VS9 - DVD Menu Background Music lasts only one second

philipbcook · Post by **philipbcook** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 10:19 pm

I have recently installed my VS9 on a new Win XP Pro machine. Originally it was running fine on Win ME.

Now I find that projects that burned successfully before, now produce a DVD Menu Background Music track that lasts only one second.

I am using a static Main Menu picture, along with around 25-30 seconds of background music which is in a .MPA file. Despite setting the option to 'not change the MPEG settings on compliant source files' the music file which in its full format is around 1.6 MB is truncated to around 32 kb. I have seen the temporary file called MenBkFile000.mpa being created in one of the temporary folders used by VS9. When I play it in Media Player it reports it as 1 sec long.

I have tried all the fixes and work arounds in the main 'sticky' posting in this forum. I thought they had fixed the problem but it is now re-occurring. Has anyone else had the problem and know the specific fix necessary.

I am at my wits end.

Philip

Post by **Ken Berry** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 11:06 pm

Although your audio file is in the format of an audio-only file derived from mpeg-layer 2 audio used in a video (which logically would imply it should play with a new video), it is perhaps not one which VS9 would readily recognise (because it is transport stream and not program stream). Do you have an audio editing program which might be able to convert it to the more standard .WAV format, or even .mp3?

philipbcook · Post by **philipbcook** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 8:12 pm

No, a .MPA file produced by VideoStudio 9 has worked just fine in the past.

I have done some more diagnosis.

I created sub-menus for my latest project and applied the same music file for all menus.

When I check in the MenuBkMusic folder (Temporary) I find that each menu gets its own temporary copy of the music file called menuBkFilexxx.mpa where xxx=000, 001, 002 etc
Strangely some of these files are created as 28kB long (1 sec) and some are correct at 1595kb long (59 secs). In my last attempt to 'burn' the disk the first five were small, and the remainder large. But I have had other combinations also.

I guess if this is happening (almost) at random, then when I burn a disk with only ONE menu, then sometimes I get a 1 sec music file and sometimes the full file.

I am still puzzled. What could cause the rendering engine to get it right sometimes and wrong others.

I never had this problem when running on this same hardware with VS9 running under Windows Me, but since installing XP it is a nightmare.

Philip

Post by **Ken Berry** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 8:16 pm

Ok, so what happens when you use a WAV or MP3 file? I only ask since to my knowledge you are the first person who has even mentioned using mpa audio in menus on this Board...

philipbcook · Post by **philipbcook** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 8:30 pm

I tried a .wav

Same problem, sometimes I get 1 sec sometimes I get the full file.

Haven't tried an mp3.

Philip

Post by **Ken Berry** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 8:45 pm

Can you also give us an idea of your work flow in your whole project, please. I ask this because a couple of other people in recent weeks have reported truncated music on their menus, and in these cases, the problem was rectified when they followed the recommended procedure for the overall handling of video projects. While it might seem counterintuitive that a wrong step in an early part of a project might later affect something completely different, such as creation of menus, it might at least be worth investigating.

The recommended procedure is outlined in the top sticky post on this Board. To summarise, you should NOT be going straight from the project in the timeline to the burn module (Share > Create Disc > DVD) which you might be doing -- we don't know. If by chance you are, you should instead use the preferred method which is to first produce a DVD-compatible mpeg-2 file (Share > Create Video File > DVD). Once you have this file, close your current project, and then go to Share > Create Disc > DVD to open the burning module. Insert your DVD-compatible file(s). Make sure you click on 'Do not convert compliant mpeg-2 files' in the little cog-wheel icon in the bottom left of the burning module screen. Then of course do your menu, chapters etc, and burn.

philipbcook · Post by **philipbcook** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 8:59 pm

Herewith my DVD project Description.

I have three MPG files previously created by Videostudio 9, using (Share > Create Video File > Same As Project Settings) The Project settings are matched to the source MPG file that was edited in VS9.

I then load VS9, choose Fille > New. Then (Share > Create Disk).
I then add my three files, which take up about 4.1 MB.

Create the Menu, with background picture and background music.

