A trustruted VS 9/8 user

[seantshen8219]

Guys, you are looking at a totally frustrated ULead user, in me.

I don't about you guys, but here are my problems

1. Using ULead VS 9 (and VS to burn DVD is down right painful. It is
sooooo, sooooo slow. OK, I have a P4 2.8Ghz (not HT) and 512M of RAM. I
have an external USB 2.0 hard disk of 250G. And we are talking about
slow.....slow....at the final point of "Share" where the video is burned.
Why does it have to take so long to "convert motion menu"? What is it in my
motion menu that has to take this long?

2. After the long wait (usually I set it in motion and go shopping, or go
sleeping), and often times it will give some error stating that something is
wrong, and I need to reboot, or retry again. And next time I do this again,
I have to wait this LONG, LONG time again, as if all I did before meant
nothing.

3. If I had forgotten to set something correctly, like a sub menu of my DVD,
etc, I went back to change things again, I had to wait this LONG LONG time
again.

4. If I decide to burn 3 more copies of my DVD that I did not anticipate, I
had to wait this LONG LONG wait again...

5. The ISO disk image option did not work well for me. I cannot burn ISO
into my DVD-R, for some reason, within ULead or using some other tool

Am I doing something wrong?

Because of all this, most of my videos I shot on tape, stay on tape. Never
made it into DVD. Because, well, it is just so damn difficult to put them
into DVD.

Should I go buy a different brand of software, or different Ulead software?
What is the way out here?

Thanks a lot for any pointers.
Sean

[seantshen8219]

OK, the fresh round of frustration:

I am burning the DVD from the VS 9 project. Finally it worked!!! wow....

Took the DVD to my DVD player and tried it....it only played the first
segment, and jump right back to the beginning, as if it had finished.....

Wen back to project, everything looked fine.

Now I am trying to create an MPG file (DVD qualify) so that I can jump lump
the entire video into the DVD with one shot.

Of course, with this, I will not able to to segment based chapters and
menus, unless I manually do it, stop at the right moment and produce a
menu/chapter title.

Tell me all of this is just me, doing something wrong. Or else I will find
it very hard to believe that there would have been no complaints by the user
base.

Thanks
Sean

[htchien]

USB device is not suitable for video rendering.

Some USB devices will have compatibility issues with the USB controller on your mainboard or on the PCI card. If this is the case, you might get low reading/writing speed and unstable USB connection which to corrupt some files.

In your case I think the USB external drive might be the issue. I would suggest to use the hard disk as an internal drive for best performance.

Hope this helps.

H.T.

[Ken Berry]

For many people, it seems that their burning problems are associated with the work flow they adopt, and for these people, it appears that they may not be following optimum practice. The main problem seems to be that they have their project in the timeline, do their edits, and then attempt to burn their project directly to disc. This is what it sounds as though you have been doing ("I am burning the DVD from the VS 9 project.")

The recommended procedure is set out in the first sticky post on this Board. But briefly, with each project, you should first be going from the edited project to Share > Create Video File > DVD, and producing a DVD-compatible mpeg-2 file. You will need to work out the compression rate you use from the amount of video you want to fit on disc. (Roughly, a compression rate of 8000 kbps will give you around an hour on a single layer DVD; 6000 kbps -- 1.5 hours; 4000 kbps -- 2 hours). Then when you have all of the final mpeg-2s you want, you close your last project, and open Share > Create Disc > DVD. Instead of inserting projects in the burning module, you then insert the DVD-compliant mpeg-2s you have produced, build your menus etc and then burn. Make sure you click 'do not convert compliant mpeg files' in the cogwheel icon to the bottom left of the burning screen.

As you note, using this Recommended Procedure, you have to adopt a different approach to designating your chapters, and this might seem a real hassle. But I feel confident in saying that most of us here happily accept this 'limitation' for the sake of successfully burning a playable DVD. I, for instance, usually just make my chapters time based (e.g. every 5 minutes), though sometimes I will base it on a change of scene. While you may have to work your way through the full video to find the correct spots to make a chapter break, this is a small price to pay if you want to burn a successful DVD, and more to the point, do it more quickly than you seem to be doing at the moment!

[seantshen8219]

USB device is not suitable for video rendering.

Some USB devices will have compatibility issues with the USB controller on your mainboard or on the PCI card. If this is the case, you might get low reading/writing speed and unstable USB connection which to corrupt some files.

