The H264 Codec in Premiere Pro CS6 Creates Files with Variable Frame Rates

[Alan Romain]

The AVI is coming next, I live in a small town with no fibre optics, so only 1 mb upload speed.

[Alan Romain]

Here's a section of AVI that contains the problem parts

[Alan Romain]

Here's an export from a clean section of another problematic AVI file, to H264, which shows a constant frame rate in MediaInfo.

[Alan Romain]

Please keep in mind that my goal is not to simply modify the headers to convince MediaInfo that the exported H264 video has a constant frame rate. I am looking for a way to repair the AVI file structure so that the exports to H264 result in constant framerate, without compromising the AVI video quality. Thank you for helping me, I very much appreciate your time.

[ProWo]

Here's the exported result to H264:

There are missing frames between frame 640 and frame 641.


[Attachment 77360 - Click to enlarge]
[Attachment 77361 - Click to enlarge]

[Alan Romain]

No, ProWo, that's just two different parts joined together.

[Alwyn]

I'd open one of these dodgy AVIs in VirtualDub2 and export it in AVI as a Lagarith or UT Video (AVI), and see if that fixes the VFR. I reckon it will.

[Alan Romain]

Thanks Alwyn, I haven't used that program in years, but I will try that out of curiosity. It might be a solution in a pinch, but it would reduce the quality, so I couldn't do this for my big documentary project. Also, given that I've tried every codec that Premiere Pro has without success, I doubt if VD will make a difference.

[Alwyn]

but it would reduce the quality

You won't get any quality loss going from AVI to lossless AVI (at least that's my understanding; I've been wrong before!).

I use that technique to work on files in VDub or AVISynth then send them back into my editor as lossless AVIs.

[Alan Romain]

I will look into that Alwyn, thanks.

[poisondeathray]

There is nothing wrong with the AVI . There is nothing to fix with the AVI.

As you wrote, it's just edited, with 2 parts. This is not a problem.

Frame Count: 849

Absolute time	DV timecode range        	Recorded date/time range                         	Frame range
00:00:00.000	00:38:55;08 - 00:39:17;05	2008-09-28 09:11:30     - 2008-09-28 09:11:52    	       0 -      655
00:00:21.888	00:39:53;29 - 00:40:00;11	2008-09-28 09:12:29     - 2008-09-28 09:12:35    	     656 -      848

No identified errors

When I put the AVI into a PP 1080p29.97 sequence, it exports h264 as CFR

Can you reproduce the problem with that AVI file you uploaded ? (maybe the way you cut it "fixed" it ? , or maybe you uploaded the wrong file ?)



If I were to guess, upgrading versions will probably "feel" safer for you . You don't have to re-do projects, you can open older PP projects in newer PP versions

If there is no problem with the exports other than "VFR" according to mediainfo, easiest, fastest by far is mp4fpsmod . You could batch fix all the exports in the time it takes you to download a new PP version

Your other options were already given, and "fixing" the AVI is not one of them because there is nothing wrong with it .

The problem is either something local to your computer, or install of PP, or perhaps that version of PP (maybe that point release had a bug). As I wrote earlier, I've never , ever seen that problem over many years working with many versions of PP including CS6


FYI - If that MP4 is typical of something you're uploading to the distributor, something like that will usually get rejected on the QC side , because of quality and text is barely legible - it's been poorly deinterlaced

[Alan Romain]

poisondeathray I appreciate that you took the time to test the AVI for errors and export it to H264. BTW, I sent the attachments for troubleshooting purposes only, and on the one with the small print I didn't bother upscaling, it's just an old AVI that I was testing for this. I would never upscale a 4:3 video containing titles. I know what I'm doing when it comes to filmmaking. Back to the topic, this may mean that there is something wrong with my PP CS6, although I still have questions in my head. You saw the report I pasted from WinFF regarding the timestamp breaks. Well, if I export the section containing those frames to H264, I get variable frame rate, but if I export another section I get constant frame rate. But now that you tell me that you get CFR with that AVI containing that section, that changes allot. And yes if I export the cut out AVI, I get VFR. Upgrading PP is not an option. If anyone else has CS6, it would be interesting to know what your results would be if you exported the AVI to H264. Does MediaInfo report the mp4 as having VFR.

