Flicker Problems

I am having flickering issues with transitions into and out of motion graphics in Proclaim. It seems that these issues are not present when transitioning between still images. Tech support has attempted to help, but to no avail. I am in the "April 11 Blank Presentation" and the issues are worse between the Mother's Day and Welcome slides.

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Eylen (Faithlife)

Hi Mike,

I can't seem to reproduce this issue on my computer which leads me to believe that this could be a hardware issue on your end. You may need to upgrade your video card.

Valley Lutheran Church

I also have recently developed this issue. I updated my video card drivers to no avail. I'm wondering if it is an issue with AMD video cards. (We have an AMD Radeon 580) I'm going to try it on an nvidia machine see if I can duplicate the issue.

Michael Henn

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1045180#Comment_1045180

I have tried our presentation on a different computer running an intel 530 graphics chip, and the same flicker exists. It happens on only some video loops when the loop restart happens and the slide is transitioning at the same time. When the slide is not changing the loop happens seamlessly.

We are noticing the flicker consistently when we use the "Palm Leaves Green" (or White) from Proclaim Pro Media. Being that loop is only 5 seconds long, the problem is very noticeable and hopefully you will be able to reproduce the issue. The two computers I tested are both running windows 10 64bit enterprise edition. One is very high powered in terms of cpu/memory/ssd/gpu and the other was a midrange i3 desktop.

Hope that helps. Let me know if I can do anything else to help isolate the glitch.

Michael Henn

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1045905#Comment_1045905

Oops. Just to clarify, I Michael Henn, am the same guy who posted from Valley Lutheran Church.

Craig D'Ambrosio

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1045906#Comment_1045906

I am experiencing the same issue on three computers. All of them are high powered i7 processors 16GB mem, 512SSD and I even put a gaming graphics card in one of them. Here are the specs on my main presentation computer:

DELL OptiPlex 7050
Quad Core i7 6700 3.4Ghz
16GB DDR4 RAM
512GB SSD Hard Drive
NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1650 OC 4GB GDDR5 128-Bit GPU
Windows 10 Pro

Take a look at this screen capture https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IrZ8JGJMwReyrBKClf5hDRjf_G5CiyMd/view?usp=sharing. Stop the video at 0:31 and 1:03 and notice that the video disappears while the words stay on screen. This is NOT a hardware issue. I have been working with Faithlife Support on this issue for a couple of months and they seem to have lost interest so I am turning to the forums for help. If you find a solution, please let me know!

Jordan Sjodin

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1059881#Comment_1059881

Hi Craig, I'm on the Proclaim dev team. Sorry for the experience through our support channels. We were made aware of your issue by Support, but it was hard for us to determine that the issue was something in Proclaim. On Windows, Proclaim uses Windows Media Player internally to playback videos, so that is all provided by Microsoft. When a video issue is present, it normally ends up being a mismatch between device drivers and Windows, or something similar, so that is probably why Support gave you that answer.

It appears the issue you are experiencing is that the video blips to black when it loops, is that true? Is that video one you could send me or put in that google drive?

Pardon me if you have already answered some of the question below:

Does it happen with other/all videos or just a handful? The fact it happens on three computers is odd.
Are they all the same hardware (the GTX 1650)?
And all the same Windows version?

Couple thoughts right now:

Perhaps a newer Windows update changed something, causing a slight performance issue when the video restarts, which shows the black.
Perhaps Nvidia's drivers aren't compatible with the version of Windows?
Could you let me know which Windows update you are running?
Perhaps there is a change we can make in Proclaim to attempt to mitigate the blip or mask it in someway to make it less noticeable.

Additionally, going to Proclaim > Settings > General and disabling hardware acceleration is a good test. You could disable that and then watch the video again, it may be a little choppy as we are no longer using the GPU, but if the black blip is gone that means it is an issue with graphics card.

Craig D'Ambrosio

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1059918#Comment_1059918

Hello Jordan,

Thank you for your prompt response. I will answer your questions in the order posed.