Then burn the project. Check in the MenuBkMusic folder to see if I am getting a big or little file.. as described above sometimes I get 1 sec long file, other times the full 59 secs. When I am building multiple menu pages the 1 v 59 long files seem to be craeted at random.

philipbcook · Post by **philipbcook** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 5:08 pm

I have now loaded VS9 on a second computer (running ME)... yes I know I am only allowed to use one copy... BUT GUESS WHAT.. the project burns perfectly now. So clearly there is something amiss on my Windows XP installation of VS9.

I have un-installed and re-installed, and I still have the same behaviour.

I need it to work on my Windows XP installation & hardware as this uses a RAID0 twinned pair of SATA 150 drives for speed. Very useful for Video editing and DVD creation. The Windows Me machine is like a snail in comparison, despite using a similar processor & motheboard.

Does anyone from Ulead ever check in here to offer help, or is it simply a user self help environment !!?

Philip

Post by **Ron P.** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 2:50 am

philipbcook wrote:I have now loaded VS9 on a second computer (running ME)... yes I know I am only allowed to use one copy... BUT GUESS WHAT.. the project burns perfectly now. So clearly there is something amiss on my Windows XP installation of VS9.
Philip

Your correct, however if it was something amiss with VS9, then it would not work on your WinME system either. So I would say that it is due to something with your WinXP OS.

What other software/apps, related to DVD authoring to you have on your WinXP machine? Do you have the same on the WinME? (Sonic, WinDVD, Roxio, Nero?).

As far as the MPA files, yes those are the VS9 music files and VS should not have an issue with them. Do you have the latest Quicktime, DirectX,?

I'm just mentioning ideas that come to mind, and maybe conflicting with VS. To troubleshoot this, since it does work on WinME, and not XP (such a shame, since WinME is such a joke), I start by looking at what is different besides the Operating systems.

Ron P.

Aster · Post by **Aster** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 12:08 pm

The is exactly the same behaviour on my WinXP Pro machine.
The background music for some of the chapter menus lasts just a second.
After repeating the DVD making procedure, it is possible that everything works as expected!
Is there any fix for this problem?

Andreas

yzpilot · Post by **yzpilot** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 4:55 am

Same thing happend with VS9 (Windows XP home edition). Background music only plays for 1 second, but I still love VS non the less!

TubaDad · Post by **TubaDad** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 12:50 pm

I have to throw mine in here too, XP Pro. After encountering the 1 second audio in the menus of my current project, I burned an existing project, that I know worked in the past (I have the good DVD), and it has the same 1 second audio issue. It sounds like it is something to do with an XP OS update along the way. The PC I am working on is completely up to date on patches.

This is another problem that just started happening to me with my latest project. The other is documented thoroughly on the board, but it is as if VS9 is a completely different product, for me and a couple of you, after some (assumption here) XP OS update/patch. I knew I was not crazy.

Now when is VS10 shipping?

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 4:57 pm

I'm away from my video editing machine at the moment so can't check.
I use DVD Workshop to create my DVD Menus and would suspect the following is true for VS9.
There should be an option to specify the duration of the menu
choices (in DVD WS) include a specified duration or the length of the audio or background video)

If this option is in VS9 check the duration setting. Sometimes the simple answer is overlooked.

TubaDad · Post by **TubaDad** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 7:04 pm

Steve,

I have not seen an option like that in VS9, that doesn't mean I am not overlooking it. One of the things I had seen in the past is that I had to adjust the length of the motion menu, even if I was not using it. I would click it on, adjust the time, then click it off. That could have just been coincidense with therest of what I was doing in that menu. But I even tried playing with that trick to no avail last time.

I hope you find an easy setting we are overlooking when you get back to your other PC.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:43 pm

Steve -- I am also not aware of any specific time adjustment relating to menu background music. When you are constructing your menu, you are allowed to adjust the time for a motion menu, to a maximum of 30 seconds, which is the default setting anyway. And the background music normally cycles exactly with that, or itself defaults to 30 seconds (which as far as I am aware, cannot be further adjusted). But I will be more than happy to be corrected on that...

yzpilot and aster: what audio format did you use? If MP3, then you need to be aware that some people on this forum have had problems with certain mp3's produced with particular codecs (notably LAME MP3). Converting the audio clip to .WAV format usually corrects the problem. Mind you, the problems in the past have related to use of MP3 in the main project, not in menu construction... But it is still worth a thought.