Burning DVD from Timeline in 10+

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Thu May 18, 2006 5:45 pm

I just successfully burned several projects directly from the timeline to DVD with version 10+ and was rather amazed that it actually works! (So far).

The most complicated project:
I opened an old 10 minute project with DVD compliant video clips, jpeg images in 2048x1636 resolution, music clips (wma & mp3), transitions, etc.

With this project in the timeline, I hit the SHARE/Create Disk button and a dialog box popped up: "Cannot Open this project...". Just for the hell of it I tried again and this time it added the project VSP file to the Burn timeline display. There were some wacky status messages: "Cannot erase the Disc Video...", which I ignored.

I checked the Burn property presets and found them all wrong

- set them up to match my video clips. Then I unchecked motion menu and set up some chapter entry points for the DVD menu (painful) and hit the BURN button.

Sixteen minutes later it was finished making a motion menu (it ignored my instructions) and started burning! I thought: "No way is this going to work..."

I played back the DVD in the AVLP2 player and was amazed to see that it actually did work...!

The pictures looked good.

I had an ISO res chart in the project and it showed normal horzontal resolution but worse than normal vertical resolution compared to other standard definition. I don't know what to make of this.

Edit: I played the DVD in the computer using MPC and the Res chart showed good vertical resolution - so it must have been a playback issue..

Bottom Line: We may have to reconsider the ban on burning from the timeline in the Recommended Procedure.

Please post your experiences and opinions on this matter.

TDK1044 · Post by **TDK1044** » Thu May 18, 2006 6:10 pm

Burning from the timeline is an interesting topic for me, as before I found this forum, I always burned from the timeline with no problems. I used the 'buggy' VS8 and never had a burn fail from the timeline. During the smart render fiasco with VS8 where the burn would be out of sync, I would calculate the frame offset by looking at the out of sync DVD, and then make a sound file of my entire project, offsetting the audio track by the number of frames I had calculated the burn was out of sync by and then mute the video file. I burned dozens of DVDs from the timeline this way with no problems. With VS 10, I am using the recommended procedure....I still haven't had the guts to try smart render though!

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Thu May 18, 2006 6:36 pm

Yes, lots of things can be made to work if you know what you are doing.

It has been some time since I tried burning from the timeline. In the past, I had checked VS7, 8 and 9 with a DVD compliant video clip in the timeline and it proceeded to start a LONG conversion - which it should not have done.

Today's experience was different: It did put up the "This will take a long time" dialog box but it only converted the motion menu. I saw no indication that it was doing anything but quickly smart-rendering the video clips in the project. This was very encouraging.

Note also, that VS10+ setup incorrect burn properties. A newbie would not have known to straighten this out before proceeding.

GeorgeW · Post by **GeorgeW** » Thu May 18, 2006 6:45 pm

Burning from the timeline is a feature of VS. Some folks experience problems, and so it's not a bad idea to take a step-by-step approach in order to see where the issue comes up (i.e. create the video first, then share/create using the new video).

I do think it works, and perhaps the "sticky" should be updated...

Regards,
George

Rich2Putt · Post by **Rich2Putt** » Thu May 18, 2006 7:17 pm

GeorgeW wrote:Burning from the timeline is a feature of VS. Some folks experience problems, and so it's not a bad idea to take a step-by-step approach in order to see where the issue comes up (i.e. create the video first, then share/create using the new video).

I do think it works, and perhaps the "sticky" should be updated...

Regards,
George

Am I understanding this properly.
1) You make all your edits, transitions etc in the timeline....
2) From the time line go straight to share to convert your video?

What happened to the render step? I've always rendered prior to creating the final DVD and clearing the timeline prior to burning.

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Thu May 18, 2006 7:52 pm

I do still think that the best practice is to cleanly separate the video file creation (converting) from the burn. It permits inspection of the results of the conversion before proceeding to burn. I intend to continue this workflow.

However, my experience for the last three years has been that burning from the timeline ALSO opened a pandora's box of strange bugs by re-rendering videos that did not need to be converted - AFAIK, to unknown properties. It is this condition that may have changed for the better in 10+.

Ulead has refused to disable the Burn button with stuff in the timeline and so new users are going to push that button. Therefore we need to, at least, get some experience with this workflow.

GeorgeW · Post by **GeorgeW** » Thu May 18, 2006 10:06 pm

jchunter wrote:Ulead has refused to disable the Burn button with stuff in the timeline and so new users are going to push that button. Therefore we need to, at least, get some experience with this workflow.

