FIXED: Problem exporting animations

Hello everyone!
I started using TD some days ago and I have some problems exporting my animations (I have the commercial version).

I tried to export my animation with H.264 Codec via MovieFileOutTop and then with “export movie” but the exported video glitches and has always some weird artefacts/pixel on it and sometimes the audio glitches a little bit. I followed numerous tutorials. I think there is a problem with the codec because also MPEG4 and others doesn’t work properly. I have a RTX 3070 (laptop) with a recent driver installed so I don’t think that there is an hardware problem and i usually use other programs like blender, after effects; etc… without any problems.

I tried everything. I changed bitrate, resolution, quality and almost every parameter that were involved but that doesn’t work. I tried also to export the default simple scene but I still have this problem.
What can I do?

(Sorry, English isn’t my first language)

Hi @Kamilex,

sorry for your issues, I’m assuming you are using TouchDesigner 2023.11880?
Another question I have, does it look like this when played back in another software or also when loaded back into TouchDesigner?

cheers
Markus

Yes, i’m using that version. Yes, i tried to import the video in Premiere but i have the same issues.

Hi @Kamilex,

thank you! Would it be possible to share the video that the above image was taken from? It will help us approach the issue.

Thanks
Markus

@snaut Yes, of course!

I can’t upload the video here in the forum so I’m posting a WeTransfer link where you can download it.

If you scroll through the video, you can see the problem I was talking about. I usually use QuickTime Player, but it happens with other players as well, even on the phone.

LINK: Unique Download Link | WeTransfer

Thanks,
Camilla

Hi @Kamilex,

I can see the issue when scrubbing the movie in VLC for example - but don’t see it during regular playback - is that the same for you?
Also i see artifacts when exporting H264 and scrubbing but MPEG 4 doesn’t seem to exhibit these. Just looking for a short term solution for you to work around this issue.

cheers
Markus

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Hi @snaut

I’ve done many export tests in H.264, and in some videos, I could see the pixels even during playback, while other videos were exported completely white (it’s possible that I set the wrong parameters since I tried many different settings). Unfortunately, I’ve deleted the videos where this issue was visible.

I tried to export a more complex scene. It’s true, MPEG4 works. I initially thought it wasn’t working because it was choppy when I tried to play it on the player, but that was likely due to the large file size (over 2 GB). I solved the MPEG4 issue by importing the video into Premiere Pro and exporting it again, although this is a very temporary solution.

Thanks

Have you made your recordings with the real-time flag turned off? This should be turned off generally for exporting movies so any dropped frames do not result in jumpy, non-smooth exported movies.

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Yes, I did it, but thanks for the advice anyway.

1 Like

Hi @Kamilex,

it’s logged as a bug and we are having a look at it.

cheers
Markus

1 Like

@snaut
Thank you so much for your availability! Let me know.

Camilla

@snaut

Hello, I wanted to give you a small update.
Sometimes MPEG4 doesn’t work as well (especially in more complex videos).
But if I apply any codec conversion by using ffmpeg, these problems disappear.

As a temporary solution I’m using this script DAT chop to do the mpeg4—>h264 conversion

import os
import subprocess


print("start")
output_path = 'C:\\path\\to\\file\\prova3.mov'  

output_h264_path = output_path.replace('.mov', '_h264.mp4')


ffmpeg_command = f'ffmpeg -i "{output_path}" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -strict experimental -b:a 192k "{output_h264_path}"'


subprocess.run(ffmpeg_command, shell=True)


if os.path.exists(output_h264_path):
    os.remove(output_path)  

print(f"Conversion completed. File H.264 saved in: {output_h264_path}")

Hi @Kamilex,

thank you for the update! We’ll update here as soon as we have something.

cheers
Markus

Thanks for the report. This bug will be fixed in builds 2023.12058 and later.
You can actually avoid it right now without a re-encode by using the -c:v copy option, which just copies the encoded video without causing a recompression.