Is that video one you could send me or put in that google drive?
The video(s) we are using are all from Proclaim Media, nothing custom. Here is another link to a screen capture from last month https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IrZ8JGJMwReyrBKClf5hDRjf_G5CiyMd/view?usp=sharing. Stop the video at 0:31 and 1:03 and you will notice that the video disappears while the words stay on screen.
Does it happen with other/all videos or just a handful?
I have been trying different motion backgrounds since we first installed Proclaim a few months ago and all have the same flicker.
Are they all the same hardware (the GTX 1650)?
PC 1 uses a NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 960M
PC 2 uses a NVIDIA GEFORCE GT 1030
PC 3 uses a NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1650
And all the same Windows version?
PC 1 is running Windows 10 Pro, version 1903, Build18362.267
PC 2 is running Windows 10 Pro, version 1903, Build18362.239
PC 3 is running Windows 10 Pro, version 1903, Build18362.239
Perhaps a newer Windows update changed something...
Prior to the current Windows version 1903, two of the PCs were running 1803 with the same issue. We updated all three PCs with every available windows and driver update to no avail.
Perhaps Nvidia's drivers aren't compatible with the version of Windows?
Perhaps...however the original graphics card in PC 3 was a AMD Radeon HD8490 which had the same issue. I'm not keen on trying different graphics cards so perhaps this is something you can test in your lab.
Could you let me know which Windows update you are running?
Please refer to answer 4.
Proclaim > Settings > General and disabling hardware acceleration...
I performed this test in a previous round with support and, while the video was a bit grainy and sluggish, the black flicker was unchanged.

I hope this information helps. I look forward to finding a solution.

Craig

Michael Henn

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1059924#Comment_1059924

Hi Craig.

I eventually fixed our issues, which sound just like yours, by updating video codecs. Specifically I installed the K-Lite Codec Pack Full, and doing so fixed all of our flicker issues.

Give it a try and see if it works for you too. (And let us know if it works!) You can get the K-lite codec pack at: https://www.codecguide.com/download_k-lite_codec_pack_full.htm

Craig D'Ambrosio

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1059978#Comment_1059978

Hello Michael,

Thank you for the response. I installed the K-Lite Codec Pack Full and rebooted. The video flicker is still present and unchanged. I greatly appreciate your interest in helping find a solution.

Craig

Jordan Sjodin

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1059924#Comment_1059924

Thanks Craig,

When you are able to repro this, are you OnAir and connected to external monitors?

Are you able to reproduce the issue within Preview in Proclaim while not OnAir?

- Jordan

Craig D'Ambrosio

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1060168#Comment_1060168

Hello Jordan,

I am able to reproduce the issue while OnAir (connected to external monitor) and while in Preview (not OnAir).

OnAir Example: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IrZ8JGJMwReyrBKClf5hDRjf_G5CiyMd/view?usp=sharing

Preview Example: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VqFqPSIOGplm0Y76IDJcpFv-TYUn4Hi4/view?usp=sharing

Thank You!

Craig

Jason Allred

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1060200#Comment_1060200

Hi Craig

We've been using Proclaim for about 4 months now. I've had this problem with evey song we've ever displayed, it drives me mental. We were using SongShow previously and I'd never seen this screen flicker before. Support have just put me onto this forum thread and it seems there are others having the same issues. I've only ever used motion backgrounds from the Media library and they all do it. Some worse than others. Anyway thats my rant. Last night at music practice I turned off the slide transitions in settings for the last song and the flicker stopped. I will leave the transitions off for this Sunday service and see what happens. Let you know how it goes. Regards Jason

Craig D'Ambrosio

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1060595#Comment_1060595

Hello Jason,

I had a productive web meeting with Justin from Tech Support last night and we were able to reproduce the problem on his PC which is a huge step toward getting them to fix the issue. I am very hopeful that the development team can now locate the cause and fix it. Let's pray that a patch is released very soon!

Craig

Jason Allred

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1060596#Comment_1060596

Hi Craig

That's awesome news. Well done.

For what it's worth, our full practice and service this Sunday worked faultlessly with the slide transitions turned off. No flicker. But we would prefer to be using a fade on slide changes.

Looking forward to a fix also.

Jason

Jordan Sjodin

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1060596#Comment_1060596

Hi, just an update for you, I am able to see the black flash with a specific presentation on my computer. So far it is not coming from 'Proclaim' code but from the video player provided by Microsoft. After confirming that, I have begun researching ways to avoid the black flicker or perhaps ways to minimize it.

