Russ Croucher

Alex, I'm going to make another bug report tomorrow. I will include request for a file upload. Typically they only want one file to be named to a number that they use for the bug ID I did determine in more testing that v7.51 is only required for the initial reading and writing of the original FireWire AVI. Once the file has been read and written with VideoPad all the later versions can be used. Then v8.16 can be used to image stabilized it. So my workaround at this point is to take each file from the FireWire, read it with VideoPad and write it back out That way if all the segments were not read in the first segment VideoPad will stitch them together.

One comment about the license for VideoPad, they have a commercial license and they had to pay for that license that's probably why they're using a very old version. They probably bought the license 10 years ago. I would need to look at the actual license agreement even for the free software to make sure that I can use it commercially. I use VideoPad commercially.

Thanks I will download it and give it a try.

I have researched this tremendously to make sure that we have a problem with mini DVs. Normal mini DV is 720x480 non-interlaced they are all transferred with FireWire to a computer. Those AVI files are then fed directly into VideoPad. The latest version of VideoPad v8.16 reads those in as 640x480. Actually, it reads the 720 as 640 and crunches the horizontal a little bit. So the resulting video is thinner than it should be. Being the engineer that I am, I backed off every version that I have and found that v7.51 works great. So now I am stuck using v7.51 with that computer that uses mini DV. I thought it might be a Windows 10/Windows 7 problem and it's not. I thought it might be a codec problem and I don't think so. So I'm turning here to find out what I can do as far as a workaround. I found that when I convert the file with FireWire you get only the first segment of the tape. You need to load the next segment later into one file. When I do that I use VideoPad to stitch them all together. Then I output that as a single file that is then read later again to stabilize it. Those fragmented files inadvertently work fine because it is read correctly by VideoPad. If I take those AVI files that I loaded with the FireWire and stabilize them directly they do not work correctly. Again, the image stabilization reads it as 640x480. So the only way I've been able to get to work correctly is : 1) use v7.51 to load the file and write it back out with VideoPad unchanged. 2) use that new file to any stabilize the video with v7.51. 3) quit VideoPad and then retrieve the temporary AVI files that are stabilized in the temporary directory. This solution seems to work great with v7.51. I would like to figure out a way to move on to the newer versions but I need to get a solution that works above. I have submitted a bug report yesterday on this issue but don't know where we stand. Maybe you guys can help me understand what I can try differently to fix this problem. I currently have 3 license versions and is looking to get some more. Several of Windows 7 one Windows 10

Licensing question. Since I have several VideoPad full-blown licenses do I have a commercial license to use image stabilization since that is an MSU older product? I also assume I must get written approval and licensing for some of these public MSU plug-ins is that correct? If I want to use this in a commercial environment? Would you guys have the know-how that's laid out?

We have some more information to report about the chipmunk audio problem. It seems like if you use the window 7 default FireWire application that records FireWire that may be the problem with the audio header being skewed from the video. My brother Jerry will make a post about this later, but this is a heads up that using versions 8.0 our solution to the problem was to use Pinnacle version 21 to retrieve all mini DV tapes and VideoPad works fine. When we use the default application that retrieves FireWire the video plays fine but once we export from VideoPad we have the audio being skewed wrong. It seems like we get about two thirds of the audio and then 1/3 flatline where the audio that we do receive sounds high-pitched like the Chipmunks. He was able to divide and conquer the problem down to just a 6 minute video that once he reduced the video to about 4 minutes the problem went completely away. So my thoughts was maybe it was in the header that somehow VideoPad might be read it a little weird and cause problems.

Yes I did verify that it does work like you said. However, I was really looking for a complete file based outcome that batch video mode provides. I have to write each file out from the timeline were in batch video mode it's all filename based. But since the image stabilization was the majority of the timeframe most of it is solved.

That's a real cool idea. So what you're saying is don't use the batch mode in VideoPad use the normal mode and select everybody at once and then just use a plug-in selection. Is that right? I think that would work.

