ver 7.11 is pretty much unusable

bryonM

I have used VP ver. 6.10 for a long time and it worked well. Recently, I upgraded to 7.11 thinking the newer version would maybe be a bit faster with new features etc. I was very wrong. I loaded a project that I developed on 6.10 and the first thing I noticed was the loading time. The image rendering to the media bin was painfully slow. When the images finally rendered, the project would barely play in the preview screen because of choppiness. Soundtrack was fine. The project consists of one sound track and two tracks of about 30 images with Pan & Zoom and cross fades between them.

I'm running on an Dell 790, Intel i3, with 8 gigs ram. While trying to preview this project, the processor was at 45% load using around 5 gigs ram. I believe there is something very wrong with this version and it needs to be looked at. From what I've seen here, others have had the same problems. I loaded VP onto my work computer which is a brand new Lenovo laptop with i5 processor and 16 gigs. It worked the same- choppy and slow. I even installed the 7.12 patch as instructed and the program crashed without loading the complete project. I then tried a new project with only 5 images each with a cross fade transition and each with a pan & zoom. The performance was equally bad. I haven't tried the proxy editing because I don't think this should be necessary. Especially since ver. 6.10 runs fine.

I really like VP and I think the developers are very talented. I don't like the thought of learning another new editor but for comparison sake, I downloaded the latest from one of the top three video editors out there and there was no problem with smoothness or running slowly.

Please fix this.

borate

Not seeing that here with either version - 7.11 or the still being developed and tested 7.12 In reality, there have been significant improvements in caching since the 6.x era. That said, a project created in 6.x may not be fully compatible with 7.x. An I3 for video editing is marginal, especially for large HD files.

The best way to sleuth this is to see the project. Please place it on the timeline in full and share it via these instructions. Someone will check it out for you..

http://nch.invisionzone.com/topic/23659-tips-for-getting-help-on-this-forum/

bryonM

Thanks, borate. My project is here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wYmysvAFl2yH1sZU8Rm6MT4Wv_oQbOdP

I uninstalled 7.12 and reinstalled 7.11 because I couldn't start the project without it crashing.

I have also included an .avi screen recording showing playback in preview mode. Some of the images don't even render on the timeline and show up as black. This was from my work computer (Lenovo i5, 16 GB).

BTW, do you mind saying what the specs are that you are running on?

-Bryon

borate

Indeed, there appears to be a compatibility issue. Was the project created in v6.10?

It is unusable in v7.11 and won't load in v7.12. Reported.

Normal load time in v7.02. Exported successfully at 1920 x 1080, 45fps (Smart Max) on an I8700K CPU with 32G RAM and NVidia 1060 video.

bryonM

Yes, the project was created in 6.10 and the final output from 6.10 actually looks very similar to yours.

I think for the time being, I'll be rolling back to 6.10 until such time there's a new build. Also, I'm ordering an i7 2600 processor which will fit my motherboard so I will try again when it comes.

As far as load time, it's fairly quick in 6.10 and takes quite a while in 7.11 for me.

Thank you very much for your help.

[deleted]

Loaded the project and found quite a few clips were not used although in the bin. Here, in 7.11 with the preview set at the lowest resolution playback was very choppy and jerky with several drop outs(blank /black) sections of short duration. Despite leaving the project to load for a considerable time I couldn't see the usual green bar over the thumbnails in video Track 1, (only here and there) suggesting it wasn't actually rendered correctly. (In later version of VP this green loading bar has been very intermittent, often not showing up or stopping after a short time. Sometimes moving the cursor line to a "blank" section got it going again.

Preview here stopped playing the visuals after a short time, but sound continued. This was followed by a crash. I sent a crash report to NCH.

I think I might reload VP 6.1 and see what the difference is. (I think Borate has already done this but it might be interesting as an exercise.) Certainly this is unplayable in VP 7.11.

Nat

CharlieKetchen

Hey guys!

