@johnebaker

Thanks for the clarification. I think what confused me is the description in the user manual. "Playback starts at the playback marker and after reaching the end of the project, will restart at its beginning." It should read, "project window" rather than project since if your project is shorter than the project window, the player will continue along dead space until it hits the end of the project window. The length of a project is usually defined as up until the end of the last object; not the end of the project window.

Interestingly this function does have an impact on the range playback. If turned off, the range playback does not loop. So the user manual should also make reference to range playback. eg. "if the range playback button is pressed, the playback starts at the in point [ and after reaching the end point ] of the range, will restart at the beginning. If turned off, the range playback will not loop."

Another observation (which may be a bug if others can replicate) if you turn off or on this function, the preview monitor control buttons stop working and you have to restart VPX16.

@Can-Dive

Hi.

I can't replicate your findings in VPX 14. On the first pass the loop will repeat from wherever the playback marker is resting and all subsequent loops will start at the beginning of the project and will end the loop at the end of the project and not the end of the timeline view in the monitor. The idea that it should loop between range markers when turned off I think is wrong. The markers just designate a beginning and end point for playback when the range playback button is pressed when the range markers are placed anywhere else other than the beginning and end of a project, if used at all.

Another observation (which may be a bug if others can replicate) if you turn off or on this function, the preview monitor control buttons stop working and you have to restart VPX16.

Please clarify that statement. If what I think you are saying is happening in VPX 16 then it it is not happening in VPX 14.

Please forgive the distorted audio at the end of the video, I have some tweaking to do within OBS Studio as when running both programs eventually I get problems recording the audio in OBS and playback in any open program until OBS is closed.

Do check for unwanted snippets of files beyond your project as @johnebaker suggests. They could be as small as one frame and almost invisible on the timeline until the view is expanded sufficiently to see any.

Ray.

@CubeAce

Hi Ray

I have tested the playback loop in MEP 2016, I don't have any older versions of VPX installed, and the behaviour is present, and the 'false end' is also saved in the project.

Try replicating the issue in a new VPX 14 project as shown above using 3 images, then remove the blank space as I showed previously.

John EB

@johnebaker @Can-Dive

Hi John.

If you use the cut command instead of the delete command then you get the behaviour you are seeing. Delete works as it also moves the end range marker. Cut doesn't.

Ray.

@CubeAce

Hi Ray

. . . . Delete works as it also moves the end range marker. Cut doesn't. . . . .

The end range marker moving has no effect, it does not define the end of the movie, as you can see in the MEP 2016 clip I posted, there are no range markers.

When you use the Play button in the Program monitor or Spacebar the issue is seen. Using the Play range button does behave as you are seeing.

Ignore the Source monitor, it is not playing part in the issue,this can be seen in the VPX 14 clip you posted, it looks like it is playing a different video clip which has previously been played from the Media Pool, not the one that is selected in the Media pool.

HTH

John EB

@johnebaker

Hi John.

Well for me this is getting more curious. I just tried a different approach and got a different result of the normal play button using an empty project in MMS 2024. I have yet to try that out in VPX 14.

As you can see no loop mode was selected in the movie settings. Also the space bar can get disabled if I have my audio program open at the same time, even after closing the audio editor.

Are any of these things game changers for anyone or just an annoyance? I confess in normal operations I hardly notice such things.

Ray.

@CubeAce

Hi Ray

What you are seeing is normal behaviour.

An empty timeline 'end point' is at the end of the timeline, however this is set at about 4 hrs 33 mins, the loop play does work when set.

Getting back to the issue, I forgot to add to my last post that if you use an existing project to try to replicate the behaviour, the results can be inconsistent, without first ensuring that the 'end point' is in a consistent known state.

Starting with a new project ensures the end point is consistent and will be at the end of the timeline.

HTH

John EB

@johnebaker @CubeAce

Hi John and Ray,

Hopefully this video will highlight the issue I am having in VPX16.

