Why are there jumps in this WMV?

[Bencuri]

I have exported a project into WMV recently. The input files are all the same format: Full HD 60p mp4's, they are the same in every feature, except for their length of course. The output is also Full HD 60 fps (WMV), but interestingly there are jumps in it. There are no jumps in the input files. I also checked the frames of the output file in the editor, and I didn't find any missing frame. So this might not be the case for the jumps. However the jumps are always at the same point (or about the same) in the video. No matter what format I convert this WMV to, the jumps remain. Could you help how to get rid of it?

I attached a downconverted version of the WMV concerned. The jumps are still there. They appear at different parts, but they always appear for example in scene: 0:34-0:41. I did not find any irregularity when I scanned the video in the editor. I tried to open it in VirtualDUB, too, but that doesn't support this filetype. Also it didn't open the MP4 that I made from the WMV by Xilisoft converter.

Here is also the WMV concerned, but it is big. However it is on a fast server, it can download in 1 minute if you have cable internet:
http://wtrns.fr/z2s9sLPs36mwhq5

[Baldrick]

Didn't you post a similar thread about this recently? It's easier to know what you have done if you use one thread for all similar problems.

[El Heggunte]

WMV is never a recommended codec, unless you know very-well what you're doing. Older implementations from Microsoft required 2-passes plus unconstrained bitrate, if you intended to avoid dropped frames in your encodes. After the Windows Media Format 11 and the VC-1 SDKs, this problem still may happen if you use 1-pass constant bitrate OR 2-passes plus a constrained bitrate. As I really don't like fancy GUIs nor one-click wonders, I highly recommend you either the WMCmd.vbs file by Alex Zambelli, or MainConcept Reference, which is based on a SDK that has nothing to do with Microsoft's implementation of the same codec.

[El Heggunte]

I have downloaded the attachment, and opened it in VirtualDub (yes, you need to install the WMV9 VfW codec, or ffdshow).
I don't know what you meant by "jump". Possibly the file was muxed improperly, and the ASF splitter used by your "favorite" media player didn't like it


P.S.: WeTransfer.com says:

To use WeTransfer, please install the latest version of Adobe Flash Player

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[jagabo]

I haven't see the video yet but WMV dynamically reduces the frame rate when it determines there is too little bitrate for the video. So a 30 fps video may have sections encoded at 15 fps or 10 fps.

[Bencuri]

Didn't you post a similar thread about this recently? It's easier to know what you have done if you use one thread for all similar problems.

Yes, it is true that there was a similar thread, but there I asked specifically about the mp4's that my camcorder outputs, so I thought as this is about WMV, it might be better to open a different thread.

[El Heggunte]

OK, this time I paid more attention to the clip, and yes, this time I did notice that at least 2 or 3 frames were skipped during the re-encode to WMV. If you check the frame count of the source video and the frame count of the re-encoded video, probably you'll find the respective values are different.

Bottom line is, try to follow the "recipes" I suggested, OR choose a better codec

[jagabo]

I've seen the video now. I saw places where there was a duplicate frame every 60 frames, and possibly a skipped frame immediately after. For example the long panning shot that starts at about 35 seconds in. Bad parsing of the source video?

[Bencuri]

I have done this project with Windows Movie maker, because that was so easy to use, and as I am a beginner in editing, I found the editor interface in the Adobe Premier and Sony Vegas too unfamiliar, and complicated. So that's the reason for the WMV extension. Anyway it is not a problem for me if I have to convert it to another format, I just want to get rid of the jumps.

On the other hand, I have to correct a mistake here. I wrote in the starting thread that the input files were mp4s. It was an error. They were also WMV files (but the rest was correct: so the same fps and resolution). I forgot that I had the RAW mp4s stabilised with Mercalli, and fed the Movie maker with those. But when I play those stabilised WMVs, the playback is okay. Sometimes there are jumps, but always at different sections of the video, so it is more a player issue I guess. However in this project output, the difference is that jumps occur at similar points in the video and don't even disappear when you downconvert the video to a poor format. But in the video I didn't notice problem with the frames. However I am not an expert.

