9 Replies Latest reply: May 15, 2011 11:55 AM by digiday RSS

    Horizontal Lines in saved AVI preview file

    digiday Community Member

      Hi all,

       

      On another thread I was asking why I was getting an error message when trying to export and save a movie, but now I was able to get a temp AVI file after hitting enter and saving a preview file, but this AVI preview file, which is normally of the same quality of the full saved file I think, has horizontal lines in it that are very obvious compared to the original file... below are the sample still screenshots to compare...

       

                                                      Clean original 720x480 30 fps AVI file

      720x480avi_CLEAN.jpg

       

                     Horizontal lines showing in this Premiere 720x480 30 fps AVI preview file

      PremiereEXPORTED720x480avi_horizontalLINES.jpg

       

      I have a file imported in to the timeline and it is set to play in  reverse via the speed setting being set to -100 and it plays back in the  preview window correctly, in reverse, when I click the play button.

       

      But when I do a  "File>Export Timeline>Movie" command I get an error message saying "An error occurred while making the movie. Error writing file (disk full?)"...  but my hard drive is not nearly full, with over 30 gigs left open on  it... and my RAM usage gadget shows over half of my RAM capacity is  unused.

       

      But I got a temp preview file that was generated after hitting enter to play the preview after I wasn't able to save, and that's how I got this file... and I think the temp files are normally just as sharp as the final saved files because they take just as long to generate when previewing by hitting enter as they do when doing and export and save.

       

      Also, this process saved an 8.5 gigabyte AVI file from a 1.5 megabyte AVI file using the CamStudio codec.


      Another try using the MSU lossless codec produced a 3.5 gigabyte AVI file that looked better, but wouldn't play any faster than about one frame per second after an hour and a half of saving time.

       

      Does anyone have any solutions?... also I see that the new file from Premiere shows a larger screen size, though it was saved at the same 720x480 size as the original was.

       

      Thanks,

       

      numetro

        • 1. Re: Horizontal Lines in saved AVI preview file
          Community Member

          The hard drive uses a pagefile and the program creates files ( like the rendered file you are now using instead of an export file ) and in general if you are getting the message that the disk is full, chances are your disk is getting too full for the program to continue.  You need to check your hard drive carefully and make sure you have enough space on it to work without getting that message.  There are threads here about how to set up your hardware for good editing ( hardware forum ).

           

          The horizontal lines you see are "interlaced" lines....rather than being a "progressive" file... You can use mediainfo and or gspot to find out what your asset is exactly, and then set up project to match that... then export to match THAT....and you should be OK ( once you fix the hard drive problem )

          • 2. Re: Horizontal Lines in saved AVI preview file
            John T Smith CommunityMVP

            My answer in your other message may, or may not, help

            http://forums.adobe.com/thread/852074?tstart=0
            • 3. Re: Horizontal Lines in saved AVI preview file
              digiday Community Member

              Hi robodog and John,

               

              Thanks for your replies.

               

              My screen name is different again since this Adobe forum software has had my email address and screen name messed up and it asks me to change my screen name when I tried to correct an erroneous email address that it was somehow tying me to... I've been numetro, diginumetro, and now digiday... maybe Sally would be good next time I log on.

               

              My hard drive has over 50 gigs open on it, so I don't think it is an actual disk-full problem.  I found that message is completely erroneous since I later was able to save using a different compression codec.  I'm not using a machine from 2001 or whenever it was that Premiere 6 was introduced... I just had an old copy of this app and installed it on a newer Windows 7 machine that is ample for this work.

               

              Robodog's description of interlaced lines appearing in that video sounds right, I guess... but that description of how to deal with it sounds like it should have a an entire Wikipedia website devoted to it to make it doable... there is no hard drive problem since using another codec allows Premiere 6 to save correctly.

               

              The function of reversing the video and simply playing it back in the preview window by hitting the play button works easily enough (ie. not waiting for a temp rendered file) but it is once one goes to save the video that the problems appear... erroneous error messages, interlaced vs progressive... if there is simply a check box to choose one or the other, then that's good, but using mediainfo and or gspot to find out what my (asset?) is exactly, and  then set up project to match that?... then export to match THAT?... where's my Mac... what would Steve do?

               

              Once I was able to save correctly, then Premiere 6 gave me another 4 gig file that played one frame per second... nice.

               

              Since Premiere 6 is quite problematic for some pretty simple tasks, in  this case for saving a video that reversed easily enough, I've gone back to the "Xander's Video Time  Reversal app" and after working with all the options under the sun for a  day and a half, I keep my segments for reversing under two minutes and  XVTR works for this purpose.

