Comments ref User Recommended Workflow for VideoStudio

[bop]

mghia

I am sure sjj read your post or he would not have taken his time to reply to what is becoming a frustrating time for you. From what i read of steves post i read it as i list of the procedure to follow fom start to finish, you oviously (can't spell) have completed many of the steps, but they are there so you could check them off as beeing done.

The menu does not need to be saved, It is only an option to avoid confusion do not do that step.

To simplify:
open video studio, click on share, click on create disc, click on add video click on your mpeg file, create menus etc, click next, preveiw via the player, click next, check the create .iso, uncheck burn to disc, if iso is created then burn disc later from the iso.

if this confuses you more please ignore tis post

Brian

[Cambs21]

Glad I've found the tips to help me use ULVS. I'm getting tired of 9 and now 10 crashing during the editing stage and wasting my valuable time, especially when reviews of ULVS suggested it was a "stable" product. If the tips don't work I'll revert to Pinnacle - at least I know that falls over at the drop of a hat.

[El Geraldo]

Glad I've found the tips to help me use ULVS. I'm getting tired of 9 and now 10 crashing during the editing stage and wasting my valuable time, especially when reviews of ULVS suggested it was a "stable" product. If the tips don't work I'll revert to Pinnacle - at least I know that falls over at the drop of a hat.

The very reason why I bought VS8 instead of Pinnacle. Excellent piece of kit for 30 quid.

Have been using it for about a year, and 6 DVD's burned OK so far (using the 'intuitive method'). I don't get VS8 to burn the DVD - already found that didn't work. Solved by burning to HDD folders then getting Nero to burn those to a DVD. All was working well until last week...

The most complex DVD I've done to date, with about 15 short movies in the menu. Got the old 80041C21 error and found this thread via Google search. When I get back home (currently on a business trip) I will try the recommended settings, but I have some general questions:

* If I capture my raw video data as MPEG2 instead of DV/AVI, how much video/audio quality do I lose? (I use a Sony DC-HCR30 and IEEE1394 interface)
* If my raw video data is now in MPEG format, does VS8 still do a 'split by scene'? It would be a royal pain in the behind to make a movie from a 1hr MPEG file, instead of about 60 x 1 minute files.
*VS8 doesn't seem to have all the settings in the 'Create Video File Options' - E.g, no Dolby AC3 audio, etc. Only get one dialog box with no tabs - equivalent to the 'ULead Video Studio' tab shown at the top of this post. Do the rest of these options exist in VS8?
* If I upgrade to a later version of VS, will it be able to import VS8 projects?

[jchunter]

In the future, please post questions in the main body of the forum.

Video Studio 8 had chronic Audio/video syncronization problems - you should upgrade immediately to version 10+.

Your questions:

1) If you have a fast computer > 2.5 GHz, you can capture in mpeg2 and perform simple edits without losing picture quality.

2) I recommend capturing in short (e.g., 10 minute) segments, which makes the edit process less twitchy. I never use "split by scene" operations because they make unneccessary cuts. Make your own decisions. BTW, VS10+ has a very good set of controls to make frame-accurate cuts.

3) Upgrade to get Dolby support

4) Yes.

[derisley]

I have used VS9 for over a month now and although not long have used quite intensively and have a good working knowledge. Some tips from my experience.

Apply general filters and make general sound adjustments BEFORE you split your video into smaller segments. To apply say the crop filter to 20 segments is a real time consumer. Mucher quicker to apply at the start.

When editing make your cut about 5 frames earlier than you would normally. I have found that VS9 "over shoots" and includes up 3 or 4 frames after the supposed end point.

Choose a set of video properties and make all your videos the same.

Render long videos overnight. A 45 minute video can take up to 5 hours to render depending on the number of filters applied (no smart render when filters are applied).

Don't move your files from disk to disk unless absolutely necessary. I moved 60 odd files to a new external hard disk and found that when you open VS9 to edit all the links have to be manually reset. This took a lot of time.

If no one told you before video files are huge. My computer is only 1.4GHz, 512MB Ram, HD 40GB> I needed to invest in 2 external hard drives 120GB + 250GB. Both are now almost full and I don't really have a lot of video footage. If you have alot of video you really want to think about how to store it all.

Hope this helps.
Mark

[Sal M]

I too thought that there was something wrong with VS 10+, so I've been following the procedures outlined. The reality, however, is that you'll need a faster computer to use VS10+ as you please.

I had a dual-Athlon MP 1800+ with 1GB ram, and it would take 8 hours to render 2 hours of MiniDV AVI to 70% quality, 4700Kbs constant, 29.97fps, MPEG audio 128Kbs, lower-frame. The workaround was to capture directly to MPEG, auto scene-detect, then render using smartrender. This used to be quick in VS9, but apparently smartrender no longer works in VS10 so back to the 8 hours! The workaround by jchunter requires to export to a file first, then start a new project and manually add scenes (pain in butt), etc.

Guess what? I built the computer outlined in Tom's Hardware:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/10/ ... ghz_cores/

My new system, comprised of the 64-bit Dual-Core Pentium D 805, 2GB G. Skill RAM, Asus P5DW2-E Premium, Nvidia 7600GS, 300GB Western Digital 3Gb/s SATA, Kingwin water cooling, and case with led's and fans cost $1,088 including $40 shipping on Newegg (I recycled my Maddog 3 format DVD burner, floppy drive, keyboard, mouse and monitor).

