Import of h.264 video results in green, distorted and doubled image.

[Tarjep]

Hi!

Lately I've been tranfering a lot of old vidoes from analog tape to digital video. All videofiles have been created as H.264 640x480 mp4 with Elgato Video Capture. And all video-files display fine in, VLC, Media Player Classic, Quicktime and even iMovie. Some of these import fine into Premiere CS5.5 without problem, but some end up looking green, distorted and doubled, like this:

I've tried to Interpret Footage on the broken clips, setting the framerate to a constant like 25fps. But this seems to have no effect.

When I try to import the same file into After Effects CS5.5, I get this error: after effects error: overflow converting ratio denominators 17::18

Do anyone here have any ideas what's going on. I've crosschecked two videofiles against eachother to find some differences, but there is none, as far as I can see.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Below is a description of the videofile:

[josephs51576386]

Have you tried cleaning your media cache database?  You can do so by going to "edit>preferences>media" then clicking where it says "clean."

If that doesn't work though could you please post all your system specs? Then also please post the driver version your GPU is using etc. Also can you tell us what version of Premiere you're running.

You can also try this solution from another thread although your issue doesn't really sound very much like the one you're having.

http://forums.adobe.com/message/3945491#3945491

[Jim_Simon]

All videofiles have been created as H.264 640x480 mp4 with Elgato Video Capture.

I would try a more professional solution, something like the ADVC-110 from Grass Valley.

http://www.grassvalley.com/products/advc110

[Tarjep]

Hi guys.

I've cleaned the cache, no change...

Buying a more professional converter solution is not an option, I mean, the files play perfectly in VLC, Media Player Classic, Quicktime even iMovie!
So there has to be something that Adobe does that makes this file not show correctly, it have a feeling that Premiere Pro is just a bit picky...
It would be really stupid if I had to do this through a program like iMovie to get it to work, when I've payed money for a professional video suite, if you know what I mean...

I also downloaded Premiere Pro CS6 on my Mac to see if that would work, but it's the same problem...

Is there any way to check a h.264 file for issues?
I mean there is obviously something wrong with the videofile, but Premiere is the only program that has problems with it.

Specs:

I'm running this on a PC, Win7 x64
Preimere Pro CS 5.5 with the latest updates
GFX: nVidia GTX 580 with latest driver 306.23-whql
12GB ram
i7-950, LGA-1366

[Allynn Wilkinson]

I agree.  You shouldn't have to buy a "more professional" video capture solution if your captured files play fine.  Old VHS isn't going to get any prettier being pumped through an expensive convertor.

Also agree that Premiere (and AfterEffects) is seeing something wrong with the file. 

Is one of the "bad" files short enough to try up-sampling to ProRes 422 or even just PAL dv?  I'm thinking there's something with the H.264 that Premiere doesn't like.  Transcoding to a higher codec will re-write the file slowly (unlike capture which is in real time).  I would try it with the smallest, bad file you have.  You can do it in QuickTIme Pro or iMovie or with Media Encoder. 

It's interesting that you have the same problem on both Mac and Windows.  You captured on Windows?

To be honest, depending on how much editing you plan to do and how you plan to output the finished product (DVDs?), I would be inclined to just edit in iMovie (if it works) and get my life back   😉  But I'm practical that way!

[Tarjep]

I would be inclined to just edit in iMovie (if it works) and get my life back   😉  But I'm practical that way!

Hahaha! That made me laugh, excatly what I'm thinking... Although I would rather do it the "proper" way, I would also like to get my life back

It's just simple trimming of the beginning and end of each clip so I guess iMovie is the way to go.....

Is one of the "bad" files short enough to try up-sampling to ProRes 422 or even just PAL dv?  I'm thinking there's something with the H.264 that Premiere doesn't like.  Transcoding to a higher codec will re-write the file slowly (unlike capture which is in real time).  I would try it with the smallest, bad file you have.  You can do it in QuickTIme Pro or iMovie or with Media Encoder.

Don't really like the concept of further compressing the clip to make it work (or increasing the file size for that matter) but I'll give it a try before I move on.

It's interesting that you have the same problem on both Mac and Windows.  You captured on Windows?

Yeah, captured on PC, I guess I could try to capture the clips via OSX, see if that helps..

[Allynn Wilkinson]

Yeah... sometimes getting past a problem is just as good as solving it. 

Up-resing wouldn't lose any information but it would make the files significantly bigger.  Only really worth it if there was a compelling reason to edit in Premiere.  And there's no guarantee that it would solve the problem (though I think it would).