I am currently using VideoPad v8.04 to the max where I might image stabilized 40 videos at one time to a temporary SSD drive and then use that stabilized file to do more processing. One of the processing is restoring old Ektachrome film which turns bluish after a few years because of the dyes fading. So this virtualDub plug-in solves the problem wonderfully. My question is is there any way to get plug-ins to work with the batch mode is already built in VideoPad? I realize there might be some licensing issues there to cause problems. I already know I need to contact the Russian professor and get approval to use this in a commercial environment. My favorite plug-in is this one: msu_old_color_restoration.zip

I'm using the 8.00 VideoPad. I have one nearly 6 hour file that when I was editing it with VideoPad, VideoPad runs like 10 times slower than I have ever seen it run. Normally, when I run VideoPad zooming in and out of the timeline task bar at the bottom is very fast. But with this file it appeared to be about 10 times slower. When I divided the file up into 2 pieces and load each piece in later it was blazingly fast. So being the engineer that I am I decided to determine at what point it would run normally fast and what point he would run slow. In the end, I found that if I just wrote the file without changing it lossless output it would store the file to a new name and then when I reloaded that new file it was blazingly fast. What has confused me is this file was written with version v7.39 with just a slight audio time correction in lossless mode and I'm trying to determine why it would seem to be a problem being slower than normal. I could provide this file as a bug but it's over get 6 GB in size. I did notice in the lossless file size the input of that 6 GB in just a few hundred bytes smaller in size of the new file. Maybe the audio has something to do with it. But I did not change that. The file was collected with debut version v5 .49. Then I change the audio/video delay by a few frames. Any ideas? Should I submit a bug request?

Thanks for the input. I have just found that I get more performance with a single processor running faster than dual processor running slower.

I have several license computers/workstations that are all using VideoPad for for my business I have noticed in my fastest workstation (dual XEON) that VideoPad is only using the first processor. The other 8 cores are not being used. I have one workstation that is only a single XEON and it seems that VideoPad is using all the cores and loads up 100%. However, the duel XEON computer only seems to go up to 50% and when I show the task manager the 2nd processor is not being used. Is this a bug or is this intentional? -0- I have been doing more testing and it does seem that straight VideoPad does use all the 16 cores of both processors. However, it seems that the image stabilization only uses one processor. Is this a bug? Should I report it? I'm using the v8.00.

I believe my brother Jerry has already submitted a bug report on this issue. He was able to take the one hour video and reduce it to just several minutes to make the engineer that fixes the problem easier to understand. Since we are working on these projects together. We both are using version 7.51. However we both updated to 8.0 just to check out the problem and the problem still exists so we both went back to 7.51. This is because I know as an engineer the actual version number is stored in the projects stored on the disk. This can have negative effects if one person were to update to a newer version and not the other. In fact on a separate topic, can I get a copy of the actual detailed information that comes out on the versions so I can see in detail what is been updated/changed and what may cause me problems? I typically don't update my version all the time unless I see it real reason I like to know what's in my version vs. the latest. And usually the marketing information doesn't have enough detail. Thanks Russ

Thanks guys, I did figure out that all the stabilized videos are stored in a particular place on the disk using the tools option to change its directory. And how to change the directory. I normally put all my stabilized videos on a temporary SSD in a particular directory. I think I will take your advice and do all image stabilization as one final process and put all the clips into the bin like you talked about and stabilizing at one time. Then I'll take the entire directory of stabilized files and run through handbrake. I like handbrake because you can specify exactly encoding level that you want to use and if you want to use H264 or H265. It also will use all cores for the processing. I've noted that some of the third-party apps don't use all the cores that they could. My largest machine has dual Xeon with 8 cores each or 16 cores total and handbrake does use all 16 cores. In fact do you guys know at what level NCH does a site license? Right now I have the master cut license for each computer but I'm only one engineer running several machines.