I don't think it's a question of Ulead "refusing to disable the burn button"

I think it's something that does work for people, and the folks with problems come to the forums to help figure out issues. Do you think ALL VideoStudio users are here on the forums

Having them export a video first is one way to eliminate the burn-from-timeline as a potential root to their problems...

Regards,
George

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Thu May 18, 2006 10:27 pm

George,
I have requested Ulead to disable the burn button several times during the last three years - specifically because it got so many new users in trouble. Thus, they have "refused to disable the burn button."

Do you disagree with my premise - that burning from the timeline caused problems for new users in the past?

Post by **Ken Berry** » Thu May 18, 2006 10:41 pm

I don't think anyone would disagree that it caused problems for some newbies in past versions. But I think the point George was making is that burning direct from the timeline did not cause problems for EVERYONE (as some of the above postings make clear). Now I happen to be in the 'never burn from the timeline' camp. But I am equally sure that if you disabled the burn button as you have suggested, there would probably be postings by people complaining about that because it worked perfectly well for them!!

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Thu May 18, 2006 10:51 pm

In this thread, I would like to focus on whether burning from the timeline has become reliable enough to moderate the warnings in the RP. Has anyone else tried it yet in 10+?

GeorgeW · Post by **GeorgeW** » Thu May 18, 2006 11:07 pm

John, there are many different combinations of software/hardware configurations. I agree in taking a step-by-step approach to help eliminate certain problems -- so having a user export their mpeg files gets us through the "conversion to mpeg" step as being a potential problem.

There are many who use the function without issue, and so they never show up here on the forums -- and that's due to the nature of forums. Most folks here are those with an issue of some sort (or perhaps a question or two about the software). Of course there are folks who are here just to help out -- and I think that's terrific

I also think there are many happy users who do not experience any problems and are not here on the forums. Out of all the VideoStudio packages sold world wide, what percentage of those users would you say are here on the forums

Of the percentage not here on the forums, how many of them do you think use the "burn from timeline" button

Regards,
George

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Fri May 19, 2006 12:00 am

I would like to focus on the reliability issue by forming a "User's Quality Assurance" activity, wherein we users pound the hell out of the burn-from-timeline function. We can do this by loading several old Video Studio projects, one at a time into VS10+, putting a DVD RW in the burner, hitting the Share /Create Disk button and recording the results - good and bad. If half a dozen users can come up with half a dozen reasonably short projects (e.g., 10 minutes) that would make a sample size of 36. Enough to be statistically significant. I think we will get a very good idea of whether the burn-from-timeline is reliable or not. If not, we will generate a great list of bugs, which, when fixed, will improve the product significantly.

Post by **Ron P.** » Fri May 19, 2006 12:03 am

John,

To prove or disprove a method or feature I think you have a good idea. That's about the only way to go about it. In other words try to break it. I'll do what I can, I just love trying to break things...

EDIT

In fact I have 2 days left on the TBYB version of 10+, I'll run it through the wringer for remaining days of it's pityful life...

Ron P.

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Fri May 19, 2006 2:29 am

Great Ron,
Let's give the download version Hell for its last 2 days!

If we get crashes, we can just copy the Error Signatures from the error dialog boxes and paste them into MS Word along with a short description of what we were doing just prior. I wish I had bothered to carefully copy down those strange error messages that I got. IMO it would be a good idea to record times - both overall and in stages. E.g., My 10 minute project did not seem to pause at all between the DVD menu conversion and the start of the burn, which left me with the impression that it was smart rendering the MPeg2 clips as it burned. Watching CPU and memory usage could also be instructive.

I have about 4-5 short projects and some more - 20 minutes that I should be able to resuscitate quickly. These include both analog and digital source material - all in DVD-compliant format.

BTW, if anyone has the patience to try a burn from timeline with DV video clips as source project, it would interesting to see what happens and get some times recorded. I have often wondered about the origins of the overnight burns that users have reported...

Who else is on board here? We could use someone from the other side of the earth - just in case the southern magnetic forces have a lopsided effect on the computers.

Ken?

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Fri May 19, 2006 2:53 am

I think that GeorgeW has hit the nail on the head and that we mostly only hear from Users who come here with problems.

The Burning from a videoStudio Project can also be placed hand in hand with another major problem that many users have experienced - that of suffering out of synch issues as a result of editing MPEG clips.

I think that the majority of the time users will probably get away with it and achieve a successful burn of a DVD project even if they edit their MPEG files, include transitions etc and also burn from the timeline.

However when a user reports to us that they have a problem it is best to advise the user to adopt the tried and tested step by step procedure that has become our recommended procedure. It is a system that we trust and know that it works.

Having suggested that this be adopted our forum policy, I am very interested to hear the results of any further tests that are made on Johns discovery.