If you consider these things you might suspect that something is going on with the frames. But I tested a 30p version of this project output file, that also has jumps at particular points regularly, and when I played that on my friend's HDTV, the sections where I have jumps here on my computer did't have jumps, there were regular jumps at other points. So after this I am totally confused. Unfortunately I cannot test this file on my TV because that only reads mp4, and when I feed the TV with mp4s converted from this WMV, the playback is terrible, the video stucks continuously in every 2 second.

[Bencuri]

I've seen the video now. I saw places where there was a duplicate frame every 60 frames, and possibly a skipped frame immediately after. For example the long panning shot that starts at about 35 seconds in. Bad parsing of the source video?

Does it help if I upload the input file for that scene?

[Bencuri]

OK, this time I paid more attention to the clip, and yes, this time I did notice that at least 2 or 3 frames were skipped during the re-encode to WMV. If you check the frame count of the source video and the frame count of the re-encoded video, probably you'll find the respective values are different.

Bottom line is, try to follow the "recipes" I suggested, OR choose a better codec

Excuse me, but I think you made a mistake. Here these were no source files attached. The souce for both files was a Movie Maker project, and these are the output files.

[Bencuri]

To use WeTransfer, please install the latest version of Adobe Flash Player

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There are no ads on the Wetransfer download page, don't worry. It is just a nice gaphical page with the download button. I don't bombard you with ads.

[El Heggunte]

If you install the WMV input plugin (by fccHandler), you can edit and convert the source WMV files to .AVIs with VirtualDub.

http://gral.y0.pl/~fcchandler/

There are no ads on the Wetransfer download page, don't worry. It is just a nice gaphical page with the download button. I don't bombard you with ads.

The problem is not in the (non-existent) ads, the problem is in the site itself.
.SWF files are totally unsuitable for web surfing, web sites must depend on HTML and javascript only.

[Bencuri]

To reply to the question: what jumps I mean: so when I play this on my newest laptop, the Lenovo B560, the file thanks to the 60p plays quite smoothly. But at some points, and every time at the same or around that point, what happens is an effect as if the video would got stuck. The panning is non constant, but it seems as if there was a cut there in the video.

some sceens are perfect. But this particular scene I mentioned in the starting thread has 2 jumps every time at more or like the same points I play the video: a little after the brown trashbin appears, and when the other big box appears. It is just happening to fast, so I cannot tell it by milliseconds. When I analyze the video in the editor, I cannot recognise those jumps, so I cannot tell at which fame this jump starts.

Anyway this video is form the file of my Sanyo FH1 camcorder. You (Jagabo) analyzed those for a member here who needed help, and you found that camcorder is making every 2nd frame duplicate. So maybe the duplicate frame result from this quality of the RAW file of the camcorder. But anyhow, these jumps doesn't appear in the input WMV video, that is the stabilised video of the RAW mp4s from Mercalli.

[jagabo]

I've seen the video now. I saw places where there was a duplicate frame every 60 frames, and possibly a skipped frame immediately after. For example the long panning shot that starts at about 35 seconds in. Bad parsing of the source video?

Does it help if I upload the input file for that scene?

We'll then be able to tell if the jumps were in that file or created by WMM.

[El Heggunte]

Ooops, I have no idea of how I missed this post

....

Excuse me, but I think you made a mistake. Here these were no source files attached. The souce for both files was a Movie Maker project, and these are the output files.

Maybe, but you are missing my whole point anyway.
If your source files are "smooth", then Windows Movie Maker makes them *bad*.
And if your source files are "jerky" already, then Windows Movie Maker makes them *worse*.

Unfortunately, WMM doesn't give us many choices. You can save your projects as DV .AVIs, but then you are limited to PAL and NTSC framerates and resolutions, plus huge filesizes. And if you choose to output to WMV (read: ASF), you have to deal with the inconsistencies of a half-assed container (Active Streaming Format) and a braindead codec implementation (how wise is to replace blocky frames or blurry frames with duplicated frames ? At least ffmpeg let's you encode to WMV2 with zero dropped frames and to an AVI file instead of an ASF one).

[Bencuri]

I've seen the video now. I saw places where there was a duplicate frame every 60 frames, and possibly a skipped frame immediately after. For example the long panning shot that starts at about 35 seconds in. Bad parsing of the source video?

