Pan & Zoom is failing me in 4.0.2.

If I do a video mixdown of a sequence with a Pan & Zoom effect in V2 that dissolves at the end (25 frame dissolve aligned to finish with clip end) so it fades to V1, it cuts to black when the dissolve starts and just dissolves from black instead of from my clip. It doesn't do this when you scrub along the original timeline. If I render the Pan & Zoom effect itself BEFORE mixing down, it works fine.

This is absurd and very frustrating as I keep finding glitches at late stages of output to DVD. I don't want to have to go through and manually render individual Pan & Zoom effects every time I need to output.

Frustrating!!  Does the same thing happen if you collapse (on a duplicate sequence) V2 and V1 around the P+Z before doing a mixdown.

Ouch!

I hope this gets fixed soon. I use P&Z regularly, great tool! We're also planning to upgrade to MC4 soon.

This is not a P&Z bug, rather a videomixdown-and-unrendered-effects problem, it does also happen with nested or multiple non real time effects (like P&Z, high quality timewarp, BCC, and whichever blue dot fx You may possibly name), not a bug really, it's just MC not smart enough with multiple effects; You don't have to manually render every single effect if You're smarter than the software: search for expert render in the help, and be aware that some nested effects still will need stepping into them and manual render.hth

To the moderators: I find it disappointing to have people complaining about supposedly broken features or software bugs just because the software doesn't work the way they want it to work and don't carefully read the manual, I think that alarming/misleading title threads like this one should be rectified...

luca.mg:

I find it disappointing to have people complaining about supposedly broken features or software bugs just because the software doesn't work the way they want it to work and don't carefully read the manual,

Luca ...  Swil has been a contributing member to these forums for 6 years or more. If this is a problem that shows up in a new install of MC4 after not doing so for them with P&Z for many years in early versions then I think the heading is appropriate to the problem described.  I would have to say I have very rarely seen problems with any of the effects you mention and I almost never render but just mixdown at the end.

Hey guys I tend to agree that we shouldn't have to live with these little annoying glitches but I seriously can't understand for life of me why there is no rotation yet! So after paying good dollars for what is the best editor by far no doubt about it but why am I using Stagetools PZ ? this issue needs to be addressed they simply can't go on relying on Boris Effects or other 3rd party effects to bolster their arsenal of effects seeing that the competition offers more in the way of Bling!

 

Ps isn't a mixdown really just a render?

 

 

Javier

Every unrendered multiple/nested fx containing a blue dot fx, or more streams than the hardware can manage for that matter, will give wrong results in a videomixdown, and this is not new: it's the way it is; in older ABVB/Meridien releases some unrendered multiple effects looked fine in a videomixdon just because the system took the time to calculate every single frame (as if it was rendering) while writing to disk the videomixdown, this would take ages on that hardware. As a P&Z fx at the top quality is a blue dot effect, and in this case is sitting on V2 and is faded in/out, this is exactly a scenario in which the videomixdown will look wrong as there are too many overlapping effects; if You want to verify what I'm saying by Yourself make a 3 clips test sequence, apply a reverse play timewarp to the middle clip, alt drag a PiP to it, dissolve with the previous and following clip, do not render and do a videomixdown: see the relulting clip and say it is a bug! Now step into the PiP and render the timewarp, videomixdown again: it will look fine; this will happen with realtime effects too when You stack more effects than Your hardware can manage; as smart rendering is not smart enough to deal with this kind of multiple effects (as deeply discussed somewhere else in the forum), You'll have to step into the effect and manually render it, but again, this is not a bug but a feature that needs improments. I do not mean that I like this way of handling effects, but this is the way it is, and it's not a broken feature, but of course it is something that could and has to be improved.

luca.mg:

To the moderators: I find it disappointing to have people complaining about supposedly broken features or software bugs just because the software doesn't work the way they want it to work and don't carefully read the manual, I think that alarming/misleading title threads like this one should be rectified...

