NewTek tricaster advanced edition, User Manual, Page: 297 / 339

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(Note that certain highly compressed video file formats cannot successfully be played back at rates beyond
200%, even though Speed value is set to a higher value.) See Section 11.2.3 for more.
A.3.11 DEAL WITH DDR (MEDIA PLAYER) CLIPS THAT SEEM BLURRY?
When paused or stopped, TriCasters DDRs perform motion removal (to avoid unwanted flicker). This can
make the image seem slightly blurred when paused, but it should look perfect during playback. (Recorded
static title pages look their best when captured using the Grab function with De-Interlace turned off.)
A.3.12 GET STUBBORN CLIPS TO PLAY IN THE DDR?
First, note that TriCaster has a two minute warm-up period during which system software initializes. During
this period, frames may be dropped during playback.
Q
UICK
T
IME
®
At the time of writing, a 64bit version of Quicktime for Microsoft Windows® is not available. TriCaster
provides internal support for many QuickTime file formats, but not all of them. If a QuickTime file fails to
play smoothly (or at all) in the DDR, converting it to a friendlier format can help.
We recommend downloading and installing the NewTek TriCaster Codec Pack (Mac) from the downloads
page of your personal registration area on the NewTek website (
http://reg .newtek.com/Default.aspx). This
will permit you to select from several NewTek SpeedHQ codecs (including 32bit formats with embedded
alpha channel) from applications that render to Quicktime® formats.
Alternatively, Final Cut® users might consider M-JPEG, MPEG2, DVCPRO HD, or the DV Quicktime codec (for
SD clips only, of course) as intermediate formats.
AVI
AVI codecs are plentiful. Most are suitable for DDR playback, but a few are not. For a given clip to play in the
DDR, a corresponding 64bit codec needs to be available. However, we strongly discourage installing ‘foreign’
codecs, codec packs and the like downloaded from Internet sites, etc. For the sake of stability, if an AVI clip
does not play well in the DDR, please consider converting it to a ‘friendlier’ format. We can recommend
NewTek’s own SpeedHQ, or perhaps DV (for Standard Definition clips), M2T or MPG – please continue
reading for more information on file conversion.
R
EMUXING
C
LIPS
Even when a specific AVI exists and can generally be considered ‘friendly’, the manner in which audio and
video data is multiplexed (or ‘muxed’, in the jargon) by some few applications can cause playback issues that
are only evident under stress. That is, a clip that plays back adequately in a typical player or NLE application
may not do as well when played in a DDR at times when many other concurrent operations are occurring
simultaneously.
In general, remuxing such files is all that is needed to obtain good performance. One approach is to use any
of a number of freely obtainable remuxing utilities. A quick Internet search for “remux avi” turns up several
applications you could use, some free. Installed on an external system, these will remux AVI files losslessly,
resolving the issue.