Digital Artifacts in animation

I am working on an animation project. I have talent that is chroma keyed in the animated background (animation in DV-NTSC mov. at highest setting in fcp).
When the DV tape plays with talent in fcp - no digital artifcats. When the animation is rendered in with/or without the chroma key digital artifacts appear at intermittent parts of the rendered piece. It appears on the viewer window in FCP and on an external monitor as well. It's green and pink blocks that show up as flashes on the screen.
Any ideas what to do?
Dual 2.5 GHZ power PC G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)
Dual 2.5 GHZ power PC G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Just in case you're doing this in a DV sequence, my first advice is: don't. I don't know if editing in say 8-bit uncompressed will help your specific woes with the animation, but it should keep away additional ones with the chroma key. The key will be very difficult already given the source is DV.
You'd have to say more about what the animation is, what it was produced with, whether it has seen any compression yet, and what your render settings are. Then of course there will be more questions.
Do set up for full level renders and do a render on the animation for assessment. Just because you see it and can play it back doesn't mean it's truly rendered.
Also: what are you monitoring on? External NTSC monitor?
And further: can you describe the artifacts? Lines or blocks? Something else?

Similar Messages

Strange digital artifacts at the end of each song importing via iTunes

I've tried a few variations on archive searches and wasn't able to find an answer to this: In ripping some of my CD's into iTunes (either Apple Lossless or WAV) I've been getting some very odd, brief digital artifacts at the end of each songs on a CD. This sounds like two or three seconds of an audio tape on fast forward. It only seems to happen on new releases (I cannot think of any older CD's it's occurred on). I just got a copy of Mary Gauthier's new album (great CD by the way) and it happened on that one, for example. I tried ripping it multiple times in Apple Lossless, and WAV (always in iTunes) and each and every time it created files where this strange artifact existed at the end of every song. I play the CD I ripped the files from and the artifact is not there. I have several CD's, most of them recent releases over the past five years, that do the exact same thing. Otherwise everything else functions perfectly an the bulk of my 700+ CD library has imported without a hiccup. Is this some kind of anti-piracy technology...or do I simply have some setting off in my itunes preferences (Error-Correction is on, WAV or Apple Lossless is always set to Automatic, have experimented with importing to startup disk and external disk-same results). The artifacts seem to always sound the same too...they never vary, except that they sound different from song-to-song, but the same if say, the first cut is played over again. They are always 2 seconds plus or minus, and always at the end of a cut (the final 2 seconds or so). They do transfer verbatim to my iPod, and also play via iTunes through my stereo.
Anyone have any clues what this might be?

As a follow up, I went to the Genius Bar for a bowl of Mensa Stew, but only got some tepid broth. Here's what transpired:
The girl I was speaking with suggested that the artifact was the software misinterpreting information between the cuts. It was only a theory. She had not heard of any other incidents to relay. First she suggested I rip as MP3's. I explained that wasn't an option for me. She listened to a few cuts on a CD I'd brought with, or rather the ends of the cuts and confirmed there was a problem with the rip. She went through my settings, and asked if I'd tried it with Error Correction turned off. I explained I hadn't and that I preferred to use it. She suggested attempting to rip one of the cuts with it turned off just to see how it did. We did that and no artifact was there. So her 'solution' was to either leave error-correction turned off always, or turn it off for those problem CD's that produce the artifact (I'd estimate about 5% do on my laptop). This did not explain why it was doing it, nor why my g5 tower, which is running a carbon-copied system with all the same iTunes settings, does not produce the artifact with Error-Correction turned on.
I'd be interested to hear of anyone else who's been having problems importing hi-rez files in iTunes. I know of at least one other instance where the artifact produced (on a MacBook) is dis-similar to mine in that it takes the form of brief electronic beeps moving from channel to channel.
Anyone else?

Digital artifacts appears on image

Imac 3.1 GHZ intel core i5
12 GB 1333 Mhz DDR3
Mac OS X 10.7.2
Aperture 3.2.2
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HELP PLEASE!

