weird rendering

[hien.henryn@gmail.com]

HI,
I have rendered (exported to avi) about 5 of my 2min. clips.
All of them have this weird appearance. The first 10-15 seconds of the avi will have the screen shifted up (in the middle of the screen, graphically) and it showing the last 240 frames of the avi (timely). So, graphically it is shifted (half bottom to the top, and half top to the bottom), and timely, it shifted the last 240 frames to the begining.
There is a 3 seconds avi that works fine.
What's wrong?
Someone in the forum was talking about expecting AS to be commercially workable, that made me laugh. This program is still a joke.

[Mikdog]

What program are you using to view your AVI? I'd try rendering to a different video codec like Apple Intermediate, Sorenson 3 or PNG before calling an outright foul. Also, what pixel size is your project rendering to?

[super8mm]

Sometimes odd numbered screen dimensions cause erratic playback.

[hien.henryn@gmail.com]

I used the default NTSC setting.
This is not a "made in China" product. If I have to cut off the first and the last 240 frames, then I needed to know up front, so I can sync my audio accordingly,
Or, perhaps stick with 3 second clips.

[Mikdog]

I understand its frustrating.

Try using a different codec. You shouldn't need to cut of the first and last frames.

[slowtiger]

The graphic glitch you describe most likely may be a problem with a corrupted file system/file/wrong codec with unlucky settings. I'm just guessing here since I work on a Mac, and this kind of glitch only happened to me when there was a serious error on a disk. AS just can't write a video file mixed up in the way you describe. This can only happen when the file is stored not in one but many parts on a full or very fragmented disk, and then something goes haywire wile reassembling the parts for playback. Plus, some players choke easier than others when a file is damaged.

We can only deal with AS issues here, and in all our answers we assume that the computers are in normal working condition and no odd software, like some exotic codecs, are installed.

So, please try some of the following:
- Check that you have at least 25% free space on your disk.
- Use a disk diagnosis tool to check for file system errors.
- If possible, install AS on another machine and render that same file again.
- Connect a new empty disk to your machine and render again on that.
- Use a different player to watch the file (although this will not repair the file).

[hien.henryn@gmail.com]

LOL,
Mikdog, for 2 minute-animation I have to go through 7 softwares with dozens of settings each, (as described in some posts, like setting fps to 23.976 instead of 24 fps, LOL), encode it in some who knows-programs, spend almost 3 hrs for processing, I'll probably giving up my day job. Ha ha ha, I forgot about script writing, audio recording, etc.
Shouldn't AS be exporting to a well known codec to make its lengthy rendering worthy? (4hrs in my PC, for 2 min. animation, what a joke!)

Tiger, thanks for the tips on computer clean-up. No offense taken. Give me your secret screen resolutions and rendering dimensions, just don't give me a hint, yeah?

[Mikdog]

Your best bet would be to post your AS file online so others can see why its taking so long to render a 2-minute clip.

You may be putting a lot of strain on your CPU with lots of particle effects or large images that aren't in shot. If something is not in shot but still visible on the timeline, AS will still spend time rendering it, so you can speed render times up dramatically by turning it off or making it 'invisible' until it comes into shot.

An average 2-minute vector scene could take only a minute or two to render. Something with lots of particle effects could take hours.