Upper half of video is missing (black screen)

[marisela2013]

I'm working with Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 and I have all updates installed. This is my first time posting and I've only been using CS6 for a few months so I'm still a newbie. That being said here's my dilemma: a project I had worked on yesterday without any issues is now missing the upper half of the video. I didn't have a problem before and this is the first time I'm having to deal with this. For some reason, the problem is only occuring when I use files larger than 1GB. When I switch to a lower quality video file that is 160MB, for example, I don't have the problem of missing the upper half of the video. I also tried exporting to see if the problem gets corrected during the export process but it also comes out missing the upper half of the video. 

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Marisela

[shooternz]

Hey Todd

Just out of curiosity...how does a simple thing with a long history of reliabilty like this... get broken by a security patch in an OS?

I can only presume someone was tinkering with it.

[Todd_Kopriva]

That's a question that only Microsoft can answer. This was a break in their decoder made by their update. We have nothing to do with it... except that we (like so many others) rely on their decoder to decode their format.

[ScubadaveNJ]

Just curious myself, when you say a long hsitory of reliability, are you talking about Microsoft or Adobe? 

[shooternz]

Was talking about wmvs.

@Todd. 

Was hoping for the inside gen on how software  programmers work.

"Fix it til its broken" meets "feature creep" 

[the_wine_snob]

ShooterNZ,

Wonder if MS was trying to beef up DRM in WMV?

Like you, I am curious what went wrong, and what somebody was thinking.

Hunt

[the_wine_snob]

Todd,

Greatly appreciate updates, when available.

Thanks,

Hunt

[the_wine_snob]

From the Premiere Elements Forum:

Hunt & ATR & anyone else interested in the 'fix'

Within the hour I received an e-mail notice from MS regarding the AUGUST batch of updates.  Included in the notice was a RE-release of the update (MS Security Bulletin MS13-057) that caused all of the grief last month.  The re-release can be found at:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms13-057

It should be noted that if you had previously 'Hidden' the original update so that it would not get installed; you will find that the MS process will automatically 'un-hide' the update and present the NEW update.  IMPORTANT, if one allows automatic downloading and installation of MS updates the new one will be installed --just as the old one was.  To prevent this from happening without your knowledge it is important to make sure that settings for updates utilize the third (3rd) option in the drop-down list to prevent unexpected actions.

"Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them"   (3rd choice in the dropdown list)

The revised MS update can be identified by scrolling to the bottom to the section named "REVISIONS".

The new version will be identified by the notation:

• V2.0 (August 13, 2013): Bulletin revised to rerelease the 2803821 update for Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2. Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 customers should install the rereleased update. See the Update FAQ for more information.

It will be interesting to see if the original problem is fixed --and that no new problems are introduced.  I personally always wait about a week before installing any updates. In this case it will probably be longer because I will be out of town for a week or more and unable to acess the PC.

I have not downloaded the Update, but others have, and claim that it works just fine.

Hunt

[Todd_Kopriva]

As Bill says, it appears that Microsoft has issued the fixed update:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms13-057

See the "Update FAQ" section:

"Why was this bulletin revised on August 13, 2013?

Microsoft revised this bulletin to rerelease the 2803821 update for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

The rereleased update addresses an application compatibility issue in which WMV encoded video could fail to properly render during playback. Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 customers should install the rereleased update."

[anythingwilldo]

I just ran into this issue today, on a Mac. Yesterday the files were working fine on my MacBook Pro running Mountain Lion, this morning the same quicktimes are missing the lower half when opened on my iMac running Snow Leopard, the files are shared via Dropbox, could that be causing it?

I was able to open them with VLC, but some quality loss happened.

Thanks.

[Mark Mapes]

Hi David,

Sorry to hear you've run into this issue. I don't have any diagnosis or suggestions, except that you start a new thread. This one is specific to Windows--a particular Windows 7 update. It affected only WMV clips. And the top half of the frame was missing, not the bottom.

In your new thread, please specify what type of video it is--QuickTime is just the wrapper; we'll need to know the codec.

Is this happening in the Source Monitor, the Program Monitor, or both? A screenshot of the monitor might help. If the problem is limited to the Program Monitor, then a copy of the project file might help, too.

Since the clips displayed correctly just yesterday, are you aware of any changes on the system in the meantime? A QuickTime update? A driver update.

Also, report the make and model of graphics card and the exact version of Premiere Pro.

[anythingwilldo]

Thanks Mark, will do that.

[TalbotMcInnis]

XP decoding was broken by the same update, but it doesn't look like they have re-released XP's update.  Any work on any efforts towards fixing XP also?

[the_wine_snob]

I just got notification of a new Update from MS this morning, August 14. I created a System Restore Point, downloaded and installed the Updates. I am still testing those for XP-Pro SP3.

