Sequoia problem, video not smooth

[piergiorgio]

Hello everyone, I updated to Sequoia but the rendered videos are not smooth but a little jerky. Never had this problem, reinstalled latest version but nothing. I'm wondering if anyone has this problem.

[Igor]

Hi,

Tell us in more details.

Do you create a show as MP4 video with HD or 4K quality and then open this video file in QuickTime player or VLC player?

Configuration of your Mac and year.

[piergiorgio]

Hi,

I use a MacBook M1 Pro and I create 4K 30fps MP4 video files, I save them on Synology NAS and watch with Apple TV 4K on my TV at home. I have a collection of holiday videos and up until October when I finished the August 2024 holiday video I had no problems. A few days ago I updated Sequoia and found that in videos with moving photos zooming in and out is not fluid but jerky, it hesitates.

Thinking it was caused by sequoia, installed a few days ago, I uninstalled pte av studio and reinstalled it again, tried a new video but the problem remained. I haven't changed my workflow or settings and I don't know how to fix it. 

thank you for your attention

[Igor]

Thanks for the details.

I recommend to compare smoothness of your video file(s) when this file is opened in QuickTime on your Macbook (internal display), and on Apple TV connected to your TV panel.

Also try to play another video file received from another source - iPhone camera, for example. Not from PTE AV Studio to compare results.

 

[piergiorgio]

Hi,

I did some tests with Ken Burns saving some photos on the Macbook's HD but I didn't solve the problem. Opening with quicktime player I see the problem, 4k and 1080 files. Maybe I'm drowning in a glass of water. I'll try to upload a low resolution file for you to see. In 4k the problem is the same but less evident.

 

 

[Igor]

Hi,

I recommend you create a test MP4 video from the Sample Project. It's included with PTE AV Studio. Browse the main menu > Help > Open Sample Project.

Create a MP4 video with the following video options: "1920 x 1080, "High quality", "60p". Keep Motion Blur DISABLED.
First video create with unticked "Hardware acceleration" option. The second file create with ticked option "Hardware...".

Check the file size, it should be about 150 - 300 MB.

Then open each video file in QuickTime player, compare both videos. And compare with a full screen preview for Sample Project in PTE AV Studio.

It will help us determine where the problem with smoothness occurs. 

[piergiorgio]

HI,

congratulations ! you found the problem, the video with the "Hardware acceleration" option deselected has no problems and is smooth, the other option confirms the problem. I also tried saving on synology and apple 4ktv and not using hardware acceleration, works fine. I've never had this problem before, what do you think happened.... Os sequoia maybe? If necessary I could downgrade.

Anyway, thank you, now I can have fun again.

[macian]

Isn't this Forum glorious!!!

[piergiorgio]

Totally agree, if you could still use "hardware accelerator" it would be great. On the test video I saved 1 minute but on long videos not having it would become frustrating. I'm waiting for a possible solution but in the meantime I'm already very happy.

[Igor]

15 hours ago, piergiorgio said:

congratulations ! you found the problem, the video with the "Hardware acceleration" option deselected has no problems and is smooth, the other option confirms the problem. I also tried saving on synology and apple 4ktv and not using hardware acceleration, works fine. I've never had this problem before, what do you think happened.... Os sequoia maybe? If necessary I could downgrade.

Hi,

We recently discovered an incorrect work of the hardware encoder with macOS 15 Sequoia.

We released a new version 11.0.15 Beta on Friday:

https://www.pteavstudio.com/forums/topic/46385-pte-11015-beta/

It's the stable version, please try it and let me know about a result. The hardware encoder should work correctly again.

[piergiorgio]

hi, I downloaded the indicated version but the videos created on my mac have the same problem. I hope you make it 

[Igor]

Can you check again - the About window in PTE AV Studio should display v11.0.15 Build 1 - this new Beta version. Just to make sure that you use the necessary version.

Please open the Sample Project (from the main menu > Help > Open Sample Project). Create a MP4 video and check on your Apple TV. Can you also compare 1080p and 4K videos.

[willemx]

I have a problem creating stutter-free video presentations using PTE AV Studio.

