AVI render introducing judder

[George Dean]

Hi David,

Can you post a screenshot of your Project Properties?

The wmv3 file is variable frame rate, although it isn’t reporting average or max, just nominal.

What are you using to get the uncompressed avi and can you post a Mediainfo report on that?

Best Regards……George

[David Kostyk]

Thanks for the response! I had a suspicion variable frame rate might be the culprit, but I don’t like theorizing in help posts at the risk of my own ignorance contaminating others’ attempts to help me. ????

Below are project properties. Though I’m sure they’re irrelevant, I’ve included audio properties JIC.

I guess I don’t understand what you mean by “What [am I] using to get the uncompressed avi…?”: I’m just doing a Vegas 12 “Render As…” using the rendering properties in my original post. Below is the MediaInfo for the resulting file:

General
Complete name : V:\Oysterhead [new mix].avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
Format profile : OpenDML
File size : 42.2 GiB
Duration : 1h 42mn
Overall bit rate : 59.1 Mbps
TCOD : 0
TCDO : 61276000000

Video
ID : 0
Format : RGB
Codec ID : 0x00000000
Codec ID/Info : Basic Windows bitmap format. 1, 4 and 8 bpp versions are palettised. 16, 24 and 32bpp contain raw RGB samples
Duration : 1h 42mn
Bit rate : 57.6 Mbps
Width : 400 pixels
Height : 300 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 20.000 fps
Bit depth : 8 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 24.000
Stream size : 41.1 GiB (97%)

Audio
ID : 1
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Codec ID : 1
Duration : 1h 42mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 411.2 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 1.01 GiB (2%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 50 ms (1.00 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 50 ms


Hope that sheds some light!

[George Dean]

David, please excuse me, but I am a bit confused, so correct me if I’m wrong….

You are bringing in the 20 fps WMV3 file into Vegas 12, then rendering out a uncompressed avi.

From that avi you are going to render out an mp4.

I don’t understand why you are rendering the uncompressed avi, if the end results are an mp4. Why not just render out the mp4 from Vegas 12 using the WMV3 as the source media?

I would certainly like to test a sample of your WMV3, but the file you used for the Mediainfo above is 638 MB, which is far to large for me to download on my restricted monthly data plan. If you had a sample that was say 50-100 MB that would be doable. Do you have a small sample?

Best Regards……George

[David Kostyk]

Sorry that I didn’t explain that completely:

• I’m ultimately looking for an MKV file with h.264 video and my newly mastered audio (PCM w/ AC-3 fallback). But:
  • HandBreak (v0.10.5.0) doesn’t handle PCM properly (always converts it to AC-3).
  • Muxing the audio with h.264 video doesn’t sync properly in Hybrid (v2019.05.05.1).
  • Muxing with MKVToolNix (v33.1.0) yields the same sync issues.

  In all above examples, I also lose my intro and outro video fades.

• While I considered just abandoning h.264 MKV for generic MP4, Vegas 12 doesn’t appear to support variable frame rate for that codec (unless I’m missing something). Therefore, a Vegas 12 MP4 will still result in judder, yes? While h.264 supports variable frame rates by default.
• My intent was then to make a 480×360 blow up for YouTube publishing (which I don’t believe supports 400×300 resolution) plus an iPod encoding.

All of this I incorrectly assumed would be best achieved by going uncompressed AVI, then making each file for different purposes from this otherwise “lossless” master.

[David Kostyk]

As for a sample, I cannot think of a way to provide one. I don’t have anything that will just “trim” a WMV3 .asf file. And I can’t find a plausible format to use in Vegas 12 that supports variable frame rate.

[George Dean]

David is your project a one time deal, or do you have other WMV3 videos to convert? Is your operating system 32 or 64 bit? If it is 64 bit, can you download the free trial version of Magix Vegas Pro 16? I have an idea, although it may make no difference. If you had a small file WMV3, I would test this myself, but I don’t think that is the case, so maybe testing on your system.

Best Regards……George

[David Kostyk]

I have a few more similar files for which I’d be doing a similar operation.

I run x64. I do have to leave for work soon, but I can download the trial tonight. If you leave instructions for what you’d like me to try, I’d be happy to give it a go.

[George Dean]

David I was thinking if you could put your files on a disc or thumb drive and mail them, I could possibly finish them for you in Vegas Pro 16, if that version works better than 12, if the source media is not sensitive and you feel comfortable with me seeing it, and if you are in North America. Those are a lot of if’s. But they rely on Vegas Pro 16 being a better platform for getting results and the trial version being free, it is just the cost of your time to test it out.

Best Regards……George

[George Dean]

David, if you do try the Vegas Pro 16 trial, check that it is the latest build 424 and Go > Options > Preferences > General tab and check if there is a check mark in the box ‘Favor audio sync when playing Variable Frame Rate (VFR) media’, which should be checked, but I do not remember is it is by default.

Best Regards……George

[David Kostyk]

Well, your suggestion allowed me to fall ass-backward into my answer: AVC, which is another name for MPEG-4p10, aka h.264. ???? I just looked for any codec with deterministic frame rates and an “Allow source to adjust frame rate” toggle, did an AVC test sample and VLC was kind enough to remind me that AVC is h.264.

I’ll just mux in the PCM and AC-3 audio streams.

Remaining question though: what is a reasonable “Number of reference frames”? HandBrake and Hybrid (or ffmpeg maybe) uses 3 by default and HandBrake claims 6 is the sane upper limit. Any benefit or detriment to upping it higher than 3?