I'll report back here with what I found out! Thanks for you patience

Craig D'Ambrosio

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1062587#Comment_1062587

Thank you for the update Jordan. We are anxiously awaiting a solution.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Craig

Craig D'Ambrosio

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1062600#Comment_1062600

Hello Proclaim Team,

What is the status of this flicker bug fix? I have tried contacting support but I didn't receive a response. Please let us know when we can expect a resolution to this issue as it is extremely distracting to the worship service!

Thank You!

Craig

Justin (Faithlife)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1070084#Comment_1070084

Hello Craig,

Sorry we didn't get back to you on that email. We don't have an update at the moment unfortunately, but we are still looking into it.

Bartek Przybyla

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1070203#Comment_1070203

Hi,

I seem to be experiencing the same issues - any chance you're close to a fix?

Craig D'Ambrosio

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1073896#Comment_1073896

Hello Dev Team,

Are you getting close to a fix? We are struggling here! We are unable to use any motion backgrounds which significantly limits our Sunday options. I actually had two gentlemen recently ask me what's wrong with our presentation software. They wanted to know why we no longer use videos in our songs. I had to tell them that our previous software (Easy Worship) worked fine but the new software doesn't. I then found myself trying to justify to them why I switched and what I am going to do about it. It was an embarrassing and belittling conversation, to say the least. Please, Please, Please fix the issue!

Gilbert

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1076042#Comment_1076042

Having same issue with the flickering. It happens with video motion backgrounds only. Is there a fix yet?

Thanks

Joel Robbins

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1059918#Comment_1059918

The flickering issue occurs regularly with shorter motion background videos. As already suggested, it seems to occur when the video is about to loop and at the same time you transition to another slide (using the same motion background video).

Having longer motion background videos will help as there will be less chance of transitioning to another slide when the video is about to loop, so we are appreciative of any motion background videos that are longer instead of shorter. This obviously will not solve the issue, but it should come up less.

Bruce Colgate

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1076042#Comment_1076042

Hi Craig!

Having the same problem here. Did the developer's ever fix the problem? Looping backgrounds never loop correctly- always a stutter or black frame at the loop point. Thanks!

Bartek Przybyla

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1192484#Comment_1192484

No they didn't, we're still experiencing this problem... Honestly, this is unacceptable, we're paying for a program that's supposed to work on Windows. This issue is present from 2019 and it's not a small thing - it's a basic functionality of the software. We're seriously considering switching to a different solution. Is there any chance this will fixed? And soon?

Craig D'Ambrosio

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1192484#Comment_1192484

Hi Bruce,

We are still experiencing the flicker issue. I have performed every recommendation they have proposed and it still occurs. Our workaround is to use Windows Video Editor to create a 5 minute version of every looping video to minimize the seems. This has 99% addressed the issue on our end but it is a lot of unnecessary work on my part. Proclaim support suspects that it might be related to my NVIDIA card but I have tried two different models with no change. One of the cards I tried was a $300 gaming card and that made no difference. I'll gather more information on my computer specs when I'm back at the church this week and post them here for comparison. Maybe we can find a common element between our setups.

Brandon Adent (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1192590#Comment_1192590

Thanks for checking in on this.

We made some changes to Proclaim in January 2021, and then again in July that should have eliminated some of these issues, but sadly this can still happen when looping a motion background.

Unfortunately, this is because of a bug in Microsoft code. I can actually reproduce the black flash outside of Proclaim by opening a video file in Windows Media Player and setting it to loop. I tried this with a couple motions and got the same behavior every time. We've worked with Microsoft to make sure that we're using their code correctly, and opened a bug report with them when it didn't. That ticket is at https://github.com/dotnet/wpf/issues/5654 if you're interested in following it.

Sorry for the continued disruption here. Probably the best way around this is to use longer motion backgrounds so that they loop less frequently.

Stacy Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1192635#Comment_1192635

Hey Logos team,

I'm running on a Macbook Air on MacOS Version Sonoma 14.1 and this issue is present on all of our automatic looping still images in our Pre and Post service loops using a fade transition. It doesn't flash to black, it flashes the image of the slide it's transitioning to, then flashes back and begins transitioning. Only started happening in this past month.

Doesn't seem to be a Microsoft problem since we aren't running on Windows.

Mt. Zion UMC

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1276998#Comment_1276998

I am having the same issue too. on 3 different machines.

However when I turn off hardware acceleration the problem goes away. The quality takes a hit because it is not as smooth, but the flickering seems to have stopped.