               

              How's the afternoon beer been lately robodog?

               

              Enjoy,

               

              digi

              • 4. Re: Horizontal Lines in saved AVI preview file
                Community Member

                ahh, excellent...you have found a workaround .. glad to hear it !

                 

                 

                • 5. Re: Horizontal Lines in saved AVI preview file
                  digiday Community Member

                  Yes, that's what I started with, but it wouldn't render a working file  of reversed video for anything over 2 minutes or so... so that's when I  started trying everything else in the world... including these ridiculous attempts and resulting problems with Premiere trying to handle the complex task of saving a video file correctly.

                   

                  If Apple can make a simple "REVERSE" button in its user friendly iMovie app, why can't anyone else?

                   

                  Originally there was Xander's Video Time Reversal, that worked for me  before and still works for some files, but just won't work on other  slightly longer files and produces blank or unusable files 75 percent of  the time, and Xander's French forum admin committee was asleep at the  wheel while I waited for approval to ask a question.

                   

                  Then there was "Rehan's" method of using two different apps (VirtualDub and Avisynth) and writing AVS script files in notepad... compared to this, it may be easier to have the desired video clip re-enacted in reverse with professional actors and a special effects team than it would be to use Rehan's method.


                  Then there is Stupeflix.com, which seems to be all the name implies since they were bragging about a webpage with an upload button to upload a clip to, and then a download button to get the reversed clip from... but the link for this magic page is nowhere to be found in the conversation on the blog site that was talking about it, and Stupeflix.com itself currently shows no feature of the kind.


                  Then finally at the long awaited end of this of my odyssey, after Premiere and before going back to XVTR, there was "K-5 Video Reversal Tool" and after reading the description about the needed codec pack and deciphering which download button is actually for the Video Reversal Tool and not one of those trick "Download Here" buttons that takes me to a virus laden site in Siberia, I did find a download link for it that is from Cnet.com... but then that app didn't work at all, even for very short, uncompressed AVI files, which it was supposed to handle with no problem... but it would flash a command prompt screen for a quarter second, then give a message stating that it produced the reversed file... which of course, it did not.  And the guy that coded this gem has a chat thing on his K-5 website that he keeps responding to my original question about and he just can't admit that the app doesn't work.

                   

                  I feel like... I've wasted a day and a half... now two days after writing so much.

                   

                  Thanks,

                   

                  digi

                  • 6. Re: Horizontal Lines in saved AVI preview file
                    Community Member

                    glad all this worked out OK for you..can u do me a favor and mark it "solved" or something so I dont keep wasting my time looking at this ??

                     

                    thanks.

                    • 7. Re: Horizontal Lines in saved AVI preview file
                      digiday Community Member

                      No problemo... you get the fuzzy troll doll since you offered the explanation that it is interlaced lines instead of being a progressive file.

                       

                      But that was the only file that I got from fetching the temp file after building a preview instead of saving and it was intended to be saved with the CamStudio codec, but I'm not sure if it was since it wasn't actually saved through the settings box, and it was a temp file that ended up in a folder next to the saved project file.

                       

                      The next and last file that I saved last night with Premiere was with the MSU lossless codec, and it ended up only playing back at about a very choppy one frame per second, but it didn't have the horizontal lines... those lines actually showed up allot more during playback than they did in the screenshots that I posted above... they actually looked like old TVs used to when the reception wasn't very good with an antenna.

                       

                      Is there an "Intelaced" versus "Progressive" check box to select that so next time I'll now?... I may be trying to do a transparency trick with one video on top of another a little later.

                       

                      Thanks,

                       

                      digi

                      • 8. Re: Horizontal Lines in saved AVI preview file
                        Community Member

                        I'm sorry, but I'm sorta losing track of whats up here...I use cs3 and on the export tab there is a checkbox for "deinterlace" which I have to check ( no matter what my export settings are ) for it to be progressive on the export. That usually means I lose half my vertical resolution of an interlaced source asset...so I have to make the progressive thing smaller in dimension to make up for that.

                         


                        unfortunately there have been par changes and other changes through cs3.4.5 that Im not expert on as I only have cs3 for my own experience, and its limited to SD due to a mousey computer.  But others here have the real powerful stuff and can help with hd etc

                         

                        good going on working on this stuff and good luck !

                         

                         

                        • 9. Re: Horizontal Lines in saved AVI preview file
                          digiday Community Member

                          Hi rogodog,

                           

                          I'm still getting the horizontal lines, even with "Deinterlace" turned on... please see this other thread if you have any other ideas...

                           

                          http://forums.adobe.com/thread/852507

                           

                          Thanks,

                           

                          digi