7 Replies Latest reply: Nov 10, 2014 7:10 PM by A.T. Romano RSS

    Pixellated footage in Premiere Elements

    RossCronshaw Community Member
    RossCronshaw Nov 7, 2014 9:48 AM

      Hi guys,

       

      Struggling to get my footage to stop pixellating when it's in the monitor panel of Elements.

       

      The footage itself is coming from the NVIDIA GeForce 'Shadow Play' application, so is coming out as an MP4 file.
      When I add the footage to Elements, the image in the monitor panel looks fine. As soon as I start to play the footage, it pixellates and plays in a very non-smooth "jittery" fashion. If I pause, the still image looks just fine. It only pixellates again when I click 'play'.
      Upon Rendering the footage the whole clip becomes pixellated, not just the still images, and the resolution actually becomes worse.

       

      I've looked through a few guides on the web - upon going to "Interpret Footage" in the "Project Assets" tab, I tried messing around with the Pixel Aspect Ratio, unfortunately to no avail. Exactly the same problem happens every time.

       

      Any help that can be provided would be greatly appreciated!

       

      Many thanks,

      Ross

        • 1. Re: Pixellated footage in Premiere Elements
          A.T. Romano Community Member
          A.T. Romano Nov 7, 2014 4:32 PM (in response to RossCronshaw)

          Ross

           

          Let us start at the beginning and work through the details.

           

          What version of Premiere Elements are you using and on what computer operating system is it running?

           

          What are the properties of the source file (besides just the .mp4 file extension) from NVIDIA GeForce Shadow Play?

          I am looking for video compression, audio compression, frame size, frame rate, interlaced or progressive, pixel aspect ratio?

           

          What is the project preset that is being set by you (manually) or the project automatically (if 11, 12, or 13 is involved)? Please

          See Edit Menu/Project Settings/General and the readings for Editing Mode, Timebase, Frame Size, and Pixel Aspect Ratio.

          I am particularly interested in whether or not the video recording is made with a variable or constant frame rate.

          There is a free properties readout program named MediaInfo which would give you this information. I am hesitant to suggest

          its use because of issues of carry along unwanted software with the download. Let us see what we can do without it.

           

          NVIDIA GeForce Shadow Play and Premiere Elements has a deja vu ring to it. Let me dust off my memory and do some thread

          searching to see if I can find the thread that I think that I am remembering related to NVIDIA GeForce Shadow Play and some

          version of Premiere Elements.

           

          Looking forward to your follow up.

           

          ATR

          • 2. Re: Pixellated footage in Premiere Elements
            A.T. Romano Community Member
            A.T. Romano Nov 7, 2014 4:40 PM (in response to RossCronshaw)

            Ross

             

            Posting this now for just in case later.

             

            Conversion of your Shadow Play video to H.264.mp4 in HandBrake

            https://handbrake.fr/

             

            Focus is under the Video Tab

            Video Codec H.264 (x264)

            Frame Rate - to be discussed

            dot next to Constant for frame rate

             

            More details to follow when we have more basic details of your project setup and details of the source media.

             

            ATR

            • 3. Re: Pixellated footage in Premiere Elements
              RossCronshaw Community Member
              RossCronshaw Nov 8, 2014 3:18 AM (in response to A.T. Romano)

              In response to the questions in order:

               

              "What version of Premiere Elements are you using and on what computer operating system is it running?"
              I'm running Premiere Elements 12 on a Windows computer with Windows 7 operating system.

               

              "What are the properties of the source file (besides just the .mp4 file extension) from NVIDIA GeForce Shadow Play?

              I am looking for video compression, audio compression, frame size, frame rate, interlaced or progressive, pixel aspect ratio?"

              I'm not sure where to find video compression, audio compression or whether it's interlaced or progressive - where can I find that?

              As for Frame Size, Frame Rate and Pixel Aspect Ratio; size is 1920x1080, frame rate is 59.87 and pixel aspect ratio is 1.0 (square pixels)


              "What is the project preset that is being set by you (manually) or the project automatically (if 11, 12, or 13 is involved)? Please

              See Edit Menu/Project Settings/General and the readings for Editing Mode, Timebase, Frame Size, and Pixel Aspect Ratio.