[_Al_]

might be the time to test that Voukoder

[poisondeathray]

Do you at least have the latest PP CS6 ? CS6.0.2 ?

[Alwyn]

I saved it as a LAGS AVI and the FrameRate information in Mediainfo changed:


[Attachment 77364 - Click to enlarge]

[poisondeathray]

Note that "Lossless" YUV codecs like lagarith, huffyuv, magicyuv, utvideo, etc... are not "lossless" in PP - they get mishandled as RGB , levels clipped . So for a DV source, it wouldn't be a good idea (or at the minimum, you'd have at least legalized levels first, but you'd still have some YUV=>RGB losses. PP has a YUV capable timeline)

[ProWo]

As i said in post #2:
Use clever FFmpeg-GUI to fix it.

Used your Problem Section Exported to H.264.mp4.
See the result.


[Attachment 77368 - Click to enlarge]

How to use:
Load your mp4, click main, click various.
The framerate should be detected automatically.
Click Fix. Done.


[Attachment 77369 - Click to enlarge]

[ivanb]

Here's the exported result to H264:

Well, I can confirm that MediaInfo is correct here:


[Attachment 77370 - Click to enlarge]

After 730 "normal" frames there is one, which has a slightly less duration (33.333...ms vs 33.366... expected, which corresponds to 30fps frame duration). Then there are again 106 "normal" frames.

I guess that might be related to your cut, though I don't understand why PP took incomplete frame from your source here. It looks like a bug to me

[Alan Romain]

Not sure how to reply to specific comments I only see a button for Reply to Thread

Alwyn, I tried VirtualDub to convert to lagorith, then exported the resulting file to h264 and it was back to VFR. Besides, the video quality was not good. Thank you.

[Alan Romain]

ProWo
As mentioned, I have tried countless GUI's (ffmeg) on the exported h264 that convinced mediainfo to report Constant, but if I re-export those files again it results in variable frame rate. I'm not going to pay for an app only to find out it does the same.

I do very much appreciate your time ProWo, and if you have a chance to export that new H264 file from CS6, please let me know the results.

thank you

[Alan Romain]

Ivanb, That's very interesting, and that's just a small sample of such AVI files, which makes me wonder how the rest is being interpreted. How did you get mediainfo to report this. I'll have to take another look at it. thank you.

[Alan Romain]

_Al_, I think you're right, it's about that time to test Voukoder. THank you.

[Alan Romain]

Given what I have learned so far, I am not completely convinced that my PP CS6 has a bug. Rather, the particular H264 codec it uses recognizes the variance between 29.97 and 30 fps and thus reports it as such, and subsequent upgrades to this codec simply report things differently. Bearing in mind that the CS5 H264 codec behaved quite differently again than this CS6 version. With that in mind, and unless someone knows of a way to permanently resolve the true variance in the AVI's I think I will just have to use My MP4box GUI to change the frame rate reporting of the final H264 to constant. It does this almost instantly and without touching the actual video. I would appreciate the admins leaving the discussion open for a while longer to see if anyone has anything else to add, at which point I will make my final decisions. Again, I am grateful for everyone's help. I have volunteered years of my life to helping others, and it's nice to know some of it is finally coming back to me. Have a great weekend.

[Alan Romain]

Interesting discovery and possibly the solution I will use. Exporting the AVI's that have this 29.97 to 30 fps variance to Quicktime's H.264 codec does in fact result in a file that reports a Constant Frame Rate to MediaInfo. The difference being that it uses the mov container as opposed to mp4, but I do believe this will be acceptable. The reason why I avoided this H.264 codec is that I have read many discussions, mostly in the Adobe discussion groups, where Adobe employees themselves have suggested that Quicktime's H.264 is inferior to Adobe's own native H.264 codec. Testing this theory, I just zoomed in as close as possible frame by frame to compare the two, and I see no difference whatsoever. The only thing I found concerning is that the Quicktime H.264 codec doesn't allow you to specify the profile, but like the other, it does allow you to specify the key frame distance. As it turns out, I was happy to see an M=1 reference frame for a Main Profile, whereas Premiere's H.264 uses M=4 for Main Profile and M=3 for High.

