler; two layers - one text, one .mov file. dissolve the text in for one second, two seconds later dissolve in the .mov then a virtual reverse process. What could possibly go wrong?
Anyway, I have deleted all the render files and I am currently waiting for the sequence to re-render - estimated time: two hours.
All I want to do is wrap this junk up so that I can start a proper project.

I'll have to respond in an unordered fashion, just to try to make sense in my reply.
I was using ProRes 422 HQ because I found three options in ClipWrap and had to make a quick decision based on two minutes research and having found by trying it that 422 HQ files were only about 25% bigger than 422 files, I figured I had nothing to lose - especially as the workflow I WILL BE employing does not require permanent storage of the files and I now have 1TB external space for media archive storage and over 600GB internal space for ongoing projects. I might as well use the highest quality.
The reason I suspected the rendering files is that they were being used by FCP in the export of the project - evident in the fact that it takes almost three hours to save an unrendered sequence vs about six minutes to export a rendered sequence. Therefore, being unaware of the inherant problem you mention, I think it was reasonable to guess that a forced re-rendering might have sorted it out.
Yes, with 20/20 hindsight, it might have been quicker but, again being unaware of the issue you mention - which I shall have to look into - it seemed like a small problem which ought to have a had a simple answer. But now I know better.
I have, incidentally, discovered that all the dissolves I inserted have very similar problems.
And, to answer your first point last, I have already gone down that path - I'm just waiting for the results.
Could you perhaps point me at some article where I can read about the inherant problems of H.264, please?

Data below black level 0 in h264 mp4 files.

I'm a little confused about black and white levels in video.
I have two questions. If you bare with me for a second I can demonstrate what I mean.
I created gradient with values from 0,0,0 to 255,255,255 in Photoshop and saved it as sRGB jpg file.
I imported the file to Premiere and added Fast Color Corrector to the file and changed black input level from 0,0 to 16,0
So now everything below value 16 is cutted to black.
I exported the edited gradient as h264 mp4 videofile.
Now things got interesting.
I imported the edited videofile back to Premiere, added Fast Color Corrector to videofile and changed black output level from 0,0 to 16,0
The information that I thought was lost is there!
I tried to to the same thing for the same video file with Photoshop and I'm not able to get the lost information back.
Why is there information below 0? And how am I able to rescue it with Premiere, but not with Photoshop?
Does this have something to do with YCbCr black and white levels that are 16-235?
This whole question came up when I calibrated my Samsung lcd-tv. I used AVS HD 709 mp4-calibration videos.
There are black level calibration videofile. Which is exactly like my gradient video file where there are black values below 0.
If you lift your tv's brightness below certain levels you are able to see the black values that are below 0.
I'm able to see these "blacker than black" values with tv's own videoplayer and with xbox videoplayer.
However, if I try to see these values with my macbook pro which is connected to tv I can't get them visible.
It doesn't matter if I play the video with quicktime, vlc or premiere.
So the second question is why the macbook pro does not send any "below black" information to tv?
PS. I'm using latest premiere CC.
Thank you in advance!
In this image you can see from Premiere Scopes what is happening.

Does this have something to do with YCbCr black and white levels that are 16-235?
No and yes.
When you manipulate levels values within 0-255 (0.0-1.0) range, you don't clip existing data, you simply compress/decompress contrast, while information is still there (to some extent). By the way, data outside 16-235 range, but inside 0-255 are not super-blacks or super-whites (underdarks or ovebrights), they are just broadcast safe values. Super-blacks or underdarks are values below 0.0, while super-whites or overbrights are values above 1.0. The nature of YCbCr does allow to store some real super-blacks and super-whites even while encoding to 8-bit codec.
Why only some codecs are able to preserve this "illegal" values?
MOV container is... um-m-m... quirky. For example, exactly the same data encoded to e.g. mp4 and MOV with exactly the same codec (e.g. H.264), may be decoded/interpretted differently. So as to have some fun, create a copy of an mp4 clip, which contains some super-whites, rename file extension of one copy to MOV, import both mp4 and fake MOV footages into After Effects, set your project to 32-bit, sRGB or Rec.709 and linearise working space in order to get precise result while blending layers. Then drop both clips into the same composition and set blending mode to Difference. Enjoy!
Why I'm only able to access these values inside Premiere and not with Photoshop. Is Photoshop unable to access these illegal below 0 values?
Try setting Photoshop to 32-bit first. If that doesn't help, then yes, Photoshop clips values outside 0-255 (0.0-1.0) range on importing. Similarly you won't be able to get super-whites or super-blacks back in PrPro with 8-bit effects.
When i export with codecs that can preserve superblacks should I still get rid of them with videolimiter. Do they cause any problems in youtube or broadcast environments?
No. Moreover, you should take care of broadcast legal range in case of delivering to a broadcaster only, YouTube 'broadcasts' on the web and targets regular computer monitors, which operate on sRGB 0-255 range.
why the macbook pro does not send any "below black" information to tv?
That has probably something to do with Apple colour management workflow. Since I'm not on a Mac, I can't comment this on