I was thinking on the drive in to work... interesting that Apple based products can read the file and Adobe based ones can't.  It would be interesting to see if this followed through to FCP (7 or X) and Adobe Media Encoder (which I now think would choke on it).

I've dumped a lot of VHS in my time (more than I'd like to think about).  The main problem I have had is with dropped frames.  The video will play back just peachy on the VCR/TV but when I try to capture it it will skip.  Sometimes a little.  Sometimes an awful lot. 

This isn't really surprising when you think of what an amazingly forgiving system videotape is compared to computers.  Heck they used to "protect" it using macrovision which really just meant recording so weakly on the tape that it would just barely play back.  It was too weak to push through another deck to copy it.

Since the Elegato is grabbing and compressing on the fly in real time it wouldn't surprise me at all if it glitched somehow if there was a hiccup in the data stream.  What is really interesting (if this is the case) is how iMovie and QuickTime could read it but Premiere and AfterEffects couldn't.  VLC is awesome in that it can successfully read some majorly damanged files.  I'm wondering if Premiere 5 or 5.5 could read the file. 

I doubt re-capturing on the Mac would solve the problem.  Re-captureing might "fix" the clip.  This is especially true if the problem was a dropped frame.  "Exercising" a video tape by running it through a couple of times can sometimes really help it and if it didn't drop a frame it would capture perfectly (just like the ones that work in Premiere)

Love the error "overflow converting ratio denominators"!  Especially since I first read that as Dementors (it *was* 5:30 in the morning 😉

Anyway... that was more thoughts than you probably want to give to it.

[josephs51576386]

Pro-Res is visually lossless, which means it technically does lose information it's just not very perceptible. However I do still indeed believe ProRes is a great codec, I just wanted to let you know that it does indeed lose information. However when using ProRes HQ 422 it loses very little, but it still isn't a lossless format. In my personal experince though if you encode something to ProRes 1 time you won't notice any difference after the 1st generation unless you zoom in to around 200%.  Another thing with ProRes is that unless you have FCP or compressor you can't encode to ProRes. (Except with a free program for PC called 5DTORGB and also ffmbc another PC/Linux Program)

The only thing left I can think of is if you could upload a small test clip, that way we can see if the file shows problems on our systems as well. However I think it probably will, there is obviously some sort of tag on the file that Premiere isn't correctly reading. It might be due to a codec you have installed on your system, although there isn't anyway to know for sure. Since it shows the same problem on your MAC it makes me assume though that the bad codec option isn't as likely.

[Jim_Simon]

Old VHS isn't going to get any prettier being pumped through an expensive convertor.

It's not about making the video files 'better', it about making them 'standard'.  The current captures are not in any standard format, and that may well be the issue PP is having.  Using the proper hardware, they would come in as DV files and they would work.

[Allynn Wilkinson]

C'mon Jim, get real.  These are old VHS tapes.  Probably family tapes.  I've got a ton of them.  If the original poster just wants to top and tail them and stuff them onto DVDs *and* the Elagato has already captured them so they are viewable using iMovie and Quicktime.  Why spend more money, not to mention time to re-cap them all?  I hope they didn't buy Premiere specifically for this purpose because it's not necessary.  Quicktime Pro could do it for $35

I agree that H.264 640x480 is not "standard" and *if* the original poster had come here first and asked how to capture old VHS I would have suggested something else.  But the deed is done!  If they were my VHS tapes I wouldn't want to risk re-capturing them again.  I just had one "priceless" tape come un-glued from the cassette on rewind.  You don't want play with these things any more than necessary

[Jim_Simon]

Why spend more money, not to mention time to re-cap them all?

Because it'll work.

I'm not suggesting it's necessarily the best or even the only option.  I'm simply presenting it as one option that is pretty much guaranteed to work.  If you have another option, by all means present it.

[Allynn Wilkinson]

You know that, do you?  I have a $2000 (original price) Laird, Blue Flame in my Lab that regularly drops frames when converting VHS.  Your $200 Camopus isn't going to do any better job than the $100 Elegato.  I agree that the **settings** chosen on the Elegato were wrong.  But the Elegato will quite happily encode PAL-dv just as well as the Canopus, Blue Flame, or any other convertor

[Jim_Simon]

But the Elegato will quite happily encode PAL-dv just as well as the Canopus

Well, that sounds like a very good "other option" to suggest.  I've no quarrel with it.

