Hello Jonathan,

I have been doing some exhaustive testing on my problems here.

This bug appears to two different bugs.

The original one with your dog demo I think was something different from
the subsequent problems I was having with my mp4 clips from my circus
filming.

I have only been testing the problems with editing my circus mp4 clips.

I found that if I pre-processed my AVCHD in full 1920x1080 25p
resolution then I got the problems of freezing of the viewport quite
often. This happened with MP4, MOV, and AVI formats regardless.

If I pre-processed the AVCHD in 1440x1080 25p with the anamorphic pixel
aspect to give 16x9 aspect ratio, then I didn't have any problems with
freezing of the viewport.

I then inspected the AVCHD clips very carefully using VLC.

I spotted some very momentary glitches at the points where the viewport
could freeze sometimes in 1920x1080. I think I now know the cause of
these glitches.

When I bought my camera from Panasonic they supplied a class 4 SDHC
card, which the manual said was suitable. However class 4 SDHC is only
guaranteed up to 10 Mb/s. The camera's default data rate is 13 Mb/s, and
the high resolution rate is 17 Mb/s which I have been using. I now
believe that these glitches are probably caused by the camera's AVCHD
encoder being unable to write to the card fast enough to keep up with
the flow when a particularly fast movement is recorded.

I am going to get a class 6 SDHC card and test this hypothesis. It is
worth doing because OpenShot renders 1920x1080 beautifully, and it looks
so much better than 1440x1080 anamorphic resolution.

In the meanwhile I am going to have to do all my circus movies, and my
testing of OpenShot using the 1440x1080 16:9 anamorphic profile.

It might be worth us discussing the problem with Dan Dennedy when I have
done the tests with a class 6 card. What do you think?

Incidentally; I have found that OpenShot is the only software I can use
on Linux which plays QuickTime movies complete with the sound. Even VLC
fails to play the sound channels in QuickTime movies.