Black Levels Boosted Upon DVD Burn

I realize this topic has been covered and have read the many threads on this and on other forums. I have used the FCP forum in the past and thank anyone who has ever helped, well, anyone with a question. The link to purchase a Proc Amp is wonderfully informative and does nothing to remedy the problem or answer the question (for under $700).
Is the workaround (yes, yet another workaround to add to the incredible list of hoop jumping - try using Soundtack Pro to alter audio clips not captured in stereo!) really to figure out a final "DVD export" setting that compensates for the black level increase? That's what I've gathered after a couple days of casual research and all today really trying to tackle the problem. Sorry, just a little frustrated.
If anyone was patient enough to read this all the way through and has a better idea than dropping the video level before exporting to Compressor/Quicktime please let me know.
Also, why is the problem not nearly as noticable in my three year old version of iDVD?
G4 Dual 1.25, 2GB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9) FCP5.03 DVDSP4.03

When you say "black levels boosted," do you mean you have too much black or not enough black? In other words, is your complaint that things are too dark, or that blacks are no longer "true" black?
From your text, it sounds like you're complaining that your footage is too dark.
Most complaints, however, are that compared to DV footage, the MPEG2 results are washed out. This is because they're comparing footage that has no "setup" (i.e. playing video directly out of the DV camera) with footage that has "setup" (i.e. playing video from a DVD player, which defaults to black equalling 7.5 IRE rather than 0 IRE). This is why you've seen the "proc amp" recommendation elsewhere.
Can you describe your workflow in detail? It sounds like you're probably using DV footage--is that true? Are you exporting out of FCP into Compressor directly? Exporting a reference movie first? Exporting a movie and then encoding from QuickTime? Other?

Black Levels in MPEG-2 files

This is a problem I've been trying to solve for months. Whenever I encode an MPEG-2 file, regardless of what program I'm using (After Effects CS3, Sorensen Squeeze, among others), the black levels are milky grey, not black. This is a short film originally shot on 35mm; it is now a 10-bit DPX log sequence. The footage looks great in After Effects - black levels are all correct. When I export a QuickTime file from it, it looks good. But if I encode an MPEG-2 file, either directly from After Effects or using a different encoder, the blacks turn milky grey and the contrast/gamma in general just look a little off.
Any insight anyone has into this problem would be greatly appreciated.
Win XP/Intel Quad Core/4GB Ram

It's a combination of the two, most likely. In general you will want to work in vanilla sRGB or 601/ Rec 709 when preparing content for DVD to be able to predict the colors as they will go on DVD. Other color profiles will use a different Gamma, which ultimately will result in a completely different effective output upon render than the one you may be seeing in your composition based on the workspace profile and log/lin conversion. This is especially critical with outputs via Adobe Media Encoder, image sequences or certain Quicktme flavors, all of which are aware of color profiles and in part allow embedding that info. A short way to bypass some of your issues may be the "preserve RGB" option on the output module color management tab, though it may cause your video to look over-saturated. Ultimately you will probably have to derive a dedicated DVD version of your project or base the actual MPEG-II transcode on a pre-rendered, color managed file. As an last item, make sure to check your monitor's Gamma and review the final output on a real TV and DVD player.
Mylenium

Black level too high after calibration

I calibrate my MBP's display (MB470) using Monaco Optix XR. I tried EZ Color and ColorEyes software to create profiles. The result is pretty good in both applications, but both create profiles with lifted black level.
It's much noticable when looking at dark underexposured photos: shadows are 'posterized'.
So. With native MBP profile (Color LCD) shadows are more accurate, but colors are a bit shifted. Calibrated profiles are good at colors, but bad at shadows.
Anybody got good results at calibrating?

