Is this a bug?...

[kleima]

...or a problem with my setup? Quite often SE will be unable, for whatever reason, to create the picture icon for a newly captured clip (I am capturing HDV 720p). When this happens, the clips just displays a generic clip icon, and if I do anything to that clip from within SE, like try to drag it, click on it, or even just mouse over it, SE will freeze up completely and have to be ended in the Task Manager. Nothing I do seems to cause SE to generate the missing picture icons, I just have to recapture the clips. These are not corrupted clips either, because I can play them in WM, or if I drag them from Windows Explorer to SE timeline, they will also play in the timeline, but I can't do anything to them from the File Bin, or it will crash.

[Scott Bates]

Not having that problem, but I don't have anything HD so am only playing with SD clips if it makes any difference. I don't recall Eugene or anyone else who's doing HD mentioning that problem yet. Unfortuanately there doesn't seem to be a "opps, I messed up my config" or "reset configs" utility option in SE to put things back to defaults. I'll be interested in the answer/solution in case the problem shows up here.

[ScorpioProd]

I don't have any 720p to try, but my 1080i hasn't had this problem.

The only thing I can suggest is to delete the Newtek Info folder in that directory so SE can try again to create the icons.

What exactly is the 720p source? Captured in SE? What frame rate? Not one of those funky Canon F framerates, is it?

[Randy Rouse]

I have seen several Quick Time files as well as one Windows Media File put up the generic video icon but Speed Edit could not load them. When I would right click on the clip Speed Edit could not identify them as video clips but would still use the generic video icon in the file bin.

[kleima]

Eugene,
Yes these were captured in SE, at 30 frames per second (or probably 29.97), from the JVC GYHD100.

Randy,
Would it freeze up or crash when you tried to load them?

[Jim_C]

or if I drag them from Windows Explorer to SE timeline, they will also play in the timeline, but I can't do anything to them from the File Bin, or it will crash.


That statement put's the odd shape in the puzzle. If it wasn't for that statement, a simple 'files incompatible' would suffice. But the above shows they are compatible, SE just doesn't know how to handle them in the filebin.

Try turning off, 'Rollover Animated Previews' in preferences.

Do your other files behave properly in the filebin? Anything funky set on your system about Hidden Folders since SE is trying to write info to one?

[kleima]

Jim,

Any file for which SE has generated the picture icon will work just fine. It's only the ones which it doesn't generate the picture that have a problem.

[Jim_C]

If your filebin option is set to 'details only' can you then drag them from filebin to timeline?

Any luck on turning off animated previews? Shot in the near dark, but a shot I guess.

[Randy Rouse]

I tried to load a few clips from the file bin that SpeedEDIT would recognize as a video format but could not produce a preview icon. These clips would not load but neither would they crash or lock SpeedEDIT. I think SpeedEDIT knew that they were video clip by looking at the file extension but just could not work with the flavor of codec that the clips were. In each case I was able to convert the clips to an .avi codec and then they would preview and load with no problem. Even when SpeedEDIT could not load the clip or preview it in the file bin it was stable and did not crash or lock-up.

[kleima]

OK, if I turn off animated icons, SE no longer crashes by simply mousing over a clip. But, it still usually crashes when I try to drag these clips to the timeline. Sometimes it will work, but other times it crashes. Now it never seems to crash when dragging in clips that have pictures generated. Also, if I delete the NewtekInfo folder, it will attempt to regenerate the pictures, but it will never finsish and whenever I do it again it regenerates different clip icon each time. Also, another weird thing is that I noticed that each time I open SE it generates just one more clip icon, then if I close it and re-open another one gets generated, but only one per open/close cycle.

[SBowie]

Are these files mostly of one type? If you take just one or two, for example, and put them in a folder alone, or with some JPEGs to keep them company, what happens?

Earlier, I (and others) stumbled on a few file formats that choked SE's thumbnail preparation, and these were fixed one by one. The trick is for you to isolate the type, and send then John a sample that reliably shows the problem.

[kleima]

All of the files are HDV 720p .m2t files captured by SE from JVC HD100U camera.

[Gordon]

...I just have to recapture the clips.
... if I drag them from Windows Explorer to SE timeline, they will also play in the timeline, but I can't do anything to them from the File Bin, or it will crash.
All of the files are HDV 720p .m2t files captured by SE from JVC HD100U camera. But recapturing the clips a second time works? What if you used Windows Explorer (or other directory utility) to move the rogue clips to another, new directory and then opened that directoy using SE's filebin browser? Will it create the animated preview?