They are always random artifacts. Hope this helps.
Thks

Compressor adds digital artifacts on cross dissolves

Hi can anyone help me?
I have exported a sequence (10-Bit Unconpressed PAL, Upper) using the compressor preset DVD Best quality, 2 pass, VBR.
When i play the exported M2v, some of the cross dissolves seem to have some kind of digital artifacts in the middle of the dissolve taking place (which is not there on the source material on the timeline in FCP 5)
can anyone help me?
Cheers, Simon

Simon, I had the same problems. Export as quicktime self-contained, include DVDSP markers and DON'T check the recompress all frames box! Including the DVDSP markers makes sure the compression markers are exported as well. It makes sense to insert and name DVD chapter markers as well in FCP, as they will be included in the mv2 file you eventually import into DVDSP.
Then import the quicktime into compressor, and create a new preset that is 1-pass, NO VBR, 7.2 bitrate, motion estimator BEST. If you drag your movie into the preview window you can see all the compression markers that FCP automatically included, as well as the chapter markers (different color).
Submit the job. You can compress the audio to AC-3 the same time as you compress the video by adding the Dolby 2 function to your new 1-pass preset. All your audio must be 48K 16bit in FCP before you export, or it will go into the center channel on 5.1 sound systems.
Import the finished m2v and audio files into DVDSP. Notice how your chapter markers you inserted in FCP magically appear! Do your menus and buttons etc., then build the job. I don't use build/format as I have had better luck just dragging the master build folder that contains the VIDEO_TS folders into TOAST 6 and burning it at 1X DVD setting just to be safe.
All my previously artifacted movies, which are heavily effected with lots of transitions. NOW HAD NO ARTIFACTS WHATSOEVER! My thought of suicide or at least a Ben & Jerry's binge had passed!
All I did was a little tweaking, basically encoding using compressor's "lower quality" 1-pass setting, not the usual DVD 90-min. best setting, which the manual says to use for the best possible quality.
You can bypass Compressor stand-alone completely, because DVDSP uses Compressor to encode imported quicktimes as well, and you can change the settings to 1-pass 7.2 bitrate there as well. Compressor just has more advanced settings available.
FCP also uses Compressor when you "export using quicktime conversion." So it's hard to get away from using it unless you have a third party mpeg2 encoder. I'm thinking about BitVice, which markets its product as "Probably the best software MPEG2 encoder in the world"

Dvcprohd p2 digital artifacts

Hi,
just shot 14 hours yesterday to come back and find that all my p2 footage has small digital artifacts in the footage. it comes and goes - like it sprinkles in for a moment and goes away and comes back a few seconds later. All the clips! Anybody else stuck with this? Any solutions! Can't reshoot. All footage is off p2 cards and deleted and on external drive.
thanks, vscomm

Yes, it's on one frame, so I delete the bad frame and repeat the one next to it. It looks like any pixelization occurs on one frame every 5 to
15 seconds or so. It's shot on 720 24pn. Has a stutter anyway. This may work.
No, that won't really work at all. The "stutter" you see is the film cadence...take the odd frame out and it will look truly odd. Worse. I have seen digital mess on a couple shots, and am not sure what the cause was. So it isn't new. Like hits on tape or something. But not very common. Is this ALL over your footage, or on a couple shots?
Is there a way to attach a file on this forum? I made a still frame.
You need to post it to a server, then link to it with code like this : Emmy (except the "b" would be replaced by an "a"...I did this so that you could see the code)
it happens during the transfer.
are you sure about this? Do you have the camera and cards to check? copy the COntents folder back to the card and play it in the camera. Or even use the P2CMS reader and see if you can see it on the raw P2 files.
Shane

Display showing digital artifacts

Hi there,
I recently installed an ATI Radeon HD 2600 graphics card and am starting to see digital artifacts at times. At the moment everything is fine but I'm sure it will come back. When it does, the system eventually hangs and I'm forced to shut down. Restarting does not alleviate any of the issues. Keeping the system shutdown for a lengthy period of time will restore things to normal for an unpredictable amount of time. I am using a 30' Apple Cinema display. Here are my specs:
Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro1,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP11.005D.B00
SMC Version: 1.7f10
Serial Number: G87***UQ2 <Edited by Host>
Running OSX 10.6.3
Before the ATI Radeon Card, I was running with an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT card. I had issues with this card which forced me to replace it with the ATI. Here is my original post regarding the issues I had with the NVIDIA since the problems I'm having now are similar:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10339329#10339329
After replacing the card, things were fine for a while [6 months or so]. But now I'm facing similar issues with this card. This is making me think that the problem is the display rather than the card. Is it possible that the display can fry the card?
Please advise.
Saki
Display is a 30' Cinema HD

This is making me think that the problem is the display rather than the card.
skaskas, about the above, you also said this:
... the system eventually hangs and I'm forced to shut down.
I don't see any way a failed display could cause a system hang, so I would really rule that out.
As you describe the problem, it sounds a lot like a thermal issue. Have you checked the fans inside your Mac recently, or also the one attached to the Radeon? Make sure they are spinning, especially the one on the video card.
Also, does the video card require and auxiliary power connection? Some video cards can't get enough power through the bus connector and require that one of the disk drive connectors be attached for additional power. Just asking.