In your case I think the USB external drive might be the issue. I would suggest to use the hard disk as an internal drive for best performance.

Hope this helps.

H.T.

I have tried to work completely on my C drive, which is built in. Because my C drive is smaller, my project usually is smaller. And Somehow or another, I have the impression that smaller projects (with less running time) have a better success rate, whether it is on a USB drive or internal drive.

However, I feel the performance is just as bad. Another of my issue, may be caused by having the preview while rendering. I am going to find out how I can turn off the preview.

However, having the preview has revealed that the rendering of the video is simply like playing the video (actually even slower). Why should it have to be the case with this software? I would think that having determined all the parameters, the software should churn through the raw materials quite speedily, let's say, why can't the video be converted in 1/3, or 1/4 or 1/10th of the time of the actual running time of the video? Is that possible? If I shoot through a 3 hour video, why does the converting process have to take 3+ hours? Let's say, if I have a super fast CPU, tons of memory and super fast I/O on my Disk drives, should it be possible?

Also, even if I produce the video files first (even if the video files I have converted to is plain old DVD file/format), it seems that the software is going through yet another conversion process, that takes just as long. Why? What is there to convert if the underlying file format is already DVD? Maybe just because I have added a few transition effects? A few menu items? How much extra rendering should there be with these minor changes?

[Ken Berry]

Do you have Smart Render turned on or off?

[seantshen8219]

For many people, it seems that their burning problems are associated with the work flow they adopt, and for these people, it appears that they may not be following optimum practice. The main problem seems to be that they have their project in the timeline, do their edits, and then attempt to burn their project directly to disc. This is what it sounds as though you have been doing ("I am burning the DVD from the VS 9 project.")

That is true. I said that explicitly trying to make it clear that, at least through this experience, I was doing that. However, this is a supported feature/process. Through out version eight and nine, there seems to be no change or improvement.

But as I have found out as I type, I have the same failure at the exact same point where direct DVD burning had failed to continue earlier. Then I fooled around with cutting some segment off (in my case, I deleted one transition effect and added a new, different transition effect at the point where the thing failed). Now it fails on a different "transition point". So, now I am going to delete all my transition effects, and simply apply one safe-kind throughout.

Things like that, plus the slowness of the whole process, has made this experience completely frustrating. You know, you don't find out things will not continue until you reach that point, where it might be 20-30 minutes into the process. And even when things happen, you don't always know what might work. So you try this, try that. And the only time you will know for sure is when you reach that point, and it will successfully go through.

Maybe I should just abandon this and buy a DVD-R based camcorder. Then I do not have to any PP, and just watch my raw videos.

The recommended procedure is set out in the first sticky post on this Board. But briefly, with each project, you should first be going from the edited project to Share > Create Video File > DVD, and producing a DVD-compatible mpeg-2 file.

OK, should I produce AVI files rather than MP-2 files to preserve my options down the road?

Then when you have all of the final mpeg-2s you want, you close your last project, and open Share > Create Disc > DVD. Instead of inserting projects in the burning module, you then insert the DVD-compliant mpeg-2s you have produced, build your menus etc and then burn. Make sure you click 'do not convert compliant mpeg files' in the cogwheel icon to the bottom left of the burning screen.

Well, at this point, you are literally still burning DVD from project, albeit your components are made out of DVD formatted files. My point is, what is the underlying issue with me doing it from AVI files in the first place? Is there a bug that needs to be worked out?

As you note, using this Recommended Procedure, you have to adopt a different approach to designating your chapters, and this might seem a real hassle. But I feel confident in saying that most of us here happily accept this 'limitation' for the sake of successfully burning a playable DVD. I, for instance, usually just make my chapters time based (e.g. every 5 minutes), though sometimes I will base it on a change of scene. While you may have to work your way through the full video to find the correct spots to make a chapter break, this is a small price to pay if you want to burn a successful DVD, and more to the point, do it more quickly than you seem to be doing at the moment!

Well, even if you do this, it seems that the process is still slow. Even if underlying components are DVD native already, the software still goes through some long rendering process (even if you turn on smart rendering). What is it doing any way?

[seantshen8219]

Do you have Smart Render turned on or off?

I have it off. Actually, before today, I did not even know there is such a thing that I can turn on or off. I believe by default it is off. Correct?

[seantshen8219]

Do you have Smart Render turned on or off?