[kleima]

It will create some, but not all. I am not even talking just about the animated preview; I have that turned off, because even if I mouse over a clip without the picture icon, when animated preview is on, it can cause the crash. But with it off, mousing over the clips will not crash it, but dragging the clips onto the timeline still does.
The really weird thing is that every time I open SE one more clip that doesn't have the picture icon will get its icon generated. Then that clip no longer causes the crash. So, if I open and close the program a million times, then all clips will have icons, then will not cause crashes - until the next time I capture and have more clips without icons!

[John Perkins]

We generate several icons at once, so I'm sure that you are seeing a symptom and not the cause. That's why an icon shows up each time.

Turning off the rollovers is just delaying the problem.

If you suspect there is a problem with a clip, you have to make absolutely sure that you are isolating them.

Navigating through 4 folders of other clips will not work, you need to have never entered a folder with clips during a test session.

1) In Windows Explorer, make a test folder
2) open SpeedEDIT, open one filebin and navigate to this test folder
3) Close SpeedEDIT so that it always opens to this folder
4) open SpeedEDIT and do not use any other clips or folders

one at a time:
1) copy a potentially bad file to this folder in Explorer
2) check SpeedEDIT to see if this one causes a problem (thumbnail, rollover, add to the project, scrub it)
3a) if it causes no problem on its own, remove the file and try another one.

3b) If it is does cause a problem, close SpeedEDIT and try again with just this file. If you are able to reproduce the problem, send it to me.

Until I have a way to reproduce the problem I can't tell what is happening.

[Gordon]

The really weird thing is that every time I open SE one more clip that doesn't have the picture icon will get its icon generated. Then that clip no longer causes the crash. These are long captures aren't they? Weren't not talking about a few seconds or a minute or two but more like 10's of minutes? If this is true then when you say 'crash' you really mean is 'lock up' or become 'unresponsive' don't you? In other words you aren't getting speed edit to end with an error message or just plain disappear (a crash), what you are getting is that the program becomes unresponsive (it is just very, very busy)?

Although it may seem the same to you, it is not. When you use SE filebin to browse to a folder, it starts scanning the files in that folder. If the file is an A/V file it will start reading that file in order to create an icon for that file. I think that it gets the icon information from the middle frame of an A/V clip. So if you have a bunch of long video captures, it starts reading a number (I don't know how many exactly) of these long video clips looking for the middle frame so it can create it's icon. As you can imagine it takes quite a while to read these files off the hard drive and create the icons. Because it starts a number of processes at once - each reading in a different file, it can really tax a hard drive - especially if this is a laptop with a relatively slow 5400 rpm hard drive. This is why the system becomes unresponsive. By coincidence, everytime you restart SE, it has had enough time to create another icon for another clip and you see that icon show up. It has finished processing that file and that is why you can now drag and drop it into the project without the program seemingly 'crashing'.

In short ... be patient and wait for SE to generate it's icons and all will be well.

[Gordon]

By the way, as John said, turning off roll over previews only delays the problem because I think that once you move the mouse over the clip the system starts to process that clip to create the icon/preview.

The way around this is to view files in 'details only' mode NOT large nor small icons.

[kleima]

Gordon,

Yes, most, but not all clips are long clips. Some are 10 minutes plus. I was letting SE auto chop wildlife footage. I often start the camera rolling before I am ready and end well after so as to not miss any action by a preroll, etc.
You are correct, it is a lockup, and not a crash.
I initially had SE on the laptop, but because of this problem moved to my VT[4] system. I thought it might system specific, but I see the same problem here. This system is a dual Xeon 2.8 GHz with 2GB RAM and four SCSI 320 drives striped RAID 0. Play back is almost realtime with the SE monitor at full HD (720p) resolution. I don't think it is the system speed, or hard drive speed that is the problem.
The graphic card is nVidia GeForce 6800GS with 256MB.

[kleima]

Actually, as far a the "crash" is concerned, sometimes it just locks up and I have to end task to shut it down, but I just tried it again and it does sometimes generate the generic windows thing that wants to send an error report to Microsoft.
The program doesnt' just disappear with no message. When I do end the program from the Task Manager, it also generates the windows thing that wants to send an error report to Microsoft.

I also just left the program open for an hour, and it did not generate a single picture icon for that bin in an entire hour, just sitting there. However, the CPU's were pegged at almost 100% the whole time SE was open, doing nothing. This doesn't seem right.

