WMV audio and VS10

[Ken Berry]

I received this email this morning from a VS10 user, and am posting it here as it is more appropriately addressed in this Forum -- not to mention that it hopefully might be of some assistance to other users experiencing similar problems,

Text of message: "I've been struggling to burn a DVD from the trial version for VS 10 and it's taken me HOURS, scouring through the forum and phoning up a friend who is seasoned VS user several time.

After another lengthy trawl through the forum, I've come to a dead end: after rendering, I can play my .wmv in Media Player, no problem but after burning to DVD, I get no audio at all. I've turned up all the controls in the volume panel but to no avail. The file is .mpg format. Do you have any suggestions?

In anticipation
Alison Kemp"

First, you need to provide more information: what were the original file format and properties of your video? From what source and how was it captured? What are your computer specifications, including Operating System? After editing, did you first produce a DVD-compliant mpeg-2, which includes, of course, compliant audio (for PAL, that could be either LPCM, Dolby AC-3 or mpeg layer 2 audio; for NTSC - LPCM or AC-3, though most NTSC players these days will also play mpeg layer 2 audio)?

When did the wmv audio enter the picture? Ditto with the 'mpg format' you mention?

WMV audio is not part of the DVD standard and so at some stage will need to be converted to one of the above DVD-compliant audio standards. If the audio you used in your project was WMV, have you tried first converting it to the more standard .wav format before inserting it in your project? Also, if you are trying to burn a DVD which uses WMV audio, it ain't going to happen: it can only be LPCM/AC-3/[mpeg layer 2] and VS will have to first convert it. WMV is a highly compressed format and VS takes hours to deal with it.

Moreover, if you went straight from the editing on the timeline, and skipped the step of first producing a DVD compliant mpeg-2 including DVD-compliant audio, and instead went straight to burn your project to DVD, that is a major probable source of your problem in its own right. Though some people find that can do that with no problems, the great bulk of people find that their computers simply can't handle the really massive job of both rendering the project into DVD-compatible format (because this absolutely has to happen) AND at the same time, building a menu, rendering the menu, multiplexing the video and audio and actually burning the disc.

So filtering all this out (and depending on your answers to my various questions), I would:

1) convert my .wmv to .wav before inserting it into the project;
2) after editing is finished, go to Share > Create Video File > DVD (NOT mpeg-2 as the properties can be different from those required for DVD compliance); and
3) Once you have that new mpeg-2, close your project, and select Share > Create Disc > DVD, create your menu and burn.

[sjj1805]

Please view:
Private Messages To forum Moderators

Although Ken isn't officially a moderator he is a Senior Member of this forum and the above post will apply to Ken and other Senior Members of the User forum.

Most of the answers (if not all) can be found in:
VideoStudio RECOMMENDED PROCEDURE by JC Hunter
From Camcorder to DVD with videoStudio