addressed Scale effect kills export

[Alan R]

When I apply the 'scale' effect to a photo (no adjustments), the photo renders as black.  Remove the scale effect and the photo renders perfect.

When I apply some visible adjustments to 'scale' so I can see the result by dragging the cursor, it looks just as expected.  Render, and its black.

All other effects seem to work as expected.

Is it possible for some parameter in the 'scale' effect to have become corrupted such that if affects only render, because inboard all the effects still work as expected, its just the render using "scale" that renders black.

This used to work fine and something seems to have died in the last few weeks, but only manifests itself in this one peculiar event.

 

[borate]

What version of Videopad is being used?

Let's have a look at that photo.  Someone will check it out.  Upload the file/s to a free server, such as Google Drive or MS OneDrive, get a shared (public) link, copy the link and paste it here or to me in a Private Message via the mail envelope in the top-right corner of this forum.  When using Google Drive, if necessary change "restricted" to "anyone with link can view."

Shut down the program.  Restart it, and before loading anything go to OPTIONS | DISK tab and Clear Unused Cache Files.  Try reinstalling the program.

[Alan R]

Running 10.88 masters,  installed months ago, this issue appeared only a week or so ago.

When you mentioned 'photo' I thought, only tried this using one pic, lets try others.

So I did and the problem only shows on some photos and not others ???  All from the same camera and all taken with 20 minutes

So now I will see if I can see anything different in the ones that mess things up, as opposed to the ones that don't.

Then I'll try your other suggestions.

Will post on my progress.......

[borate]

Upload one that messes up and we'll take a look.

[Alan R]

Think I can do better than send you a file - I have concluded VP does not like large jpg's

Have had a play - and jpgs that work are around 600KB, and the ones that upset VP are around 6,000KB

The large ones are straight from my camera, and the smaller ones went through an image editor, and I guess it might have been my decision to go for 1920x1080 and consequently ending up with a smaller file size.

I have to add that VP went quite horribly wrong in that some of my experiments did not just fail to render (other than black) but actually corrupted the resultant file in strange ways.  In one experiment I had 5 pics which were respectively pass/fail/pass/fail/fail and so I was expecting image/black/image/black/black, but actually got the first image correct, then 2 blacks, then a repeat of the 1st image again.  I conclude the 'large' jpgs were perhaps overwriting VP internal storage with resultant chaos.

I provide no documentation of this final chaos as the solution is simple, reprocess the jpgs to a smaller file size.  But that said, if you would still like one of my huge jpgs just ask.

It would be nice to know what the critical size is (to help us live with the problem until a fix is released) and that the fix would be to cure the problem so that large jpg's are not a problem (some users may want to use hi-res jpg's to be able to zoom in sections without image degration).

PS I have only seen this chaos using 'scale' effect, and a few others I have tried seem ok, so 'scale' seems vulnerable.  There may be others but my investigations are definitely not exhaustive by any means.  I would  hope your tech team will fairly quickly find the suspect code, and effect a cure which will probably be universal.  Only affected the render process, everything from inside VP looked as expected.

 

 

Edited November 17, 2021 by Alan R
Added the PS

[borate]

Yes, please share one or two of the large files.

[Alan R]

Here are the links to 5 images that illustrate the issue

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14GhadUjiyf5M323NdHlFst_pmC0F0Pwq/view?usp=sharing,

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RJzApsJulU1A6J1GZqxF1EtmWTzWnlWv/view?usp=sharing,

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W0WcnaCEWQtVRy8_a9zbj7JjuhH81FWm/view?usp=sharing,

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dSfoTfhWGgIcNqjYmo68vI7LbrCHejwO/view?usp=sharing,

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oL6axefQiqudAwRk1Pv-V-8Ax8xRSzaL/view?usp=sharing

they are all blue sky images and simply if the are huge they're the up-setters,

good luck let me know what you conclude.

[borate]

Exported at 4094x2304 with various scaled sizes applied, using both 10.88 and 10.96 (64-bit) version.  Seamless.

Even interspersed three videos of various resolutions between the slides at the same export res.  No issues.

What are the PC's specs:  RAM/CPU/GPU?

Try this 10.88.

[Alan R]

That's disappointing as it's so solid and predictable on my VP, but peculiarly only using 'scale' effect (others seem good) and then only on the rendered output as internally all playback and cursor dragging shows exactly as expected.

PC specs are

• RAM 32GB (16GB usable)
• CPU Intel Core-i7-6700 @3.40GHz
• NVIDIA GT640

Also your try 10.88 link did not work - is this a special 10.88 as that is the release I am currently using.

Thanks.

[borate]

Try this 64-bit version.  For licensed users upgrades are free for up to six months from purchase date.  After that, VP will continue to fully function but a fee will be required in order to register the newest.  Retain your old install file and registration info.

Report back.