Hey Drew,
Gotcha, I just realized it must be fixing something with markers. I haven't had a problem with that yet though, fortunately. I've been exporting directly out of FCP using Compressor, so there's no intermediate file. Like I said, the encoded ac3 sounds perfect, so it seems like it's something happening in DVDSP. Do you know of anything in that program that might have caused this? If it makes any difference, I burned the disc by simply hitting the "burn" button rather than building. Could that cause this sort of thing?
Cameron

Encoding to Blu-ray is destroying my black levels - what am I doing wrong?

I need to burn a short to Blu-ray for a screening coming up, but every time Premiere/Encoder/Encore finishes the disc, the black levels look nothing like what I saw in my project timeline OR in Encore's preview window. The blacks are soft, grey, with way too much detail in them. Research has led me to believe that my issue has something to do with the color values of my project going from 0-255, but that Adobe Media Encoder will automatically shift that to 16-235. Or something. I don't know, all of this is new to me in the last 12 hours.
I did miss around with the Levels effect in Premiere just to test this hypothesis, and when I bumped the black output levels from 0 to 16 in the timeline, it did replicate the difference that I was seeing in finished blu's.
I've scoured all the settings in Premiere and Encore for a way to control the black levels going into/coming out of Encoder, but cannot find anything. Someone please tell me what stupid thing I overlooked so I can make this movie look right.
For reference, my source video is:
DSLR .mov footage, 1920x1080, 23.976
And I'm exporting to Blu-ray using the following settings:
MPEG 2 (also tried H.264, same result)
NTSC
CBR (movie's only 22 minutes), but I've also tried VBR 2pass at 40mbps max, 35mbs target, and 25mbps minimum.
Profile: 5.0
Max render quality, maximum bit depth, max everything.
Running Premiere Pro Cs5.5

S.A. Hudson wrote:
...Research has led me to believe that my issue has something to do with the color values of my project going from 0-255, but that Adobe Media Encoder will automatically shift that to 16-235. Or something. I don't know, all of this is new to me in the last 12 hours.
I did miss around with the Levels effect in Premiere just to test this hypothesis, and when I bumped the black output levels from 0 to 16 in the timeline, it did replicate the difference that I was seeing in finished blu's.
I've scoured all the settings in Premiere and Encore for a way to control the black levels going into/coming out of Encoder, but cannot find anything. Someone please tell me what stupid thing I overlooked so I can make this movie look right.
For reference, my source video is:
DSLR .mov footage, 1920x1080, 23.976
And I'm exporting to Blu-ray using the following settings:
MPEG 2 (also tried H.264, same result)
NTSC
CBR (movie's only 22 minutes), but I've also tried VBR 2pass at 40mbps max, 35mbs target, and 25mbps minimum.
Profile: 5.0
Max render quality, maximum bit depth, max everything.
Running Premiere Pro Cs5.5
You are correct. Depending on a host of technical factors (none of which are visible or controllable in the GUI) the raw footage that is sent from Premiere to AME for encode can be in the range 0-255 (PC) or 16-235 (TV). Rendering at Max Render Quality should have it come in as 16-235 always.
If you encode for TV the encoder will scale the range down - making it less contrasty - ie what you're seeing) or simply clamp the values so that anything below 16 is clamped to 16 and above 235 is clamped to 235.
You said that you have your TV connected to the PC via HDMI. Can you put the reference monitor on that display and confirm that the blacks are the same as the video seen inside PPro? If so your TV is configured correctly.
Next use the 3 way color corrector (NOT "Levels" or "Brightness and Contrast" - they are clamped to the 16-235 range!!!!) to blow the image out from 16-235 to full range (check in the vectorscope or YCrCb waveform to confirm it's full range - ie WAY past the 100% squares in the vectorscope).
Check on the TV and it should not show the greater gammut. If it does it means that your TV is doing full-range.
this is all a bit late for your showing but I hope it can help.
Anyhow off that tangent...
I would recommend you export a h.264 clip to a usb stick if your standard home-use blu-ray player has usb stick playback.
Put that stick in your blu-ray player or Samsung TV if it can do it too, and see if it'll play back with the right blacks.