Digital Artifacts with 7.2

I have been successfully running a setup in which other applications - Finale and Digital Performer - - play Logic's audio instruments through Interapplication MIDI using the IAC drivers. This has worked well with Logic 6.4.3, 7, 7.1 and 7.1.1. After updating the OS to 10.4.3 (and later 10.4.4 and 10.4.5) and Logic to 7.2 playback is now marred by clicks, pops and hiccups when either Finale or DP are the MIDI source. These artifacts occur most often when the score (in Finale) or graphic representation (in DP) scrolls to the next page). These noises do not appear to happen when Logic 7.2 alone is the playback medium - - although I have not yet tested it with a complex file.
Interestingly enough when, using Finale 2005 as the MIDI source (with Finale reading a saved playback file and scrolling turned off) I bounce to an audio file in Logic, the audio file does not appear to contain these artifacts. This suggests the possibility that the noises occur during DA conversion and are not present in the digital output.
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PowerMac G5 dual 2.5 Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.5) 7GB RAM/MOTU 2408 mk3 audio interface

Did you try going to the help link on that page where it says Lion is incompatible?
I found a manual way to download the .zip file for Intel macs through this way.. it installed properly.
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/403/kb403051.html

Weird Digital Artifact

Has anyone ever encountered a noise like this in recording?
I recorded sound on a video shoot a few days ago. When we got back to the studio, all tracks had this weird, chirpy background noise in them. You can hear it below.
http://charlesflynt.com/chirpy_artifact.mp3
Also, here is the spectral display from Audition of the same clip.
You can see the artifact clearly. I have no idea what we did to produce this and I have not been able to reproduce it. My field recording equipment is: Azden MX 100 shotgun mic, feeding into an Azden FMX-42 field mixer, which is hooked up to a Tascam DR-40 digital recorder. I use all high quality XLR cables.
I used the Sound Remover effect in Audition to try and remove it. It did a decent job. But it left the voice recording sounding a bit strange. So I had to hide that with some background music.
Can anyone tell me what caused this and how to avoid it in the future?

David, I just had a graphics card issue, for me it looked more random like this:
If it is hardware trouble or other system wide trouble, then hotwheels should see the same broken menus when working from a different user account.
Did you test it? Is the problem independent of your account, Jon?
Then id look into all the secret hand shake startup and shut down voodoo like resetting PRM, SMC, fsck.
If it happens in the other account, then try David's suggestions:
Mac OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode?
Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
When to reset NVRAM or PRAM
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)

Graphical artifacts when animating scrollRect property in ENTER_FRAME handler?

I tried to animate a drop down menu by assigning a rectangle to the scrollRect property of the menu.
The rectangle's width is fixed, and the height of the rectangle is animated from zero to the final height of the menu over a 250ms interval.
The alterations to the scrollRect originate from a master handler for ENTER_FRAME, which runs a series of registered task functions, one of which is my menu animation function.
As the menu drops down, various areas of the child DisplayObjects, including the background, fail to draw completely. If I resize the stage at all, then everything is redrawn properly.
Are there any known problems with animating the scrollRect property when:
altering a scrollRect from within an ENTER_FRAME handler
when child objects also have a scrollRect set?
The exact regions that fail to draw are inconsistent each time the menu drops down, but they occur in the standalone player as well as in web browsers such as Firefox and Internet Explorer.
See video here: glitches2.mp4 - Google Drive
It clearly doing something wrong, as evidenced by the redraw regions at the end of the animation (see image). At the end of the animation, the scrollRect is set to null. The bottom of the menu is still not updated, and neither is the drop shadow filter on the menu.
Update: The artifacts go away if I set cacheAsBitmap to true: glitchesRemoved.mp4 - Google Drive
Interestingly, they also go away if I remove the dropShadow filter from the background child control and leave cacheAsBitmap off.
Anyway, this problem seems to manifest itself specifically when animating the scrollRect property of an object with cacheAsBitmap set to false that contains a child control with a filter applied.
Here is a final video with everything working. The drop shadow filter is on the object itself, rather than the background, which sets cacheAsBitmap to true as a side effect:
glitchesFixed.mp4 - Google Drive

