I need help with rendering

[Mr. Reo]

In the past two days, I have had problems rendering in Ulead video studio. I don't know if this has been covered on the board already but I don't have the time to read through 4000 some odd topics.

We imported video from our camcorder in DVD format to save space on my computer. When it came time to render the edited footage, the footage did not turn out. The video would skip large portions and the audio track did not start in the right place either. I rendered a file transfered in ealier as a DV file and it worked perfectly. I tried several other pieces of DVD format files and they failed as badly as the first.

the footage was transfered as DVD. It was being rendered into DVD format. Repairing Ulead did not fix the problem. Reinstalling Ulead did not fix the problem.

So as not to confuse here is where the problems were:
The video worked fine where rendering was necisary (areas were area filters, overlays and text were used)
Part of the video that didn't need rendering (where cut but not added to) were often left out of the render.
The audio was out of place after the first cut.
I'm rendering from DVD format into DVD format.

Can anyone help me?

[heinz-oz]

It is a common occurrence for mpeg2 files (DVD files are mpeg2) to have these issues. That¡¦s why we collectively recommend to capture to DV-AVI and only render into DVD compliant mpeg2 as the final step.

[Mr. Reo]

Hmmm... There doesn't seem to be too many options to render into and file size raises an issue for me. Thank you for your assistance. Since DVD format is out of the question. What would you reccomend rendering a file into to save space, particularly if MPEG-2s are unreliable.

[TDK1044]

Heinz-oz is quite correct, but when rendering with MPEG2, disable the 'use smart render' option. The most common reason for a rendered MPEG2 file to be out of sync is the use of the Smart Render function in VS.

I have captured, edited, rendered and burned about 50 hours worth of MPEG2 footage with no issues at all with SR disabled, but if I enable SR, MPEG corruption shows its ugly face.

For me, the slightly slower render time is worth it, and the resulting pictures are very good if 'use non square pixel rendering' is only enabled for the final render.

AVi is certainly a high quality and easy option if your system can handle the capture without dropping frames, but my research shows very little difference in the end result between AVi and MPEG2.

[2Dogs]

In the past two days, I have had problems rendering in Ulead video studio. I don't know if this has been covered on the board already but I don't have the time to read through 4000 some odd topics.

Hi Mr Reo, I'm sorry to hear you're having problems! You should take a little time to use the "search" feature of the forum, however - you don't have to read all 4000 odd topics. In order to get the most out of the forum, it would also be helpful if you filled in the "system" part of your profile - then we could make judgements about the ability/limitations of your setup.

We imported video from our camcorder in DVD format to save space on my computer.

Unless you intend to keep all the captured avi footage, it's not a great space saving. One hour of DV type 1 avi footage will take up approximately 13GB on your system. Encoded to DVD compliant MPEG-2, it will take up about 4.5GB. You'll need at least another 4.5GB free for temporary files, so the total space required is around 25GB. That's not a lot these days. After you've finished with your project, you can delete the 13GB of avi files, or all the files. Hard drives are cheap these days, and it always pays to have plenty of storage capacity when video editing.

I rendered a file transfered in ealier as a DV file and it worked perfectly.

This suggest that you might in fact have the space for avi files!

I tried several other pieces of DVD format files and they failed as badly as the first.

You have to be very specific about what you mean by pieces of DVD format files. If you take a DVD VOB file, for example and rename it to .MPG and try to play it or render it, it will often have glitches. You need to provide more information about the files in order for us to figure out if this is a significant clue.

the footage was transfered as DVD.

Presumably captured directly to MPEG-2 format

It was being rendered into DVD format.

Presumably rendered to DVD compatible MPEG-2 format, possibly using the Video Studio default DVD profile. It would be helpful for the forum to know your output settings.

Repairing Ulead did not fix the problem. Reinstalling Ulead did not fix the problem.

That's because the problem was most likely not a faulty Video Studio install. Your time spent repairing and re-installing would have been better spent doing a search of this forum.