I am so relieved to see others are having this issue. Rolling back to a previous version is a good idea, how would I redownload this?

Thank you x

P.S, Just rolled back - can't open the video I edited last night/today...incompatible.

bryonM

Nat,

Thanks for looking at this and also confirming the problem.

Bryon

borate

The installer file for versions that you have used should be in this path on your PC ... "C:\Program Files (x86)\NCH Software\Videopad"

If not, they can be download from http://OLDVERSIONDOWNLOAD.COM

[deleted]

Hi byronM

Just loaded VP 6.10 and tried to open your downloaded project which you say was created with version 6.10 The .vpj file would not open and VP displayied the following message ..........

Are you sure it was 6.1 that you were using?

I then loaded VP 7.12 Beta

The project loaded. (possibly) although there was no green bar to be seen for at least 20 minutes and it then arrived in dribs and drabs on different clips in no apparent order. (Is there any order in this at all?..Sequentially would seem logical but this never seems to happen.)

I am not sure how the new feature "Aspect Ratio" is meant to work but some settings gave a blank preview screen.. (e.g. 16:9) no matter where the cursor line was set on the timeline. I noticed that there were 79 image files in the bin but 49 of these were not green ticked..(i.e. Not actually used??)

In this Beta VP version the stops/starts during preview were worse than ever (perhaps it was my old slow pc) and "building preview" appeared regularly in preview screen.

IMHO This couldn't be previewed on my PC. But at least VP didn't crash...(It tried when I went on to export this project but the export screen did come up)...Opening and previewing THIS project was not particularly good. I have run an export mp4 so I'll see how this comes out.

So far V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W

Nat

bryonM

Hi Nat,

Yes, as the project name suggests, there were other versions. The original version was definitely done at home on 6.10 and then I upgraded to 7.11. This is when I first noticed that it ran so choppy. I then sent it to my Google drive so I could pick it up at work to try on the better computer. I can't remember if I modded the project at work or not on 7.11. I know I added the text overlay at some point later in the project. Perhaps I did this on 7.11 and called it "final".

I reported the incident and that's when NCH suggested I try 7.12. This was worse in that it wouldn't load the project at all.

I'll take this file from work and try it again at home on 6.10 and let you know what I find.

One other thing; I don't know if it's related or even relevant but when I recorded the screen for borate the video was produced with no sound. Is this typical? I didn't look very far into it because the recording was only to show the choppy behavior. I used the integrated NCH app that pops up when you hit the button.

Thanks again,

Bryon

borate

Likely that was Debut. Perhaps a setting? In any case it's not related to the issue here.

https://www.nchsoftware.com/capture/tutorial.html

[deleted]

Hi ByronM

Loaded your project into VP 7.12 Beta. AS noted previously (above) it was pretty well useless as far as previewing.

The images all loaded OK from the cache (as I had opened the .vpj file before) but I noticed something at the end of the loading process which I have never noticed in the past and that was the indication that VP was LoadingTrack Clips. Never seen this..Is it something specific to 7.12 ? Is it related to the cache having been previously filled??

Once all was loaded it was evident that the green bar was mostly absent even after a long delay and it didn't fill (actually never fills) in a logical way. Clips are green barred all over the place seemingly at random, probably due to the way the work is threaded. I would have thought they would complete from start to finish but this jumpy progress has always been the case and makes it difficult to see if the loading has stuck particularly where there are lots of clips.

On playing, the preview was broken repeatedly and jerky as noted in my other post making watching it a painful experience and moving the red cursor line to check areas of the timeline was so slow and delayed as to be unusable. Whereas some of this may have been due to my old, slow Vista machine chugging along at 100% usage, I am not so sure.