I'm just animating the scrollRect property to achieve a simple clipping effect that reveals the menu. Once per frame, it updates the scrollRect property, assigning a new rectangle with a height of "p * height", where p is the percentage through the animation (0 to 1). There is nothing, otherwise, happening to the DisplayObject during the animation of that property. The DisplayObject's height is not changing, nor are any other properties changing (besides scrollRect), so it's essentially static while it's being revealed. When the scrollRect's size is increased frame-by-frame, Flash Player is simply failing to render the entire clipped area, almost as though there is a frame lag such that it's rendering the clipped area from the last frame, rather than the new area exposed by the latest value of scrollRect. When I simply turn on cacheAsBitmap, it renders correctly and completely. The only "interesting" thing about the menu would be the DropShadowFilter applied to a child, so my best guess is that there's some sort of bug in Flash Player's rendering system involving scrollRects whose size changes when one or more child objects have filters applied (just a guess from what I'm seeing). To fix it, I moved the DropShadowFilter off the child object and onto the menu itself, which kills two birds by forcing cacheAsBitmap on (removes the artifacts) and also ensures the drop shadow is applied to the clipped area rather than being clipped by the scrollRect. I'd imagine I could replicate this easily in a simple FLA that I could post, so I 'll try that.
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What started off as a slight offset that appeared when 3D rendering was active, turned into very obvious glitches at the edges of objects, as revealed in the latter two images; the random speckles of color and the yellow lines at the bottom and right edges of the button are not supposed to be there. (The striped lines in the overall background are supposed to be there; they are part of a "circle splash" shader filter that collapsed in from the edges of the screen making it look like the background is being eaten by the event horizon of a black hole, haha.)
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Digital Artifacts on Playback

I am using iTunes 7.5.0.20 on a Vista Business machine. During playback I experience digital skipping on songs. If I rewind the song and replay the same section I do not get the same skipping. What is causing the problem? Any ideas?

I have not used Media Player to try it. However, its occurence in iTunes is random. One time it happens, the next it doesn't. It will happen and I will rewind the song to a spot before the issue and replay it and it doesn't happen the second time through.
The digital skipping is just what I am saying...if you've ever heard a CD skip (not get stuck on one spot but drop out or stutter through a section) you know what I am hearing.
I have had iTunes running since June and have just started experiencing this the past couple of weeks. It does not happen very often.

IPhoto thumbnails full of digital artifacting after Rebuild

Hi,
I rebuilt "all of the photo's thumbnails" in iPhoto and now the thumbnails look terrible! The photos themselves are fine when enlarged.
Should I try rebuilding again to correct this?
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Thanks,
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Well, I tried that and many (not all) of the thumbnails still look like an 80's video game. Why did I do this in the first place?
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New digital errors in MPEG video and Animations - Premiere CC

Need help with a new problem,
I imported MP4 files from an a Canon XA-20 (6-months old). There are dropouts throughout the video (just like bad Mini-DV tape hits). Each error last 10-24 frames.
So, I attributed it to either the SD card going bad, or the camera not keeping up with rendering to that card at 24 Mbps, and the backup dual card at 4 Mbps.
Here's the strange part. At the end of my timeline edit, a previous animation now has similar dropouts and glitches. This is a Digital Juice animation, that rendered and worked flawlessly until now.
I cleared the Media Cache, thinking these were preview file errors. No - still there.
I've never had digital dropouts in animations. Either the file works, or Premiere can't import it, because it's corrupt to begin with.
Is anyone having this issue? Is this:
- Software related
- Hard drive error
- The project file is corrupt
I'd appreciate any help here.
God bless,
Doug Palmer

Here's an important follow-up:
The backup safety copy of this video file doesn't have the dropouts, when I view it using MPEG Streamclip. The working copy of the file does have dropouts, when viewed within MPEG Streamclip. So, these errors are not isolated to Adobe Premiere.
My workflow is editing on a G-Drive (4 Tb Raid), and backing up after each edit to a G-Drive 4 Tb standard drive (using Carbon Copy Clone).
Suggestions on how to circumvent this problem?
Many thanks.
Doug Palmer

Help. Digital noise and CPU spiking constantly.

Hello,
Ever since I got the latest software update I've been having serious issues. Anytime I try to play a software instrument in Logic Pro 8 or Mainstage I get hellish digital pops and clicks and the CPU spikes up constantly. An error message says there's a conflict with a third party midi driver. I've deleted every suspect midi driver I can find. I tried everything in the trouble shooting guide short of reloading Logic but nothing's worked. I've just been using the built in audio card and it worked great up till this point.
Any ideas? Can I role back the update? I can't seem to find how to do it.
Thanks

Apple released a Macbook Pro firmware update yesterday.
This firmware update appears to have fixed the large CPU spikes in Apple Logic Pro that began after the last recent Airport software update. Previously, when running Apple Logic Pro even with a small # of tracks with the Airport enabled there was digital noise and one of the CPU peaking very frequently. In order to record or play back with out these issues the only solution was to turn off the Airport. Since I installed the firmware update I have used Logic Pro extensively yesterday recording and playing back projects that previously had this issue and did not have the CPU spiking or digital artifacts.
Thank you Apple!

