Hello everyone,

This is my first post to this forum.

My problem is the following:

I have a project which includes a few .mts files from a small Sony camcoder (Handicam HDR - GW66). Introducing the files in the timeline made Kdenlive lag and stress when working on that area. After some research I activated proxies and made proxies for those clips. I had to install and use FFmpeg to be able to generate proxies because I am using Ubuntu Gnome 15.04 and it ships Libav and syntax for generating proxies was not understood by Libav tools. After this, I could finally work on the edition.

When I render the project the resulting video does not show any modification on the .mts files. It is as if edition was lost on those areas. Other videos from a different camera look good. But the parts with .mts files on them just show the clip used in that part in raw mode (as if it was not edited) until the timeline hits the next video.

The odd part is that I have been editing .mts files from this camera before for over a year with no problem in a Debian Sid environment.

My setup:

I am currently using a fresh new installation of Ubuntu Gnome 15.04
Kdenlive reads "Version 15.04.2 Using KDE Frameworks 5.9.0"
Kdenlive installed from https://launchpad.net/~sunab/+archive/u ... ve-release
Melt is version 0.9.6
FFmpeg is version 2.5.8-0ubuntu0.15.04.1

Before composing my current setup, I was using Kdenlive in Debian Sid. .mts files were working fine, even with no proxies. I downgraded to Testing when some update broke Kdenlive. But Kdenlive in Debian Testing had a couple of problems with icons too, so I installed Ubuntu Gnome, hoping that Ubuntu would ship a proper stable version of Kdenlive. So as you see, It's been a lot of work before getting here.

The type of videos I'm using:

mediainfo 20150928095530.MTS

General
ID : 0 (0x0)
Complete name : 20150928095530.MTS
Format : BDAV
Format/Info : Blu-ray Video
File size : 284 MiB
Duration : 1mn 29s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 26.5 Mbps
Maximum Overall bit rate : 28.0 Mbps

Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.2
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=12
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 1mn 29s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 25.2 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 26.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 50.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.243
Stream size : 270 MiB (95%)

Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 1mn 29s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 256 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 2.74 MiB (1%)

Text
ID : 4608 (0x1200)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : PGS
Codec ID : 144
Duration : 1mn 29s


Things I've tried:

I tried first to render with the option "Render using proxy clips" checked and then unchecked both offer the same result described above.
I switched back to Libav (by removing FFmpeg and making sure Kdenlive environment settings were pointing to Libav tools again) and rendered again, same result.
Tried to render only parts with .mts files, same result.

Some thoughts:

I am a huge FLOSS fan. I worked in the FLOSS industry for years. I've been using Kdenlive for video editing as a hobby for years. There is always some kind of problem (not always Kdenlive but related software as well), but I stayed loyal to Kdenlive because ... well, it's the only video editor that works on Linux!

Now I realize that editing videos is one of the few important things I do on my computer outside a browser. Actually, after a couple of years unemployed and doing videos as a hobby, I have now the opportunity to actually get paid for some of my videos. But I cannot get Kdenlive to render.

I really don't want to move to a proprietary OS. Haven't used one since 1997. But I'm starting to feel defeated. I have to deliver videos, this is not a hobby anymore. I know how stable and strong some other parts of the FLOSS universe are. But I'm afraid I will have to buy a Mac for this kind of stuff, because there is always something...

But let's see if I can render this project that took endless hours of edition work!

Thanks for reading, sorry for the rant, thanks in advance for any help

Teo.

I don't understand what you mean by "When I render the project the resulting video does not show any modification on the .mts files". Can you please try to explain?

If I remember correctly, there is bug at least for Kdenlive 15.04 that renders proxies even if disabled. You need to remove any proxies from the project properties dialog. My this be the issue you are aiming at above?

Do your modifications ... that is, the effects ... properly show up when playing your project in Kdenlive? (Space bar)

Hello,

Thanks for your answer

TheDiveO wrote:I don't understand what you mean by "When I render the project the resulting video does not show any modification on the .mts files". Can you please try to explain?

Sure. What I mean is that the rendered video does not show any of the editions I made in Kdenlive. I add .mts files to the timeline. I then cut them and remove some parts, I add a couple of fades from black, fade to black. And after rendering, the resulting video shows the .mts file in raw mode instead of the edited part.

For example: lets say my timeline has 1 minute of clips with other files (not .mts), then another 1 minute of .mts files, with cuts, fades... etc. and then another 1 minute with more clips (not .mts). A sandwich! Then, the rendered video will show all the editions for the first minute and the third minute. But the second minute of my rendered result, would be the raw scenes, no cuts, no fades.

It is like you edit the clips but Kdenlive just ignores the editions when rendering.

TheDiveO wrote:If I remember correctly, there is bug at least for Kdenlive 15.04 that renders proxies even if disabled. You need to remove any proxies from the project properties dialog. My this be the issue you are aiming at above?

That... may be worth a try! I'm trying this and will let you know.

Thanks!

TheDiveO wrote:Do your modifications ... that is, the effects ... properly show up when playing your project in Kdenlive? (Space bar)

Yes! The project looks good in Kdenlive if I keep proxies. And by the way. I only use cuts, fade from black, fade to black, fade in and fade out.

But! Following your suggestion on your other post, I can see that the project does not look good if I remove proxies. It shows the same behaviour as the rendered result. It is as if proxies were masking the problem while editing too.

I just rendered a part of the project after removing proxies for that part and now both the Kdenlive timeline and the rendered video are wrong

Some more info.

I just tried to seek the videos with ffplay, avplay and melt. ffplay was able to jump forward and back apparently no problem. But avplay and melt failed. avplay would always seek to the same frame and melt would stop playing sound and not jump when told to.

Still working on it.

Hmm, searching for "mlt mts seek problem" turns up some older posts which suggest my suspicion that this may be a case for transcoding. In my projects I frequently encountered problems with the speed effect and H264 footage, so after some time I gave in and resorted to transcoding such footage to DNxHD. While you don't use the speed effect, it is very picky about correct seeking; so what you are reporting may be related to seeking problems. To my (limited) knowledge, this cannot be solved by upgrading MLT, but has to be accepted.

Hello,

Thanks a lot for your help.

As you pointed out, it doesn't look like there's much to do about it.

But for the record: I managed to render my project. What I did is re-encode the files with ffmpeg to .mp4. Same video and audio codecs. Then I changed the file names in the XML of the project file and it worked.

Thanks again!

Regards,
Teo

From your ffplay/avplay comparison, I would conclude that the seeking problem is in libav decoder, and not in ffmpeg decoder, so building MLT against ffmpeg instead of libav could allow you to edit your original shots with Kdenlive.
Do you know how to do this, and have time to run the test?

Thanks,

Vincent.

vpinon wrote:From your ffplay/avplay comparison, I would conclude that the seeking problem is in libav decoder, and not in ffmpeg decoder, so building MLT against ffmpeg instead of libav could allow you to edit your original shots with Kdenlive.
Do you know how to do this, and have time to run the test?

Thanks,

Vincent.

Sorry Vincent for taking so long to answer. Yes, I understand your conclusion is probably true. That's also what I thought. But no, currently I don't have time to do that. I finished my project and I'm focusing on new material. What I do now is run the conversion first.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Regards,
Teo.