What on earth are you talking about? I don't care how long this has been around, it is clearly a bug when a mixdown renders incorrectly. I may have incorrectly reported it being a P&Z problem as opposed to a general one applying to certain forms of plugin, but it's still a bug. I wouldn't mind if the title was changed to "Video mixdown broken in 4.0.2", but the word "broken" definitely still applies.

It's not "supposedly broken", a video mixdown rendering incorrectly is clearly a broken feature that needs to be fixed - the only valid argument here would be one over priority.

Avid have been doing a great job of making their software work more intuivitively and reliably over the last couple of years - I don't think they're making any silly "not a bug - just the way it works" excuses any more, we should also stop making those excuses for them.

Swil, don't get upset, nothing personal, but: if an effect is not real time it will look wrong/bad in a videomixdown,

Swil:

it is clearly a bug when a mixdown renders incorrectly.

please note that a videomixdown is not a render, it just writes a sequence to a file (or a portion of a seq), when it deals with realtime effects it's up to the job, when there's a blue dot effect it fails, this is the way it is, because, again, a videomixdown is not a render and will not render while in progress; there's room for improvement, as stated, but this is a topic for the feature request forum and the thread should read "improve videomixdown"...

Who's upset? Don't mistake a strong opinion for an emotional one ;)

This is not a feature request. The simple fact is, when you do a video mixdown of a sequence, the result should be the exact equivelant of the fully rendered playback of a sequence. Anything else is illogical, unintuitive, and despite what you said earlier about reading the documentation, undocumented.

Please point to the part of the MC4 documentation that says video mixdowns might need you to render certain effects beforehand. I can't find it, and for good reason - the only place it belongs in the documentation is a Known Issues section. The documentation actually recommends performing video mixdowns for when there are complex effects being used, and mentions nothing about rendering individual effects in the procedure.

luca.mg:

if an effect is not real time it will look wrong/bad in a videomixdown

Huh? Had never heard that. Not in the manual either. Should work the same as with QTRef, renders effects (of any dot type) as you order it.

Swil:

I don't want to have to go through and manually render individual Pan & Zoom effects every time I need to output.

Although I agree with your original point, a workaround would be to (Expert) Render the sequence before doing the video mixdown. That should not take longer, since the Video Mixdown needs to render whatever is unrendered anyway, and if you've already rendered, then the mixdown will take less time.

Just saying.

Job ter Burg:

luca.mg:

if an effect is not real time it will look wrong/bad in a videomixdown

Huh? Had never heard that. Not in the manual either. Should work the same as with QTRef, renders effects (of any dot type) as you order it.

Your videomixdown needs to render all effects first, doesn't it? If that's not what's happening on your system then perhaps you've found a bug... I'm going to give this a try with 4.0.2, just to confirm.

I'm not a massive fan of mixdowns - especially with capricious producers - so cant say I've seen this issue.  What I have seen many times is a popup after incomplete renders on complex sequences stating I need to 'render nested effects' first.

As a workflow I always render timewarps (esp fluid motion) as I go along as it is likely they will end up with a few finishing effects on top at a later stage. Not rendering often causes render error issues as described, so I guess its a good workaround to consider.

D

Job ter Burg:

luca.mg:

if an effect is not real time it will look wrong/bad in a videomixdown

Huh? Had never heard that. Not in the manual either. Should work the same as with QTRef, renders effects (of any dot type) as you order it.

The above should read "if an UNRENDERED effect is not real time it will look wrong/bad in a videomixdown"; to cut a long story short: a videomixdown is not a replacement for expert render and/or render in-out, and in my modest experience real time effects translate fine to videomixdon even if unrendered, the problem pops up with blue dot effects only. While export to QT ref renders (any dot type) effects as needed, videomixdown doesn't; it may not be in the manual (and I do not see why it should be there in the first place, what do you want, a line stating "this is not render in-out, it's videomxdown"?!)  but still it is a fact since the Adrenaline came out.