We have seen that exact same problem with version 7.51 and 8.00. It seems like with an AVI file collected with FireWire the audio is shortened sometimes and what you hear sounds like the Chipmunks. We first noticed the problem with version 7.51 and then went ahead and updated to 8.00 and the problem was still there. So we do believe that the problem is in VideoPad. My brother Jerry submitted a bug request. We notice that prism software does not seem to have this problem.

Okay guys I have pretty good size project that I have to stabilize 100 videos. I have in the past figured out with the help of you guys here how to stabilize many videos at one time by bringing them in selecting them all and click stabilize. Then it is a matter of just saving all the files once they are stabilized. So I really need to figure out a way to batch file the stabilization like we do the other effects in VideoPad. As I understand, you cannot do stabilization as one of the video effects it's a separate process. So I want to come up with a way to take the file since they are numbered one to 100 and send them into VideoPad stabilize them and send them on their merry way in another folder. My thoughts are to start VideoPad with the "-stabilize" option which will bring up the stabilization menu directly. Now I need to get VideoPad to automatically do the enter button on the "ok" prompt. Then I need to export the file and quit VideoPad. Then the Windows batch file can do several things and start VideoPad again with a new file. I am determined to make this a complete procedure so I don't have to sit there and baby it for 7 days. Thoughts?

Okay, I did some investigating figured out my problem. The computer I was using was using version 7.21 but it was the older smaller license version that was not a master addition. 721 also had a bug that the plug-ins did not work for some reason. My other version I updated to 7.25 and it worked. There are a few anomalies about the way it works because I used the cartoon filter as my example because it's quite obvious it's working or not. So I decided to update both computers to the newer license 7.30 because one of my computers was more than 6 months since I originally bought the license. So now both computers are running 7.30. And I will say their color correction is wonderful. We need to figure out how to put that in VP permanently.

Yeah I have not even tried the advanced settings yet but I can't get it to do anything but I did see the auto correction like you shown there but I tried all the sliders and they don't seem to do anything I don't know if it might be a situation between VideoPad and virtual dub compatibility. If you can see some differences I will keep looking into it.

I'm trying it doesn't need to be doing anything. I try and all kinds of different configurations but nothing.

Thanks so play with it.

I'm sorry I must be using the wrong terminology. I think of plug-ins as a video effect but in reality that is one of the built-in ones in VP. I guess plug-in really does mean virtual dub. I'm really using the internal auto level video setting. So in reality I guess it's not a plug-in it's a built-in feature. Maybe that change the situation.

VP has a neat feature that will do automatic color correction/brightness of your video. It's a plug-in that you can add to your videos so you get a more natural appealing color. The problem is if your filming a darker room it will brighten it up and looks good. As soon as you pan past the TV the auto brightness automatically gets reduced because the TV is so bright. So the auto levels are constantly adjusting the color/brightness. I'm trying to figure out a way if there's any way to change that so that the adjustment speed is much slower. I know that the plug-in has no control but is it possible to increase the speed tremendously of the video add this automatic level and then slow the video down. Thoughts? Or is there another way that I missing some on how to do this.

That could be a possible option. However, I have no problem bringing those files in and doing a lossless output with VP which creates a flat line audio channel. That only takes about 10 seconds per file at most. So I find is just a procedure thing just to make sure I have a file that looks exactly like a proxy file that I can downsize and use it for most of my editing. Now that I have a solution I'm happy.

Yes I guess that's what you call it "proxy editing". Yes in VP the file must look exactly the same and the older versions were a little bit more forgiving but the newer versions require both the audio and video in the same file to be exactly the same. I had trouble with V7.25 because it had a bug in producing lossless videos when it should've worked. So my older versions 7.21 was able to create it lossless no problem. As long as I have a good workaround I don't care. I just created this thread to let other people see some of the issues I found.

Normally it would not be considered an issue but in the startup of the program it says the video is not the same and you need to resolve the issue and it won't let you resolve if the video has an audio and the original one did not have an audio. It says there are 2 different files and will not use it. So I had to make my smaller versions files that had a flat line audio. Once I did that then it was able to use the big one or the small one. So apparently that was never fixed in the latest version