I'm having problems in Sorenson Squeeze. I exported a 15 minute program as a QT reference from Avid Adrenaline. The content of the video is a presenter at a podium dissolving to and from power point slides. It plays great as a Quicktime file. I'm bringing it into Sorenson to encode for DVD. I use elementary settings and have tried just about every possible datarate, Iframe, VBR, CBR and interlace imaginable. After encoding, my dissolves from the graphic slide to my presenter hestitate before they complete. I was originally working with Sorenson 3.5 and upgraded to Sorenson 4.1. This problem occurs in both versions. Has anyone experienced this problem before? It seems to happen when going from a still to moving video. Thanks!
Sorenson problems from Avid QT reference
- Thread starter Kate
- Start date
oigflabble
Active member
Sounds like the decoder isn't getting the new data about the presenter image in a timely enough manner.
Save time by taking maybe a 20 second clip that displays the problem (around the 10 second mark) then experiment by (1) Reducing the GOP size (2) Increasing the number of I-frames (oops, just saw you tried that).
(1) May be your issue.
As always, make sure auto-deinterlace is "Off" - it used to be switch and is now a filter in 4.#.
Save time by taking maybe a 20 second clip that displays the problem (around the 10 second mark) then experiment by (1) Reducing the GOP size (2) Increasing the number of I-frames (oops, just saw you tried that).
(1) May be your issue.
As always, make sure auto-deinterlace is "Off" - it used to be switch and is now a filter in 4.#.
I have the same problem going from a still to moving video. Usually it hesitates, then flashes, then it moves on. But usually this doesn't happen when I use a crossfade transition between the still and video.
I think it may be a problem with mpeg encoding because it happens when I use Encore DVD at ~7Mbps. That's a high enough data rate that you would expect smooth transitions. I've tried CBR, VBR, setting I frames, etc., but it still happens. If anybody has a solution, I would love to hear it.
I think it may be a problem with mpeg encoding because it happens when I use Encore DVD at ~7Mbps. That's a high enough data rate that you would expect smooth transitions. I've tried CBR, VBR, setting I frames, etc., but it still happens. If anybody has a solution, I would love to hear it.
I have tried shortening the program when trying all my possibilities but I will try the GOP settings when I get a chance. I talked to Sorenson today and they didn't really seem to have an answer right off hand but I'll post it here if we come up with a solution. I'll have to come up with some sort of solution by next week when the project is due!
Tim Miller
Well-known member
I have run into this problem numerous times using wipe transitions and some dissolves. What finally worked is unfortunately time consuming if you have multiple transitions that were affected, so I would recommend doing it on one or two to make sure it works...bear with me. Basically you are creating a manual dissolve...if you know how to do that, then stop reading. 
For this example I will be using the example of the video going from the lecturer then transitioning to a power point slide video clip.
Go into your original timeline. Find one of your transitions points. Now move either the first or second clip up to the next corresponding video line that is available. So for my example I would move up the power point clip to V2.
Next extend handles (to whatever clip had more handle room) to either of the video clips where the transition is supposed to be. The handle length should be the length of the transition. So for the example, I would extend out the power point clip (on V2) 30 frames to the left over top the speaker clip (on V1) because I wanted a 30frame dissolve.
Next add a EFFECT that would allow you to do a manual dissolve to the clip that you added the handles too, so I believe RESIZE or PICTURE IN PICTURE (make it 100% of course :thumbsup: ) will work. Go into you EFFECT EDITOR and create a keypoint 30 frames before/after the clip you created the handles on. So I would drag one of those effects onto the power point clip (on V2). Go into the effect editor. Set a keypoint 30 frames (or it could be 29) to the right of the beginning. There should then be 3 keypoints in front of you. Click on the the first key point (which makes all of the other key points turn black). Next go over to the palette window that is brought up when you go into the effect editor for the clip with the effect and find the option that makes it dissolve to black. Drag it down to 0.
Try that, it may work, it may not. Sorry I am at home now so I don't have the Avid in front of me. Any more questions PM me but I will be out of town the next 2 days. Good Luck!
For this example I will be using the example of the video going from the lecturer then transitioning to a power point slide video clip.
Go into your original timeline. Find one of your transitions points. Now move either the first or second clip up to the next corresponding video line that is available. So for my example I would move up the power point clip to V2.
Next extend handles (to whatever clip had more handle room) to either of the video clips where the transition is supposed to be. The handle length should be the length of the transition. So for the example, I would extend out the power point clip (on V2) 30 frames to the left over top the speaker clip (on V1) because I wanted a 30frame dissolve.
Next add a EFFECT that would allow you to do a manual dissolve to the clip that you added the handles too, so I believe RESIZE or PICTURE IN PICTURE (make it 100% of course :thumbsup: ) will work. Go into you EFFECT EDITOR and create a keypoint 30 frames before/after the clip you created the handles on. So I would drag one of those effects onto the power point clip (on V2). Go into the effect editor. Set a keypoint 30 frames (or it could be 29) to the right of the beginning. There should then be 3 keypoints in front of you. Click on the the first key point (which makes all of the other key points turn black). Next go over to the palette window that is brought up when you go into the effect editor for the clip with the effect and find the option that makes it dissolve to black. Drag it down to 0.
Try that, it may work, it may not. Sorry I am at home now so I don't have the Avid in front of me. Any more questions PM me but I will be out of town the next 2 days. Good Luck!
My program had many dissolves in it and it would have taken me very long to fix this problem by starting over. I appreciate the advice, however, and will look into that in the future. I had to get this project out so I just ended up laying it off to tape and then capturing in FCP and compressing that way.
We have since discovered that the problem doesn't lie in Sorenson. It has to do with the QT Reference from the Adrenaline. (I have done programs like this before with many dissolves in Avid Symphony and have never run across this problem.) If we export the program as a Quicktime Self-Contained movie and then compress it, it will work with no problems. Unfortunately, depending on how long your program is, this could take a very very long time and the size of the movie exported will end up huge. I did a short 1 second clip and it was 50MB!
So I have not come up with a complete solution that's practical but maybe somewhere down the road we'll be able to solve this problem. Thanks for all the replies.
We have since discovered that the problem doesn't lie in Sorenson. It has to do with the QT Reference from the Adrenaline. (I have done programs like this before with many dissolves in Avid Symphony and have never run across this problem.) If we export the program as a Quicktime Self-Contained movie and then compress it, it will work with no problems. Unfortunately, depending on how long your program is, this could take a very very long time and the size of the movie exported will end up huge. I did a short 1 second clip and it was 50MB!
So I have not come up with a complete solution that's practical but maybe somewhere down the road we'll be able to solve this problem. Thanks for all the replies.
Tim Miller
Well-known member
Like I said I had this problem many times when I created a Quicktime Reference. I would generally scan the QT ref and see if you can spot them and create the transitions like I had suggested before. Unfortunately, yes it takes a long time, but I generally had only ran into 2 or 3 problems (with like a 10 minute video) but for some reason it didn't happen in every video I have created. The Avid authorized seller we bought our machine from didn't even know what to do. Sorry, all in all it sucks.