Hi Jeff,

Thanks for checking. I edited the initial post to add that I opened the project in MEP2016Premium and had no problem seeing both formats.

The plot thickens. I just opened a new project in VPX on my desktop. I switched back from compatibility mode to Standard, and tried to preview a video - MTS, MOV, MP4. None would preview. Then I clicked on Video output activated and the preview in the source monitor of the MTS and MP4 files showed up, but not the MOV. I had previously done an F9 to have the standard windows setup as I normally have the Preview monitor on the second screen. Clicking on "Video output activated" shows the source or preview video, depending on which one is running - but nothing when trying to preview the MOV, either the source from the Media Pool or the preview from the timeline. Now, if I uncheck "Video output activated" nothing shows up in the Preview monitor. Then I add DirectX9 and all formats work - but they didn't before.

I now applied the shot match to adjust the first video (MTS) to match the second (MOV) on the timeline. Nothing showed up, but Shotmatch was indicated in the KF area. I toggled DirectX9 off and the result showed up on the MTS, but the MOV no longer showed in the preview monitor. I toggled DirectX9 on and the MTS no longer showed up. But I had both before. Went to Compatibility mode, both showed up including the effect.

I now deleted the Shot match effect and both videos show up. So there is something about Shot match that turns things off.

Just to check, with DirectX9 on, I went back and did Shot match again. This time the effect showed up in the preview monitor and I could see both clip. I turned off DirectX9 and the MOV clip went black. Turned DirectX9 back on, and the MTS Shot match clip went black but the MOV came back on. Deleting Shot match turned the MTS back on.

I reversed the roles and applied Shot match to the second clip, MOV. With DirectX9 on, the MOV now went black. So, it seems that Shot match is a problem, but the problems are way beyond that because upon startup with the normal settings, nothing shows up in the preview or source monitor.

I am dumbfounded.

EDIT: Just checked VPX7 with the Standard settings, DirectX9 off, no problem seeing the same clips in the Source monitor.

Also, just checked on my Surface Pro and Shot match is not a problem at all. In fact, the result looked much better than the desktop on which the effects were added.

Hi John CB

My first thoughts were Windows 10 has snook in a Radeon driver update on you and changed its DirectX capabilities - the HD5700 AFAIK does not support DirectX 12, however it should fall back to an earlier version compatibility mode.

. . . . Just checked VPX7 with the Standard settings, DirectX9 off, no problem seeing the same clips in the Source monitor. . . . .

Is VPX 7 using the same settings as VPX 9?

Can you upload a clip of each type that displays this problem for us to test please?

Thanks

John EB

Hi John CB

I would update or reinstall your graphics driver although I see you have quite an old card. I think the latest driver for that series is a Beta - Crimson 16.2.1 from early 2016, but it does support Win10.

I had an issue with the preview screen after the VPX update where they included 16 bit colour processing. The PV monitor had a crawling blocky sort of artifact and reduced (pixelated) resolution if you zoomed it to 200% or more on a hires still, plus there was at times a complete breakup / diagonal jerking double imaging effect on playback.

This was on a current series Nvidia GTX1060 with a driver from earlier this year and I was surprised when a driver update cured the issue.

I wonder if your HD5770 or driver actually supports the extra bit depth processing and of course your monitor likely 8 bit will not display it, but Magix say that the dithering in the new engine can actually increase the smoothness of 8bit material output to an 8 bit file (the max for AVCHD H264) believe it or not. I have it activated in the display settings and I can see a change in the randomness of the different shaded pixels toggling between on and off.

Whilst none of this except the driver reinstall may help your problem, it may be worth having a play around with the extra settings for a gag and I am suspicious that the issues may be inter related with the extra bit depth processing.

Are there any warning messages that you have seen with your system that warn you that HW acceleration has been turned off because of an incompatible graphics card? There seem to be quite a few posts in recent times in the German forum where they are having trouble with MEP / VPX with blank PV screens and similar messages.

Peter

Hi Peter,

Yes, the last 2 times that I opened the project, I got the message that it was deactivating HW acceleration.

Current AMD driver is 15.201.1151.1008 from 2015-11-04.

Here is what AMD says:

"Radeon™ HD 5000 Series Graphics products have been moved to a legacy support model and no additional driver releases are planned. This change enables us to dedicate valuable engineering resources to developing new features and enhancements for graphics products based on the​ GCN Architect​ure.

As a courtesy to our valued supporters we are providing a final Beta driver together with the release of the AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition. The AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition Beta driver includes the redesigned user interface as well as some enhanced features. More information can be found in the        AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.2.​1 for Non GCN Products Release Notes. This driver is provided "as is"​ and will not be supported with further updates, upgrades or bug fixes."

