[Solved] Video playback not working as it should

GuildInsurance

Hello,

I am writing out of desperation.

I have created an animated screensaver using Adobe After Effect for our internal company screen savers. The video uses lots of slow motion animation so it is created at 60fps full HD. I then uses Adobe Media encoder to export to H.264 .mp4 file. The video plays back perfectly on my Mac and on PC in quicktime and Windows Media Player. When I import the file into iScreensaver I am getting some weird jerky transitions especially on slow movements.

I have tried exporting from Quicktime Pro 7 as I read on one of your posts that this could be an issue. I tried exporting the video on Mac and PC. I tried creating the screensaver on the Mac and PC version of iScreensaver. I tried exporting at 30fps. I tried a smaller file size. I tried .mp4, .mov and .avi file types. I have pretty much tried everything that I can think of and it still never plays back smoothly.

I can't afford to waste any more time trying to get this to work so I was wondering, if I send you the uncompressed video file, can you export it for me and send me the working screensaver file? We are happy to pay for this service if it can be done for less than $200. All we want is for the screensaver file to play back as smoothly as it does in Media Player or Quicktime - it's not a difficult ask but I have been extremely frustrated in trying to get this to do what it is supposed to do.

Thank you,
Matt

iScreensaver

Hi Matt,

I'm sorry to hear you are having trouble, we'd like to try to help.

Two questions:

1. Is the playback jerky on Mac or Windows or both?

2. Can you provide us a copy of the finished screensaver that we can test? (feel free to email us a private URL).

Thanks
iScreensaver.com

GuildInsurance

Thanks for the quick reply.

1. playback is only jerky on Windows which is all of our internal computers.

2. copy of the finished screensaver export from quicktime pro 7 - https://www.dropbox.com/s/twhjvi2j850xrm4/The Edge Screensaver FINAL quicktime.mp4?dl=0

Thank you,
Matt

iScreensaver

Thank you - we are looking into this now and hope to have some information tomorrow.

GuildInsurance

Great thanks!

iScreensaver

Hi Matt,

We've done extensive testing and have some feedback, and it's a mixed bag.

First, we did try re-encoding your movie but it seems you did a pretty good job : the MP4 format is clean.

However, in terms of content, full HD (1080p at 60fps) is really pushing the boundaries for screensavers, and due to hardware and software limitations of Windows OS, you are going to see better quality on Macs than Windows using iScreensaver Designer 4.5.

Recommendation: a lower frame rate (24 or 30 fps) and/or a lower resolution (720p) may actually look better on slower macs and for Windows PCs.

In terms of the motion content, the movie uses a lot of horizontal scrolling (aka "panning" text) and this is always a problem for moving images. See this writeup from RED camera which has a good discussion of how to avoid the apparent Judder http://www.red.com/learn/red-101/camera-panning-speed

The middle range of speeds, in which an item takes about 3-7 seconds to cross the screen, tends to make Judder most apparent.

Recommendation: avoid horizontal text scrolls, and if they are necessary, adjust the speed.

Finally, the good news: iScreensaver 5, under development, has many performance increases and, in the right situations, can play back 60fps video on Windows 10 just fine. Please send us an email : support (at) iscreensaver.com if you'd like more info.

GuildInsurance

Thank you for your detailed response. It seems as though it's more an issue with Windows OS rather than the video formats etc. I did try to play around with a few of the settings you mentioned but it didn't change the end result so at this stage we will be forced to wait for the latest update of iScreensaver.

iScreensaver

Please note that iScreensaver Designer 5 has been released which addresses many of these issues.

Please see http://iscreensaver.com/features5.shtml for a list of new features in version 5.0.