[kleima]

John,

OK, I have done some methodical testing here. At first I thought the problem could be related to the size of the clip because, the smallest clips all generated icons in the TEST folder you suggested. However that is not the case. Here is what I have, and what I did:
I have 19 HDV m2t clips all captured in SE. They are numbered from 1-20 with #19 missing (deleted). The clips range in size from 2.26 MB to 1.37GB. Before the test, clips 1-3 and 17-20 had icons in the original folder. Numbers 1-3 and 17-20 all generated icons when dragged into the TEST folder. I noticed that when SE is open to a filebin with no clips that have no icon, the CPUs are at about 10%. Once I drag in a clip that doesn't generate an icon, the CPUs jump to about 100% and remain there until the program is restarted. (During this test I had animated icons turned on.) Some clips initially didn't generate the icon and made the CPU jump to 100. But on restart of the program and trying again the icon was generated. All icons that were generated took just a few seconds to generate, including the 1.3GB file (#18). Now the original folder is left with six files that, after multiple attempts, have never generated an icon (4, 5, 6, 14, 15, 16). The test folder has all the other clips, all with icons.
In navigating to the original folder, no icons are generated and the CPUs immediately spike to 100.
The acid test came when I deleted the NewTekFolder in the TEST folder. Upon opening SE to this folder, all icons for the 13 clips were regenerated in 26 seconds.
So, apparently SE is making some random mistake/corruption in some captured files that is causing this problem. Then the problem files keep the icons from being generated for some of the non-problem files.
The smallest of the problem files is 157mb. I can put this on my FTP site if you want to download a file that big.
Hope this testing helps.

[kleima]

Dragging any one of these remaining six clips (without icons) to either the storyboard or the timeline causes an immediate "Speed Edit has encountered an error and needs to close" crash.

[Gordon]

Wow! Thanks for all the testing. This will help us track it down for you.

I'm not surprised that the larger 1.3 GB file took only 18 seconds to generate it's icon. It is reasonable that the system can read the entire 1.3 GB file in that time given the U320 SCSI drives you are using. Therefore the lockup for more than a few seconds (or a couple minutes at most if there are a lot of files to process) has to be tracked down to a repeatable cause.

Yes, I would like very much to download the file and test it out on my laptop and see if I have the same problem here. Let me know where.

Meanwhile, make sure you set your browser to "Details Only" instead of thumbnail icons (large or small), till this get sorted out.

[kleima]

Gordon,

The 18 was clip #18, not 18 seconds! :) After separating the "good" from the "bad" clips, ALL the "good" clips icons were regenerated in 26 seconds, including the 1.3GB clip.
I actually think that the problem clips will crash the program not matter how they are displayed - details or otherwise.
The question is: what is causing some clips to be bad or corrupt and how to keep SE from making so many bad clips? I my sample 32% bad clips.

[cholo]

What was the source of these bad clips? What camera? New tape? TC breaks in the tape? What flavor of HDV is it? Does it matter if you capture them with a different capture app? (You can try HDVsplit or DVHSCap) You could also try to transcode the file type from m2t to mpg using HDTVtoMPEG2 (it doesn't recompress) to test if the clips keep crashing SpeedEdit.

[kleima]

>All of the files are HDV 720p .m2t files captured by SE from JVC HD100U camera.

[kleima]

All tape brand new HDV tapes (not DV tapes), recorded onto only once. There may be timecode breaks, but I doubt it as I never had time to review anything in the field. I can capture just fine with no bad clips from HD Connect (as AVIs, I never tried using HD connect for m2t because I needed it to capture the HD footage in a way that VT[4] would recognize & edit).

[Gordon]

The question is: what is causing some clips to be bad or corrupt and how to keep SE from making so many bad clips? In my sample - 32% bad clips.I think we would all really like to know! Cholo had some good ideas for testing. Can you ftp a sample 'bad' clip so we can download it and see if we can find something?

[kleima]

OK, I just observe something else. The "bad" clips must really be somehow corrupted because they crash windows media player also; whereas the "good" ones will play in WMP.

[Gordon]

OK, I just observe something else. The "bad" clips must really be somehow corrupted because they crash windows media player also; whereas the "good" ones will play in WMP.So it seems to come down to how they are being captured. If there is a problem with the way that SE captures (ex: wild guess and not necessarily true - if it was discovered that for auto chop to work reliably it may require capture to a single SCSI hard drive) and if that can be figured out and it is something that NewTek could fix or improve ...

Otherwise, we may be able to just work around it by a change in workflow or hardware configuration. (Ex: wild guess and not necessarily true - if it was found that auto chop is not reliable enough then maybe manual chopping till the software or hardware is changed.) We just want to know what works and what doesn't!