[Tarjep]

Read Play -VS- Edit http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1066154 for some ideas on why that happen

I appreciate you guys being so involved in this topic. I will definitely check out that primer when I have time!

But the Elegato will quite happily encode PAL-dv just as well as the Canopus

I would've chosen a standardised format if I could, but Elegato doesn't even give you any option to chose format, codec or resolution, so I think I am stuck with what I have.
And I am only using this hardware for this one case so no point in investing in any expensive hardware..

[John T Smith]

The model 110 is 2-way... the http://www.grassvalley.com/products/advc55 is 1-way from tape to computer only, and costs less

>expensive hardware

Only you know your personal dollar limit tradeoff between hassle -vs- expense

[Keith_Clark]

John T Smith wrote:

The model 110 is 2-way... the http://www.grassvalley.com/products/advc55 is 1-way from tape to computer only, and costs less

>expensive hardware

Only you know your personal dollar limit tradeoff between hassle -vs- expense

also, with a canopous, you can usually sell it for as much as you bought it for. they are like apple products, yield a pretty decent resell value even with used units.

[Jim_Simon]

Elegato doesn't even give you any option to chose format, codec or resolution

Well, then we're back to the new hardware solution.

[John T Smith]

>files play perfectly in VLC, Media Player Classic, Quicktime even iMovie

Read Play -VS- Edit http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1066154 for some ideas on why that happens

[Jim_Simon]

have a feeling that Premiere Pro is just a bit picky...

It is.  Things often work better when you use standardized media.  Yours is not standard, and that could be the issue.  The new hardware will capture to the DV standard and the captures will work.

[Stephen_Spider]

This is not a supported capture device for Premiere. You may be able to convert the files to something editable with vlc or imovie. Vlc may let you use the device to capture to an accptable codec.

Many DV cameras will let you hook up a vcr to them and output a dv stream to be captured into premiere on the fly, if you have a dv cam handy...

This item unfortunately is not a good choice for an edit capture or digital archiving. It seems to be made for Real Time capture to highy compressed mpeg4 that can then be uploaded to the web. Even burning footage to DVD would mean recrompressing the footage to another format.

[midibz13 · Accepted solution]

Well...

I had same problem, spent ages searching... nothing!!

I had 4 clips.

From same source, but splited into 4

Same video.

Part 1= FINE

Part 2= GREEEN!!!

Part 3 = OK

Part4= GREEN!!!

What's going on????

After reading all the answers from all the experts (don't mean to discualify anyone... you're REALLY , very helpful and spend your time for nothing so BIG thanks)...

Easy, 10 minutes solutiosn:

Get Free Converter from www.freemake.com 

Drop your file and go "to MP4" don't need to touch a single parameter.

Let it do its job... It's fast in a quad core...

DONE!! Yopur video is perfect in Adobe Premier!!

Yeap... simple as that... after 30 hours, pulling my hear nad reading technical specs all over the web.... Can't belive it!!

Note:

I've even taken the trouble to post, and register, in various forumns for this solution... It turned me crazy and it's so simple... I hope it helps everyone else.

[Lucidmike78]

Thank you midibz13.  I have been searching for months on how to get this resolved.

My previous solution, upload to youtube, and download the re-encoded MP4 file. 

But midibz13's solution is a lot quicker and straight forward and I think better quality as well.  I wish Premiere Pro will let me skip this step in the future, but for right now, I think I can be happy with this solution.  The files off VLC are tiny and don't take much time to re-encode.

[bobbeh]

Woop!

Solution works for me too, thanks.

Here's the comparison of my mine in mediainfo.

BEFORE                                                   AFTER

The only real difference I can see is the original is VBR, the reencoded version is CBR.

I guess PP doesn't support VBR.

[rufusclyde]

Thanks. I had the exact same problem yesterday, after using UScreenCapture within VLC to capture my screen, and save it as an mp4. This seemed to work perfectly last spring, but now gives the pink and green double image like above in Pp CS 5.5, despite playing fine VLC and media player. However, Freemake's Video Converter fixed the problem!! Thank you.

[LoganStrike]

I had a similar issue after installing Premiere Pro CS5.5 on a new late 2015 iMac. Imported videos looked correct in the Source monitor window, but looked green and purple in the Program sequence monitor. I fixed it by simply right clicking on the Program: Sequence 01 window and choosing Fields > Display Both Fields. This corrected the colors I was seeing. I tested an export to h.264 format and that looks correct as well.

Hope this helps in case someone else finds this thread.