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.

Similar Messages

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?

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
Everything was working fine then one day started to appear small digital artifacts i dont know if this was after an update, but this only works on Aperture .
Somtimes it disappear when i change from raw master to jpeg master, but then, when i work with the image starts appearing again.
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.
I would very much prefer not to have to go back to OS 10.4.2 and Logic 7.1.1 if there is another solution. I would very much appreciate any insights or suggestions. Thanks.
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

Dolby Digital 5.1 playback for output, now missing in iPad

Just last week i got new some movies from iTunes for playback on my iPad 2, including the HDTV. However since last 2 days i'm unable to find the 2 track option that appear during the usual playback on the iPad. There now seems to be no option where i select the DD 5.1 for output playback. (BTW the movies are encoded with Dolby Digital 5.1)

Can anyone please help me on this, if you guys can check is the 2-track option available while watching movies on iPad 2... or is it just me who is unable to find it despite these movies being encoded in DD 5.1

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)

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?
I am using iPhoto 9 version 8.1.2 (424)
Thanks,
kevin

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?
Any other suggestions?
Thanks,
kevin

Optimizing dvd playback quality (macroblocking problems)- HELP!

Nothing is quite so frustrating as spending countless hours editing, encoding, and authoring a DVD and then discovering that the video has playback issues (macroblocking, digital artifacting, sometimes so serious it halts playback altogether) at some point in the stream.
I feel sure others must have some idea what I'm talking about, and yet I haven't found a thread on this forum or any other that addresses what is really the root cause here. As I figure it, there are a number of factors (variables) at work:
1. the media itself
2. the software used to create the disc (in my case DVDSP 4.0/Compressor usually at the "Best" quality encoding)
3. the hardware used to burn the disc (in my case the MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-815 superdrive in my powerbook)
4. the DVD player used for playback
In my experience, a disc might do fine on one player but then have significant playback issues on another. On one occasion I even saw playback perfectly through an hour of video, and then the next day on the same player and the same DVD I got significant macroblocking through parts of it.
What gives!? Are there some DVD-R media that are way better than others? Or do I need to invest in a better drive to burn them? Or is this just the growing pains of emerging technology? Is there some other thread anywhere in cyberspace that addresses this issue?

Hi John
So you're saying that your mpegs are clean and clear of any macro blocking, and this is only introducted once you burn to DVD, and then only on some players, but also a disc that played fine one day on a deck, plays back bad the next day on the same deck.
Man, you've got some serious gremlins at work in your office. Before you pull your system apart, chack you mpegs again. If you're using Compressor 2 with any of the VBR presets you're going to get macro blocking because C2's VBR is not very good - I've not had one successful mpeg out of it. If your project is under 1hr try CBR at 7.5Mbps, that's been working fine for me.
Now, are you encoding your audio to .ac3, or .aiff. If you're using .aiff you might be hitting wall with your bitrate. Your .aiff will have a bitrate of 1.5Mbps, and if your using using a high max bitrate on your vision and you get a bitrate spike which Compressor is also known for then you could be blowing your bit budget (max of 9.8Mbps for vision and audio together), which could result in stuttered playback and freezes.
Next, are you burning out of DVDSP or are you using Toast. Some users report problems burning at higher than 2x speed (personally I burn at the limit of the media and haven't had a problem). As you can't control the burn speed out of DVDSP you might want to try just building in DVDSP and burning in toast at a low speed.
If you're burning from data on an external FW drive try moving it to the HD and try it again.
Try a few different brands of media. Keep it clean and out of the sun.
That's about all I can tell you at the moment - these are all the obvious things , maybe somone else can chime in with some more obscure causes.
Cheers
B

Artifacts when I import .avi file to After Effects (and Premiere)

Hi,
I'm having some issues with After Effects that I can't figure out. I've got a video file in .avi that loads and plays fine by itself, but when I import it to edit in After Effects 5.5, I get strange artifacts during playback, and they even translate to the final export. I get the same issue when I try to import and render in Premiere. I have the sequence matching what the video file is, and even right clicked the file,and interpreted the footage for the project to match the video file to be sure, but with no successes at figuring it out. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong here?
I get the same issue regardless of me being on my desktop or laptop. I'm using Windows 7 on both computers.
Per the questions I should ask:
What exact version of After Effects? Include the minor version number---e.g., After Effects CC (12.2.1) or After Effects CS6 (11.0.4). Do not just say "After Effects with the latest updates" or "After Effects CC"; give the specific version number. 10.5.0.253
Have you installed the recent updates? (If not, you should. They fix a lot of problems.) Yes
What operating system? This should include specific minor version numbers, like "Mac OSX v10.6.8"---not just "Mac". Windows 7
If you are getting error message(s), what is the full text of the error message(s)? No messages.
What were you doing when the problem occurred? What is the exact sequence of steps that you are taking? Importing and test ram preview and or rendering.
Has this ever worked before? If this worked before by doesn't work now, what has changed on your computer in the intervening time? First time i've tried this.
Tell us about your computer hardware. Include CPU type and number of processor cores, amount of RAM installed, GPU, number and sizes of connected monitors, number of disk drives, and how any external drives are connected. Intel i5 2500k 3.3GHz, 8GB ram, 64b OS, 2 monitors, 3 hard drives. AMD Radion 6900
What versions of drivers for your graphics hardware do you have installed (including CUDA driver and driver for display adapter)? 13.12
Do you have any third-party I/O hardware (e.g., AJA, Matrox, Blackmagic, MOTU)? No
What kind(s) of source footage? When telling about your source footage, tell us about the codecs, not just the container types. For example, "H.264 in a .mov container", not just "QuickTime". .avi
Do you have QuickTime installed. (You should.) If so, what version? The answer should be specific, such as "QuickTime 7.6.2". yes, 7.7.5
What other software are you running? none
Do you have any third-party effects or codecs installed? none that I know of.
Are you using OpenGL features in After Effects? I think so, it's enabled.
Does the problem only happen with your final output, RAM preview, or both? both
Are you using Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing? no
Are you using the ray-traced 3D renderer? no
If the problem is with output, give your exact output settings (both render setting and output module settings). Screenshots help. 2014-11-13_1514 - Tetra84's library
Here is a screenshot of the issue that I'm talking about:
glitch - Tetra84's library
2014-11-13_1514 - Tetra84's library