So as not to confuse here is where the problems were:
The video worked fine where rendering was necisary (areas were area filters, overlays and text were used)
Part of the video that didn't need rendering (where cut but not added to) were often left out of the render.
The audio was out of place after the first cut.
I'm rendering from DVD format into DVD format.

Although it does sound like there is a problem with the Smart Render function, it would be odd for it to result in whole sections of the video being skipped as you describe.

It's possible you have some other programs running in the background that are interfering with the rendering process - anti-virus programs and screen savers can often do this. You might try disabling these when rendering, and disconnecting your pc from the net.

When used properly, the principal advantage of capturing directly to MPEG-2 is an overall time saving, since you can make use of the smart render function. Smart rendering a one hour MPEG-2 file on my own system takes about 5 minutes - so it can be a significant time saver. I wouldn't describe that as a "slight" speed increase! If you, for whatever reason, are obliged to disable smart render, then all of this advantage is lost - and I would recommend that you capture to DV type 1 avi, as Heinz has suggested. From your project description, it seems like you're going beyond simple cuts and transitions, so I believe the finished DVD picture quality will be bettter if you use the most common workflow - i.e capturing to DV Type 1 avi, then rendering to DVD MPEG-2. This gives you the greatest flexibility for editing and with output options. It's the least demanding workflow in terms of computer resources, and far less troublesome than the direct to MPEG-2 capture workflow.

By contrast, although it is possible to get decent results from footage captured directly to MPEG-2, you have to anticipate your final output settings and keep editing to a minimum in order to get the best out of it.

Whilst capturing directly to MPEG-2 will save on hard drive space requirements, hard drives are so cheap that there's little reason not to add a drive to your pc. Having a second physical hard drive also gives you some significant performance gains for certain tasks - copying avi files from one drive to another, for example, which you might do if saving a trimmed avi clip.

Good luck!

[hador7]

How do you disable the Smart Render option? I am using Version 10. Thanks

[2Dogs]

This applies to VS9 but should be similar for VS10.

When you get to the output settings - say when you're creating the MPEG-2 file from your project, from Share>Create Video File you'll get the "Create Video File" dialogue box. When you click on the "Options..." button, in the dialogue box that pops up, just uncheck the "Perform SmartRender" checkbox.

Otherwise, from "Share.Create Disc" hit the "cogwheel" icon in the bottom left of the screen, which will bring up the "Project Settings" dialogue box, and uncheck "Do not convert compliant MPEG files". Note that if you're following the RP, you shouldn't get OOS problems when Smart rendering the previously created MPEG-2 file in the Create Disc step.

[heinz-oz]

Hmmm... There doesn't seem to be too many options to render into and file size raises an issue for me. Thank you for your assistance. Since DVD format is out of the question. What would you reccomend rendering a file into to save space, particularly if MPEG-2s are unreliable.

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough here. You do need to render to mpeg2 in order to create a DVD. You should capture to DV-AVI (approx. 13 GB per 1 hour of footage), edit your master piece and then, at the end, convert the rendered DV-AVI to DVD compliant mpeg2.

[Mr. Reo]

Thanks for your advice. It helped me come to the conclusion I needed. Once I leared that the problem was in the MPEG 2 footage, I wondered why the previous DVD to DVD footage I rendered worked. In all three cases, I'd added a music track.

As strange as this sounds, I added a music track into the stuff that didn't work and turned the volume down to 0%. When I rendered it... the footage worked perfectly.

And I agree with 2dogs:
[quote]Your time spent repairing and re-installing would have been better spent doing a search of this forum. [/quote]
Who is right that my time could have been spent better. The problem with his theory though is that I had no idea what the problem was and I would think that repairing and reinstalling would undo any harm caused by a viris, hacker, or file corruption (at least it repaired the import music from CD option).

Oh, and for 2dogs interest, using the search function of this topic alone brought up 4000 entries. Useing quotations DID NOTHING!!!