Juddery Playback of Video on a Laptop - Could this be a solution?

[Xenofex2]

I just wish to raise an issue that I know has been posted before but unaware a solution has been found other than the suggestion to upgrade the graphics card. Okay if one is using one’s own laptop but what if one uses someone else's computer/ laptop?

All my audio visuals are put together on a relatively new Desktop Computer where playback has been no problem. However when I play one that includes video on my (Windows 10) laptop, normally the video playback judders so I cannot show any to friends or family via my laptop that include video. If this upgrading of a graphics card should still be the suggested solution, two instances have happened to me in the last week that have made me wonder whether there could be another way and so just wish to ask a general question.

 First, this week we visited family and I took a flashdrive with me containing my audio visuals and whilst there took a chance, played one (admittedly containing a lengthy video clip) back on their laptop. Sadly playback was juddery. So if my assumption to the possible solution is upgrading the graphics card is correct, you would not be able to use anyone else’s laptop if video is included in the audio visual on the offchance there will be a problem on playback?

But then this week, in another Forum posting and with something totally different, because of the size of my png images added via O&A, although they appeared in the mini player they did not appear when viewing playback in full screen. Reduce the png image size and everything appeared as expected. So could this also be a possibility as a solution with the size of the video file, in order to avoid the possibility of juddery playback on a laptop, any laptop?

Now back home, out of interest I have looked again at this, admittedly lengthy, video clip seen over the weekend, in MediaInfo and see that it’s size is 1920 x 1080 & 25fps. No idea if that is large or small for a video file or too large for P2E. Could there be though some correlation then, like the png image experienced last week, and one needs somehow  to reduce video file size down to a particular size before using in a P2E project?

PS – All video was ‘converted’ before adding to a project.

George

[jkb]

Hi George,

It really is down to the Graphics card. 1920 x 1080 is standard for video files.

If the laptop has dual graphics ie an inbuilt chip on the motherboard - usually intel, and also a seperate dedicated graphics card - usually Nvidia.

Then you can force the laptop to use the dedicated graphics. It should play better but may still judder occasionally depending on the dedicated VRam.

If there is only the inbuilt chip then it is unlikely to play video in an exe smoothly, or even some complex animation.
 

A solution is to publish an MP4 file and to use VLC player to play this.
I have found that VLC will play just about everything.

We now make an MP4 for anything with video when we don't know the spec of the computer it will be played on , for sending to competitions etc.

Jill

 

 

 

 

[Xenofex2]

Jill

An interesting solution. I must admit that I do use VLC on the Desktop computer for playback of video but then on the Desktop, I don't really have a problem.

But then thinking of your potential solution, I looked again at a P2E project but cannot see anyway to export the file as a MP4 file. Is there? Or have you found a way to convert the exe file to MP4?

George 

 

[davegee]

Publish.

https://docs.picturestoexe.com/en-us/9.0/main_menu_1/publish?s[]=publish

DG

[Xenofex2]

Dave,

Thankyou for that link. I did first search the Manual, honest, but was looking for how to export as MP4 and obviously did not see this link.

Can't wait now to try this out. Thankyou.

George

[davegee]

No problem. Very often it depends on being creative with your search term. ☺

I will see if I can add "Export as mp4" to the text.

DG

[Igor]

We recommend export to MP4 video if your project contains videos.

Future PicturesToExe 10 will solve all issues with playback of videos in EXE files and preview.

[Xenofex2]

Many thanks Jill, Dave & Igor for help and explanation.

I guess it must have been just habit and thinking that 'exe' is what you would normally export a completed project to, and so carried on.

Really glad though I have had a couple of issues this week and that the Forum has helped me solve both and helped me when going forward.

Many Thanks

George

[Dassa]

On 4/4/2018 at 6:36 PM, Igor Kokarev said:

We recommend export to MP4 video if your project contains videos.

Future PicturesToExe 10 will solve all issues with playback of videos in EXE files and preview.

Question for Igor: Does this mean that I cannot use (for all intents and purposes) video (mp4 or converted) in PTE 9 on Windows 10 (1803) desktop for either preview or final exe ? My issues are these :

- I have just purchased an upgrade to version 9 and I am using a lot of video files as well as stills and now have this issue where I cannot produce what I want or even use PTE for preview of my projects.

- All of my current projects (over 120) are linked and accessed in a extensive menu program I have built in PTE and use to run all my projects/albums and now any new projects/albums will not work as required with my menu program. 

