Horrible footage conversion arifacts. HELP!

[Songbird21]

I went to export a beta of my newest vid today and more than half the huffy looked like this:

I've exported it twice. I've tried playing it in different vid players. Nothing has helped. I don't know what this is or how to fix it. Can someone help me?

(I'm running on Windows 7 if that makes a difference)

[Qyot27]

A) What format are the source files in? Lagarith files are known to have that kind of problem on conversion. It's the main reason (aside from the files not showing up at all) I don't edit or do anything prior to archiving with Lagarith. Other people's mileage may vary.

B) Is the Recompress option enabled? (Note: 'Recompress' is Premiere 6.5 terminology; I don't know if the Pro series retains it as 'Recompress' or has a different term) If not, enable it. Recompress makes absolutely sure colorspace weirdness doesn't happen - all source footage is always converted to RGB24 and outputted as such (HuffYUV supports RGB24). Weird crap can happen if Premiere only outputs parts of the export as RGB24 and then attempts to do a direct stream copy of the YUY2 or YV12 parts. Recompress prevents this from happening. To be even more paranoid, this is partly why the guides recommend adding a ConvertToRGB24 or ConvertToRGB32 at the end of any AviSynth scripts you give to Premiere or VirtualDub (VDub for the clip-making process that would then be given to Premiere).

C) What are the dimensions of the export? HuffYUV only supports even-pixel resolutions, if not even more explicitly resolutions that are multiples of 4 (mod4). Common distro resolutions wouldn't be affected by this, as they're practically all mod16.

[NeoQuixotic]

Wow, that really is a festival of lights.

Are you using a different codec to encode and decode it? Basically, using the VFW codec and having ffdshow decode it. Also, what program are you exporting from?

[Songbird21]

A) What format are the source files in? Lagarith files are known to have that kind of problem on conversion. It's the main reason (aside from the files not showing up at all) I don't edit or do anything prior to archiving with Lagarith. Other people's mileage may vary.

I use HuffyUV for my exports and my so my footage files are the same.

B) Is the Recompress option enabled?

Yup.

C) What are the dimensions of the export? HuffYUV only supports even-pixel resolutions, if not even more explicitly resolutions that are multiples of 4 (mod4). Common distro resolutions wouldn't be affected by this, as they're practically all mod16.

640 x 480

Wow, that really is a festival of lights.

*cough* I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that.

Are you using a different codec to encode and decode it? Basically, using the VFW codec and having ffdshow decode it. Also, what program are you exporting from?

Same codec. And I'm exporting from Adobe premiere 6.5

[Qyot27]

What version of HuffYUV are you using? If it's the 2.1.1 patch version or 2.2.0, then it could be the typical problems reported with those.

The vanilla HuffYUV 2.1.1 release here has never given me problems like that:
http://neuron2.net/www.math.berkeley.ed ... ffyuv.html

Although extra steps may need to be taken due to the fact it installs via an .inf file and I heard Vista and Win7 tend to have issues with installing from those. Also making sure HuffYUV is not doing colorspace conversions of its own (the RGB drop down set to Predict gradient and the YUY2 drop down set to Predict median), that none of the boxes are checked, and that the source files are RGB24 as well.

[Songbird21]

What version of HuffYUV are you using? If it's the 2.1.1 patch version or 2.2.0, then it could be the typical problems reported with those.

The vanilla HuffYUV 2.1.1 release here has never given me problems like that:
http://neuron2.net/www.math.berkeley.ed ... ffyuv.html

Hmmm. I'll DL it and see if that makes a difference. Ty.

Also making sure HuffYUV is not doing colorspace conversions of its own (the RGB drop down set to Predict gradient and the YUY2 drop down set to Predict median), that none of the boxes are checked, and that the source files are RGB24 as well.

I wonder if I can adjust those settings in Premiere.

I found something as a temporary fix. I exported my vid uncompressed and then compressed it to Huffy using Vdub mod. It's an extra step but I'll deal with it till I figure out why Premiere suddenly doesn't like Huffy anymore. If anyone can give me ideas I'd still appreaciate them. That extra step is gonna be hell when I cut the footage for my next vid.

[Qyot27]

Also making sure HuffYUV is not doing colorspace conversions of its own (the RGB drop down set to Predict gradient and the YUY2 drop down set to Predict median), that none of the boxes are checked, and that the source files are RGB24 as well.

I wonder if I can adjust those settings in Premiere.

On the Video drop-down, just click on Configure. Or configure it through VDub...it's still the same thing. Both link directly against VFW.

I found something as a temporary fix. I exported my vid uncompressed and then compressed it to Huffy using Vdub mod. It's an extra step but I'll deal with it till I figure out why Premiere suddenly doesn't like Huffy anymore. If anyone can give me ideas I'd still appreaciate them. That extra step is gonna be hell when I cut the footage for my next vid.

How? Obviously Premiere only has a problem on export, using HuffYUV as the input format wouldn't make a difference. The only thing is make sure the scripts have a ConvertToRGB24() at the end of them or you use VDub's Full Processing mode (which converts everything to RGB) to cut clips instead of Fast Recompress (which preserves the colorspace).

[Songbird21]

I adjusted the huffy settings per your suggestion and...well...the boxes are smaller:

[Qyot27]

Do you have ffdshow installed? Because if you do (for instance, if you use the CCCP to handle playback you already have ffdshow), then there's a test we can run. If you don't, install this one:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow ... e/download

Then in the VFW configuration (which Premiere can access by selecting ffdshow video codec from the Compression format drop-down instead of HuffYUV), go to the Encoder tab and select FFV1 from the Encoder drop-down menu. In the 'colorspace' dropdown on FFV1's page, select RGB32. Now click Apply, then OK. Now try exporting. This will use FFV1 instead of HuffYUV. Once it's exported you can use it just as you would a HuffYUV export.


One more thing, with all of this configuring, are you changing just what is in the Export dialog for the Compression Format or are you changing it in Project Settings? Maybe there's a conflict between the two. For best results, make sure the Project Settings are set to use HuffYUV (or FFV1, if you do the above test) as well as having the Export set to use HuffYUV (or FFV1). The Compression Format you choose in Project Settings' Video page controls the format that previews are rendered in. To be safe this should always be the same as the Export (or if you decide to use a lossy codec for Previews, that you change it back before you Export).

[Songbird21]

Unfortunately I can't use FFDshow. For some unknown reason it makes all my video files unplayable. I think it just doesn't like Windows 7. I made sure the project and export settings matched and this is still the result. I think I'm just gonna hafta live with the new process. *sigh* Thank you very much for taking the time to help me. I greatly appreciate it. *hug*