Footage Freezeframe? Been trying to find an answer forever.
by Reynolds Strother
on
Feb 17, 2008 at 8:42:22 pm
I've been looking for an answer to this problem for a few weeks and now I'm admitting defeat. Freeze frame footage.
The comp is a lineup of different video clips fading in and out in 8 sec intervals. I'm only 1/3 the way into the timeline and having this problem:
My footage(video) is freezing on a single random frame within its timeline. Sometimes it will flutter between 2 or 3 random frames within its timeline. It only happens to some of the footage videos, not all of them. Sometimes to a few, sometimes to most of them. This problem is apparent when scrubbing the main comp, scrubbing the footage itself, ram previews, and final renders. I assume this is a RAM issue but I have a new Intel MacPro, two 2.66 dual core, 6gigs of ram, AE CS3. I thinks it's RAM because when I clear all caches it will "sometimes" fix the issue, until it happens again 10 sec later. I'm working on I've tried my AE preffs at default for 2gigs of ram, and with 6gigs. The footage is small in size and there aren't many effects being used at all. Still happens when all effects are turned off.
Here is some more info about the comp:
-3 min comp, 30fps, 1200x720
-all footage is QT video at 30 fps
-After no fix with proxies, I've force fed proxies(no fix), then tried re-rendering all video into half res, med quality, NEW files, All less than 50mb with most less than 20mb.
-RECREATED the entire comp, with better efficiency and the new smaller videos.
Still happening and I'm at wits end. The project is nearing deadline. I'm getting so frustrated with this. Need help resolving this really bad.
Re: Footage Freezeframe? Been trying to find an answer forever. by Darby Edelen on Feb 18, 2008 at 12:12:05 am
[Reynolds Strother]"-all footage is QT video at 30 fps "
Can you give more information about what codec the footage is compressed using? QT is only a container format.
You can also experience problems like this when using some effects. If a frame has already been rendered in the timeline and you make a change to the effect's properties, then the already rendered frame may not be purged from memory.
Darby Edelen Designer Left Coast Digital Santa Cruz, CA
Re: Footage Freezeframe? Been trying to find an answer forever. by Dave LaRonde on Feb 18, 2008 at 3:36:56 pm
[Reynolds Strother]"All of my footage is QT Photo JPG and I've tried using H.264 and Mpeg-4. All had the same problem."
The two codecs, H.264 and Mpeg-4, are the problem. They both use interframe, or temporal compression. The compressor codec makes a keyframe which has complete frame information. Then the frames following it contain only the information that differs from the keyframe, so you have a lot of frames with incomplete information.
Well, AE likes complete frame information on each and every frame, and it freaks out when it isn't there.
Try using something else. But DON'T use mpeg2, which does the same thing as H.264 and Mpeg-4. You'll make BIG FILES, but it's worth it.
Re: Footage Freezeframe? Been trying to find an answer forever. by Darby Edelen on Feb 18, 2008 at 10:43:55 pm
[Reynolds Strother]"That explains the strange behavior. What are some better choices for codecs, and thanks for the help."
Photo JPEG is perfect... But I thought you had already tried that, at least that's what I read when you said:
"All of my footage is QT Photo JPG and I've tried using H.264 and Mpeg-4. All had the same problem."
I suppose I should've recommended you never use H.264 and MPEG-4 as well, but I read that as though you had tried Photo JPEG (which should not have the same problems as H.264/MPEG-4) so I assumed that something else was going on in this case.
Darby Edelen Designer Left Coast Digital Santa Cruz, CA
Re: Footage Freezeframe? Been trying to find an answer forever. by Reynolds Strother on Feb 19, 2008 at 7:04:33 pm
I just don't understand what is going on with this comp. My computer should be able to handle it so I can't blame it on the processor or the ram. The files are small videos, all Photo JPG.
I'm going to lose it on this one. Usually I feel like this for the two hours it takes to get an animation looking right or to adjust something in 3D so it stops overlapping an object it should be behind. This situation is lingering on forever and no matter how long I look for someone who has experienced this, I that I'm the only one on earth. This must be a top secret version of AE from Adobe designed to render it's user into a twitching ball of frustration.
Maybe I should kick the computer with the side of my foot. Seems to work on old lawnmowers.
Re: Footage Freezeframe? Been trying to find an answer forever. by Jeremy Mullen on Aug 30, 2008 at 8:03:13 pm
I imagine it's a bit late for consolation on your project, but I can say I've actually just run into this myself. I had XDCAM EX footage I was using for greenscreening, and then planned to bring the keyed shots into more complex compositions. To save time (I thought) down the road, I did my keys and then prerendered the key comps. Lo and behold, when I looked at the prerenders, half of them were freeze frames. It was weird, because it was not consistent - some of the prerenders worked (they moved) and others were still. When I went back to look at the comps I had made the keys in, again, some of them moved, but all of a sudden, others wouldn't refresh - the footage itself had become a freeze-frame. When I went out to the footage viewer, it was fine - it moved. As soon as I dragged it into a comp and applied any effect or transformation or mask, it became a freeze-frame. What's weirder, is that the footage had been moving when I made the keys (I needed to animate masks, so I know things were moving then), so it wasn't always this way. Things just started going crazy when I did some work, went away from the application. and came back and did some more work.
So I found this thread and suspected codecs, and I've now gone out of AE, converted my XDCAM EX footage into None-compressed, and brought the new clips into my AE keying comp. It works. For now.
I sort of suspected perhaps my computer went to sleep during the prerenders or just while AE was running, and I've definitely noticed CS3 hates when it is open and my computer goes to sleep. I've had numerous crashes and freezes (Mac OSX 10.5.4) from waking a computer while AE was still open. So there's a couple of potential culprits.
Reynolds, any discoveries at your end in the meantime? Does this sort of conversion help your stuff? You're right - this must be happening to SOMEBODY else out there.