Does it help if I upload the input file for that scene?

We'll then be able to tell if the jumps were in that file or created by WMM.

I have uploaded the input file that was used for the scene that starts at 0:34 in the project export video. Here is it:

https://www.wetransfer.com/dl/4L1htzbq/476ba1ca112da54ddc77ba8c6d8b71a2adfe944943d6468...b45fea35fbdfe4

I haven't noticed such jumps in it like the ones that occur in the project export.

[jagabo]

The computer I'm on right now couldn't quite keep up when playing that video in a media player -- so it was a little jerky. But single stepping through the video it looks perfectly smooth.

<edit>
Windows Media Player played it smoothly. I was using MPCHC earlier.

[El Heggunte]

.....
<edit>
Windows Media Player played it smoothly. I was using MPCHC earlier.

That's normal, WMP source-code is optimized for WMV playback.

[ AND/OR, equally possible, Windows itself is programmed to screw the playback of ASF files in other applications ].

[jagabo]

[ AND/OR, equally possible, Windows itself is programmed to screw the playback of ASF files in other applications ].

That wouldn't surprise me. I did notice that MPCHC wasn't using DXVA while playing the video. But I believe 1080p60 WMV is beyond the DXVA spec.

I had a chance to play it on another computer with a more powerful graphics card. The WMV video played smoothly there with DXVA.

[Bencuri]

[ AND/OR, equally possible, Windows itself is programmed to screw the playback of ASF files in other applications ].

I had a chance to play it on another computer with a more powerful graphics card. The WMV video played smoothly there with DXVA.

You mean the input WMV that I sent the last time or the one that was xported from the WMM project?

[jagabo]

[ AND/OR, equally possible, Windows itself is programmed to screw the playback of ASF files in other applications ].

I had a chance to play it on another computer with a more powerful graphics card. The WMV video played smoothly there with DXVA.

You mean the input WMV that I sent the last time or the one that was xported from the WMM project?

This one:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/350308-Why-are-there-jumps-in-this-WMV?p=2195885&vi...=1#post2195885

The one that was the source for the jerky video you originally posted.

[Bencuri]

So the project export video has error then? It seems then it is really WMM that made it wrong. It cannot be converted further to have the jumps disappear?

[jagabo]

I would never use WMV as an intermediate. It's a final delivery format, not an edit-friendly format.

[Bencuri]

The problem is if you select other file types in Mercally to export the video after stabilization, they are either very very big in size, or their quality is poor. You can select mpeg, for example, but maybe that will be 2-3 times larger than this WMV.

On the other hand I did a project earlier with mp4's, I imported them to WMM, and the project output had jumps there too. I just didn't give attention to that back then, because I did that for somebody else, but maybe it is really WMM that is confusing something. Do you think if I redo the project in Pinnacle Studio, the output will be better? I just couldn't figure out what format to use there as output, some are incredibly big, others are poor. WMM exports fast and produces a file in reasonable size. It seemed a practical choice.

[jagabo]

You should use all I frame formats for intermediate files --- uncompressed, lossless compression, MJPEG, very high bitrate MPEG 2, etc. Or only I and P frames with very short GOPs (this avoids frame inaccuracy problems associated with B frames). Live with the large file sizes. They're only temporary files.

[Bencuri]

You should use all I frame formats for intermediate files --- uncompressed, lossless compression, MJPEG, very high bitrate MPEG 2, etc. Or only I and P frames with very short GOPs (this avoids frame inaccuracy problems associated with B frames). Live with the large file sizes. They're only temporary files.

If you use only I and P frames, what GOP value you recommend?

[jagabo]

If you use only I and P frames, what GOP value you recommend?

The longer the GOP the longer it takes for the editor to seek to random frames or play backward. Try something like 3 to 15 depending on how fast your computer and software are.

[Bencuri]

I am very angry beacuse of this WMM, this file would be very good anyway. If I play it on my slowest laptop with Celeron processor, the FullHD video plays fine. But of course there are those disturbing jumps that was mentioned. It is a pity this export didn't go smooth.