Strange Video Input behavior

[D.T. Nethery]

I have a student who has TVPaint 9.5 , running on Windows , who is experiencing strange behavior trying to capture frames with the Video Input . (see the screen shot below) .

She has a Panasonic PV-GS80 mini dv camera which she has used before with TVPaint to capture frames. The same camera also works with Dragonframe Stop Motion app.

Now however when she tries to use this camera to capture frames in TVPaint the images captured on the timeline look like this :



You can see in the Video Grabber window that the input is a normal image from the camera, but when she clicks on Grab Input the image captured to the timeline is not correct. (as seen in above screen shot) .

Does anyone know what may be causing this issue ? Again, the camera was previously working with TVPaint and the same camera still works to capture frames in DragonFrame , so I don't believe the issue is with the camera.

[Elodie]

She is stil using tvpaint 9... maybe could She update her license to tvpaint 9.5.21

[Fabrice]

+1
That a very old one : 9.0.5 or something close

[D.T. Nethery]

She is stil using tvpaint 9... maybe could She update her license to tvpaint 9.5.21

Yes , the very first thing I noticed from her screen shot was that it appeared as if she is using TVP 9. I asked why she had not updated to 9.5 and she told me that she had updated to TVPaint 9.5 , but had experienced some problems later on trying to update to TVP 9.5.21 , so that is why she does not have the latest version (9.5.21) . It may be that she has the version numbers mixed up and she is in fact still on TVP 9 . This is all I know.

It has been two years since she took a traditional animation class and now that she is taking a traditional class again she had expected TVPaint to resume working the same as the last time she used it . She told me that the last time she used her TVPaint 9 with this camera (Panasonic PV-GS80 mini dv) she had no problems capturing video in TVP. This is why she was surprised to encounter this issue.

+1
That a very old one : 9.0.5 or something close .

So, Fabrice, you believe this is a known issue going back to 9.0.5 ? Therefore the solution would be to update to 9.5 . This is what I thought , too, but then she told me that she had been able to use this version of TVP 9 with her Panasonic mini-dv camera to capture video previously and that it's never been a problem until yesterday when she was trying to capture some frames. So that part of it is a mystery to me. It may be an old issue going back to 9.0.5 , but it's odd that she was not experiencing this problem previously.

Anyway, I did advise her to try again to update to 9.5 . If she continues to experience problems updating to 9.5 I hope someone at TVP can assist her. (she was not specific about what the problem was with updating , so I will have her contact you about that) .

I hope she will contact you by email today.

-David


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[Elodie]

Is TVPaint is update often, it's also to fix bugs that may happen when you update your OS.

So, if she updated her Windows without updating TVPaint, that may be a source of problem.

If she continues to experience problems updating to 9.5 I hope someone at TVP can assist her. (

I hope we could, but don't forget we don't really support the 9.5 version for 3 years now. We will try to find a solution, but if the problem comes from a bug, we won't be able to fix it.

[D.T. Nethery]

Is TVPaint is update often, it's also to fix bugs that may happen when you update your OS.

So, if she updated her Windows without updating TVPaint, that may be a source of problem.

This is another point in favor of adding a pop-up notification window to remind users when an Update is available. Many other softwares have this notification :

"An Update to _____________ is available. Would you like to download and install it now ?"
Click OK .

[Elodie]

I don't like the pop-up idea, it's too intrusive and for schools, it does not have any sense (many studios or schools don't have a permanent Internet connection).

I think it's up to us to mention updates in every newsletter and automatically subscribe to the newsletter every person who purchase a license

[D.T. Nethery]

I don't like the pop-up idea, it's too intrusive and for schools, it does not have any sense (many studios or schools don't have a permanent Internet connection).

I think it's up to us to mention updates in every newsletter and automatically subscribe to the newsletter every person who purchase a license

I've never found it intrusive on the softwares I own which have an automatic Update notification . (such as iShowu , or Handbrake, or iGlasses or ArtRage). But for those who don't want the automatic notification it could be an option that could be checked or unchecked in Preferences.

I agree it doesn't make sense for a networked license at a school , but most of my online students have an individual license on their personal computer.

Almost none of them are ever aware of when there is an Update to TVP because most of them never participate in the TVPaint Forum. I post notices in my online classes whenever I know of a new update to TVPaint , but I still find that many students are using older versions. In fact, I just discovered another student yesterday using version 10.0.18 because she posted a screen shot of her TVPaint to explain a problem she was having . I told her she should update to newest version 10.5.5 . She had no idea there was an update available, no idea how to update . So I told her to check often the Help Menu > Check for Updates. This happens frequently. Most new users have no idea how to check for an update ( this is mentioned in the User Manual, but sadly most users never read the User Manual or they gloss over bits of it, but don't read it completely, which I'm sure you are aware of. ) , so I think the automatic pop-up notification that "an update to TVPaint is available , would you like to download and install it now? " would help avoid this problem of users continuing to use older versions of TVP because they are unaware that updates are available. (because most do not participate in the Forum)

Automatically subscribing all new purchasers to the TVPaint Newsletter might help a little bit , but that assumes they will necessarily read the newsletter when it comes in their email.


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[LivieLightyear]

It's the girl with the problem! Hello. (what a way to introduce one's self)
I went to go for the update today, and it's downloading right now, but it only allows for a 32 bit windows, and my OS is a 64 bit.I thought it might be a problem, but everything I've read say's "no" so we're going for it again...

[LivieLightyear]

Call me confused. I ran the update, rebooted my system. Nothing is different.
Ran it AGAIN (reboot and all that). Still no different. It's not that the problem is the only thing that's still there, it's the whole program. The whole program is entirely unchanged.

It was 9.5 before I rebooted it (so it says on the splash window when the program starts) and it is still 9.5.

EDIT: The update DID, in fact, "take" as the "about page" indicates, but the problem is still there, and the program seems unchanged. I don't know what else can be done. Any suggestions?

[Thierry]

When you go to Help -> About TVPaint Animation..., what does it say ?

[LivieLightyear]

The attachment that I just posted is a screenshot of the Help>About TVP Animation page. It says "TVP 9 Pro 9.5.21 en May 29 2009"

[Paul Fierlinger]

I wonder how you go about installing the new download. Can you describe?

[LivieLightyear]

Step by step, here's what I did. I went to the updates page, and put my lockcode and unlock code in. I put my brother's name in, because he initially paid for TVP for me. I downloaded the zip file with the update in it. I unzipped the folder, and ran the application file. When it came to the option page of "Modify" "Repair" or "Remove" I chose "Modify" when the rest of the way in the install program, and rebooted my system. I noticed it looked exactly the same, so I went through the options again, this time clicking "repair" and rebooted the system. I gave it an extra long time to reboot, thinking I didn't let my system "warm up" enough before I opened TVP. Still no difference. I'm attaching what it looks like right now:

[D.T. Nethery]

When you go to Help -> About TVPaint Animation..., what does it say ?

Her About TVPaint Animation shows TVPaint Pro 9.5.21 , but look at the interface in the other screen shots she posted -- that's not 9.5 , it's 9 . (note the older version of Main Panel that is not as compact as the 9.5.21 Main Panel, and note also there is no Camera Tool in the Main Panel , so it's not 9.5.21 ... but the About TVPaint window says it's 9.5.21)

How can that be ?

-DN

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