MPG "terminal lag", "black frames"
Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2009 10:21 am
(1)
No matter how I set it up, MPGs created with Multiquence seem to have a very pronounced lag at the end of the animation. I am generating animations from a sequence of BMP still images. It is of course most noticeable with animations that were meant to "loop".
Watching the Media Player progress bar, it almost seems as if the last frame appears, but is "held" in the stream, and Media Player plays an additional fraction of a second with that last frame "frozen". This happens with and without a sound track.
This happens ONLY A LITTLE BIT with AVI/Cinepak and WMV; barely noticeable, and I assume that is just a characteristic of Vista / Windows Media Player. Back in the days of W98, animations could actually be created that looped perfectly in those older versions of Windows Media Player. AVI/Cinepak seems to be the best way to code these raytracing animations; the best quality, and they "loop" the best with barely noticeable lag at the end.
It is almost as if Multiquence is "padding" in a couple or three frames at the end, using the last BMP, when creating MPG animations.
So when creating MPGs, is there a setting I need to tweak?
(2)
During long animations (relatively long... for raytracing... 500 frames created from 500 640x480 BMPs); occasionally there is an almost subliminal "black frame" thrown in. Almost as if Media Player "cuts out"... for maybe 1/10 of a second or thereabouts. The *impression* I have is that these "black cutouts" are approximately equal to one frame in length. Counting "one onethousand, two onethousand", these "black frames" occur regularly about every 8-10 seconds, and always occur in the same locations in a particular animation.
Can anyone explain this, and hopefully offer a solution?
No matter how I set it up, MPGs created with Multiquence seem to have a very pronounced lag at the end of the animation. I am generating animations from a sequence of BMP still images. It is of course most noticeable with animations that were meant to "loop".
Watching the Media Player progress bar, it almost seems as if the last frame appears, but is "held" in the stream, and Media Player plays an additional fraction of a second with that last frame "frozen". This happens with and without a sound track.
This happens ONLY A LITTLE BIT with AVI/Cinepak and WMV; barely noticeable, and I assume that is just a characteristic of Vista / Windows Media Player. Back in the days of W98, animations could actually be created that looped perfectly in those older versions of Windows Media Player. AVI/Cinepak seems to be the best way to code these raytracing animations; the best quality, and they "loop" the best with barely noticeable lag at the end.
It is almost as if Multiquence is "padding" in a couple or three frames at the end, using the last BMP, when creating MPG animations.
So when creating MPGs, is there a setting I need to tweak?
(2)
During long animations (relatively long... for raytracing... 500 frames created from 500 640x480 BMPs); occasionally there is an almost subliminal "black frame" thrown in. Almost as if Media Player "cuts out"... for maybe 1/10 of a second or thereabouts. The *impression* I have is that these "black cutouts" are approximately equal to one frame in length. Counting "one onethousand, two onethousand", these "black frames" occur regularly about every 8-10 seconds, and always occur in the same locations in a particular animation.
Can anyone explain this, and hopefully offer a solution?