[Alan R]

Two points

1) your TRY THIS links are just not working, so I cannot comment on your suggestions.

2) the lo-res export - does it animate using the scale effect?  All I see when I play your video is static images of my pic that I am trying to animate (using scale graph tweaking) interspersed with irrelevant adverts.  I do not see anywhere what I am looking for.

I have produced a short video using one of my smaller jpg's (625GB) of applying a scaling effect - its called desired_demo.mp4 and is here

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IGJYWFTpPcdnvqrJwsCP1lD0FEPgEDG4/view?usp=sharing

If i had used one of my huge jpg's all I would get is a black screen for 3 seconds.

I have also uploaded a pic of the effect window I am using - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IEXYexj_ZawTMhCE1sBlAoVTC5VsFYFp/view?usp=sharing

 

[borate]

The links to the VP files are good here.  Perhaps you are locked out for some reason.  Try the repository, and download a 64-bit release.

After animating a few of your stills, interspersed with video, still unable to replicate your result.

[Alan R]

Tried the repository and successfully downloaded VP 10.96 Pro 64bit and installed without issue.

Sad to say the same issue with large jpg (4539KB  5472x3080) is still present.

Reduced the large jpg to smaller (204KB  1920x1080) and it rendered as expected.

All scale animations exported using https://drive.google.com/file/d/14-lWuQ45mCv2qFX2g7DlyBTTryhgIiNy/view?usp=sharing

In that I can relatively easily reduced the resolution of the huge files (at no detriment to perceived quality) so they process ok, are we heading toward another of Borates quotes "Until it can be replicated by others it remains in the category of things that are not meant to be known."  😊

 

[borate]

Guess so Alan, because it works fine here in v10.96 (64-bit), using your settings.  Your specs are up to the challenge.

What you might do is close the program, then using Windows Explorer (the file manager) delete all files in these folders...

"C:\Program Files (x86)\NCH Software\Components"

"C:\Users\<PC name)\AppData\Roaming\NCH Software\Components"

Confirm that the video driver and Direct-X are current...   https://www.nch.com.au/kb/10265.html

Reinstall the 64-bit version.

[Nationalsolo]

Hi

VP 10.43 (32 bit) on a Vista machine

Your images downloaded OK.

The largest 5472 x 3080 scaled in VP down from full to tiny as per your example using a 5 second clip as follows..

1. With export size 1920 x 1080  (HD)       mp4     OK
2. With export size 2560 x 2440 (2K)        mp4     OK
3. With export size 3840 x 2160 (4K)        mp4     This did not scale. Image remained fxed until end
4. With export size 5472 x 3080 (Custom) mp4    This did not scale  Image remained fixed until end

The Scale effect was using a fixed AR for these checks.

Seems here at least you need to keep the images you use to a resolution of 2560 x 2440 (2K) for a scale effect export to be effective.

Nat

[borate]

Humm, appears to be some inconsistencies here.   VP 10.96(64-bit)

The export would accept no larger than 4096 (x2304) and succeeded at that resolution as it had on lower-res files.  Animation scaling was flawless. 

For lengthy projects or those employing high-res files or complex effects it's best to use the 64-bit versions.

[Alan R]

14 hours ago, Nationalsolo said:

Hi

VP 10.43 (32 bit) on a Vista machine

Your images downloaded OK.

Hi Nat - interesting to read your comment - at least I'm not going mad!

Totally agree with your size comments of keeping at or below 2K, all my photos are now at HD and there's no problem at all.  To be honest if I look back through earlier projects I see that usually when I post the jpgs they will be saved at HD so this issue with large images and tweaking them with 'scale' was almost never likely to happen!!  So has this "large" issue been around longer than we think??  My camera takes huge images and that gives me wide cropping options for which I mostly take advantage, not the increased resolution.  My TV is HD and not a huge 50 inch plasma screen set half a mile away 😆

Appreciate your coments

Alan.

[Alan R]

14 hours ago, borate said:

The export would accept no larger than 4096 (x2304) and succeeded at that resolution as it had on lower-res files.  Animation scaling was flawless.

Interesting - I never considered it might be the render process getting upset by the high resolution demand.  But no worries, maybe we can be content with the fact that trying to demand a super high resolution (that is almost unreasonable) problems might be expected.  Rather than as I said, lets get a cure, would be nice if we got a warning message instead then at least rather than crash, we could correct the issue and then re-render.

Thank you for your help (maybe in this instance "....category of things that are not meant to be known." may not be applicable 😃)

Alan

[borate]

Sorry, no definitive answer as it can't be replicated at this end.

 Considering the infinite variability of user hardware/software, what are the odds that a specific program will run flawlessly on every machine?  Low.🤔

[Alan R]

I fully understand - and in this case the solution where needed is so simple - and this discourse will at least inform the user base that in rare circumstances there may be issues but having read all this - the solution is trivial.

Thanks for all your help

Alan.