Weird problem with program monitor picture

Colin Zhang · February 6th, 2009, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graham Hickling

Do you get that effect playing back with any other software - Virtualdub, Windows mediaplayer etc?

The problem is that Premiere's overlay is a bit "different" from the overlay in, say, Windows Mediaplayer ...I'm not really sure how it works.

So far I have only gotten it in Premiere, thanks for the advice everyone I will try uninstalling the codecs and see what happens!

Chris Soucy · February 6th, 2009, 11:19 PM

Can't say as I can see how it's a Codec problem (tho' prepared to be proved wrong).

If it can get it right under some circumstances (which it does) and not in others, then the codecs can't be doing it - they don't change once installed.

My guess is some esoteric setting in the program itself.

Not having that software myself I can't even delve into it's bowels to find it, but my guess is sommat (a colour level) is getting inverted/ subtracted under certain circumstances.

Quite why it would find colour inversion/ subtraction a necessity or under what circumstances it would be usefull, that's what it appears to be doing.

Have you tried Adobe support?

cs

Colin Zhang · February 7th, 2009, 03:23 AM

Chris, looks like you're right - I uninstalled the codecs and the problem remains. I should also note that I tried in Vegas Pro and there are no problems there. In addition, the source monitor does not display anything - its always a black screen although audio is played back.

Chris Soucy · February 7th, 2009, 12:28 PM

Back up a moment.

Source monitor?

Colin, can you outline just what you have there - what's connected to what and where, sort of thing.

What graphics card do you have?

CS

Colin Zhang · February 7th, 2009, 07:03 PM

Chris, maybe my premiere terminology is bad but I meant the window top centre, to the left of the program monitor. In the screenshots posted earlier you can see there is no content displayed there.

EDIT: never mind, the source monitor is now working although the colour problem persists in both windows
EDIT 2: i guess i said that too soon, it stopped working again...I should also note that for both monitors, changing the display mode to anything other than Composite Video will work. The issues only surface when in Composite Video mode.

My graphics card is the integrated Intel X4500MHD, not ideal for editing I know, but I get by OK with it.Thanks for your support so far!

Brian Brown · February 8th, 2009, 12:18 AM

Colin:
Yes, it sounds like a video card issue. Did you happen to adjust the Playback Settings to see if you could fix your issues? (attached screenshot) The Aspect Ratio Conversion and Disable Video Output look particularly intriguing.

HTH,
Brian Brown

Colin Zhang · February 8th, 2009, 12:42 AM

Brian, thanks for the tip although it did not work. This is getting frustrating...

Chris Soucy · February 9th, 2009, 12:07 AM

what you have there.

Do you have one or two (or more), physically distinct monitors plugged into one or two (or more) different holes in the back of your graphics card/slot/ thing, or one physical screen with a load of windows all over it pretending to be multiple screens?

How much memory does that graphics chipset have?

What is the connection type of whatever screens you do have? HDMI? DVI? Component? Composite? (surely not?).

I cannot make any sense of the "Composite" comment - who in their right mind uses Composite for video editing? (and if everything works fine if not using it - well, guess you aughta not use it, or is that being too simplistic?).

I'm afraid, Colin, there's so many gaps in my understanding of your setup, I cannot in all seriousness give you any help.

Give us a hint.

CS

Brian Brown · February 9th, 2009, 01:00 AM

@C.S.: "composite" is just a Premiere Pro term. It's actually the RGB output to his program and source monitor (as opposed to waveform, vectorscope, etc.)

@Colin: I still think your video card overlay on your laptop is to blame. Since your card is a shared memory device, does your BIOS give any settings to RAM usage, "aperture", etc. given to the card? IF so, play around with these settings and see if it helps, makes worse, etc.

I know you said you have the latest drivers, but have you gone so far as to disable your graphics card in Device Manager and force a reboot/reload of the latest drivers? Sometimes some rouge DLL file can cause issues.

I just think that there's some combo of settings that's garbling your overlay. Do you have a VGA or DVI port you can hook a second monitor into... play with the driver settings and create a cloned or multiple display resolution display to see if your CS4 overlay issues are the same?

