VS9 Has a life of it´s own...

Ompa · Post by **Ompa** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 6:03 pm

What should I do? After a couple of years with Pinnacle and thier studio programs i finally desided that I no longer can put up with thier buggy products, and sub par support.
So, a week ago I went to the local softwarestore and bought VS9.
And hey! this program actually do everything right for me, well almost.

Problem 1.
When I edit audio, lowering background music to allow main soundtrack to be heard, VS9 just ignore it when rendering it. I have even tried to completely delete the background track and still no audio from that specific clip is heard.
If I delete the clip and input it again all sound is fine, until I add an background track. Then I´m back to the beginning.
Why? any ideas anyone?
UPDATE: As soon as I alter an clip, the sound dissapers from the clip.

Problem 2.
When I have set up all the menus for my dvd menu, named all the chapters and so on, VS9 again totally ignore all the work.
When watching the final dvd, VS9 has put in a completly different template for the menu, and all chaptes are gone.
Again why?

And last question. Why can´t I have one menu? I´m always forced to use a main menu (which i don´t want) and then the menu where all the chapters are. And to use a clip as "intro" before the menu doesn´t work, it´s just skipped when the rendering are done.

I hope that all these problems are my fault, and not VS9 pulling tricks with me. Because right about now i´m ready to give up. I so wan´t do homemade movies of my kids and all happenings and all produtcs I have used has some major fault, hampering my produtivity.

2Dogs · Post by **2Dogs** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 6:23 pm

Hey Ompa,

welcome to the forum! I think you should stick with VS9 for a bit! Glad to see you filled in your system info, and it looks like you have a pretty nice pc there, which should work very well with VS9.

Your list of problems sounds quite strange - so I would suggest your first step might be to try to do a repair of the install, since you have the full boxed retail version of VS. It's possible that some components of the program did not properly install. The repair option should come up when you insert the install disks and run the setup program, as if you were installing for the first time.

As a first step towards finding out the cause, try looking in the Windows Event Viewer logs - these can often reveal missing components etc.

You can have just the chapter menus - the method escapes me for now, but a search of the forum should reveal a way to avoid having the (annoying default) main menu item.

Do make sure to read and follow the recommended procedure, as outlined in the sticky at the top of the forum - it will help you avoid most of the common problems.

Good luck!

Ompa · Post by **Ompa** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 6:40 pm

Thanks for the reply.

I tried to repair the install and I still has the same problems.
I have also checked the sites the forumthread recommended and I can´t find anything about my sound issues.

As I siad in my update I can´t alter anything on my clips, play clip backwards, leghten, shorten, raise or lower sound, if I do this the sound dissapers.

2Dogs · Post by **2Dogs** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 7:33 pm

OK, well if you did a repair that should rule out an improper or damaged install.

Was there anything in the Event Viewer logs?

Now can you supply details of your video file properties - both for the source material, and for the output files. You can get hte properties by right-clicking on a clip in the library to the right of the preview screen or on a clip in your timeline.

If you follow the recommended procedure, you should also have some MPEG-2 output files - and if not, you can create some test sample files for the purpose, so that you can check their properties.

Armed with that information, we might have a better chance of sorting things out.

Good luck!

Ompa · Post by **Ompa** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 8:36 pm

And now another issue has popped up. The computer totally locks up when going to the last stage of "create disc", where you choose burner and so on.

ok, here goes.
Original clip properties:

File
File Format: Microsoft AVI files -- OpenDML
File Size: 12 363 872 kb
Frame Rate: 25,000 Frames /Sec
Duration: 3330,320 Seconds
Data Rate: 1446,93 kbps

Video
Compression: DV Video Encoder -- Type 2
Attributes: 24bits, 720x576, 4:3
Total Frames: 83 258

Audio
Compression: PCM
Attributes: 48.000 kHz; 16bit; Stereo
Total Samples: 159 857 780

I´ll be back with the properties from the sample.

Update:
Test file properties

File Format: PAL DVD
File Size: 11 518kb
Duration: 10,480 Seconds

Video
Video Type: MPEG-2 Video, Lower field first
Total Frames: 262
Attributes: 24bits, 720x576, 4:3
Frame Rate: 25,000 Frames/Sec
Data Rate: Variable bit rate (MAX 8000 kbps)

Audio
Compression: LPCM Audio
Total Samples: 503 040
Attributes: 48.000 kHz; 16bit; Stereo

Hope it will help.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 8:58 pm

What are the properties of your background audio? If it is MP3, then you need to be aware that some people have problems with certain versions of MP3 produced by particular codecs -- or rather, it seems that VS9 appears to have a conflict with some of these MP3 codecs. Try converting the background audio to .WAV format and see if that makes a difference.

Ompa · Post by **Ompa** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 10:37 pm

Thanks for that tip Ken. But my audio comes directly from the DV clip.
The mp3´s I have tried to import have worked fine.

I think I have sorted out the computer lockup.
I installed Pinnacle studio 9 tonight (yes, stupid. I know...) and updated it to 9.4.
The update then installed somekind of ide driver, why I don´t know. For when I uninstalled a moment ago the uninstaller had a big trouble trying to remove that driver, and to shut down the process.
I´m gonna retry VS9 now and see if the lockup has gone away.

A little of topic here, but I must tell you this.
Tonight just before my wife went to bed she came and hugged me and said: Dear, you know that we have spent more money on videoediting software then we have spent on the DV-Cam. Godnight.
And I can tell you, I wasn´t very pleased to hear that. Now when nothing seems to work.

Ompa · Post by **Ompa** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 11:27 pm

Ok, I´m back.
After reinstalling Windows VS9 works for me exept the audio.
I´ll take it once again.
I add an AVI clip to the timeline (a DV-AVI clip). I play it and the sound works fine (sometimes the sound is missing even here, but not often). Now if i select the clip to be played backwards the sound dissapears. Even if i render the clip to an mpeg file theres´s no sound on the finished file. I have done exactly as stated in the sticky thread about new projects and so on.
If I try to make the clip longer, hence make the sound slower in the process, the sound dissapears.
And if I use the rubberband the sound dissapears too.
This is a little anoying when a rendered mpeg file has sound in someclips and others are completely quit. All my clips comes from the same source, same dv-tape.

Help please!

Ompa · Post by **Ompa** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 12:14 am

Found out what´s causing my problems.
For some reasons some clips will not just be edited, while others works just fine editing. It´s always the same clips that refuses to work.
Why this is I´m not sure of, but there might be something to do with the capturing or the scenesplitting.