Not surprisingly, if I re-export the MOV file back out to Premiere's native h.264, I'm back to a variable frame rate, because it is still seeing that pesky little 29.97 to 30 variance. Still, I think the Quicktime H.264 export is going to be my solution.

Not to start up a huge debate here, but in this painful 7 week struggle, I came across a number of very convincing technical experts who argued that most videos do in fact have a variable frame rate, but the creators of these codecs have a set of industry standards they need to follow that determines how these things are interpreted and reported. I don't know how true this is, but there have been some very strong arguments in that regard.

It seems that I got stuck with a version of the H.264 codec that may have slipped through the cracks, but it does not in any way affect the quality and performance of these videos.

Thanks for reading

[Alan Romain]

Hello people, I guess my troubles aren't quite over. I am trying to export the full sequence now to Quicktime's H.264, and it seems to go smoothly with close to 100% CPU usage and around 75% of designated Ram, then when it hits a section where there's allot of complex effects and transitions the CPU goes down to 20% or lower and the Ram usage goes down to let's say 50% then Premiere Crashes. I have exported the full sequence (33 minutes) over a dozen times recent weeks with no issues, so I am at a loss. Thinking it might be a Quicktime problem, I tried to export to Premiere's own H.264 and same thing, it crashes atthe 3/4 mark.
Any Ideas.

[poisondeathray]

Hello people, I guess my troubles aren't quite over. I am trying to export the full sequence now to Quicktime's H.264, and it seems to go smoothly with close to 100% CPU usage and around 75% of designated Ram, then when it hits a section where there's allot of complex effects and transitions the CPU goes down to 20% or lower and the Ram usage goes down to let's say 50% then Premiere Crashes. I have exported the full sequence (33 minutes) over a dozen times recent weeks with no issues, so I am at a loss. Thinking it might be a Quicktime problem, I tried to export to Premiere's own H.264 and same thing, it crashes atthe 3/4 mark.
Any Ideas.

Change back to whatever state you had before - if it exported successfully dozens of times. eg. If you updated something like windows update or some drivers recently - rollback

The usual checklist:
Check temps and cooling
Clear Adobe Cache
Crash during effects suggests GPU issue - check drivers, cooling
Can try switching to CPU instead of Mercury Playback Engine

[Alan Romain]

Thank you for the response pdr. I did in fact try a different driver for my NVIDIA card because I have had issues with crashing previously when exporting, but not when exporting to H.264, so this is new to my recollection. With my old Graphics card, Premiere rarely ever crashed, but with this new one GTX 1050, it happens with complex effects and transitions. NVIDIA says my system may be too old for this newer card, but it's the only one that would work at all. Anyway, they suggested I try this last release driver for Win 7, so i will do that first before rolling back. I know it's time for a new system, and I will be working on that in the near future. Being a senior on a low income really sucks. Will also try your switching to CPU. But still wonder why the CPU usage went down so low just before the crash.

[Alan Romain]

I'm also wondering if the Project file got corrupted because I've done so much experimenting with it.

[poisondeathray]

But still wonder why the CPU usage went down so low just before the crash.

Possibly Overheating => Throttling

I'm also wondering if the Project file got corrupted because I've done so much experimenting with it.

Unlikely ; and if it got corrupted - it's more likely that you couldn't open it at all in PP

Incremental saves and auto backups is the way to go for larger or important projects just in case

[Alan Romain]

Thank you.

Is there a way to prevent the overheating. Would selecting Optimize Rendering for Memory instead of Performance help?