I have it off. Actually, before today, I did not even know there is such a thing that I can turn on or off. I believe by default it is off. Correct?

I meant to say, I had it on. The default is on. The sheer frustration has made me speak the opposite!!! So when I encounter slowness in double-conversion, it was done under the smartness already!!!!

Well, looks like the change of transition effects have paid off, at least my video rendering is continuing, way passed what it had failed at before. Have you (or anybody else) found that some transition effects are not safe to use?

This thing is still going. I am going to let it churn over night. And hope for the best.

Given this slow a speed at which I am producing the video, it is impossible to even be thinking about any creative artistry. I will be lucky just to be able to burn the damn thing onto DVD.

Is that how the pros do it? Sitting there in Movie/TV Studios rendering videos for hours, days, weeks or even months with trials and errors?

There's got to be a better way.
Thanks for the replies so far.

Appreciate more pointers and discussions on this.

Sean

[rwindeyer]

I completely concur with Ken Berry; just a few comments that may help clarify things a bit.

When you have a project laid out, this is not a video file, of any kind. It is a recipe. Or, if you like, a set of instructions to the editing program - you want the first half of this clip, the second half of that clip, with this musical background, that voiceover - etc etc; referring to data contained in maybe several hundred files scattered over your hard drive.

You now have three processes to consider -
Collating (or Rendering, as Ulead puts it) - gathering all the information from scattered sources and creating a single, contiguous video file of some kind.
Transcoding - converting the file into a mpeg suitable for a DVD.
Burning - the actual burning process.

There is general agreement that if you ask your computer to collate, transcode and burn all at the same time, it will take forever and will often fall over completely. (You have discovered that...) Do it in two steps.

My preference (I work in AVI files) is to simply collate (render) to another AVI file. Then I load that in a burning module for the transcode and burn operation. Once you have the file loaded you can go through and select chapter points; that's not a problem. I have never had a failure doing that.

[seantshen8219]

Could someone give me real world examples of how much time it would take you, to render a 1 hour miniDV video into a DVD compliant file, and how much time, if everything is done according to the sticky, to burn it onto a DVD? Are we talking about

Step 1 = 2 hours
Step 2 = zero (assuming I do zero editing)
Step 3 = another 2 + hours? (for burning)

Or is it that the 3rd step is a mere 10 minute process?

Thanks
Sean

[Ron P.]

Hi Sean,

First of all there is no time that will be the same on every computer system, let alone for every DVD being created. However a rule of thumb is that for the Step 1, Rendering a Compliant DVD video file it will take about 1.5 to 2.5 times as long as the file you are rendering. This is mainly based on DV-AVI files being used in the project. Once you have your DVD compliant MPEG2, then the burning process should not take very long. You should burn at no more then 4.0x, so a 1hr DVD should take less then 1hr to burn, more like 15-30 minutes. That does not take into consideration the computer system, which could vary that time. That is also assuming that Compliant DVD MPEG2 video files are being used, and not some other formats, where the files have to be re-encoded.

Now as far as your earlier post about the TV/Movie studios, you would be surprised at what they use and how long it takes for some productions. The animated movies like Shrek, they don't use a typical computer. If I could find the website, it describes the system, and that it can take up to 96 hrs to render a few minutes of animation. I'm sure glad we don't have to deal with that...

Ron P.

[lancecarr]

Like Ron says lets get this into perspective. Pixars latest production, Cars, took an average of 19 hours to render each FRAME of the production using 3000 computers networked. Reportedly the only systems bigger in America belongs to NASA.
There are 24 frames per second in motion picture films.

[Ron P.]

Imagine the scenario, having just 1 computer to render 1 home movie that you shot when your child was born. You would have the finished DVD for your child when they graduated college...

And we thought Video Studio was slow.....

Ron P.

[rwindeyer]

Could someone give me real world examples of how much time it would take you, to render a 1 hour miniDV video into a DVD compliant file, and how much time, if everything is done according to the sticky, to burn it onto a DVD? Are we talking about

Step 1 = 2 hours
Step 2 = zero (assuming I do zero editing)
Step 3 = another 2 + hours? (for burning)

Or is it that the 3rd step is a mere 10 minute process?

Thanks
Sean

OK, as I said, I do it a bit differently to the "sticky". Instead of (1+2) then (3), I do (1), then (2+3).

To do a 1 hour video:

Rendering: about an hour.
Transcode and burn: up to 3 hours.

Hope that helps.