Long Delays opening a project which contains clips fro

[jparnold]

Could someone please explain why VS9 takes such a long time to load a existing project which contains clips from many large AVI files?

While the project loads a window opens in the preview window which displays -
(53%)Please wait....filename.AVI

The percentage increases as each AVI file is read and the filename changes as each file appears to be read and loaded somewhere.

It takes 3 or 4 minutes to load one of my projects which contains quite a few clips from about 20 AVI files (each file around 2Mb in size).

The SAME PROJECT loads in just a few seconds when using VS8.

Why does VS9 appear to read each file when loading a project?
Is there a setting which can be changed so this does not occur (ie each AVI file read)?

Thanks
John

[Ken Berry]

Are you sure they are AVI files? I mean 'real' AVI files? I ask because uncompressed AVI make the largest files possible - about 65 GB (yes GB and NOT MB) per hour. Even digital DV/AVI takes up 13 GB per hour. So if in fact you have 20 files at only 2 MB more or less each, they must each last only for a few milliseconds!! Right click on one of them within VS and copy down the properties here.

If, on the other hand, they are mpeg-4 files using AVI merely as the carrier extension format, that would be different. But that would not explain why they would open in VS8, which could not handle mpeg-4 files... And in fact, VS9 would only handle them with a plug-in which you had to specially download if you had the full version of the program.

So we obviously need some more information about those files, and where they came from.

[jparnold]

The (original) files are those captured DIRECTLY from my camcorder (using VS8).
I think I may have misled the readers when I mentioned that the project contained clips from around 20 AVI files. Each AVI file is around 10 minutes in length (as previously stated) and the clips in the project are only small sections from those AVI files. Altogether I have around 4.5 hours of uncut video in those 20 AVI files and I had edited them down to around 45 minutes of video (a project containing hundreds of short clips from the original 4.5 hours of original footage).
The properties of these original files are -
Microsoft AVI file - OpenDML
frame rate 25 frames/sec
(Video) Compression DV Video Encoder -- type 2
Attributes - 24bits 720 X 576 4:3
(Audio) Compression PCM
Attributes 32,000 kHz, 16bit stereo

So now you can 'see' that it takes a long time to load the project as approximately 50Gb of original AVI files are read each time.
This didn't seem to happen when I was using VS8 - the same project took just seconds to load.

Do other readers notice that an existing project which has clips (small portions from) large AVI files takes a long time to load as each original aoppears to be loaded?

Why does this occur when it didn't in previous versions?

[Ken Berry]

OK. Thanks for that. I have VS10+. While I don't have any projects originating from files as large as 50 GB or more, I have just, a couple of days ago, finished one which had original files totalling 26 GB (just on 2 hours of DV/AVI). And in fact, I made few changes, producing a final file of about the same size. The original project and the final DV/AVI file both load near instantaneously as far as I could see.

The only thing that I can think of derives from your description of your files being taken from the original larger AVIs. By this, I am assuming that you had the original files on your timeline, did your cuts and other editing, but then simply saved your project (VSP) file. But could you confirm that? Or did you (as I still do) use the old VS8 method of 'Clip > Save Trimmed Video' after you cut the original files. This will of course actually create totally new, and smaller, files with their own separate icons in the Library pane and their own file in your working folder.

Otherwise, of course, if you just make the cuts in the original AVIs and delete those parts you don't want from the filename, and 'save', the original files remain (uncut) on the timeline -- still in their original 50GB+ form, with only the VSP file indicating where the cuts have been made, and what parts should not appear in the final video. In other words, you might think you have new separate, and smaller, files on the timeline, but in reality they are only 'virtual' files since the original remains intact. This could contribute to the time it is taking to load the project each time.

As I say, I still use Save Trimmed Video as I like to have real, as opposed to virtual, new clips. Once I have made all my new clips, I clear the timeline of the original clips and drag the new icons into the timline in their place. That way you are definitely dealing with smaller edited files. And hopefully it may solve your problem...

[jparnold]

Ken
I think you may have the answer.
YES when I capture video I create large (long) AVI files each of approximately 10 minutes (rather than allow VS to detect scene changes and create a file for each scene change which results in hundreds if small files each with a 'thumbnail' in the 'library'). I then drag the same large (long) file into the timeline, select the mark in/mark out points of a scene (clip) I want then continue the process untill I have all the clips (from the original file) which I want in the timeline.
Maybe this is also why it takes VS a long time to actually 'acknowledge' that I am selecting a different clip when editing (eg I may select an existinmg clip in the timeline, make some adjustment and then select (click on) another clip and I wait many seconds before the clip I have selected is highlighted and I can do what I want to do with the clip. What do you think?

I actually posted a question on this forum some time ago explaining that I created projects using rthis method and asking the readers if there was a better method.

Another example which may help confirm what you have suggested is this -
a project with a duration of just 12 minutes 44 seconds which contains 224 video/stills clips from 5 AVI files each one approximately 10 minutes (2Gb) with a total size of approx 10Gb takes 98 seconds to load on a system with Pentium 4 2.4Ghz.

Strange though that VS8 doesn't take long to load the same project.

Please explain again the preferred method of creating clips for the timeline if that is different from allowing VS to detect scene changes on capture.


John

[Ken Berry]

I am not convinced that VS9 and 10 actually create a large number of individual files when you use 'split by scene' on capture. I could be wrong, of course, and I am quite sure someone will correct me if I am. But it seems to me split by scene now only creates virtual files of the type I mentioned above. This, if true, would make recent versions different from VS8 and earlier versions, where split by scene definitely creates a lot of individual files.

Of course, in theory, you are supposed to be able to do the same things with the virtual files as you can with real ones. But in practice, I had some difficulties in VS9 when I moved some of these virtual files a good distance away on the timeline from where they were originally. That is why I reverted to using 'Save Trimmed Video' as I always had done in VS7 and 8, precisely because it created real, new files which did not seem to have the same problems as I had with the virtual ones. (The downside, obviously, is a proliferation of small files all with the mysterious gobbledegook Ulead uses for file names! )

Anyway, I thought I had explained what I do in my earlier post. The only other information is that with an original, large file in the timeline, I move the trim handles to where I want to make cuts, then click on that segment to highlight it, then go to Clip > Save Trimmed Video. A new icon will appear in your Library for that segment of the original file. I note down the name. Then I go back to the timeline, move the trim handles to a new section, and repeat the foregoing. And so on till you have all the new files you want in the Library. Then I simply empty the timeline of the original video. (The easiest way is to start a new project, but you can also do it manually.) Then I start dragging the new files from the Library into the timeline in the order I want them, and save that as the new project (or the old one, but with new elements).