Rendering Nightmare

[Theo Van laar]

You say that your video is transferred to the PC as an AVI file. But do you know what kind of avi file? If not, you can check this with a program called GSPOT.

Theo

[John Rofrano]

GSpot will tell you a lot about the video but for now, let’s see what Vegas thinks:

Right-click an event with a “jerky” video. Select Properties and then look on the Media tab. What does it say for:

Format: ?
Attributes: ?
Frame rate: ?
Field order: ?
Pixel aspect ratio: ?

Also what is the make and model of the camera that shot the video. If the camera has more than one media type (i.e., mp4, mov, mpg, etc) which type did you use when you shot it? If yuo don’t know go check the camera settings and see. You probably haven’t changed them since the shoot.

Could you post a small sample of this “jerky” video on the web so we can see exactly what you mean when you say “jerky”?

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Sabrina Watson]

Stream Properties: Video 1

Attributes: 720×480, 00:00:36;27
Format: DivX 5.2.1 Codec
Frame Rate: 29.970
Field Order: Lower field first
Pixel aspect ratio: 0.9191 (NTSC DV)
Alpha Channel: none

My camera is a: Samsung SC-MX10 Black ~ Digital Flash Memory Camcorder w/ 34x Optical Zoom.

I’m not so good at finding out about the camera yet, but I know that when I connect the usb port the files get onto my computer in avi files. Also the video setting shows 16:9 and for resolution it shows 720x480i. I have that one with a little p after it and a 352×250 with a p after it too.

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get a clip of the video up. I do have my own domain, but I use free webspace, but I’ll see if I can maybe upload a clip of it on my photobucket for the time being.

This is the link to the camera: https://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=9188680 just in case it shows more information than I know about it yet. It’s my first camcorder.

[John Rofrano]

Hmmm… sometimes Vegas can be very “twitchy” about the editing files encoded with the DivX codec. That might be the source of the problem. I just encoded a file with DivX 6 and brought it back into Vegas and rendered it out again and it was smooth. I only have DivX 6 so I’m not sure if DivX 5 is the problem. Make sure you have the latest DivX codec on your system.

You can test if DivX is the problem by rendering one of the files in a different format outside of Vegas and see if you still have the issue. You could use a free tool like VirtualDub to render one of the files using the HuffYUV codec (also free and lossless). If this works then DivX is the problem.

You could also try opening a new project, place just one file on the timeline and render it to NTSC DV AVI in Vegas. Then see if that render is OK. Maybe it’s a combination of DivX and something you are using in the project.

Cool little camera though. 😉

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Sabrina Watson]

Thank you for replying back.

Okay–here’s another problem. I just opened up my project to try what you told me (I also got the most up-to-date version of DivX) and now my video clips are there, but they won’t play. They’re just blank. The only thing that will play in my project is the music and the text.

How can I get it back now? It doesn’t even show red–it’s just blank. They are there, but the actual videos aren’t.

[John Rofrano]

It sounds like the latest version of DivX might have something to do with this. Do the clips play in the DivX player? You need to get them out of the DivX format. In addition to VirtualDub there is also a converter called “Super (c)” that will pretty much convert any video to any format. You might want to download Super and just render them to uncompressed AVI. They will be huge but they will work for this project.

I would also contact Samsung and ask them what software they recommend for editing the video from that camera. DivX is really a final delivery format and not something you want to be editing.

You could also see if the DivX installer set a System Restore point in which you could go back to before it was installed. Or try uninstalling and re-installing the previous version that you had.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Sabrina Watson]

is uncompressed AVI different than regular AVI? Because the camera put the clips on my computer in avi format.

It says the “media is offline” for a bunch of them when I went back a few hours ago to see.

But if I install the new version of DivX won’t I be in the same position with my video? I downloaded it in hopes it would fix the problem.

I’m getting a little confused now. Let me see if I understand this correctly…

1. Download VirtualDub and Super

What do I do with both of those programs?

If I download those two programs can I keep DivX on my compute or will I still need to uninstall it?

BTW, your site is awesome. I always wondered if there was a way to do a split screen in vegas. I didn’t even think there was a masking tool. Very cool!

[John Rofrano]

> is uncompressed AVI different than regular AVI? Because the camera put the clips on my computer in avi format.

