I'm trying to track down a problem here - I'm making videos, and some have static titles. The exported uncompressed AVI looks alright and plays fine. But when I use any third party tool to convert to different formats (for example, AutoGK or Riva FLV encoder) it "skips" the still frames! It's absolutely doing my head in, I just can't understand why. Here's a demo: A 12 second 12Mb "raw" avi file: 3 seconds each of 3 images, 2 static, one moving. http://www.digitaltoast.co.uk/avitrouble/9 second test_nostillopt.avi Now if I try and convert this video, this is what happens in mpe4 xvid: http://www.digitaltoast.co.uk/avitrouble/9 second test_agk.xvid.avi And this is what happens when I convert it to Flash: http://www.digitaltoast.co.uk/avitrouble/9 second test_encoded from avi by riva flv encoder.flv BUT, if I export via, say, h264 from Premiere Element, THEN run it through a converter, it's fine: Here's the exported file: http://www.digitaltoast.co.uk/avitrouble/9 second test2.h264.mov And here's the file converted from that: http://www.digitaltoast.co.uk/avitrouble/9 second test encoded from Premierer El 2 h264 output.flv But I don't want the time or quality degradation of "double converting". If anyone's interested, here's the autogk log, if it gives any clues: http://www.digitaltoast.co.uk/avitrouble/9 second test_agk_agk.log.txt Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
I duplicated the problem with the raw avi using AutoGK. Other converters like 'Super' (DivX) and 'Any Video Converter' (FLV) had no problem converting the raw avi. The closest I could get to keeping the source video unchanged was to use VirtualDub to re-save the raw video as avi with the Huffy Lossless codec - of course the AVI is much larger (from 12MB to 70MB) then it was converted by AGK ok.. It would seem that the Sony codec used in the source causes some converters have problems, some don't.
Thanks so much, Attar. So, that narrows it down. Now I've done some more tests - I opened and saved the file in Windows Movie Maker as AVI (it grew to 30Mb), but the compression in AutoGK and Riva had the same effect. But when I saved it as a raw avi from VirtualDub (which was 275Mb!), it converted OK. Interesting you mention SUPER. I thought that was supposed to be bad news? Firstly, I'd never had such trouble downloading anything (even when I follow the tedious instructions) and secondly, I don't like all the hooks into the OS and network stack that people have found. Who pays for it? Why no source code? It all seems to good to be true. So I've been trying to steer clear of it. But you reckon it's OK? I'll try the other Flash encoder you mentioned as well. Thanks for the help so far. The strangest thing is...I'm sure it never used to do this!
Super has a download link from Afterdawn that circumvents those strange web pages I've used the software on and off for years;it proves that you can be eccentric without being malicious - they even have a forum where the creators actually respond to questions..
Got to admit, I'm stumped here attar! What settings did you use on SUPER to get it to render OK without dropping frames? I switched from FFMPeg to MEncoder and what happens now is that instead of 123 then 456 flashing up really quickly, I get 123 for 6 seconds, no 456, then 789 scrolling. I've tried so many settings and containers. I'm wondering if I've got a corrupt FFMpeg or something. What were your working settings?
Well, thanks for all the info. In the end, the trick was to change from Microsoft DV AVI to Microsoft AVI and turn off all compression/exporting options/still frame optimization, the whole lot. Which means I get monstrously big files now, but at least it works. To be honest, I've exhausted all other options, re-installed codecs and Premiere etc. So this will have to do. I wonder why it started going wrong? I never used to have to do this. But thanks once again for the testing attar!
