Can only get blocky YouTube videos

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Can only get blocky YouTube videos

Postby Bloaterhouse » Thu Dec 26, 2013 9:21 am

Hi, I'm having trouble getting anything but the lowest quality video onto YouTube, using the demo version of PSG 6. I can't produce any other type of output, or any better quality straight-to-YouTube video. The lowest quality is horribly blocky, so I need something better.

When I try anything else, it seizes up while rendering the video. I think that's due to running out of disk space, though it doesn't say so, so how big would you expect a PSG output file to be, as AVI or Quicktime (how long is a piece of string? I know, but an answer in vague terms of Gb or 10's of Gb is what I mean).

What I'm trying to do is this:

I made an animation (rather than a photographic slideshow) using my own version 3.5 PSG. It has about 190 slides and lasts 2:25 minutes, and some of the slides involve movement and/or multiple layers. It runs beautifully in 3.5 PSG and with Photodex Presenter, and I thought all was well, but 3.5 won't do anything else with it - connecting to YouTube fails and the file types seem to be incompatible with YouTube anyway because of its age.

I tried asking customer service how I could get the animation up onto YT, but their answer was to reinstall 3.5 and delete all my anti-virus software. I'm not willing to do that, because when other s/w has gone wrong I've had that advice from other companies' service departments and I followed it repeatedly and it never made any difference. Maybe this is the one time it would work, but I thought I'd try another tack.

So I downloaded the trial version 6 and have been experimenting to see if that would work - in which case I'd upgrade. But it doesn't. I'm happy with using 3.5 to produce animations, but I need other people to see them, so I'm not going to upgrade if version 6 can't produce videos either.

I'm at my wit's end with this. I've tried all the different options* and nothing had worked yet except the blocky video - so here are my questions:

1. Do people get acceptable results on YouTube using version 6, and what settings/quality do you find acceptable?

2. Is there any way to show my work on an Android tablet, given that it won't run a .exe, I can't produce AVI and I can't upload a decent video straight to YouTube?

3. Is my problem simply disk space?

4. What's the best version of PSG to upgrade to (in my experience of other software, the latest isn't always the 'best' or most popular with users)?

* including playing the animation using Photodex Presenter on my laptop, while filming it using a camera on a tripod! Yes, I was that desperate. The result was dreadful: 2 moire patterns, ghastly colours and me on the soundtrack shouting, "No! Get away!" to the cat who was staring up at the tripod, about to jump at it!

Thanks in advance for any advice.

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Re: Can only get blocky YouTube videos

Postby BarbaraC » Thu Dec 26, 2013 9:38 am

Bloaterhouse wrote:...I tried asking customer service how I could get the animation up onto YT, but their answer was to reinstall 3.5 and delete all my anti-virus software. I'm not willing to do that, because when other s/w has gone wrong I've had that advice from other companies' service departments and I followed it repeatedly and it never made any difference. Maybe this is the one time it would work, but I thought I'd try another tack.

So I downloaded the trial version 6 and have been experimenting to see if that would work - in which case I'd upgrade. But it doesn't. I'm happy with using 3.5 to produce animations, but I need other people to see them, so I'm not going to upgrade if version 6 can't produce videos either.

I'm at my wit's end with this. I've tried all the different options* and nothing had worked yet except the blocky video - so here are my questions:

1. Do people get acceptable results on YouTube using version 6, and what settings/quality do you find acceptable?

2. Is there any way to show my work on an Android tablet, given that it won't run a .exe, I can't produce AVI and I can't upload a decent video straight to YouTube?

3. Is my problem simply disk space?

4. What's the best version of PSG to upgrade to (in my experience of other software, the latest isn't always the 'best' or most popular with users)?

* including playing the animation using Photodex Presenter on my laptop, while filming it using a camera on a tripod! Yes, I was that desperate. The result was dreadful: 2 moire patterns, ghastly colours and me on the soundtrack shouting, "No! Get away!" to the cat who was staring up at the tripod, about to jump at it!

Thanks in advance for any advice.


You may be having a mix of problems, the more major one possibly addressed by Photodex. I can't imagine their telling you to delete your anti-virus software. Did they instead perhaps suggest you disable it while installing the software? It's something a lot of companies suggest because anti-virus software is notorious for causing problems. Other than that, they may have suspected a corrupt file, which is most easily remedied by reinstallation.

Have you tried rendering a show to your computer and then going out to YouTube and uploading the video file from there? This is the way I do it--always--and when rendering, I choose the highest quality possible because YouTube tends to cause a certain amount of harm no matter what.

And yes, if you don't have enough disk space (or memory, for that matter), you're going to run into problems.

As for upgrading, I can't really give advice because my poison of choice is Producer.

Barbara
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Re: Can only get blocky YouTube videos

Postby Bloaterhouse » Thu Dec 26, 2013 9:55 am

Hi Barbara, you're right of course, they said 'disable', sorry. Perhaps it would work, all I'm saying is I've had the same advice re other software, and followed it to no avail.