AVI is just a file format. It’s a container for video (like a paper bag that you can put things into). AVI files can use different CODEC’s (e.g., DivX, DV, MJPEG, etc.). A CODEC is a Coder / DECoder combination. It encodes your video with compression to make it smaller and decodes the compression to get the original video back. Uncompressed video is simply video that doesn’t use a CODEC. This makes it extreme large because it is not compressed but it also makes it extremely compatible because there is no CODEC involved. So you can create an AVI file with any CODEC or you can just place the uncompressed video into it.

The reason I recommended making an uncompressed AVI is because the DivX codec seems to be causing a problem so removing the codec from the equation eliminates that problem. Huffyuv is another codec that you can use if the uncompressed AVI files are too large.

> It says the “media is offline” for a bunch of them when I went back a few hours ago to see.

That’s not good. “Media off-line” means that Vegas cannot find the files (or cannot read the files at all)

> But if I install the new version of DivX won’t I be in the same position with my video? I downloaded it in hopes it would fix the problem.

So you downloaded it but did not install it? I thought you installed DivX 6 and that’s when all the media turned black? Was that not what happened?

> I’m getting a little confused now. Let me see if I understand this correctly…

Sorry if I confused you. I was giving you multiple options to try and we probably should just take one option at a time.

1. Download VirtualDub and install it.
2. Open VirtualDub and drag and drop one of your camera videos onto it (you should now see the video in VirtualDub)
3. Click File | Save as AVI… or press F7
4. Give it a name and click Save

You should now have an uncompressed AVI file that you can drag and drop onto the Vegas timeline and render out and see if you still have the “jerking”.

If this works, the next step is to install Huffyuv and use that as a codec so that the AVI files are not so large. Then there is an extra step in VirtualDub of selecting the Huffyuv codec before saving (Video | Compression… or Ctrl+P and select Huffyuv v2.1.1)

> If I download those two programs can I keep DivX on my compute or will I still need to uninstall it?

You absolutely keep DivX on your computer. DivX is the codec that these programs need to decode your video. Without DivX installed you cannot use your videos at all.

> BTW, your site is awesome. I always wondered if there was a way to do a split screen in vegas. I didn’t even think there was a masking tool. Very cool!

Thank you. I wish I had more time to put up tutorials but I’m glad you found it useful.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Sabrina Watson]

Sorry I made a mistake. I did download DivX 6.8 and I also installed it. That is when the media could not be found.

I downloaded VirtualDub. I remember using this a few years ago.

I’m getting an error when I try to click and drag one of my clips from my camera. It says:

**********

Couldn’t locate decompresser for format ‘SEDG’ (unknown).

VirtualDub requires a video for windows (VFW) compatible codec to decompress video. DirectShow codecs, such as those used by Windows Media Player, are not suitable.

**********

I have no idea what hat means.

I just wanted to ask a quick question before I forget, does the media being offline mean that if/when it does get back online I will have to start my video over from scratch anyway?

[John Rofrano]

> Sorry I made a mistake. I did download DivX 6.8 and I also installed it. That is when the media could not be found.

OK, I did some searching on the web and found that these Samsung videos only work with DivX 5 by default, but I have a fix. More on that later…

> I’m getting an error when I try to click and drag one of my clips from my camera. It says: Couldn’t locate decompresser for format ‘SEDG’ (unknown)…I have no idea what hat means.

It means we are getting closer to the real problem! ;-D

AVI files have a four character flag that tells the application which codec to use. This flag is called the “FourCC”. Your files have a fourcc of ‘SEDG’. VirtualDub and Vegas cannot find the codec that is associated with ‘SEDG’ on your system.

Here’s where it gets interesting. DivX 5 registers itself as supporting this fourcc but DivX 6 does not. There is a simple utility called the “FourCC Changer” that can change this. Download this utility. It doesn’t even need to be installed (just unzipped). Open one of your AVI files in this utility and you’ll see both entry fields show SEDG. Just change them both to DIVX and press Apply. Now drop this file into Vegas and the file should play correctly.

You will have to do this for all of the files that come from this camera. I would make backups of all of the files before you change any of them, just for safe keeping.

I found a sample of a Samsung camera AVI file on the web and I downloaded it and it would not playback in Vegas just like yours. Then I changed the fourcc to DIVX and it played and rendered fine so I’m very confident that this will work for you.

Once again, I would contact Samsung and ask them how they recommend that you edit this strange format. Maybe they have some conversion software or their own codec that you were supposed to install?

> I just wanted to ask a quick question before I forget, does the media being offline mean that if/when it does get back online I will have to start my video over from scratch anyway?

No. Once you change the fourcc of all the files, they should all be recognized as on-line and working properly.

The BIG question is… after all this, does this solve your render problem?

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com