              I am particularly interested in whether or not the video recording is made with a variable or constant frame rate."

              Editing mode: HD 1080i
              Timebase: 25.00 frames/second

              Frame Size: 1920x1080

              Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square Pixels (1.0)


              I'll look at converting the footage as well, see if that helps.
              Hope all the above information is useful!

               

              Many thanks for your reply!

              • 4. Re: Pixellated footage in Premiere Elements
                RossCronshaw Community Member
                RossCronshaw Nov 8, 2014 3:37 AM (in response to A.T. Romano)

                Just a small update I found interesting;

                 

                I tried saving the footage to see what it would look like outside of Elements.
                When I played the movie, it looked a LOT better. It wasn't pixellated or grainy at all and it ran very smoothly, so the problem seems to have fixed itself after saving the footage.

                 

                The resolution however was still nowhere near as clear as the original footage was.

                It was by no means terrible, but the end resolution didn't look anything like 1920x1080.
                It looked like when you play a YouTube video and change the quality settings to lower than 720p, if that makes sense?

                 

                I might not be making sense, and I apologise for that. Basically the end quality is looking lower than the original footage.

                • 5. Re: Pixellated footage in Premiere Elements
                  A.T. Romano Community Member
                  A.T. Romano Nov 8, 2014 11:13 AM (in response to RossCronshaw)

                  RossCronshaw

                   

                  Thanks for the follow up.

                   

                  If you have 1920 x 1080 @ 59.87 frames per second....I am reading into that

                  a. you have 1920 x 1080 @ 59.87 progressive frames per second and you have using the wrong project preset

                  b. @59.87, instead of 59.94 or 69, I am assuming that your video is being recorded with a variable rather than a constant frame rate

                   

                  Suggestions...

                   

                  a. HandBrake to change the 59.87 variable frame rate to a constant frame rate of 59.94.

                  This will give you a H.264.mp4 (1920 x 1080 @ 59.94 progressive frames per second) file.

                  If you need information on HandBrake workflow, please let us know. It should be a task focused at

                  variable to constant frame rate, but we may have to setup the bitrate.

                  b. Import the H.264.mp4 file from HandBrake into Premiere Elements 12/12.1, using the project preset

                  NTSC

                  AVCHD

                  AVCHD 1080p60

                  (Before you import your H.264.mp4 from HandBrake set this project preset manually using the instructions at the bottom of the following blog post

                  ATR Premiere Elements Troubleshooting: PE11: Accuracy of Automatic Project Preset (New Project Dialog) Setting

                   

                  Export settings are another matter. And, we can discuss the details of that next when we have further

                  information of your export intentions and requirements.

                   

                  Prime thought with project preset is that it should match the properties of your source media.

                   

                  More later.

                   

                  ATR

                  • 6. Re: Pixellated footage in Premiere Elements
                    RossCronshaw Community Member
                    RossCronshaw Nov 10, 2014 4:38 AM (in response to A.T. Romano)

                    Hi, sorry for the late reply - I was away over the weekend without access to my computer!

                     

                    I've just tried putting the video through HandBrake with the settings you suggested before importing it into Premiere Elements.
                    After rendering, however, the same thing is still happening, unfortunately.
                    The video playback in the monitor panel is still very pixellated and choppy.

                    • 7. Re: Pixellated footage in Premiere Elements
                      A.T. Romano Community Member
                      A.T. Romano Nov 10, 2014 7:10 PM (in response to RossCronshaw)

                      Ross

                       

                      Thanks for the replies.

                       

                      Let me back up a little. Have we gotten to the point where your export of your Timeline is fine, and your problems are centered around

                      previewing your Timeline content before export? Is that correct?

                       

                      If that is correct, please remind me

                      a. is there an orange line over the Timeline content when you are playing it back in the Edit area?

                      b. does it might a difference in what you are seeing in the Edit area monitor if you right click the monitor, select

                      Playback Quality, and then switch the Playback Quality from Automatic to Highest?

                      c. does it make a difference if you go to Edit Menu/Preferences/General and change "Timeline render quality (valid for HD project)" to

                      "High Quality, Slow speed"?

                       

                      ATR