HTH,
Brian Brown

Colin Zhang · February 9th, 2009, 05:39 AM

Hi Brian, my BIOS options are fairly simplistic, nothing about those options available unfortunately. I have tried reinstalling my graphics drivers to no avail, but I will try hooking it up to my TV to test.

Chris, sorry for the confusion. I am simply editing on my laptop using the built in LCD and no external monitors. My graphics card has 512MB of VRAM and any connections to external monitors are made through VGA.

Colin Zhang · February 9th, 2009, 06:39 AM

In a strange new development I was testing again and the monitors worked perfectly...once. In disbelief, I restarted Premiere Pro and alas the problem returned. This was still on my laptop and I thought I would mention it in case it ruled out any possibilities.

Brian Brown · February 9th, 2009, 09:24 AM

Colin, any chance that there's a BIOS update available for your laptop? I did this a week ago on my fairly-new HP HDX18 laptop and it resolved a few issues.

HTH,
Brian

Colin Zhang · February 9th, 2009, 05:15 PM

I think my BIOS is up tp date, I had just installed an update last week.

Colin Zhang · February 10th, 2009, 08:12 AM

Sorry if I'm sounding a bit impatient, but would anyone like to chip in with extra advice or ideas? Thanks and great support so far Brian, Chris, and others!

Brian Brown · February 10th, 2009, 05:57 PM

Colin, just curious if you're on 4.0.0 or 4.0.1?

Also, have you tried undocking the monitors and moving them to other parts of your display? Something else to try is closing the monitors and re-opening them in the Window> menu.

These are truly shots in the dark, though... your display driver is not properly handling the overlay signal from CS4. Any chance you could give a screenshot of your control panel settings (Nvidia, etc.) These often have cloning settings, multiple resolutions, and (hopefully) some control over the overlay settings, hardware acceleration, etc.

-Brian Brown

February 6th, 2009, 11:19 PM	#17
Chris Soucy Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Fairfield, Dunedin, New Zealand Posts: 3,682 Images: 18	Hi Colin............ Can't say as I can see how it's a Codec problem (tho' prepared to be proved wrong). If it can get it right under some circumstances (which it does) and not in others, then the codecs can't be doing it - they don't change once installed. My guess is some esoteric setting in the program itself. Not having that software myself I can't even delve into it's bowels to find it, but my guess is sommat (a colour level) is getting inverted/ subtracted under certain circumstances. Quite why it would find colour inversion/ subtraction a necessity or under what circumstances it would be usefull, that's what it appears to be doing. Have you tried Adobe support? cs

February 7th, 2009, 12:28 PM	#19
Chris Soucy Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Fairfield, Dunedin, New Zealand Posts: 3,682 Images: 18	Whoa....................... Back up a moment. Source monitor? Colin, can you outline just what you have there - what's connected to what and where, sort of thing. What graphics card do you have? CS

February 7th, 2009, 07:03 PM	#20
Colin Zhang Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: beijing/mississauga Posts: 123	Chris, maybe my premiere terminology is bad but I meant the window top centre, to the left of the program monitor. In the screenshots posted earlier you can see there is no content displayed there. EDIT: never mind, the source monitor is now working although the colour problem persists in both windows EDIT 2: i guess i said that too soon, it stopped working again...I should also note that for both monitors, changing the display mode to anything other than Composite Video will work. The issues only surface when in Composite Video mode. My graphics card is the integrated Intel X4500MHD, not ideal for editing I know, but I get by OK with it.Thanks for your support so far! Last edited by Colin Zhang; February 7th, 2009 at 10:48 PM.