Have you tried rendering a show to your computer and then going out to YouTube and uploading the video file from there? This is the way I do it--always--and when rendering, I choose the highest quality possible because YouTube tends to cause a certain amount of harm no matter what.


Yes, that's exactly what I've been trying to do, as well as trying to go directly to YouTube. It fails to produce a file because it freezes partway through.

Thanks anyway.

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Re: Can only get blocky YouTube videos

Postby im42n8 » Thu Dec 26, 2013 10:04 am

As for installing PSG, turn off your anti-virus to ensure it won't interfere with or corrupt the installation.

As for YT, the highest resolution available is the highest resolution to which the video was exported to. So, in YT you can change the video playback resolution to a higher resolution (if it's available).

PSP/PSG export to YouTube has always (as far a I can remember) export to at least 1080p (best)... an option as you begin the export from within the program. When you say "how big would you expect a PSG output file to be" ... that depends on your export resolution. AVIs are going to be large and MPGs are going to be smaller. But, with a show of 2min or so, you're going to have a few 10's of MB's (maybe a couple hundred) but not a GB. If you're saving to disk first, it's probably important (especially if you're short on disk space). If you ARE short on disk space I would empty the trash, delete whatever temp files you can (that are no longer being used), remove unnecessary files from your disk, etc (to free up as much hard drive space as possible). Maybe you want to consider getting an external drive for your purposes.

After installing the program it will want you to reboot (to allow it to find the DVDs and such), your AV will be restarted.

Anyway, you may want to check the preferences settings in PSG ... if you have the resolution in v3.5 set to the default of 800x600, your output is going to be less than desirable. Consider changing it.

If you're going to upgrade, you'll be going to v6. I'm not sure if Photodex will sell the interim versions (they might). But v6 is a very worthy update. There have been some considerable changes to PSG since v3.x. It's a significantly more powerful program than it was. Plus, lots of bug fixes and it's a much stabler program than it was then. No, the latest is not always the greatest but, wrt PSP/PSG, you will find that it's well worth the upgrade. You might consider going to Producer vs Gold tho ... well worth the ugrade (v6 of Gold, however is much more powerful than PSG v3.x).

As for playing on an Android, you will probably want to got the YT route or export directly to an MPG.

Most people have had no problem exporting to AVI, MOV, MPG, YT, FB, etc. Your problems might have a root somewhere else . . . not the program.

Dale

PS looks like there were some posts before I finished mine.

As for the freezing, there might be a problem with the show itself. Especially if the freeze stops at the same spot each time. If this is not the problem, it's possible there's a problem with the PROSHOW.PHD file ... delete it and the program recreates it. If this doesn't fix it, you could always reinstall the program over the same installation. But, the problem is more probably the show itself. It could be a layer transition or the audio or a video file. Hard to say.
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Re: Can only get blocky YouTube videos

Postby debngar » Thu Dec 26, 2013 10:40 am

In addition to what Barbara and Dale offered, here are a few other things worth considering.

Only have one anti-virus/firewall program installed and working on your machine. Having more than one running on your computer can be problematic. I use Norton but only have the anti-virus and firewall products running and nothing else. Sometimes additional AV programs can get installed during the installation of other software, like Adobe Flash, for instance. Without proactively unchecking the check box, the user can wind up with McAfee installed on their computer too without realizing it.

Besides disabling the AV and firewall during installation, KEEP IT DISABLED until AFTER you've re-booted and reopened the program. For quite a few years I've done it this way now and have never had a problem since.

It takes a little while for YT to render all low to higher versions after the file is uploaded. If the problem uploading was done during the last few days of the holidays, I'm guessing traffic to the site may have been busier than normal too. Like Barbara, I always render the file to my computer first, then upload to my channel at the YT page, not through the ProShow YT connection process.

Since you're using 3.5, you don't say what kind of hardware you're running this on. Not having enough RAM can be a problem. Newer versions of ProShow have some transitions and slide styles that utilize short video clips and those are large files. It's better to have more than the minimum stated hardware requirements and a good video card too. If you haven't updated your computer since 3.5 came out about 5.5 years ago, maybe it's time to do that. Since it has way more features now, it's going to require a machine that can put up with those demands.

If you decide to pay for an upgrade, perhaps it's possible to get an older version if that's what you'd like, instead of using version 6. But I suggest contacting Photodex to get the real scoop on that to be sure before you commit to the purchase.
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Re: Can only get blocky YouTube videos

Postby Bloaterhouse » Thu Jan 02, 2014 6:01 am

Thank you all for your help - it's much appreciated.

I do actually have another, faster/more powerful laptop but I don't connect it to the internet, which is why I was using the slower, older one to put my slideshow on YT. I went back to the faster one and tried producing output on that instead, hoping to get a good file which I could transfer to the older machine and thence to YT.

This seemed to work, and I was set to dance around the room with delight, until I played the file back and found a strange timey-wimey problem with it. The picture quality is great but although the audio track starts out sync'd with the images, it moves incrementally out of sync as the 2:25 minutes pass. At the end of the slideshow are 3 sequences which look really snappy when they're sync'd to the music, and fall flat when they're not, so this is disastrous.