I have tried the following :

- Used both converted and mp4 files, makes no difference

- tried PTE 8 but same issue however, v8 produces just jittery video, v9 is far worst showing only one video frame every 2-3 seconds and is completely unuseable

- making HD project or mp4 file works but cannot use this file with my menu program as I cannot cause it to return after playing the video

You appear to be aware of the issue by your comment and it seems like we will have to pay again to get this issue fixed and PTE working with Windows 10. Cannot this be addressed with an upgrade to version 9 ? I have looked on the forums and I am amazed that this issue has not been raised more as there are a lot of Windows 10 system out there. Hope you can provide a solution.   

[davegee]

Has this problem arisen since the upgrade to "1803"??

If so have you checked your graphics card settings to see if they have been changed by the update??

One possibility is that it has changed from "Quality" to "Performance".

What card do you have?

It is also fairly easy to revert back to the previous Windows version in Settings to get back to where you were. Many laptop users, myself included, have had to do this. It might benefit desktop pcs in some cases.

DG

[Dassa]

Thanks for the comment. In response to your suggestions :

I have only upgraded to PTE 9 3 days ago and 1803 has been installed prior to this so I cannot say. I have tried with PTE 8 also and a similar but not so drastic shudder/pause is still there (v8 still using 1803 of course).

Card is Nvidia GTX 960 with 4 GB onboard memory. I found a Nvidia driver released a few days ago and have installed but the issue is still there. Unfortunately I cannot revert from 1803 as we need this for other software development on this system.

Specs say v9 can handle 4K video, is this really the case ? However I have tried with 4K video rendered as HD 30 or 60 frames per second (mp4) then imported into PTE and although better than 4K native, still has issues. I am using converted copies of the video in the project. I am still getting two issues - regular slowdown, pause then catch up with any video causing jittering and real slow playback such as showing one frame as a 'still', hold for 2-3 seconds then show another 'still' frame.

At least with the first issue I can preview my project to get it laid out while waiting for a solution to the jittering problem (over 6.7 GB of videos to edit).

Darryll

[Igor]

Hi Darryll,

On 6/11/2018 at 6:29 AM, Dassa said:

Question for Igor: Does this mean that I cannot use (for all intents and purposes) video (mp4 or converted) in PTE 9 on Windows 10 (1803) desktop for either preview or final exe ?

EXE format is ideally optimized for images, not for videos. If a project contains high quality video clips (1920 x 1080 or even 4K), especially a mix of two or more video clips on one slide, we recommend to create MP4 video file. So PicturesToExe 9 can work with video content and video output would be the best option.

On 6/11/2018 at 2:36 PM, Dassa said:

Specs say v9 can handle 4K video, is this really the case ?

We announced only video output in 4K, not for input video files.

In future PTE 10 we did a large work to improve support and playback of "heavy" video files. It became possible since new video decoders finally got support of hardware acceleration. So PTE 10 should easily handle playback of 1920x1080 videos (even a mix of 2-3 video clips). And I can warily declare that 4K video clips (1 on a slide) should be played smooth on modern computers.

We plan to show first public Beta of PTE 10 in November-December of 2018.

[Dassa]

Thanks Igor.

First we have put a lot of work into our menu (controller) program and associated exe files so we will have to stick with that (or write a non PTE program  to act as a controller for mp4 not exe files). Just to clarify, we only have one video file per slide with some static graphics and after some testing, are converting our clips to 1920 x 1080 30 frames per second before using in PTE. This has improved playback but not up to the standard I am used to from PTE.

I will look for the beta of v10 later this year but meanwhile at least we are able to edit / preview our projects to keep moving along.

Darryll

 

[denisb]

On 6/11/2018 at 5:29 AM, Dassa said:

- making HD project or mp4 file works but cannot use this file with my menu program as I cannot cause it to return after playing the video

 

With MPC-HC, you can return after playing an mp4 video. with command line and options /play /fullscreen /close

 

with a link  "run application or open file"   and

C:\.......\mpc-hc.exe       /play    /fullscreen    /close  video2.mp4

 

Denis

 

[Dassa]

Thanks Denis, however this means another program install and program path problems which impacts portability of what we are producing.

Darryll

 

[denisb]

No Darryll,

use the portable version of MPC-HC and put in the same directory your menu.exe and the directory of MPC-HC.

In your PTE menu use relative path for MPC-HC.exe.

That's what I do

 

Denis

[Dassa]

Thanks Denis.

Darryll