Best Wishes, Helen


On Mon, 2009-07-27 at 22:38 +0000, Helen McCall wrote:
> Hello Jonathan,
> 
> 
> On Mon, 2009-07-27 at 16:47 -0500, Jonathan Thomas wrote:
> > I just confirmed that under normal circumstances (i.e. not 100% CPU
> > utilization) OpenShot seems to close just fine (no processes are still
> > running after closing it) when launched from the sh script.
> 
> I can confirm this happens when the viewport has not frozen. Openshot
> closes correctly and the console terminal window closes as well.
> 
> But if the viewport has frozen, and I quit from OpenShot, then the
> console terminal is left behind after the OpenShot window has gone. And
> the 100% cpu stays stuck at 100% until I kill the console terminal
> window. This is why I think it is an orphan process.
> 
> 
> > Let me ask a few more questions about the CPU:
> > 
> > 1) Does the CPU only stay at 100% when playing (or seeking) the video?
> 
> No - there is usually one cpu at 100% whilst OpenShot is running. Any
> activity at all causes the 100% load to switch to another cpu, or at
> least causes a temporary dip in the load of the 100% cpu.
> 
> > 2) If you Pause the video (and wait a few seconds), does the CPU drop
> > back down?
> 
> Yes it dips down for a second or two and then goes back to 100%
> 
> 
> > 3) When the video freezes, will it unfreeze after a certain amount of
> > time... if left alone?
> 
> No - I have left it a long time to see if it will unfreeze, and it
> doesn't. Changing to another project does not unfreeze it either. 
> 
> > On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 2:29 PM, Helen McCall
> > <email address hidden> wrote:
> >         Hello Jonathan,
> >         
> >         Yes this still happens with 0.9.8 all installed from .deb
> >         packages. The
> >         only bit that I've had happening is the freezing of the
> >         viewport whilst
> >         playing. Still the same effects on System Monitor.
> >         
> >         One difference (caused I think by the different way of
> >         launching
> >         Openshot with a sh script) is that the process doesn't die
> >         when I kill
> >         OpenShot. I have to kill the terminal window as well before
> >         the 100%
> >         process dies.
> >         
> >         This is a menace because it is making it difficult for me to
> >         edit the
> >         circus film projects I am working on.
> >         
> >         I can reduce the chances of a freeze if I first drag the
> >         cursor all the
> >         way along the timeline before trying to play it. I have a
> >         niggling
> >         feeling that this has something to do with one of the length
> >         attributes.
> >         I was having so much trouble at first with the released form
> >         of 0.9.7
> >         and 0.9.8 that I didn't manage to log all the bugs that
> >         occurred, but
> >         several of them were giving error messages on the console
> >         relating to
> >         length attributes.
> >         
> >         The files I am working on for the circus project are all mp4
> >         files
> >         rendered by OpenShot from AVCHD clips from my camera. This
> >         technique was
> >         working fine until version 0.9.7 when the freezes became too
> >         prevalent.
> >         I was using 0.9.4 before that.
> >         
> >         Helen
> >         
> >         
> >         
> >         
> >         On Mon, 2009-07-27 at 13:55 -0500, Jonathan Thomas wrote:
> >         > Helen,
> >         > The processors switching between 100% from CPU 1 to CPU 2,
> >         etc... are
> >         > probably happening based on how the Linux kernel handles
> >         multiple
> >         > processors.  The CPU selection happens on a much lower level
> >         than what
> >         > I'm doing in Python.  However, there is obviously a problem
> >         with
> >         > OpenShot maxing out at 100% CPU.
> >         >
> >         > Can you recreate this behavior using the new version you
> >         installed
> >         > with .DEB files?
> >         >
> >         > On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 5:57 PM, Helen McCall
> >         > <email address hidden> wrote:
> >         >         Wow! This test with the system monitor has woken me
> >         up from my
> >         >         tired
> >         >         state.
> >         >
> >         >         The video files are all on a "projects" partition on
> >         one of my
> >         >         internal
> >         >         harddrives (SATA2). I ran the subsequent tests with
> >         only
> >         >         OpenShot,
> >         >         System Monitor, and Evolution running.
> >         >
> >         >         I monitored first: The clip freezing in the
> >         viewport, but
> >         >         leaving
> >         >         Openshot still working in all other respects.
> >         >
> >         >         Prior to this viewport freeze, all processors had
> >         their loads
> >         >         reasonably
> >         >         evenly spread with activity in the middle ranges for
> >         all of
> >         >         them.
> >         >
> >         >         When the viewport froze, one processor went up to
> >         100% and
> >         >         just stayed
> >         >         there like it was in a never ending loop. The other
> >         two
> >         >         processors went
> >         >         down to a low level of load around 10% or lower. Any
> >         activity
> >         >         like
> >         >         moving the timeline curser or opening a dialogue
> >         window caused
> >         >         the two
> >         >         low level processors to increase their activity a
> >         little.
> >         >
> >         >         The only thing I found which changed this situation
> >         was to
> >         >         open a
> >         >         file-selection dialogue for importing a clip. This
> >         caused the
> >         >         100%
> >         >         processor to swap with one of the other processors,
> >         so that a
> >         >         different
> >         >         processor was stuck at 100%, and the original high
> >         load
> >         >         processor was
> >         >         now one of the pair of low load processors!
> >         >
> >         >         Second test: Openshot freezing completely on opening
> >         the
> >         >         project I sent
> >         >         you. This did the same thing and caused one
> >         processor (#2) to
> >         >         go to
> >         >         100%, and the other two (#1 & #3) to go to very low
> >         load.
> >         >
> >         >         I couldn't use the Openshot file-selection dialogue,
> >         so I
> >         >         opened gedit.
> >         >         no activity on that or on the terminal window
> >         affected the
> >         >         state of this
> >         >         #2 100% processor, except opening the file dialogue
> >         on gedit
> >         >         caused #2
> >         >         to go low level, and #1 to switch to 100%! I tried
> >         this a few
> >         >         times and
> >         >         it always caused a different processor to go to
> >         100%. After
> >         >         leaving one
> >         >         processor running for a few minutes at 100%, the
> >         opening of a
> >         >         file-selection dialogue didn't switch the processors
> >         any more.
> >         >         Leaving
> >         >         that processor permanently at 100%
> >         >
> >         >         On killing OpenShot with a "Force Quit", the 100%
> >         processor
> >         >         immediately
> >         >         dropped down to low level and joined the other two
> >         so I had
> >         >         then all
> >         >         three processors in a balanced load at low level.
> >         >
> >         >         Therefore I would surmise that freezing of the
> >         viewport or the
> >         >         whole of
> >         >         OpenShot both are caused by a never ending loop as
> >         some
> >         >         process is
> >         >         waiting for a result from a sub process which has
> >         probably
> >         >         died, and the
> >         >         waiting is not being timed out.
> >         >
> >         >         Women's intuition suggests to me either: that one of
> >         the MLT
> >         >         functions
> >         >         has a bug where it fails to return an error code
> >         when failing.
> >         >         Or else
> >         >         some function in the Python code is failing to test
> >         for the
> >         >         error return
> >         >         from a function, and is just looping and calling
> >         until it gets
> >         >         what it
> >         >         considers to be a valid return value (which never
> >         comes)
> >         >
> >         >          A clue to where this might be is that any call to
> >         the Gnome
> >         >         file-selection dialogue, causes that looping process
> >         to be
> >         >         re-spawned on
> >         >         a different processor. (Wow! This takes me back
> >         nearly 20
> >         >         years to when
> >         >         I was learning to program Transputer arrays in the
> >         Occam2
> >         >         language!)
> >         >
> >         >         At soem point in all of this, some process related
> >         to the file
> >         >         selection
> >         >         is timing out but leaving the looping process as an
> >         orphan and
> >         >         so then
> >         >         it never switches until the application is killed
> >         and all
> >         >         related
> >         >         processes are sent the kill signal. Therefore the
> >         orphan
> >         >         process is
> >         >         still open to signals like KILL. (sig something, I
> >         can't
> >         >         remember all
> >         >         the signal codes anymore)
> >         >
> >         >         I hope this helps.
> >         >
> >         >         Helen
> >         >
> >         >
> >         >
> >         >         On Thu, 2009-07-23 at 21:11 +0000, Jonathan Thomas
> >         wrote:
> >         >         > Helen, are your media files located on your
> >         primary
> >         >         harddrive?  or an
> >         >         > external harddrive?  Also, please check your
> >         "System
> >         >         Monitor", and see
> >         >         > what the CPU is doing while OpenShot is hanging.
> >         And, as a
> >         >         side note,
> >         >         > see how many "Python" processes are running on
> >         your
> >         >         computer.  There
> >         >         > should only be a few.  Thanks!
> >         >         >
> >         >
> >         >
> >         >
> >         >
> >         
> >         
> >         
> >
>