I tried various types/standards of output and the only one which stayed in sync was Photodex Presenter. That and the PSG slideshow developer are perfect; everything else is out of sync. I don't know whether it's the image stream or the audio track which has changed.

(This was using version 3.5. I'm loath to upgrade unless I know more about this, or that it will definitely never happen in a newer version. Maybe other people's slideshows aren't as time-specific as my animation, so this doesn't affect other people/ they don't notice it. And yes, I've just invested in some real animation software as a late Christmas present; but I put so much effort into this PSG one that I'd like to finish it off. And I still really like PSG. It's just that I'm beginning to feel as though I bought a car to get me to work etc, only to be told all I can do is sit in it on my driveway - I can't actually drive it anywhere.)

Does anyone know why this time slippage is happening and what I can do about it?

Is there a way to use Photodex Presenter on the internet? I tried the 'for streaming on your website' option, which output a couple of likely-looking files, but I don't know how to use them.

Also, somewhere I'm sure I read about putting content onto a Photodex sharing site - where is that and what sort of files does it take (if it still exists)?

Thanks again, and Happy New Year.

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Re: Can only get blocky YouTube videos

Postby im42n8 » Thu Jan 02, 2014 6:21 am

You know, this might be the time to contact Photodex and to send them your show. Some of their most recent "fixes" in their latest releases had to do with video export problems. Your problem might be right up their alley.

Dale
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Re: Can only get blocky YouTube videos

Postby Bloaterhouse » Sat Jan 04, 2014 11:28 am

Thanks for that suggestion. I might do it, but in the meantime I may have found a solution, so I'm posting it here in case it helps anyone.

On an animation forum, they suggested animators could 'stitch together' scenes using Windows moviemaker, and add a sound track at that point. So I tried outputting this same file from PSG without a soundtrack, and then adding the same music track I'd timed the images to when I used PSG. It worked! It's acceptable quality, but not the most perfect video in the world, as it's now been rendered twice and who knows how good it'll be on YT, but maybe I can play around with settings and get something better out. At least it's now possible to produce a perfectly sync'd version of my little movie in a YT-accepted format.

So it's back into PSG to finish off the animation. :D

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Re: Can only get blocky YouTube videos

Postby Bloaterhouse » Mon May 19, 2014 11:53 pm

I'm happy to report that I've now got a version of my animation up on YouTube (somewhat late as it's Christmas-themed, or maybe I'm just early for this year). Part of the delay was due to buying and trying out animation software - but I found I prefer working with PSG for the moment.

I went down the path of outputting a file without audio and then putting the audio back on in Windows Moviemaker, as this solved two problems: the audio getting out of synch and the lack of modern file formats in my old version of PSG. I found that if I published a version for email, that would work on my Android tablet, but only if I ran it from a data stick via 'Gallery'. If I put it on the tablet and then ran it, it got stretched widthways.

The YouTube version suffers slightly on clarity and colour but it's the best I've managed to produce so far. If anyone would like to see what I did, it's here:
[url]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj92jsDk ... e=youtu.be[/url]

Or if you don't like links, go to YouTube and search for "Gugge Christmas". The images should be/can be perfectly in time with the music, but it can look out of synch if it doesn't stream well. I'm thinking of adding slides to the scene with the women drummers, as it's a bit jerky: I put in the minimum to start with so as not to overload PSG.

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Re: Can only get blocky YouTube videos

Postby debngar » Tue May 20, 2014 5:43 am

Your animation was pretty cute. You might consider posting the show in the PSG sample show area so more people might see and appreciate it.

Communication with the administrator needs to happen first though.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=13688

If you were using Producer, there would be less need for so many slides as the key framing feature allows movement within each slide instead of having to do each movement 1 per slide. It can output high quality 1080p YouTube versions. But it also might mean the need for more robust computer to run it. I would say a user's machine should have more than the stated "minimum" required hardware to make things work more smoothly. IMO, I don't think the stated minimums have ever been enough.

I've produced slideshows to run on my Android phone and the Galaxy Tab II that my husband uses. They seem to work fine. But that required a custom output for device selection. It's possible PSG may be limited in choices there too but I don't know for sure. Starting with version 6, I believe there is no extra cost for licensing the custom output for devices plug-in, compared to the older versions. It's that way at least for Producer, that I know of.
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Re: Can only get blocky YouTube videos

Postby Betty » Tue May 20, 2014 10:05 am

Your animated show was cute. Very good for your first one! Kudos for teaching yourself animation!

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Re: Can only get blocky YouTube videos

Postby Bloaterhouse » Thu May 22, 2014 1:00 am

Thank you, Debbie and Betty, for your lovely comments.

I'll take another look at Producer - I'd forgotten about keyframes.

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Re: Can only get blocky YouTube videos

Postby Kathbc » Mon Jun 23, 2014 8:22 pm

Barb would you please walk me thru the steps/settings you use to render a show to your computer prior to uploading from youtube? Thanks! :)

Settings for YT would be helpful too. It's been awhile and the brain is going!

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