Program shuts down during burn

[ifixem]

I am trying to burn video clips to dvd. I get all the way through the process and click "burn". It goes into the converting status, but, not far and then the program stops and and ask if I want to report the error to Microsoft. This doesn't happen when I am burning .vsp's. Only when I try to burn "clips". And no, I am not going over the allowed amount of clips. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

[Ken Berry]

What are the exact properties of your "clips"? Are they all the same? Are they DVD compliant? How were they produced? What editing was done to them before you inserted them in the burning module?

[ifixem]

all the clips are .avi. They are the same clips I use to make the .vsp project. My attempt is to make a dvd of all the original clips before they were made into a project. They are the original video straight off my Panasonic DV camcorder that is captured through U-Lead to my hard drive. No editing was done to the clips I am trying to copy, they are the originals. Basically what I am trying to do is have a tangible backup of "original clips" in case anything ever happened to the project .vsp dvd that I create. If there is a better way I am up for it. Thanks.

[Ken Berry]

If you are only wanting to back up your original files (DV/AVI) to DVD, then you are going about it the wrong way. You don't use Video Studio at all, which is only meant to produce *video* discs which will play in a DVD player.

What you want is to store the the files as archives, and for this you need to burn them as a Data disc. You can use a suite like Nero or Roxio for this, choosing Date (and not Video) as the category of disc you want to burn.

What you are doing is trying to get Video Studio to burn a DV/AVI file to a *video* DVD. And to do this, it has to first convert it to mpeg-2 to make it compatible with *video* DVDs. But you don't want that -- you want a data disc, as I have described.

Apart from anything else, you are asking VS to convert AND multiplex AND burn, all on the fly, and if you don't have a powerful computer, it is probably that which is causing the program to close.

[ifixem]

Thanks so much for the info. It wouldn't surprise me if my computer is not big enough to handle that project. I do have Roxio and will try what you suggested. What is the proper way to go about it if I want to use U-Lead. I figured since they give you the option to burn video files I should be able to do it.

[Ken Berry]

I think you have a slight misconception about VS. It is a video editing program, not a data burning prodgram. Yes, it can 'burn video files' as you suggest, but because of its very nature it will burn video files (and image files) to video files, not to data files...

[ifixem]

Please excuse my ignorance. I don't quite understand the difference between a data file and a video file. I am shooting video and that's what I want to keep. Since I download all my DV to U-lead and I do edit it to weed out the bad stuff, I would like to burn all of the original clips and put them on a DVD and keep the original format (.avi) without converting it to a .vsp format which is what U-lead will do if I save it as a project. (I know, don't ask me why, but I just want to do that). Once again, I'm sorry if I'm not getting it, I am learning this package. I do appreciate your input and help.

[Ken Berry]

Apart from discs which have DivX video files on them and which only certain DVD players can play, ALL *video* DVDS must use mpeg-2 format and only mpeg-2 which have been created using a certain broad range of properties.

Moreover, once burned to a video DVD, the mpeg-2 video in it is converted to a fixed structure. The video files themselves will have a new set of names which will be sequentially ordered using the .VOB extension.

If you look at a commercial DVD in your computer's My Computer or Windows Explorer, you will see that it has a tree structure which contains (and HAS to contain) two folders: an Audio_TS folder which normally will be empty; and a Video_TS folder. The latter will contain files with names like VTS_01.VOB, VTS_02.VOB, and so on. It will also have a corresponding set of Information files (VTS_01.IFO etc) and Backup files with similar names using the .BUP extension.

All video DVDs will follow this structure. Moreover, when burning them, a small amount of data is inserted at the beginning and end (Lead In and Lead Out).

When such a DVD is placed in a DVD player, the player will recognise it as a *video* DVD and will play it accordingly. Unless the player recognises it as a video DVD, it will refuse to play it.

What you want to do is different. Yes, you want to burn video files to DVD, but you want to keep them in their original DV/AVI format. A *video* DVD as I have already said, can essentially only be in mpeg-2 format, and if you attempt to burn your DV/AVI files to DVD using VS, which is a *video* editing program, it will convert the files to mpeg-2 before burning them to DVD. It has no choice in the matter. That is what it is designed to do and nothing more nor less.