This is my situation: I am using PTE on my MacBook M1 Pro to create a video from various media sources such as iPhone photos (HEIC) and video clips (1080p 25 and 30fps) and “real camera” (Sony A7III) footage, also photos and video clips.

My goal is to create a HD or 4k video that can be played on my LG tv, using an Apple TV media player.

The problem is that when I create a presentation using PTE’s publish HD and 4K video, the result is a mp4 file that has stuttering issues. The stuttering is most severe on some iPhone videos the are included in the presentation, but is also visible on hires still photos from the Sony camera when panning a cropped portion of the photo. I have tried lots of combinations of resolutions and frame rate settings, but the stuttering will not go away. It does not matter if I play the presentation on the Apple TV, a Windows PC (using VLC) or the MacBook (QuickTime player).

If I use the “Convert/Trim video clip” command to process the videos before importing them, the stuttering gets even worse.

I get the best results when publishing as “Video for Mobile Devices”. Then the stuttering is still visible on the included iPhone videos, but the panned hires photos are perfectly smooth with no stuttering at all.

Also when previewing the presentation inside PTE or publishing as “Show for Mac” and using the PTE AV player for playback the result is perfect, even the included video’s do not stutter at all. However, the PTE AV player is not available for Apple TV.

Are these stuttering issues a result of my setup or could there be a problem inside PTE’s publish code?

[willemx]

I just noticed the other topic concerning this problem:

https://www.pteavstudio.com/forums/topic/46348-sequoia-problem-video-not-smooth/

I will also try the new beta build and post my results there.

[willemx]

I have similar problems, see this topic https://www.pteavstudio.com/forums/topic/46442-stuttering-video-playback-problem/

I just installed v11.0.15 (Apple Silicon) Build 2 and did some publish tests. The published show contains a short iPhone video and some cropped pans over a hires still image.

test 1: 1920 x 1080, 60fps, hardware acceleration enabled

test 2: 1920 x 1080, 60fps, hardware acceleration disabled

test 3: 3840 x 2160, 60fps, hardware acceleration enabled

test 4: 3840 x 2160, 60fps, hardware acceleration disabled

I watched the results both on my MacBook Pro (Quick Time player) and on Apple TV (infuse media player)

On test 1 and test 3 (hardware acceleration enabled) the results are bad: the iPhone video is very jerky and also the pans are not smooth but have a small (but irritating) stuttering.

On test 2 and test 4 (hardware acceleration disabled the results are much better but not ok yet. The iPhone video is still jerky but the pans are perfectly smooth. The 4k version is a bit better than the 1080p version.

BTW, I am on MacOS Sequoia 15.1.1 (24B91)

[Igor]

Hi,

I merged both topics into this one.

I confirm this issue with V11 when using "Hardware acceleration" option, even with the latest Beta version.

Please give us some time to explore this issue.

[Igor]

I discovered a similar issue with another app Handbrake on Mac:

Quote

After updating to macOS 15.1 today all videos encoded with h265 videotoolbox are broken. The process completed without errors, the files are playable but are extremely choppy. Had to resort to cpu encoding. Can someone confirm this bug? Thank you.

It was working fine yesterday (with macOS 15.0.1 I think, not 100% sure)

Machine is a 16" m2 pro

It seems that Apple has changed something in the work of hardware encoder in macOS 15.1.

I see that Handbrake developers found a solution. We'll learn their code.

UPD. I think that unticked the Hardware acceleration option should completely solve this issue as a workaround.

[willemx]

2 hours ago, Igor said:

UPD. I think that unticked the Hardware acceleration option should completely solve this issue as a workaround.

I cannot confirm this; unticking Hardware acceleration does not fix my problem with stuttering iPhone video's.

[Igor]

23 minutes ago, willemx said:

I cannot confirm this; unticking Hardware acceleration does not fix my problem with stuttering iPhone video's.

Do you add iPhone's video to a project, create a new MP4 video (Hardware Accelleration is unticked), and play the created video on Apple TV, right?

It should play smooth, because PTE's video encoder works independently (autonomously) from any changes in macOS.

If the created video play smooth in QuickTime player on your Mac, it also should play smooth on your Apple TV.

Just in case, I'll clarify that you need to choose "60p" option in video output for the better smoothness, not 25p or 30p.