Nevertheless I decided to export your project as mp4 H264 1920 x 1080 (despite the actual state of play in VP.) Quite a delay between clicking Export video and the appearance of the Export screen but it eventually arrived

The exported mp4 was fine and played in VLC with no problems at all.🙂

At this point going back and reviewing your project in the un-closed VP GUI , All the clips now had green bars and it played from the preview screen OK . However I noted that here (at least) moving the red cursor line manually to a different point in the timeline did not change the preview image to reflect the new cursor position and clicking the screen played the project from the previous stopping point whilst the cursor line carried on from the new position! (i.e. the project played from a point not related to the cursor line. Ah well!

Nat

bryonM

Hi Nat,

Thanks for all the time you and borate have put into this.That's interesting about the "loading track clips" thing. One thing tried last night was removing all the unused images and rerunning. Unfortunately, that didn't help. Now I'm wondering if the problem could be with one or two particular images. I'm considering starting with a completely new project and add each image one at a time and running the preview after each one, then add a transition and effect and try again etc. Lot of work but I'd like to know what it is about my project (or images) that VP doesn't like.

Cheers!

[deleted]

Hi ByronM

Well, it did export OK here eventually with V 7.12. 🙂 Check your title screen though as it didn't present correctly........ (ignore the lower script.....It's from VLC.)

There are a few new controls in V 7.12 like the preview display settings etc.that will need a bit of checking out, and WILL cause confusion, but if all your images are correctly cropped to 16:9 then titles and text should come out exactly as seen in the preview.

e.g......

HERE i HAVE ZOOMED AT 16:9 SO THE IMAGE PANS TO THE RIGHT AND THEN CHANGED THE TEXT COLOUR AND OUTLINE TO MAKE IT MORE VISIBLE (My choice) AND THEN USED POSITION TO BRING IT DOWN AND TO THE RIGHT A LITTLE so it appears on the image.

EXPORT WAS SET TO USE Crop and Zoom (Letterbox is crap in this case as it produces your result with the text misplaced off the image. THIS IS GOING TO CAUSE SOME CONFUSION WITH USERS IMHO.

Anyway try it out like this.

Nat

bryonM

Thanks for the info, Nat.

Well, I didn't go through each individual image as I said I may try but instead I started a new project with a totally new and different set of about 60 images. Same kind of format (pan&zoom) + random transitions. My results were the same in that after applying the effects to 3 to 4 images, scrubbing was unusable and playback was choppy. Was unable to continue the project with 7.11 and rolled back to 6.10.

I have ordered an Intel i7 processor and another 8GB ram (maxed out at 16 GB) so I'll try again when that comes in. I have a feeling though that it may be a GPU incompatibility. Meanwhile, I'm back on 6.10.

Cheers!

borate

What CPU, out of curiosity? It's a reasonable practice to clear the cache prior to a new project.

Allow caching to complete before previewing. Usually that's represented by a green line above most of the timeline.

[deleted]

"...Usually that's represented by a green line above most of the timeline. ..."

Note that images without any effects added remain without a green bar.

I also noted some bugs (apparently) in VP 7.12.

e.g.

Opened VP and cleared the cache
Added an image to the bin......IT APPEARED ON THE TIMELINE WITHOUT BEING ADDED. It should have stayed in the bin.

e.g.
Opened VP and cleared the cache.
Added a 16:9 MP4 clip to the bin. THIS ALSO AUTO LOADED TO THE TIMELINE.
Selected Match content for preview.....PREVIEW WENT BLACK..NONE OF THE SEQUENCE PREVIEW OPTIONS SHOWED THE CLIP THAT WAS VISIBLE ON THE TIMELINE.

following on.....
Deleted the clip from the timeline and then re-selected it from the bin. CLIP PREVIEW SHOWED CHEQUERBOARD.
Dragged and dropped clip to timeline. SEQUENCE PREVIEW REMAINED BLACK. (??Transparent clip??)

Nat

bryonM

Right now I'm using Intel i3- 3ghz with 8 gb.

I have tried clearing the cache before but it didn't help in this case.

All images were loaded before playback.

borate

Indeed, the first clip added to the bin in 7.12 appears in the sequence spontaneously. Suspect that this is a new feature??