Noticing black level differences on different players

I've exported a project to a ProRes422 file and then encoded it in Compressor 4 into different sizes of mpeg4 and wmv (thanks to Flip4Mac Studio Pro HD) files. When playing back these files, I've noticed something strange.
This may be to be expected to those of you who are more experienced. But I noticed that when I play back these files (which are all encoded from the same master file) on my iMac (using the same screen), the files have noticeably different black levels depending on which player I'm using to play them back. For instance, the wmv files look a bit overexposed with low black levels when played back on Flip4Mac. But, play that same file in MPEG Streamclip, and the black levels are really too high.
It's not as true of the MPEG4 versions. Playing the MPEG4 version on Flip4Mac, it looks good. The same is true of Quicktime. But play the MPEG4 version on MPEG Streamclip, and it is really too dark.
Why is this? My concern is how do I know how the files are going to look to people who view them on their own devices?
Do you guys find the same issue? What do you do about it?

I've replied mainly to bump you to the top of the list again.
I wouldn't worry too much about how other people view your movies as you have no control over them and many watch them on rubbish computers.
Frequently I have posted high quality videos only to have people watch them on appallingly bad computer screens and with slow broadband creating jerky playback.
It would be useful if you could post brief snippets of your videos so that we can see exactly how much the quality varies.

Advice needed on white imac 24" screen - black levels

Hi, I'm new to these forums as I'm a new mac user. So far the experience has been pretty good!
I have a white 24" imac, and the colours and black levels look pretty ok in a normally lit room.
However when I turn the lights off (room is in the dark) and view say a black screensaver, the whole screen appears greyish rather than a pure black. The greys appear quite even though, no splotches or anything.
Is this something I should expect, especially for the iMac screen which is known to be an IPS lcd panel? Or should I give apply a call about it?
Any advice and help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

More than likely that is caused by the backlight and is normal.

Import, edit, and export QuickTime document: wise? how to maintain quality?

Can iMovie HD 6.0.3 be used to import a reasonably-high-quality QuickTime file (Apple Graphics compression), edit it, and export to Quicktime, all resulting in a QuickTime file with the same clarity as the original?
I have a quicktime file that captures a demonstration on my desktop. It was recorded with SnapZ Pro (with movie option) into this format: Apple Graphics, 889 x 500, 256, IMA 4:1, Mono, 22.050 kHz. (Note: I got 889x500 when I constrained SnapZ to a 16x9 format.)
I need to clip out sections, rerecord some of the audio, insert snippets of replacement video (re-recorded). I have Quicktime 7.1.3 Pro, but I had this idea it would be easier to do this editing with IMovie HD 6.0.3.
My problem is that everything I export has noticeably worse quality than the original source. I have tried all sorts of projects (DV, HDV, MPEG-4, ISight). I've tried exports at full quality, lower quality, various expert settings.
For example:
- Create a DV-Widescreen project.
- Import the movie. What I see on the screen is slightly smaller (in both dimensions) than the QuickTime Player shows me, and quite noticeably blurrier.
- Picking Expert export, I use Compression: Graphics, Depth: Color, Quality: Best, key frame rate 24, Dimensions 889x500, Scale: Letterbox.
- The QuickTime file displays as the right size, with a tiny black border for letterboxing, and with crummy quality (text has shadows, making it worse than just blurry.) All this despite being 30MB from a 3.2MB original.
Quite likely, I'm using the wrong tool. I don't have a camcorder - I don't even have a TV - so I don't know any of the jargon. What would be the right tool for this task? Stick to Quicktime Pro?
MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.8)

How would Final Cut Express work for editing quicktime as above?
same answer:
FCE handles dv/NTSC/PAL only ...-
for sure, you can import "any format/res" ...- with loss of quality, if import doesn't fit standards...- and: FCE is the "more mightier" tool, means, you can easiely arrange two/many videos in one picture, arrange them, position them ...-
if you want to stay with your original settings, you have to use QTpro (less convenient) or FCP (less cheap) ...

PE 7 memory and export errors

In Premiere Elements ver 7, I have put together a 4 1/2 minute video made up of mpeg4 HD 720p mixed with regular avi digital footage. I am having memory errors and export errors when trying to render into a wmv or mpeg file. When working on previous videos with non-HD footage, I didn't have these issues. I also recently put together a 1 minute mpeg4 HD 720p video rendered into HD 720p wmv file without any issues.
1) memory errors - I got these when I was putting the video together and when rendering. After a lot of restarting the PC and reworking the video, I was able to finally complete in pre-render format. It includes music soundtrack and transitions/effects.
Here are my PC's specs:
Dell Inspiron 530 with Intel Quad Core CPU 2.66Ghz processor
4 GB RAM
32 bit OS
Windows Vista SP1
When rendering, I get the "caution - low memory, save your work" message. I have since set the virtual memory paging file size per Technote kb404939. This seems to have helped a little bit but still getting the message even though it continues to render....but then I get the export error message....
2) Export errors - I first tried to render into a wmv HD 720p 30fps file. In the first 1 of 2 rendering phase, I got the "Export Error - failed to return a frame - cancelling operation" message. I checked for gaps in the timeline and there are none. Even though I do have some black space/dip to black sequences, I can "page down" through the entire movie without any pauses or hiccups with the CTI (Current Time Indicator).
I then tried to render into a smaller wmv LAN speed file, and it went through the first 1 of 2 phases rendering (with the low memory message but it kept on going). Just after it started into the 2 of 2 rendering phase, I got an error message saying "Export Error - Unknown Error".
What to do? I'm very frustrated at this point after a great deal of time invested in this video and troubleshooting the issues. Please help. Thanks.