[perkley]

I just recently purchased SpeedEdit and testing it out. I finally got around to recording some video footage, and the same thing happened to two of my clips, both were 1.5 GB or so, but others that large work fine. My two main clips I found that they were corrupt or something not right.

I recorded in using Firewire with a Panasonic AG-DVX100a 24p Advanced mode, Panasonic MiniDV MASTER tapes, brand new tape, one recording, playback in same machine as recording. Recorded onto a SATA 3GB drive, only files in folder, 350 GB of free space.

My machine is an AMD 5200+ Dual Core 4 GB machine, ATI Radeon 1300 card, so it better not be the system that has the problem.

FEATURE: Something that I liked in Vegas was the ability to define a MB amount when recording, so sort of like AutoChop, but the ability to say that each file will be 500 MB and then create a new file when that is reached.

Please let me know when you find a fix for this as I really don't like the thought of recording a bunch of footage in and having to go back and re-record.

[kleima]

Something obviously isn't quite right for you, but since the camera is not HDV, I doubt it is the same problem. DV and HDV captures are handled quite differently, becasue DV is an AVI codec and HDV is an MPEG codec. The two have very different ways of handling time code.
Also, it turned out that the problem I was having, above, had nothing to do with the length of the clips.
There is nothing wrong with the speed/power of your system, but sometimes conflicts occur with certain hardware/software configurations.
You'll need to describe more specifically what happened, and what were your settings.
Some people have had issues with ATI graphics cards, whereas less have had issues with nVidia cards. But, since I don't use ATI, I can't tell you too much about that.

[BeniToaster]

Hola
On monday a client droped by with his JVC HDV GYHD100 camcorder to digitize some footage, we encountered the following.
He was impressed that SE can actually ingest from the camera, he has FCP, and can't use HDV.
But when ingesting 720p 24p from the camera the TC breaks time code in SE changes. Clip lenght is not the clips actual runtime or ingest time.
When we captures 2 minutes the clip lenght is not 2 minutes, some times is more in other clip was less.
When we captured a long part about 12 minutes, it played back ok for as long as there was not a cut on the tape.
When capturing a part with several cuts we only got parts of it playing on the timeline, but when you do a mouse over preview you can actually see the whole thing as it was on tape.
Also the TC display on the camcorder did not match the TC on SE.
The video window in the capture panel is 4:3 aspect and does not reflect the motion as smooth as it should be. It looks like a strobe.
Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[Jean]

Hi BeniToaster.

I have a JVC GY HD 110E and experiencing the same thing when capturing in speededit.

when I open the same clip in media player classic, there is no problem. (full duration).

What I did, is use "videoredo" quickFix.

It makes a copy of your m2t clip and fixes all the errors it finds in the mpg2 format.
that resulting clip doesn't show this problem in speededit anymore.

note that's "Quickfix" isn't re-encoding, you'r not loosing quality here, it's just copying and fixing GOP errors.

Hope it helps while waiting for a fix.

[kleima]

These are known difficulties with the HDV MPEG format. Newtek is working on a fix for this.

[perkley]

Then my situation must be different. This is my computer setup.

Brand new computer:
Asus M2N-SLI motherboard
AMD 5200+ DualCore
ATI Radeon 1300 512 MB Graphics Card
2 GB Corsair DDR2 800 MHz (2x1GB)
350 GB SATA 3gb Hard Drives (internal)
Motherboard Firewire port
Panasonic AG-DVX100a Camera
Footage: 24p Advanced

I have already heard that SE does not support 24p and maybe that is the issue, but it did record in all clips except the two that were corrupt. I went and re-recorded them and they came in fine the second time. So, I don't know what the issue was.

I have a new installation of SpeedEdit and was just recording into my drive. A couple of thumbnails didn't appear, but the others all did. Those two clips would not play with anything. I tried dragging into SE, and it crashed the program. That's all I know, I don't know how to reproduce, except to just try re-recording.

[kleima]

If you capture your clips by always chopping between camera start and stop points, you will be fine. But, if you accidently chop slightly before or after a camera stop/stop (in other words, for example, the end of your captured clip has a little bit of the next clip that was capture by the camera) then you can have problems. This is because the timecode on the HDV camera is interupted whenever the REC start/stop on the camera is pressed. I don't think this should be an issue for a DV camera - only HDV. DV uses a different method of addressing frames (it doesn't have GOP's like HDV does).