Edit video timing "ghost frame"

Report · Jun 09, 2012

Building a project with narrator video used throughout course. The video is one long file with individual video segments placed and timed on each slide using "edit video timing" in CP 5.5.

The problem: frequently during playback, the video referenced on a slide will display a random "ghost frame" before the correct video begins to play. This is distracting since our design places the narrator on a clean white background. The "ghost" appears to be a random frame from later in the video referenced on the slide.

To determine where the frame was being pulled from we put timecode on the video and recorded the screen during playback. Attached is small video file that illustrates the problem. Note that each playback attempt may show a different frame. Each frame will be from the same general section of the video.

Video is F4V exported from Adobe Media Encoder.

Appreciate any help.

Jeff

Video sample is at

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/17217781/ghost%20frame%20on%20load.mov

Report · Jun 11, 2012

Hi Jeff,

What is the publish settings for the same project.

Go to 'Edit' menu - preferences - Project - SWF size and quality.

Please share the settings with us.

try publishing the project at 'High' quality.

Thanks

Report · Jun 12, 2012

Attached are the publish settings. Based on your suggestion we published at "high" quality and tested this morning. No apparent change in the "ghosting" problem. We have noticed that the ghosting problem gets worse the longer the video file that is timed. A seemingly obvious solution would be be make the video files shorter, however, using too many video files in a project causes audio dropout based on too many Flash player threads being generated. I can point you to a long discussion thread on this if you don't know what I am referring to.

I appreciate any other suggestions.

Jeff

Report · Jun 12, 2012

I had similar issues with Flash video within Authorware, back in the day (snif)...

How that was most easily solved was by loading a 2 second-long video that showed just a white or black box first, then loading the actual video. This transitioned well between the videos (as we generally faded-up from white or black).

So how about trying that? After a video is done playing, before you move to the next slide, load a blank video for a couple seconds first... Then at least on the next video, if a 'ghost' is shown, it'll be blank...?

Report · Jun 12, 2012

Erik,

Thanks for your suggestion. I am unclear how this would work. We are using slide video which means only one video per slide. Are you suggesting adding another slide with a 2sec video that precedes the slide with the course video? We have experimented with adding a white buffer between each video segment. This is not effective because we can't predict where the ghost frame will be taken from. In most cases the frame is from later in the video, however, with each playback the frame may shift a few frames so it is not consistent.

Jeff