Apart from this, your video files are like every other digital file, and are made up of data consisting of 0 and 1. In other words, while you can use them to create *video* DVDs using specialised video programs like VS, your computer only sees them as data. And that is how you want to store them -- as data in their original DV/AVI format.

For that you just cannot use a video program. You have to use a program which can burn a data (archive) disc. As I said, there are a huge variety of such programs, including in the Nero and Roxio suites.

If you intend to burn them to single layer DVDs, then you need to take into account the fact that DV/AVI files are huge -- about 13 GB for one hour of video. A single layer DVD will take about 4.3 GB of data (regardless of whether it is burned as a *video* or data disc). So you will need to divide up your DV/AVI files into smaller DV/AVI files which will fit onto a number of DVDs.

There are also free programs like Splitter which will split larger DV/AVI files and burn them to sequential discs, which you can later joing back together.

Is that any clearer?

[ifixem]

Man, that was good. I now have a clearer picture of what you were telling me before. I have seen and was aware of the audio-ts and the video-ts but wasn't clear on what that was. You have also clearified that. I appreciate your time and patience in helping to educate me on this subject. I also am aware of the large amount of space that the .avi files take up. I guess I just have a difficult time "deleting" those files after the editing and project has been completed, which actually takes up less space as a .vsp file. I guess that is something I am going to have to get over. There is something about this digital stuff, whether video or pictures that scares me when you hit the delete button. It's much different than having a negative or actual picture or a VHS tape laying around. Thanks again.

[Ken Berry]

Not at all! You're most welcome!

A couple of further corrections or suggestions.

First, a .VSP project file is NOT a video file. It is small (very much smaller than your video files as you have noticed) precisely because all it is is a road map for Video Studio. It tells VS that in a particular project, the following video files were used, X, Y and Z; they are located at E:\, F:\ or G:\; this or that editing was done to them; these transitions used and where; the following background music added etc. But essentially they are useless if you delete the actual video files they refer to.

I am by no means saying that you should not delete the video once you have finished the project. Quite the reverse. Keep your computer clean. But just be aware that essentially if you are quite satisfied that you are never going to go back to that precise project, then you should delete the VSP file too as it has served its purpose.

Even if you saved the original files to DVD as data files, it would be a bit of a job to get them back to your computer, put them in the same places they were before, and then re-link them to the VSP file. It is, however, probably do-able.

That leads me to a further thought. If you are only wanting to preserve the original files, well you still have the original DV tapes, don't you? You could always start all over again by doing a new capture from them. I initially thought your desire to burn the files to a data disc was only to provide a back-up to the DV tapes.

Either way, it is perfectly understandable that you want to preserve them. Personally, though, I am relying on the DV tapes and figure that by the time they deteriorate, I will probably no longer be doing any video editing anyway!!

[ifixem]

Thanks. I found out your first point the hard way. I was not aware at first that that is how it worked. I had moved the originals to a disc and deleted them off my hard drive, keeping the .vsp file. When I went to go edit the project it couldn't find the files. I was able to relink but it took some time. In regards to the dv tapes, I guess that was one thing I was trying to eliminate although it would be the better idea. I shoot a lot of video so I would have tapes (as I do VHS's) running out of my ears. I reckon I'm just going to have to make up my mind what I'm comfortable with and go with it. I had also considered getting a large external hard drive and keeping my most treasured shots on that as a backup.

I guess the only other thing I don't understand is how does VS change the size of .avi files that makes them small enough to put them on a DVD and maintain the quality. It's obvious that when you play the final project on your TV that Ulead is not linking to files on your computer so they must be on the DVD. But as you said, if you try to edit just the .vsp file and the originals are gone, your out of luck.

[GeorgeW]

I guess the only other thing I don't understand is how does VS change the size of .avi files that makes them small enough to put them on a DVD and maintain the quality. It's obvious that when you play the final project on your TV that Ulead is not linking to files on your computer so they must be on the DVD. But as you said, if you try to edit just the .vsp file and the originals are gone, your out of luck.

As Ken mentioned, when you create a DVD-VIDEO (to be played by DVD Players), the original dv .avi videos are COMPRESSED / ENCODED using MPEG-2 (or MPEG-1 in some cases) in order to be compliant with DVD-VIDEO specs.

Regards,
George

[ifixem]

Thanks George,
Between you and Ken I think I've got it. javascript:emoticon(':D')
Very Happy