What are the sources of your video? What types of camcorders did this video come from?
Premiere Elements supports AVCHD video, but does not work well with video from Flip and webbie camcorders, which use proprietary codecs. They can also use non-standard frame rates. Conversion is usually necessary before the files can be edited in Premiere Elements.
And does your DV footage come from a miniDV camcorder captured over FireWire? And what project settings are you using in Premiere Elements.
I would also not recommend mixing HD and DV footage in the same project. This could also be contributing to your problems.
I also recommend you visit Windows Update and manually download any (even non-critical) updates. Vista should be at least on SP2. You may also want to download the latest version of Quicktime.

Can the screen be cropped to and exported at a custom aspect ratio?

I think I'm needing Premier to do something it's just not designed to do. What I need to do is to take five or six different screen and audio captures of the same event (a 3D virtual reality instructional session), each representing a different person's view of that event, assemble those in a split screen, synchronize them to the designated "main" capture's audio, delete the other audio tracks, and add CG title labeling each one. The effect is like looking at a display showing six security camera images. From what I can determine, it is possible to do those things in Premier.
However, what I then need to do is to crop out any extra space to the left and right of that split-screen image and export the file as a .mov with the aspect ratio produced by the cropping so that the videos are as large as possible and are not distorted from resizing them to fit the standard aspect ratio. Depending on the size of the screencaps, the resulting .mov might have nearly a 1:1 ratio. What is critical for this is that the video be as large as possible and the "black" space be as small as possible so that the person who comes in later to analyze these composite videos can see everything as clearly as possible. I also need to crop on the fly; because these images aren't always captured at the same size, it is impossible to preset a size for the resulting video.
We've been using a screen capture tool to do this that works but is a pain; clips can only be moved and resized by mouse-drags, and the software has to import to and export from its own proprietary format, which is very slow. However, ever piece of "real" video editing software I've looked at only seems to export in TV or film aspect ratios. Quicktime Pro looked for a bit like the best bet, but it doesn't seem to be able to handle multiple audio tracks (which are necessary since I have to synchronize tracks by ear much of the time).
Is what I'm describing--exporting .mov files while preserving custom aspect ratios that are created by cropping during editing--something Premier can do? If so, would it be something fairly easy for complete novices to do?

medeamajic wrote:
On a Mac based system ScreenFlow might work best but on the PC side FRAPS might work best. You can do what you want to do with Premiere Pro once you record the screen capture. As Stephen_Spider mentioned you might need to crop and even resize the images. FRAPS can record at 1/4 the screen resolution and still have decent results. PP CS 5.5 can play several layers (6 PIPs) of the FRAPS codec at 1/4 resolution in realtime.
Thanks, but we cannot change the screen recording process. According to the study's protocols, the virtual world has to be full-screen or almost nearly so during the session, and that full screen has to be captured for analysis. Resizing the screen captures is not a problem (especially since I already said I'm doing that), but if you're saying that Premier can only play back up to six screen captures simultaneously if they're captured at 1/4 screen, then that's a deal-breaker right there.
By the way, here's approximately what each of the completed composite videos looks like:
Screencap 1
Screencap 2
Screencap 3
Screencap 4
Screencap 5
Screencap 6
Each screencaptures is resized to the largest consistent size that will fit into this format, and then the resulting video is cropped to the outside border. If there are only five screencaptures, I simply center the single one on the bottom on the "center line."
And, to be clear (though I've said this several times already), this is something that is already being done. We probably have more than 60 of these .mov files, each around 45 minutes long, with five or six synchronized screen captures in each. Frame rate etc. has not been any issue with these, and neither has playback of the .mov file from HD or DVD.
Message was edited by: singerm2

Black levels and exporting

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