February 8th, 2009, 12:18 AM	#21
Brian Brown Major Player Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Estes Park, CO USA Posts: 426	Colin: Yes, it sounds like a video card issue. Did you happen to adjust the Playback Settings to see if you could fix your issues? (attached screenshot) The Aspect Ratio Conversion and Disable Video Output look particularly intriguing. HTH, Brian Brown Attached Thumbnails

February 9th, 2009, 12:07 AM	#23
Chris Soucy Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Fairfield, Dunedin, New Zealand Posts: 3,682 Images: 18	Er, still don't understand... what you have there. Do you have one or two (or more), physically distinct monitors plugged into one or two (or more) different holes in the back of your graphics card/slot/ thing, or one physical screen with a load of windows all over it pretending to be multiple screens? How much memory does that graphics chipset have? What is the connection type of whatever screens you do have? HDMI? DVI? Component? Composite? (surely not?). I cannot make any sense of the "Composite" comment - who in their right mind uses Composite for video editing? (and if everything works fine if not using it - well, guess you aughta not use it, or is that being too simplistic?). I'm afraid, Colin, there's so many gaps in my understanding of your setup, I cannot in all seriousness give you any help. Give us a hint. CS

February 7th, 2009, 03:23 AM	#18
Colin Zhang Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: beijing/mississauga Posts: 123	Chris, looks like you're right - I uninstalled the codecs and the problem remains. I should also note that I tried in Vegas Pro and there are no problems there. In addition, the source monitor does not display anything - its always a black screen although audio is played back.

February 8th, 2009, 12:42 AM	#22
Colin Zhang Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: beijing/mississauga Posts: 123	Brian, thanks for the tip although it did not work. This is getting frustrating...

February 9th, 2009, 01:00 AM	#24
Brian Brown Major Player Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Estes Park, CO USA Posts: 426	@C.S.: "composite" is just a Premiere Pro term. It's actually the RGB output to his program and source monitor (as opposed to waveform, vectorscope, etc.) @Colin: I still think your video card overlay on your laptop is to blame. Since your card is a shared memory device, does your BIOS give any settings to RAM usage, "aperture", etc. given to the card? IF so, play around with these settings and see if it helps, makes worse, etc. I know you said you have the latest drivers, but have you gone so far as to disable your graphics card in Device Manager and force a reboot/reload of the latest drivers? Sometimes some rouge DLL file can cause issues. I just think that there's some combo of settings that's garbling your overlay. Do you have a VGA or DVI port you can hook a second monitor into... play with the driver settings and create a cloned or multiple display resolution display to see if your CS4 overlay issues are the same? HTH, Brian Brown

February 9th, 2009, 05:39 AM	#25
Colin Zhang Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: beijing/mississauga Posts: 123	Hi Brian, my BIOS options are fairly simplistic, nothing about those options available unfortunately. I have tried reinstalling my graphics drivers to no avail, but I will try hooking it up to my TV to test. Chris, sorry for the confusion. I am simply editing on my laptop using the built in LCD and no external monitors. My graphics card has 512MB of VRAM and any connections to external monitors are made through VGA.

February 9th, 2009, 06:39 AM	#26
Colin Zhang Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: beijing/mississauga Posts: 123	In a strange new development I was testing again and the monitors worked perfectly...once. In disbelief, I restarted Premiere Pro and alas the problem returned. This was still on my laptop and I thought I would mention it in case it ruled out any possibilities.

February 9th, 2009, 09:24 AM	#27
Brian Brown Major Player Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Estes Park, CO USA Posts: 426	Colin, any chance that there's a BIOS update available for your laptop? I did this a week ago on my fairly-new HP HDX18 laptop and it resolved a few issues. HTH, Brian

February 9th, 2009, 05:15 PM	#28
Colin Zhang Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: beijing/mississauga Posts: 123	I think my BIOS is up tp date, I had just installed an update last week.

February 10th, 2009, 08:12 AM	#29
Colin Zhang Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: beijing/mississauga Posts: 123	Sorry if I'm sounding a bit impatient, but would anyone like to chip in with extra advice or ideas? Thanks and great support so far Brian, Chris, and others!

February 10th, 2009, 05:57 PM	#30
Brian Brown Major Player Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Estes Park, CO USA Posts: 426	Colin, just curious if you're on 4.0.0 or 4.0.1? Also, have you tried undocking the monitors and moving them to other parts of your display? Something else to try is closing the monitors and re-opening them in the Window> menu. These are truly shots in the dark, though... your display driver is not properly handling the overlay signal from CS4. Any chance you could give a screenshot of your control panel settings (Nvidia, etc.) These often have cloning settings, multiple resolutions, and (hopefully) some control over the overlay settings, hardware acceleration, etc. -Brian Brown