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No video in exported file (choir)


Brownigloo

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I'm preparing a video of my school's Alma Mater for a ceremony in a few days using 18 different videos overlaid.  The main issue is that the exported file plays back audio but there is no picture.  Additionally, some of the overlaid videos flicker during the play back preview.  I've tried exporting to both mp4 and mpg file types with both variable and constant framerates.  I've exported other (less complicated) videos in the past without issue.  I'm using VideoPad professional ver 8.23.  I've included a DirectX diag report in the portable project folder.

Any help would be really appreciated as this project means a lot to our graduation ceremony!

Portable Project:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1RFcXgmyMp1o6e30hZh2bWmSdLrddnN6d?usp=sharing

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First of all, thank you for providing a portable project without being prompted to.

From what I can tell, the issue here is that while VideoPad isn't crashing due to low memory, it is silently failing due to low memory. This might not be a limitation of your computer (I see 8GB, thanks for the dxdiag as well). 
You can check that this is the case by exporting a small section (e.g. the first few seconds) to a much lower resolution (say, 320x240 (4:3), or 320x180 (16:9)). If the missing videos are showing in that export, then that's almost certainly the issue.

A 64-bit build of VideoPad would resolve this, but it's not ready yet unfortunately.

A potential work-around for this (assuming you want to export at 1080p or higher) is to split it into multiple steps. Starting with only 2 of the videos, export the sequence as normal, leaving a lot of blank space on the video. Then import that video as Track 1, and put a new video on Track 2, export that, import again, and repeat for all of them.
This will lead to an overall drop in quality for the video, due to repeated encoding and decoding, but it should be minimal enough. It can also be mitigated somewhat by selecting "High Quality / Larger Filesize" for the Video Quality/Bitrate (click on the hyperlink next to File Format: [.mp4 ] on the export settings screen) for each intermediate export.

If you don't want to bother with the effort of the work-around above, you could try exporting at a lower resolution (e.g. 720p), which seemed to work for me when I tested it.

 

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Hi

Same result here. 18 tracks and all vids requiring different position and crop settings means a lot is going on,  but while checking each file independently I also noted that Katie.MP4 acted odd in VLC ...very blocky continually failing and then stopping so I used a third party program to re-save the file as another mp4. Oddly this displayed in that program upside down! There was no sign of an inversion effect in your project so I assumeed the vid was corrupted in some way. The copy played perfectly however. The combined audio was quite nice.:)

I am going to re-run this again converting all the files first to mpg2 which should be smaller.(I know you have a copy from Borate so I hope that works OK for you) but I am interested.

If you want to try something  yourself that may help with your existing files. Load the project, wait until it all fully loads, which took a while on my old Vista machine and then create a sequence. Click the sequence and save a separate  audio file of it. Unlink and delete the audio from your vid files and delete each track. Now replace the multiple tracks with the single one you saved.

It's a pity that the split screen effect only goes up to a 5 x 5 grid..........6 x 3 and 6 x 4  etc could have been simpler for you.

Nat

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Hi

Revisited your project..

I think if you are having difficulty with speed issues and slow caching whenever you make an edit as the timeline has numerous tracks each with several effects try working like this... You will be creating a vid of three clips at a time.

  • Add all the clips but don't add any effects (18 tracks)
  • Adjust them so the audio is in synch
  • Create a sequence and save a copy of the sequence audio. This will be your mixed audio.
  • Clear VP
  • Reopen VP and add the first 3 vids (for the first column )
  • Unlink and remove the audio tracks from them all
  • Add the sequence audio that you created
  • Scale/Crop and Position each of the 3  vids and match each to the audio. (VP should be faster than trying to do all 18 tracks at once.) You will need to guess to some extent the width of each clip.
  • When the sound matches export the project as "Column1.mp4"
    • Repeat this for each  column  of clips. Don't try to horizontally position the clips-leave them all at the start of the timeline. All the vids created this way will have their column of clips on the left.
  • When all 6 videos have been created clear the cache and load them to VP in the normal way along with the sequence audio (the mix).
  • Column1.mp4 will be on track 1.....Column2.mp4 will be on track 2  etc. (6 tracks instead of 18)
  • Add a Position effect to each clip and drag each along to the right so they are correctly positioned and not covering the column of images on the track beneath. The result should be that all the columns will now be visible.
  • Delete or mute all the tracks apart from the recorded Sequence audio which should be in synch.
  • Check it out and Export.

Working with 3 clips at a time should be both faster and less prone to glitches and at the end you only have 6 clips to layer. Seemed to work here with your clips. As I said it's a pity that the split screen layout stops at 5X5. a larger matrix might have been useful.  Another hint --although in my experience never happens..is to have all the component clips from participants in either portrait mode or landscape mode and if possible at the same resolution. Might be a tall order.

Nat

 

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Hi

Further playing with this...

A  6 across 3 down grid can be made using a split screen 5 x 3 layout and using just the first column for three clips at a time. This means 6 exports need to be made for the 18 clips in this example. This is both faster and easier to set up and  to get a first class fit between images as each can be set to Fill Region.

Although each export will have only 3 clips in the left hand column,  If the subject in each box is pulled a little to the left using the Horizontal Bias  control, the final assembly of all 6 exports can be adjusted to over lap slightly to produce a grid of  6 x 3..

This is much better than trying to assemble 18 clips in a grid with Position/Crop/Scale controls on each and as can be seen the borders are clean.

Nat

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Hi B

Re-did the Alma Mater project completely from scratch here with the above scheme and  using the original mp4 clips...worked fine and problem free.

1st Row... The Clip in track 1...

aa.jpg

2nd Row added.. i.e. Overlay clip of second row on Track 2 but positioned to right..

bb.jpg

And so on......

The edges are neat and there is a minimum of work.Just adjusting the image in the multiscreen boxes for each new clip which is mostly done automatically, and then positioning each generated clip to overlap at the end.  Didn't see any hangups on my old system. Worked out quite smoothly.

However I think we do need a slightly larger range of boxes above 5 X 5, perhaps up to 7X7?  More and more people are using multiscreen and if the choir/ group/ orchestra  is large the program ought to be able to cope with them.

Nat

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Hi Everyone,

I am so glad I decided to bring my project to this forum for assistance!  You folks have offered such thorough advice and insight that I feel much better equipped to tackle similar projects in the future.  As Nat pointed out, this style of project is a growing trend in my field and I hope VideoPad will continue to evolve with that in mind.  A larger range of grid options would certainly have made this a less complicated task.

In the end, I created three separate videos.  One for the leftmost 6 boxes, one for the middle six and another for the rightmost 6 boxes.  Six at a time seemed to be the most my computer could handle without boxes flickering and disappearing.  It was then fairly simple to layer those 3 videos on top of each other.  The finished product looks quite professional with only the slightest imperfection in the grid layout.

Thanks again for all of your help.  This will be a very special part of our school's virtual graduation ceremony!

Brownigloo

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