2. Also I recommend open the Sample Project (from the main menu > Help menu > Open Sample Project), produce a MP4 video. HW option is unticked. Then then compare smoothness - on your PC and then Apple TV.

[AleAle5025]

5 hours ago, Igor said:

I'll clarify that you need to choose "60p" option in video output for the better smoothness, not 25p or 30p.

I had this situation in Windows 10. I put together a slide and output a video at 30 frames per second. The video in the video editor was played jerkily, slowed down. I looked at the slide and nothing helped. I brought up a 60 fps slide. And the video started playing normally. Without jerks and delays.

I often make complex slide shows. And they are played in PTE with difficulty.

[Igor]

We found a solution for the hardware encoder on Mac running macOS 15 Sequoia. I hope to build the updated version tomorrow or on Monday.

[piergiorgio]

Fantastic, well done !

[Igor]

15 hours ago, piergiorgio said:

Fantastic, well done !

Hi,

Please download again the updated v11.0.15 Build 3. It will fix the issue with dropped frames when using hardware encoder option on Mac with Apple Silicon running macOS 15:

 

[willemx]

I tried the new build 3 and can confirm that the hardware acceleration is now working again and the choppiness of panning across still photos is now gone, but the problem with the imported iPhone videos is not solved.

I think this problem has another cause. The choppiness of the videos is different from the choppiness that that was on the still pictures. The still pictures had a constant jittering whereas the videos have a sort of small pause about every second when published at 30 fps and about twice every second when published at 60 fps.

This can be seen very clearly both on the MacBook and the AppleTV and both for 1080p and 4k videos.

The original iPhone videos play back perfectly on both the MacBook and the AppleTV.

Edit: I should have posted in this topic: 

https://www.pteavstudio.com/forums/topic/46348-sequoia-problem-video-not-smooth/

 

[Igor]

2 hours ago, willemx said:

I tried the new build 3 and can confirm that the hardware acceleration is now working again and the choppiness of panning across still photos is now gone, but the problem with the imported iPhone videos is not solved.

I think this problem has another cause. The choppiness of the videos is different from the choppiness that that was on the still pictures. The still pictures had a constant jittering whereas the videos have a sort of small pause about every second when published at 30 fps and about twice every second when published at 60 fps.

This can be seen very clearly both on the MacBook and the AppleTV and both for 1080p and 4k videos.

The original iPhone videos play back perfectly on both the MacBook and the AppleTV.

Edit: I should have posted in this topic: 

https://www.pteavstudio.com/forums/topic/46348-sequoia-problem-video-not-smooth/

Hi,

I moved your post to this topic.

Glad that one problem with the hardware encoder is solved now.

Regarding the second issue with iPhone videos:

Quote

the videos have a sort of small pause about every second when published at 30 fps and about twice every second when published at 60 fps.
This can be seen very clearly both on the MacBook and the AppleTV and both for 1080p and 4k videos.

Please tell me in more details:

So you have original iPhone's video (MOV file) and it plays smooth in QuickTime player on your Macbook?
Then you start a new project in PTE AV Studio 11.0.15 Build 3 (the latest version, it's important), add this one video file.

Do you click the Preview button and see this issue (not smooth playback) in a full screen preview? Or you create a MP4 video from your project in PTE AV Studio and then play the created MP4 video file in QuickTime and see not smooth playback? It's important point to understand where exactly the problem occurs.

I share with you a test video recording from my old iPhone (1920 x 1080, 60p), a train in mountains:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z5tFzMSBiuVOxqoBqtoD_DOsaTY73H-J/view?usp=sharing

This video play smooth in PTE AV Studio (a full screen preview) and smooth playback when I create a MP4 video (1080p 60) from the project and then play the created video file in QuickTime or VLC player.

I tested on Macbook Air 13 with M3 chip. macOS 15.1.1

You can share your video sample. We'll check it.

Note, that playback of 4K video (added a project) in a live preview of PTE AV Studio (full screen preview) may be not enough smooth. Or if you add several videos, because during a transition effect two or more mixed videos appear on the screen at the same time.

However once you create a final video at 1080p or 4K, the created video file should play smooth in QuickTime, VLC or Apple TV.

Please also share a screenshot of the video export window in PTE AV Studio to see what settings you have chosen.