See this thread on the Camtasia forums in which one of the Camtasia software engineers recommends against using the TSC2 codec for use in applications outside of their suite:
https://feedback.techsmith.com/techsmith/topics/avis_created_with_camtasia_studio_8_do_not _play_on_other_computers
I'd ask on the Camtasia forums what codec they do recommend and how they recommend transcoding your existing TSC2 files.

Interlacing artifacts on progressive footage in FCP but not when exported?

Hey everyone! Thanks so much to everyone here who has helped me before!
I am trying to edit a music video on my 2GHz Core2 Duo Macbook. I can do everything just fine, but with one little hitch.
The video I am editing was shot DVCPro 1080p 30.
When playing back the raw footage, or playing back my edits in FCP, the video has interlacing artifacts during periods of quick movement, even though the footage was shot progressive. However, when the video is exported, *there are no artifacts upon playback.*
Also, if I open the video in Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended, and look at the video one frame at a time, the interlacing artifacts are there!
Anyone have any idea about why this is happening?
Thanks so much!

The field order of the clips are also set to none.
Here is a picture of the item properties window of one of my main shots:
http://gabrielredding.com/clip_info.jpg
To make things more interesting, the interlacing follows a pattern. Three frames of non-interlaced shots, and then two frames of interlaced shots. Consistently.
Could this have something to do with my integrated graphics card?
Like I said, when the video is exported to a different format, the interlacing is gone, even though no deinterlacing was applied...
Thanks

Artifacts in QuickTime 6 (cross post from OS9)

I often play (and encode) videos in QuickTime in OS9, and they have artifacts on playback, i.e. little colored squares that appear randomly and fade away after a few seconds. It appears to be a playback problem only, i.e. the artifacts are not actually encoded in the video--if you replay the same clip, you get different artifacts! For a long time, i assumed it was my video memory going or something, but i just installed OS9 on another Mac (G4/AGP) and... same thing!
Is this a known problem with QT? Or is it an OS9 problem?
The artifacts appear on video encoded using the Apple MPEG4 codec, the DivX5 codec, or the 3ivx codec. However, they DO NOT appear when the video was encoded using the Sorenson MPEG-4 codec for OS9. Someone else (everyone else?) must have experienced this.....

Are you saying that even if the video was encoded properly, QT can generate artifacts on playback if the processor isn't quite fast enough? Shouldn't it drop frames (i.e. stutter) instead..?
Yes, to an extent. This normally only happens in the case where the data rate is unreasonably higher that necessary and that can be handled by the platform involved (i.e., not simply slightly higher) which I don't really consider a case of being "encoded properly" as you put it. In this case, what you normally see is a series of frame freezes being displayed which may or may not contain block pixelations due to incomplete decoding of sub-matrix blocks (i.e., frame decoding is exited/halted before the frame being processed could be completely decoded. In this case entire segments of the movie containing dozens to hundreds of frames are being dropped/skipped between the display "freezes." This is an extreme case which is very much less common than excessively low data rates and/or using excessive keyframe intervals which produce pixelation artifacts that either fade when the next keyframe is generated or fades as the predictor-corrector algorithm oscillates back above the critical minimum data rate allocation. As to the specific differences between Sorenson and QT encoding implementations, I have always asumed the former was targeted more for low data rate use while the latter was targeted more for quality consistency over a wider scalability range. However, I may be wrong here and since you have provided no specific information as to what settings were used, how you define a "proper encode" and have not provided specific example clips for analysis, about all we can really do at this point is guess at the cause of your issue.
I'll try it on my somewhat faster 1GHz G4 and see if that plays okay, but i still can't believe a 500 MHz G4 (the one generating the artifacts) could be too slow to play a 320x240 MPEG-4 video properly.
I might agree with you if I knew more about how you encoded the content and the settings used. Most of the problems I am discussing are more common with MPEG-4 Part 10 encodes which is 2 to 2.5 times as efficient as MPEG-4 Part 2 but more CPU intensive. Basically this means the QT version of MPEG-4 Part 2 requires 2 to 2.5 times the data rate of a QT MPEG-4 Part 10 file to achieve the same level of quality but can process the content with the same or less effort. Have you tried comparing the same content encoded differently in a frame by frame comparison using the same player app?

Digital Artifacts on Playback

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