Why do my exports have artifacts at the beginning?

I'm a bit stumped on this issue, mostly because it's very subtle and doesn't stay consistent. I export mp4 videos from Premiere CS5 at least once a week, and a lot of times (though not every time, which is odd), the video will have some digital artifacting at the very beginning and very end. It only shows up for a second or so before fading away, and then everything is fine. It's only visible after exporting - the footage in the timeline is perfectly fine. Any suggestions on what to check would be most appreciated.

More information needed for someone to help... please click below and provide the requested information
-Premiere Pro Video Editing Information FAQ http://forums.adobe.com/message/4200840
Exactly what is INSIDE the video you are editing?
Codec & Format information, with 2 links inside for you to read http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1270588
Report back with the codec details of your file, use the programs below... A screen shot works well to SHOW people what you are doing
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1070933 for screen shot instructions
Free programs to get file information for PC/Mac http://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo/Download
Does your video use a VARIABLE Frame Rate or a Constant Frame Rate?
Are you 100% sure your edit sequence is correct for your video?
The NEW ITEM process will ensure that your editing sequence matches your video file
CS5-thru-CC PPro/Encore tutorial list http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1448923 has a link to learn about the NEW ITEM process, including a picture to show you what to do
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Is my iMac or external audio interface at fault?

My hardware is as follows:
2010 21.5" iMac i3 3.06ghz, all standard.
Yamaha n8 Digital Mixing Studio
800-400 FireWire cable (of which I have tried two, now using a more expensive Belkin cable)
Since new which is nearly a month ago I've noticed stuttering in sound when using the Yamaha digital mixer on whichever program I am using. This would last for a while, perhaps half hour, and then disappear.
I after a while I noticed I could circumvent this problem by changing the Format in the Audio Midi Setup to something other than 44100 Hz, I would usually choose 96000 Hz.
However having an application open such as Garageband would revert this setting back to 44100Hz and I would have all sorts of problems, both terrible recording quality and playback whether from Garageband or any other source. (for instance iTunes)
Then I have installed Cubase and tested the audio quality recording at all the different Format values in Audio Midi Setup, 44100 Hz remains unusable, sounding like a very strong bitcrusher effect has been applied to recordings. And while the other frequencies are better, they still sound quite bad with many digital artifacts, crackles and slight bitcrusher type effect sounds.
I should note that this is a change of Mac's. Before I was using a Mac Pro, late 2006 2x 2.66Ghz model and never experienced any of these problems. The only difference is the cable, being an older Mac it had the older 400 type of FireWire port.
I have spoken to both AppleCare and Yamaha technical support. AppleCare suggested ringing Yamaha and implied that I would want to record at the higher sample rate than 44100Hz anyway, and I'd be better with Logic! Needless to say this isn't a solution that is acceptable, I think the support engineer struggled to understand this problem. However when I spoke to Yamaha the engineer there felt quite strongly the Mac was at fault with a faulty clock and offered to test the Yamaha unit with one of their Mac's. As I said though I have recently changed Mac's and only since doing so has this problem occured.
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Is there any advice anyone could give before I pursue AppleCare for the fix?
Kind Regards
Chris

Hi-
My first thought is that it's possible the way I use my desktop makes it more likely to develop instabilities
Based on your description, I would agree....
I don't do anything as far as 'taking care' of the system
You don't even let the system run automated maintenance scripts? For this to occur, they must be rescheduled, or the system left on overnight.
As you mentioned, the continual creation and deletion of large files creates a good environment for system error creation. I would suggest, in the least, booting to the OS X disc, and running Disk Utility at least once a month. Better yet, would be to buy DiskWarrior, and run it at least once a month, more often might be better. DW finds/repairs more than DU, and keeps your harddrive directory in top shape, helping to keep the system performing as it should.
There are also maintenance scripts that need to be run, either automatically, or manually. It is easy to run these scripts manually, and requires no third party software.
Open Terminal, and type *sudo periodic daily weekly monthly* and press Return. Enter your password, and press Return. When the command line prompt returns, the scripts are finished, and maintenance is done. If this has never been done, or the machine has never been left on overnight, it may take more than a few minutes.
Failure to run maintenance scripts, will result in a backlog of invisible files, and can greatly affect performance. The longer without maintenance, the greater the backlog.
There are other items that one may wish to include in their maintenance program. I find this article to be informative.
So, why does this keep happening? What should I do to make it stop?
Maintain your OS, and be kind to the Tiger! In In turn, it will be kind to you.

Digital Artifacts in animation

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