"Another observation (which may be a bug if others can replicate) if you turn off or on this function, the preview monitor control buttons stop working and you have to restart VPX16."

@Can-Dive

Hi.

I don't have VPX 16, only VPX 14 and can't replicate that.

Warning - contains loud screaming - John EB

Are you running the latest nvidia driver which is 560.70

Ray.

@Can-Dive

Hi

I too, cannot replicate the issue in VPX 16.

What version number is your VPX 16 - I am on 22.0.1.219 (latest)

I would suggest you raise a Support ticket and provide a direct link to your comment with the video - click the More link bottom right of your last comment, right click Direct link and copy - for some reason just clicking the link does not put it into the copy cache.

John EB

@Can-Dive

Hi,

Just tested in VPX16 22.0.1.219.

I don't get the freezing problem after unchecking loop mode.

However, the playback marker does keep going if the timeline has not been optimized or if there is space at the right of the last object to the end of the timeline window.

With a 14s clip, optimized, no problem. Click on the - button at the bottom right - Enlarge temporal section. The playback marker will continue to the end of the window - whether or not looping is on.

If you change the horizontal timeline zoom factor, zoom in using the horizontal scrollbar, then play with the +/- buttons to get the horizontal scroll bar such that you can move it to the right of the end of the last object, then playback will play until the horizontal scrollbar gets to the end - fully right. With looping on, the playback marker goes back to the beginning, off, the playback marker plays to the end but stops where it started. See the image.

Note the size of the horizontal scrollbar.

Playback with or without looping will go to the end of the window which is also the end of the horizontal scrollbar, that is, as far as the horizontal scrollbar will go to the right.

I have Spacebar stops at current playback position on. If I press on play as per the image above, playback will go to the end of the screen, stop and the playback marker will be where it started, not the end of the playback. Of course, if I press on the Spacebar before the playback marker reaches the end, then the playback marker stops at that position, just never at the end even if there is an object ending there.

Thus, the playback/looping solution is to make sure that the right end of the horizontal scroll bar does not go past the end of the last object. This can be done by optimizing the timeline. If you need to zoom in on the timeline, use the bottom scrollbar to change the zoom factor. This keeps the end of the timeline at the end of the last object.

The problem occurs if you use create space after the last object. The playback marker will keep going to use this space.

I think that this is by design.

Would a video help understand the above?

John CB

@CubeAce @johnebaker

Thank you both, your feedback was valuable.

Because John's VPX16 worked, it was obviously a problem at my end so I reset all my VPX 16 program settings to their default and the problem was resolved! So its a setting or combination that caused the problem. Ray, at this stage I'm not sure if its the nivida driver but I do have a question for both of you. How have you set up your hardware acceleration? Is there an optimal set up for CPU vs Internal/ External Graphics for import, processing, export?

l will start changing the settings to determine if I can replicate the problem. I should have taken screen shots of the settings before restoring to their defaults but I wasn't sure that this was going to work. Luckily it did! I'll report back if I discover anything.

@browj2

Hi John CB, I just read your post. I must have been posting my comments at the same time you were posting yours. Thanks for your feedback and offer to make a video to further explain. I believe I now understand but others may be scratching their heads. You may be totally correct that it is "by design" that the player goes all the way to the end of the project window before looping. I just have a hard time justifying why? Why would I want the player to play empty space when I deliberately turned on looping for the project. And what initially confused me was the manual stating "Playback starts at the playback marker and after reaching the end of the project will restart at its beginning." It doesn't say project window, which is also defined in the manual (pgs 32, 33, 49) So either the documentation is incorrect or this was an oversight bug. As I stated previously, not a deal breaker because we do have the range playback which works as expected.

@Can-Dive

Hi,

Why would I want the player to play empty space

Good question. My guess is that if you have space after the last object, for example to move or import something there, if that area cannot be played back then it wouldn't be accessible to put something there. You have to be able to move the playback marker into that area. So, if you can't have the playback marker play in the dead space, you wouldn't be able to have the playback marker there in the first place. Or something like that.

