Annoying "pulse" when fading in/out text

[Ron Burkett]

Ok, this is gonna take more words than it should but... here goes.

When I add text and select "fade in" or "fade out", when I play it, it starts to fade in as normal, then when the time indicator hits the keyframe, the text "pulses" brighter. Then returns to normal as the time indicator plays across the span between the fade in/out keyframes. Then, it "pulses" brighter again when it hits the keyframe to start the fade out. When I mouse over the keyframes, they show opacity at 100%, and the line between them shows 100%. The color of the text doesn't seem to matter.

I made several projects with PE3 and this was not an issue. However I'm working on my second project with PE4 and have noticed it on both.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Ron

[Chuck Engels]

Hi Ron, Welcome to Muvipix

Are you using the standard Titles and Fade In from the right click menu?
Is the text animated in any way?
Have you rendered the preview?
Have you tried a different font?

I hope that is enough questions for now.

[RJ Johnston]

How long ago was your last PE3 project? Maybe your pupils are slow to respond to the sudden increase and decrease in luma values.

I used a color picker to measure the luma value of the text and it is definitely not pulsing where the keyframes are located, at least on my CRT.

Is the text over video?

[RJ Johnston]

I think I see what you are seeing. The text becomes "bold." The text goes from thick to thin or thin to thick. The opacity has nothing to do with it. And I only see it if the text is over video, not just a title by itself.

[RJ Johnston]

There seems to be a problem with opacity value 100.0. When I lower the opacity values of the fade-in and fade-out keyframes to 98.6 then the "pulse" stops. This is annoying indeed.

[Chuck Engels]

Good work though RJ, at least lowering the opacity to 98 will stop the pulsing. Yes that would be another in a long line of workarounds rather than fixes but at least it is something.

RJ, you sure do come up with the answers when we need them, has anyone ever told you how much we appreciate you here

[Wheat King]

I haven't even been able to replicate it yet. must be doing something "wrong"

[Ron Burkett]

Thank you all for your prompt responses. And thanks for the welcome, I've been visiting here a good bit lately, especially since upgrading to PE4. Now, let's see if I can answer Chuck's questions -

Are you using the standard Titles and Fade In from the right click menu? Yes
Is the text animated in any way? No
Have you rendered the preview? Yes
Have you tried a different font? Yes

I have also noticed it does NOT do it on graphics. For instance, I have a circle appearing around someone's face in a photograph. It fades in and out smoothly, with no "pulses".

RJ, my last PE3 project was only about a month ago, and on all the same equipment. Also, since you asked, this text is over video, but the first time I noticed it (on my first PE4 project) it was not over video. (White text on black background)

I tried your "98 percent" trick and it worked satisfactorily, however, I'd hate to think I'm gonna have to do that every time I add text.

[RJ Johnston]

I don't know how many of these titles you have to fade-in and fade-out, but after you have adjusted the opacity for one title, you can copy the opacity effect and then paste to all the other titles. You can also save the opacity settings as a preset by clicking on the Opacity effect, right-click and Save as Preset. Then you can apply the preset to future titles and do both the fade-in and fade-out in one swipe.

[Ron Burkett]

Thanks again RJ. I previously had not done any work with presets, but figured there had to be an easier way than doing each keyframe in each title one by one. Looks like I've messed around and learned something! ...and that's always a good thing. I'm sure there's much more of that to come (especially with the help of this forum).

[RJ Johnston]

I though I would tell you what else I found that doesn't work well at "100%." Burning a DVD at the maximum bitrate 8.00. Use 7.55. I'll post a new thread on it.

[JohnnyO]

I tried to re-produce this issue and I do not see it. I added text over video, faded in and out the title, and I do not see any change at the keyframe. I even steped through frame by frame. The test title I used had no effects.

[JohnnyO]

Wait - I see it. I forgor that I set the opacity to 98% wkile testing. When I set it back to 100% I see the brightness change at the keyframe. Looks like right at the keyframe it gets slightly brighter, then slowly fades out from there.

[Ron Burkett]

So... does Adobe ever issue patches for problems like this, or is it just addressed in subsequent versions?

[Chuck Engels]

If history repeats itself then there should be a version 4 patch, as there was a version 3 patch.
Still, in 3 versions they have only issued 2 patches and one wasn't much of a patch but more of a fix for a single problem for PAL users.