Red screen problem in Premiere Elements 2019

[SharonOsb]

I'm a new user of Premiere Elements.  Today I tried creating a short video using footage from a Panasonic 4k camcorder.  Things went well for a short time, but soon random red screens began appearing in the timeline and playback.  I've read this has been an issue with prior versions of the software as well as with all versions of Premiere Pro. 

The problem can be fixed in Pro by changing media preferences (uncheck Enable accelerated decoding of intel h.264).  This isn't an option in Premiere Elements.

Can someone help?

Thank you.

[Steve Grisetti]

It kind of depends on what those "red screens" are. Are they literally red blank spots that are appearing in place of your video clips on the timeline or are there red screens with indicators on them that say your media is offline?

Please post a screen capture of your project's timeline and of these red screens.

[SharonOsb]

Thanks for the quick response.  I found a hardware acceleration option as the last entry on the "General" tab and turned it off.  That fixed the red frame(s) issue. See below.  Now there is another issue:  once rendered, the playback is very pixelated.  Is that fixable?  (By way of introduction, I've been using an NLE named Edius because it's the only one I found that can handle any format seamlessly.  However, Edius is cumbersome and clearly meant for professionals, so I'm trying to switch).

[Steve Grisetti]

When the playhead is over the red clips, do you see red in the Monitor panel?

Also what model of camcorder is this video coming from and what format is it?

The rendering you're referring to is only a preview of your video. It doesn't represent what your final video will look like. But you can right-click on the Monitor panel and select the option to increase the preview quality if the pixelated preview bothers you.

[SharonOsb]

Yes, there's flickering red in the monitor panel.

It's a Panasonic HC-VX1 Camcorder shooting 4k MP4 2160 video (at least that's what the manual says).

Thanks for the tips on previewing a rendered video.  I'm so used to wysiwyg with Edius, this pixelated render threw me off balance.  I did output an HD file which looks ok.  It's difficult to accurately edit a pixelated timeline.

(Thanks for all the helpful training videos.  I've been immersed today.)

[SharonOsb]

I adjusted the playback quality to "highest".  This is what I got.  Horribly pixelated and generally terrible.

[Steve Grisetti]

There's something odd in this video. Open one of your videos from that camcorder in the free download MediaInfo. In MediaInfo, set View to Text and then copy the report it generates and paste it to this forum. Once we know the specs of the video we'll know better what's going on.

Meantime, make sure you've got your latest Windows Updates and that you've rebooted -- and go to the AMD or nVidia site (whichever graphics card you have) and ensure you have the latest drivers for your GPU.

[SharonOsb]

Report is below.  My computer and drivers are up to date.  Thanks for helping.

General

Complete name                            : C:\Users\Sharon\Desktop\Alaska 2019 final\Day5\D5 video\d5 vid (17).MP4

Format                                   : MPEG-4

Format profile                           : Base Media / Version 2

Codec ID                                 : mp42 (mp42/avc1)

File size                                : 181 MiB

Duration                                 : 24 s 525 ms

Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable

Overall bit rate                         : 61.8 Mb/s

Encoded date                             : UTC 2019-07-19 18:06:46

Tagged date                              : UTC 2019-07-19 18:06:46

Video

ID                                       : 1

Format                                   : AVC

Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec

Format profile                           : High@L5.1

Format settings                          : CABAC / 2 Ref Frames

Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes

Format settings, Reference frames        : 2 frames

Format settings, GOP                     : M=3, N=8

Codec ID                                 : avc1

Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding

Duration                                 : 24 s 525 ms

Bit rate mode                            : Variable

Bit rate                                 : 61.5 Mb/s

Maximum bit rate                         : 70.0 Mb/s

Width                                    : 3 840 pixels

Height                                   : 2 160 pixels

Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9

Frame rate mode                          : Constant

Frame rate                               : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPS

Color space                              : YUV

Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0

Bit depth                                : 8 bits

Scan type                                : Progressive

Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.247

Stream size                              : 180 MiB (100%)

Language                                 : English

Encoded date                             : UTC 2019-07-19 18:06:46

Tagged date                              : UTC 2019-07-19 18:06:46

Color range                              : Limited

Color primaries                          : BT.709

Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709

Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709

Codec configuration box                  : avcC

Audio

ID                                       : 2

Format                                   : AAC LC

Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity

Codec ID                                 : mp4a-40-2

Duration                                 : 24 s 525 ms

Source duration                          : 24 s 576 ms

Bit rate mode                            : Constant

Bit rate                                 : 256 kb/s

Channel(s)                               : 2 channels

Channel layout                           : L R

Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz

Frame rate                               : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)

Compression mode                         : Lossy

Stream size                              : 759 KiB (0%)

Source stream size                       : 760 KiB (0%)

Language                                 : English

Encoded date                             : UTC 2019-07-19 18:06:46

Tagged date                              : UTC 2019-07-19 18:06:46

[Steve Grisetti]

There's no problem with the video itself. Premiere Elements should have no problems editing and outputting this video. As I've said, the pixelation is only on the preview. It won't be in your final output.

But there are two things you can do to improve the quality of your preview, if it bothers you:

1) Right-click on the Monitor panel and set Playback Quality to Highest (as you've done).

2) Go to the program's preferences (under the Edit menu on a PC) and, on the General page, set Timeline Render Quality to High Quality, Slow Speed. This may slow down your timeline render just a bit but, assuming you've got a reasonably powerful machine, not significantly.

Again, these settings are for your editing preview only. They have no effect on your final output, which will be based on your original 4K files.

[SharonOsb]

Thank you.  I'll try that today.  On the other subject, any idea what's going on with the red renders?  As mentioned in the original post, this seems to be a known problem with Premiere Pro.  However, not a big deal if just turning off acceleration fixes it, but Adobe should get iaddress the problem.  It's been going on for a long time according to the posts I've read.

Sharon

[Ann Bens]

Red frames means decoding error. See if your Hardware acc. is turned off.

[SharonOsb]

Thank you for the reply.  I found the acceleration option after reading through the Premiere Pro forums discussing this same issue.  Turning it off did eliminate the red frames, but seems it's a clear Adobe issue that should be addressed.  Again, thanks.

[Steve Grisetti]

I can't speak for Adobe and what they are or are not fixing. This is a user to user forum.

[williebegoode]

Sharon,

What saves me the most time is organizing your 'parts' ahead of time. The easiest way is to put everything in the same folder—your video, project file and everything else a single folder. It's my kind of 'preventive medicine' and keeps all of the resources together in case I have to move the files. (e.g., backup or archives). I get no red frames that way.

[SharonOsb]

Thanks!  I'll try this.