I would not want this capability to disappear.

John CB

@Can-Dive

Hi

To repeat my quesion in my last comment - 'What version number is your VPX 16 - I am on 22.0.1.219 (latest)'

Another very important item is to keep the RTX 4060 drivers up to date - the current version is 560.70 (32.0.15.6070) for the GRD drivers.

My testing was done using RTX 2060 for the three Device options.

. . . . How have you set up your hardware acceleration? Is there an optimal set up for CPU vs Internal/ External Graphics for import, processing, export? . . . .

There is no one set of settings suits all, a lot depends on the media and effects/plugins used in any particular project.

Usually I have the 3 device option settings set to my RTX 2060, however depending on how much content is still images, usage of effects such as brighntness/contrast and colour adjustments* are used in the project, I switch the Processing option to my Intel UHD 630.

* however there is an oddball with colour adjustment, using LUTs I get better performance using the RTX 2060 for Processing video in 4K UHD 10 bit (HDR) D-Cine profile with my DJI Action 3 sportscam.

HTH

John EB

@Can-Dive

Hi.

No, the only difference is I have the 'Use dithering for output' ticked to reduce banding in large areas of solid but slightly graduating colour such as you would find in a large blue sky.

It may be a Windows setting though such as enabling re-scaling of the program so it is easier to view. I have not done that although I have re-scaled the text settings slightly to 120%.

Also I am on Windows 10 still. I don't know if either should make a difference.

Perhaps you should also check your Intel GPU drivers are also up to date as even though you have not used them in your hardware acceleration choices the program will still use the Intel GPU unless it has been disabled.

Ray.

@Can-Dive

Sorry I missed the above post saying your problem has been rectified.

Ray.

@johnebaker @CubeAce @browj2

John EB my apology for not answering your question; I do have the latest VPX version installed 22.0.1.219.

Ray, thank you so much for your suggestions. In the end I just think it was a "glitch" and resetting the project  setting fixed the problem. Today I have extensively changed settings and retested the playback but everything is working fine and I myself can not replicate the freezing.

John CB, I decided to review other editors I have used in the past; Davinci, Videostudio and Pinnacle. All play to the end of the project (ie to the end of the last object) and when looping is turned on, they loop the project or range specified. They don't loop the project window. Vegas is a little different. it will play empty space but the program itself is very "range centric" and once the project range or object range is set up, it plays that range and loops that range but doesn't loop the project window. So this feature is very unique to MMS and VPX.

Because the documentation indicated "project" rather than "project window", I'll reach out to Support to obtain an official response which I will share. Thanks everyone for all your help with this issue.

As a passing comment, I think this "playing the project window" compared to "playing the project" is silly. What's the point? It is very easy to increase or decrease the empty space after the end of the last object in the movie so I can't see that that would be a reason to have the program play empty space until the end of the window.

With the current setup, each time you want to loop, you have to adjust the amount of blank space on the right.

@Can-Dive

While talking to Support, tell them to change it from "Project" to "Movie". This is not about looping the project, it's about looping the current movie. 👍

@AAProds

Hi Al, I already made my submission to Support but you are technically correct. A project can contain an individual movie or multiple movies. Unique to MMS/VPX. I have been following another post where experienced members on this forum have been painstakingly trying to explain to a new member the difference between Project and Movie. The extreme patience displayed by fellow members is very commendable and goes beyond my tolerance level. I have resisted commenting on that post because I think I would have hurt myself banging my head against the wall! Cheers!

@Can-Dive, @AAProds

Hi

. . . . . Because the documentation indicated "project" rather than "project window" . . . .

Can you point me to where it says this, searching both MMS 2025 and VPX 16 manuals and Help, I cannot find any reference to looping 'the project'.

John EB

@johnebaker

John, online/PDF Help (search for "loop"):

Play movie in loop mode: The movie will be played back endlessly. Playback starts at the playback marker and after reaching the end of the project will restart at its beginning.