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flickering export gremlins
Hi from a newbie trying to keep afloat.
Have just completed editing a 39 minute feature with many tracks in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 from AVCHD files. It took my 4GB Core2Duo 2.6 GHz computer about 6 hours to export a master copy in MPEG2 1440 x1080i 25 HQ format. The file that is now on my NTFS-formated desktop is so big that I cannot back it up on any of my FAT HDs but that is not a big deal as I can output in lower res or chop it up into bits.
But:-
when I view the exported master copy I find about 5 points where the picture just flickers for a brief moment before continuing.
WTF?!??
Needless to say after waiting for 6 hours for Adobe Media Encoder to create the file this is mildly annoying. So now I am trying to detect and fix the cause of this problem. As far as I can see so far the original footage looks ok, so I am guessing the problem must have something to do with the way I am using PP CS4 and/or my computer system but maybe I am wrong?
Has anybody else ever encountered this flicker?
If it is a known problem that has already been discussed please point me to the thread.
Meanwhile I am wondering if the possible reasons for this occasional flicker could be that my computer system is not powerful enough or does not have enough RAM or free disk space available?
Previously I had the problem that sometimes the whole PP CS4 program just wobbled and the program occasionally crashed. Sometimes the Adobe Media Encoder refused to work at all. But this problem was solved at least for export of smaller (4 minute) movies by removing unused clips and deleting backup copies of the PP file etc.
(2) Maybe my PP CS4 sequence just has too many tracks and/or is too long for either PP CS4 or Adobe Media Encoder or my computer to handle? In which case what alternative do I have apart from upgrading my computer (which I am working on at the moment).
(3) Could the problem be power supply fluctuations during the export or “attention slips” caused by the computer undertaking other tasks at the same time as doing the exporting?
(4) Could the problem be triggered by overload of effects such as placement of subtitles or adjustments to audio tracks on the timeline.
(5) Could too much previewing and/or rendering have damaged the original clips or the instruction set that PP uses to tell the computer where and what to export?
Any advice much appreciated.
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11 Replies
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Just curious to know if anyone has found a solution for this seeing as I am having the same issue.
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Not sure Nathan but suspect it could be because the clips in question are overloaded with too many effects; am still trying to figure this out.
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following this up further:
1) upgraded my computer to i7 4GB computer now runs faster but flicker persists
2) removed effects (video) from one of the problem clips and this also seemed to remove flicker problem with that clip
3) another problem clip with few (audio) effects was fixed when I moved away the sub-title I had over it
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some additional possibilities:
1) problem may be my version of PP CS4 not installed right – as when I completely removed and reinstalled program found the flicker in a slightly different spot
2) could have something to do with my ATi Radeon graphics card and/or driver, so updated to the latest version of the driver but this didn’t seem to make any diffence
3) maybe my computer (i7 4GB PC 1 1TB7200 HD) still has insufficient capacity to export such a big sequence and therefore falters when it runs a heavy load
4) I am importing AVCHD from a Panasonic TM300 camcorder that is 1080i (interlaced) and outputting to MPEG2 HDTV 1080p so maybe this is part of the problem that I have asked about on a separate post
5) I can see for some effects I need to use field options such as deinterlacing and reverse field dominance for example for freeze frames and maybe it is the proximity to these effects in the processing sequence and the way I have fixed the settings
6) clips that flicker are doing so as they like me are getting worn out by all this storm in a teacup
7) maybe source clip is too big, as the one that has the most flicker gremlins is 28 minutes long and about 2.8GB
7) and (most likely): all of the above 🙂
8) none of the above 🙁
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am guessing this is a rendering problem brought about by a complicated sequence overloading the system at certain (unpredictable) points in the process. i guess if I had so much going on in my head at one time as the cpu and memory of my computer i would also crash – particulalry since my brain is only dual core 🙂
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Dude have you fixed this issue? I’ve had this problem for ages and now i’ve come across it again FFS
I’m running Win7 i5 with 8g ram. I think this is a video card issue cos the video card on this Toshiba sux b***s
My sequence is simple.. I have 2 files overlapping eachother with me on one side of the first footage and me on the otherside of the second footage and i used a mask and feathered it out a little to look like 2 of me are in the same shot.
I ‘replace footage with AE comp’ and then preview rendered it in PP and the footage 1 was flickering like a mofo for the whole of the 10 seconds.
So now i’m gonna try going deleting all conformed files in document → adobe → PP → media cache folder → look for the render files, CFA and Pek and delete them so PP and AE can re-form those files. then restart and see what happens but FFs man this is the worst dam error that i’ve had for so long. Makes me wanna buy a mac. windows is sh!t when it comes to film production
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anyone managed to fix this? For some reason I am not experiencing the same problem.
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“Makes me wanna buy a mac. windows is sh!t when it comes to film production”
I’m not certain a Mac is going to solve the problem. I’m running an iMac with the i7 microprocessor and 16gb RAM – tons of CPU power, tons of memory and scratch disks are two Firewire 800 Lacie 2Gb drives: I have an elusive video flicker on one of my productions that I simply can’t track down the cause of on export.
I’ve tried everything I can think of, re-conforming the source, different sequence settings, export settings, the usual. No avail, still have a bit of flicker with clips that have a significant amount of white in the material. I thought toning down the exposure would help, but that does not work either.
When the project is in Media Encoder, and while viewing the output window, the flicker appears while moving the scrubber, so I think it may be some anomaly within Media Encoder.
I’d be curious about a fix for this as well, since it is a bit frustrating. My solution was to scrap it in Premier Pro and do the project in Final Cut Pro, as Adobe never seems to be of any help on tech issues. (They’re quick to take the several thousand dollars from me for CS5, but not so much when it comes to support.) Thankfully, it’s not that complex of a project, but frustrating nonetheless.
Anyhow, if you find a solution, please post and best of luck to all experiencing this issue.
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Not certain if you changed the scale of the clip using the Effects Controls or not, but I had a 24hour boxing match with PPCC. Timeline played perfect and export showed extreme flickering on one segment that was iPhone footage at a basketball game. Everything I tried from every forum only changed he way it flickered.
The Solution: I removed all Effects and started over. Rather than scaling the clip in the Effects Controls to fit the frame I right clicked the clip in the Timeline and selected Scale to Frame Size and voila! Houston we have a solution!
I’m sure all you pros out there know this, but I’m a noob and I’m sharing this for noobs.
Hope it helps.
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Just wanted to report that I’m having flickering gremlins as well. It’s visible inside Premiere Pro before render/export as well as after. Suddenly started happening for no apparent reason.
Pretty sure it’s not related to using auto effects or interlacing or field order. Also, I’m sceptical it’s a graphics card or a PC/Mac thing. Reason: I was working off an external hard drive, moved from one computer to a different system, and the flickering remained.
Story goes… 15-minute video. I rendered it the first time, noticed the flickering, but also noticed I forgot to click “analyze” for warp stabiliser to process additional frames right at the start of the video. So, I clicked that button, rendered again, and, for some reason, that solved half the problem! No idea why. Now the flickering only turned up in the last 8 minutes.
I worked out from which clip the flickering started, and turning off RGB curves on that clip seemed to remove the flickering from that clip and for the next few clips.
But obviously I’d prefer to keep my colour grade intact.
Haven’t yet worked out what the problem is, and had never encountered it before today. Don’t want to do everything over from scratch. What I’m next going to try is removing RGB curves from all problem clips onwards and reinserting.
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