I am downloading the Crimson driver. Will see in a few minutes what happens.

I updated to W10 Creator, no change.

After updating the AMD driver to Crimson, the version is now 15.301.1901.0, date 2016-02-26.

No change to VPX; problem still exists.

I tried you old trick of adding a NB effect, in this case "Film color." With DirectX9 checked, the MTS clip that it was applied to now appears. Other MTS clips without the effect appear as purplish noise. Turning off the effect, not deleting it, causes the clip to also become a purplish noise.

Turning off DirectX9 causes the MOV clip to go black. Adding the NB effect turned on the video.

With DirectX9 off, I can turn off the NB effect and the MOV clip stays on.

So, NB effect turns on clips that are black. To have the MOV clips show up, an NB effect must be added and can be turned off.

I think that we are back to where we were a few versions ago.

Primary display is HP 2710 Series Wide LCD. Second monitor is an HP Pavillion 25xw that supports up to 16.7 million colors supported through FRC technology.

Where to next?

As I mentioned, it all works fine on my Surface Pro 4. BTW, it went into hibernation recently, Sleep of Death, and wouldn't wake up. They replaced it.

EDIT: This is getting on my nerves. I just restarted VPX, Standard HW accel, DirectX9 off. Selected a MTS clip, no image, trimmed and inserted it. Did the same with a MOV clip. Nothing on playback, nothing shows in Source or Preview monitors. Toggled DirectX9 on. Could now see both clips. Did a Shot match. Ok. Toggled DirectX9 off, still ok. Go figure.

Re-Edit: Just put the 2 clips into multi-cam mode. All was ok until after playing back and creating track 1. DirectX9 off, MTS is on, MOV is off. DirectX9 on, MOV is on, MTS is off. Turned off multi-cam, no change. Deleted tracks 3 through 6, no change. So, maybe the common denominator, at least on this computer, is multi-cam. But that does not explain seeing nothing in the monitors in a new project.

Here are a couple of clips to test. I wanted to post 2 that were filmed at the same time but they are too long 800+MB and 1.5GB. The ones below are 51MB for the MTS and 319MB for the MOV. Try multi-cam mode with these; don't try to sync the audio as they were not filmed at the same time.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e2p7isv2bhjn3fn/20170423005319.mts?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/91jg17ie0uz7wwt/MVI_9367.MOV?dl=0

You can see a bit of the challenge of matching the shots between the mts and the mov. However, in this clip the mts was shot behind the light source, but even the mts shot on the action along with the mov, is grainy and the colour is off. Shot match actually did a pretty good job when I was able to see it.

Just got thrown out of the site again and, of course, this time I hadn't copied the text to the clipboard. There is definitely a problem with this site.

I used the above clips, did multi-cam and noticed that with DirectX9 off, I would have to select the clip on track 1 to see it in playback, then the following clip would be black. I would have to select it, then play, in order to see it in the Preview monitor. Turning DirectX9 on solves that problem. Maybe this was the problem before - I would have to select the clip first to play. However, it should not work like this, so something is still wrong.

I also did a shot match. Same result.

Hi John.

Your test clips both work fine here! See screenshot:

As you say, shotmatch does a pretty good job, though I suspect you, like me, would be tempted to run NeatVideo on the mts file.

Jeff

Hi John CB

No problems here either on Intel integrated graphics using DirectX 11.

John EB

Hi,

Gone camping again, so no access to desktop, only Surface Pro. Before leaving, I did more testing on my desktop.

Almost every time I opened a new project in a new session, even after rebooting, VPX would first shut down Standard mode HW acceleration stating incompatibility. This only started with the latest patch. I played around some more and noticed that the NB Essentials III and IV that came with the recent renewal are all the new plugin format with controls as per VPX, not the old NB interface. The old ones worked but the new ones cause the preview monitor to go black. These were previously activated and operating, albeit with the NB UI. Basically, this latest patch has rendered my desktop unusable with VPX.

Today, I tried these out on my Surface Pro and the new NB effects with the Magix VPX UI all cause the preview monitor to go black as soon as Apply effect is pressed. Once again, the older NB effects that open with NB UI work fine.

I tested some HitFilm effects on the Surface Pro and they use the Magix VPX UI and they work fine, so it is just NB.

Any of you have this problem?

When I get home in about 10 days, or more if we decide to keep on camping, I will raise a ticket with Magix for my desktop. I never had the Standard mode HW problem before this latest patch with VPX, so I am convinced that Magix messed up something, even if you can't reproduce my problems - different machines.