Good luck,

Hunt

[petergaraway]

Microsoft said they are currently testing the fix for Windows XP, but don't have any concrete release date yet.

Peter Garaway
Adobe Premiere Pro

[TalbotMcInnis]

We've waited this long, so thats the best news I could expect I suppose.

Thank very much for the update Peter.  I really appreciate it.

[welchphoto]

An update:

Several weeks ago I output a Powerpoint to .wmv video and had the half black problem.

Yesterday I installed all the latest MS updates for Win 7 64bit.

I just did a new output from Powerpoint to a .wmv video dropped it into CC made a Sequence for it and it played fine no half black frames.

[mbworldproducer]

Okay, I receive and installed the upgraded up-date over the weekend.

This is Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

Tested it successfully (just loaded one .wmv file) with:-

After Effects CS5.5

Media encoder CS5.5

So far so good!

Thank you to everyone who identified the problem and brought the solution back to us.

I can now get back to preparing the two videos for my Kickstarter fund-raising campaigns.

[Guest]

After having uninstalled KB2803821 on Windows 7, the top half of the WMV is not clipped 100% of the time, but there are several frames where clipping still occurs. In my experience, they are not contiguous. As I Page Down through each frame, every 50-60 frames or so in a 29.97 fps composition I get a frame that is missing the top half.

Has anyone else encountered this after removing the hotfix and is there a resolution?

Thanks,

John

[ScubadaveNJ]

Is it possible you're looking at an area that's was pre-rendered in your timeline before you removed the hotfix?

Removing the hotfix definitely fixed the problem for me.

[Steven L. Gotz]

I never edit WMV files. Never. However, it just so happens I was looking at some old files, and a question came up on the forum, and I grabbed the nearest video I could find to pull into Premiere Pro for an example - which was the WMV directory in Windows Explorer.

Son of a gun, there was the bottom half of the frame.Just the bottom half.

Interesting. But it leaves me with a question.

Why are people editing WMV files? What camera spits those out? Actually, where do people even find those anymore? And why not use H.264 which works fine?

[ScubadaveNJ]

>>  Why are people editing WMV files? What camera spits those out? Actually, where do people even find those anymore? And why not use H.264 which works fine?

We have clients who hire us to edit them.  That's one of the reasons we chose Premiere - the ability to mix codecs and resolutions on a single timeline.

[Ann Bens]

Tried all sorts of wmv's and it does not show the half video. Both CS6 and CC. So go figure.

[nadworks-cb]

Why are people editing WMV files? What camera spits those out? Actually, where do people even find those anymore? And why not use H.264 which works fine?

Thanks for testing this on some pld footage, Steven.

Always kinda getting a tad annoyed when forum comments go along the lines of "why do you want to do that?" - or "That's not the way to do it...".

The point is, people do things differently and if they need help, they expect pro-active answers. I.e. a lot of screen capture processes output wmv for example. WMV is also much more forgiving with flexible frame rates.

So, let's not make assumptions on practicalities and old/new methods. Let's just try to sort this out.

[Steven L. Gotz]

a lot of screen capture processes output wmv for example. WMV is also much more forgiving with flexible frame rates.

Ah, I see. I know that screen capture utilities do that but mine allows me to use other codecs, like Lagarith, which is visually lossless so I use that. It creates huge files, but I have the room so it doesn't bother me. The flexible frame rates, now that I didn't know about. So thanks..

So, let's not make assumptions on practicalities and old/new methods. Let's just try to sort this out.

Don't get upset when people ask questions. That is what forums are for! Besides, it is already sorted out. It is a Microsoft problem, and there is a solution. What more can be sorted out other than Microsoft fixing what they broke.

If the solution had not been discovered, I would probably not have asked a question that sidetracked the conversation.

If people need to edit WMV because of clients and there is no access to the original material, I am not one of those to accuse WMV of not being a "professional" codec. You edit what you get paid to edit. I was not being argumentative. I truly have not been in a position to edit a WMV in many, many years.

Having said that, if people here are creating WMV for the purpose of editing it, I suggest that there are better ways to do that in many, if not most, cases.

Take the free "CamStudio Recorder" for example. Lagarith is a choice and Premiere Pro edits it like a hot knife through butter.

At least it is something to consider. In the meantime, follow the instructions in posts 4 & 23.

[Kyle Darkwelder]

I am a Youtuber, and I can promise you that WMM files load better into Youtube then any other file type I've ever encountered. So I usually save the vids I wanna post there in that format. I know that the quality is a little worse (infact I even did a little study into it for a project) but I still think it's fine (for Youtube)

But, hey, maybe I'm juSt an idiot and I should try .mp4 or something instead. But that seems irrelevant, as there is an issue here, and the way around it is not "Well, then just don't use that file type!"