On the new PC, I pulled 2 hours of MiniDV AVI, set my scenes using the timeline DVD-scene marker, and used "create-disk" to burn to DVD directly. I set it to lower-frame, 4:3, 100% quality, 4700Kbs constant, MPEG audio 256Kbs and the disk was complete in 1 hour and 20 minutes, and it works! No workarounds are necessary!

Also, if I write 1 hour of MiniDV AVI to an MPEG file at lower-frame, 4:3, 100% quality, 8000Kbs constant, MPEG audio 256Kbs, it only takes 30 minutes!

Stop wasting time as I did. Just get a faster computer and get it over with. The minimum requirements listed by Ulead are B.S.! Adobe Premier Elements won't even install unless you have SSE3 instructions, and they took some beating for it, but the reality is that the application is unusable without it (which is sort of what happened to me with VS10+).

[jchunter]

I agree that computer speed is very important for video editing. Congratulations on putting together a system with great overall performance.

I can only comment that you could probably get better picture quality by raising the video bitrate to 8Mbps, which your new system could easily handle.

Also, when you burn your DVD directly from the AVI(DV) project, the transcoding from DV to Mpeg2 still happens, prior to the DVD burn, so you are not saving any time. BTW, the mpeg2 video file is created in a temp file, which is deleted when you close the burn window. It is stored at Documents and Settings\<user name>\My Documents\Ulead Video Studio\10.0\DMG_Temp\CvtedTitle

I do feel that it is better to preserve the video file for the following reasons:
1) If the DVD burn has an error, it helps the debug process to be able to playback the video file.
2) If you decide later to make more DVDs, it will be much faster to make them from the mpeg2 file than from the timeline in the project because you won't have to transcode.
3) Some of the new DVD Link players (e.g., IOData AVLP2) let you playback video files from external hard drives on your big screen HDTV set

BTW, I have not had problems with Smart-Render in VS 10+. If you can isolate the conditions that caused problems, please notify Ulead Tech support.

[Sal M]

You're right about the bitrate, but these are videos of my kids that I send to my inlaws in europe. 4700Kbs allows me to be able to fit 2 hours per DVD. The amazing thing is that 4700Kbs at 100% quality appears better than a higher bitrate at 70% quality (at least to the subjective opinion of my wife and I).

As far as saving time, I know that the transcoding still happens, but it's way shorter thanks to the higher computer-speed. I wasn't implying that a direct burn makes this go away.

I agree that DVD burn errors can slow down the process. What I didn't mention is that I typically burn to a DVD-RW and to a .iso at the same time. If the DVD-RW looks good on a regular DVD player, I'll cut a group of DVD-R's using Nero and the .iso. I haven't had a bad burn yet, but if you think that it could ruin the .iso as well, then maybe I'll do this part differently.

Thanks,
Sal

[raydar]

whenever I try to burn a picture slide show with music and transitions it does this. I create a video file first and i have reinstalled with nothing else running. The detailed progress bar says something about VOB and stops at 99% as does the total progress bar. After waiting for 15 minutes I cick on cancel and the computer freezes and I have to reboot.

Any suggestions...I'm frustrated

[tommytucker]

Using VS9. I have never had any problem going straight to Create Disk and burning.

[SpikeQT]

I'm seriously frustrated with this!

I'm using VS10Plus on Athlon64 3400+, with 1.25GB RAM on WinXP.
Everything goes smoothly until I try to burn a DVD.

Whenever I click on SHARE and select CREATE DISC, it takes me to where it should.

The problem starts once I make the chapters and try to move on. No matter how may times I try, when I hit NEXT, I'm getting the same error message over and over again! It's the typical WinXP error message, and it relates to "AFCACHEMANAGER.DLL" file.

I tried changing settings and whatnot, but still having the same problem. Yes, of course I tried not making chapters.

Someone please help me!

---------------------------------
ADDITION

OK, so I got myself a copy of MovieFactory 5.
Same problem. Waste of money?

I'm seriously frustrated now.

[Joe Louvar]

I still have received no response from the Web master about stickies.

He must of died or something.

[SpikeQT]

Problem with cache.

What do I do?

[Ken Berry]

I have done a Google search for AFCACHEMANAGER.DLL but strangely enough, your post on this above is the only response Google could come up with.

The file is installed in both a sub-directory of VS10+ AND a sub-directory of MF5 and fairly obviously (?) controls caching by both programs. As a start, therefore, I would be trying to clean out any of the files in your C:\Documents and Settings\[Your Name]\Local Settings\Temp directory. This directory accumulates an amazing amount of junk and it seems Ulead is not a particularly good citizen when it comes to deleting temporarily created files from this folder. It could be that some temporary file or files is stuffing up the operations of your cache manager(s). BTW, if you can't see the Temp directory, then in Windows Explorer (or My Computer) go to Tools > Folder Options > View and make sure 'Show hidden files and folders' is checked.

Cleaning this directory may work in its own right. But it might also have to be followed by a Repair or full reinstallation of VS (and MF5).

[blplhp]

Ken,

Can you clean out all of the files and folders in the C:\Documents and Settings\[Your Name]\Local Settings\Temp directory?

I've always been a little leary of wiping out the contents of the entire Temp folder.

There is absolutely nothing in this folder that the XP O/S or any programs need to run properly?

Thanks.