Newbie: Multiple Major Problems with VS9

[Vincej]

In Jan I bought a new Dell desktop with pentium D 2.8ghz 250 gb disc, 1 gb ram, In Feb I upgraded from VS7 to VS9. Since then I have quite successfully 15 digital video tapes off my Panansonic camera. I even was converting PAL > NTSC with ease.

2 weeks ago I started work on 35 analogue video tapes off a Sony Hi8 Camera. Since then I have nothing but a catologue of problems and am on the verge of giving up. Even the support guys seem to be giving up. Little on the forum boards either. Generally it makes me think I am the only guy on the planet with all these problems. I spend more time fighting the s/w than getting things done. Here is the list:

1) 'Template Failed to load' - I have loaded, deleted and reloaded VS7 & 9 about 3 times using add / remove - nothing works.

2) When using ADS CAP WIZ through VS9 Capture for analogue the MPEG2 files will not load using the 'add video' dialogue - VS9 just freezes. However, if I use CAP WIZ own application for analogue capture then VS9 will allow the MPEG2 to be added without freezing. BIzarre !

3) Emails from Support - believe it or not MS Outlook will chop off the message from support excepting the top 2 lines - has anyone else had problems like this from support ?

sorry for the long post - if I can't fix stuff then I'll have little choice but give up and go over to Adobe - not something I want to do as I just spent $100.00

Thanks Vincej

[Ken Berry]

Sorry you are having the problems. But we need a bit more information.

Re (1) -- which template exactly are you trying to load and at what stage of the process?

Re (2) -- sorry to say, it is not bizarre at all. Many of us here have specific analogue capture devices which come with their own software, just as your ADS device did. And most of us here would probably agree that it is probably best to capture with that specific software, and then import the captured files into Video Studio for editing. That is precisely what I do, for instance, with my Winfast DV2000 capture card, mostly because I feel the software that came with it does a better job. And again, this is not as strange as it may sound. The software has probably been developed and/or tweaked precisely to give the best output with that particular piece of hardware whereas Video Studio, needless to say, has to contend with a myriad of devices.

I am also not really certain at which stage you are using the 'add video' command to which you refer. Did you mean that literally or is that your recollection of the 'Insert Video' which is used during the project phase. I ask because 'Add Video' is used in the burner module. Can you give us more information on that too, please.

And finally (from me at least! ), what are the properties of the mpeg-2 files you are capturing? (Right click on one of them in Video Studio and copy down the properties.)

[DVDDoug]

MPEGs are trouble! MPEGs are not meant to be edited. Since you are using CapWiz, I assume your capture device is MPEG only.

I'll have little choice but give up and go over to Adobe -

There are lower-cost solutions.

- A capture device that can capture to AVI/DV:
You may not need a new capture card. Perhaps you can use your (digital?) Panasonic camera as a capture device. Does it have composite audio & video inputs?

- A special-purpose MPEG editor:
VideoReDo = A simple cut & splice editor ($50).
Womble = Cut & splice to full editing and DVD authoring ($50 - $140).

I no longer edit MPEGs with Ulead. Since I started editing my MPEGs with Womble, I don't get crashing or "lip-sync" problems! I still use Ulead for authoring and buring DVDs (usually DVD Workshop).

But, even with a special-purpose MPEG editor, some types of edits require a decode/re-code cycle. MPEG is lossy, and you loose quality each time you encode.