VS10+ Frequent crashes with Sony Hard Disk Cam generated MPG

[tjanes]

I have been using Ulead VisualStudio 10+ with a DV camcorder transfering video via firewire to generate DVD quality MPGs "on the fly" and then editing without great success.

During the last year I have edited about 15 2hour videos each down to about 15mins without any significant problems.

However I have just upgraded my camcorder to a Sony Hard disk one(SR52E), so I am now just copying the Sony generated MPG files into VS.

However on my first project VS crashed 5 times. Twice it was when hit OK to accept a Multi-Edit. The other 3 time seemed at random times.

It seems to me that the combination of the Sony SR52E and VS do not work together.

It looks as if I will be looking for alternative software.

Any thoughts? Anyone using this combination sucessfully?

Tim.

[Black Lab]

Trying to transcode to MPEG "on the fly" puts a lot of stress on your pc, no matter what the resources. It is recommended that you capture to DV-AVI, edit, then render to a DVD compatible MPEG-2, which you can then burn to DVD.

[heinz-oz]

@Black Lab
are you sure this also applies to hard disk cameras? I have no experience with these and wouldn't touch one with a 10 foot barge pole, especially not a SONY one but that is an entirly different subject. DVD cameras, the ones which record straight onto a mini DVD disk, usually do not have the firewire port.

@tjanes
Does your new camera have a firewire port? If not, how do you connect the cam to the PC?

[lancecarr]

Hi Tim,
The SR-52E is a Hard disc Drive cam. It records in MPEG2 and has a docking station that you seat the cam into for connection to a computer. Within that docking station is a USB 2 port then a cable to the computer, right?
Here's the problem Sony used to have regarding their MPEG2's, not sure about now.
When you use the Sony software to do the transfer from the cam to the computer it used to have some sort of proprietary thing going on that made the MPEGs incompatible with other software programs. The workaround was to use the "export" function within the Sony software to output the MPEGs to another location on the computer THEN import into editing software of your choice. Why? Hey, it's Sony.
Try that and see how it goes.
The other thing you could try is to see if, from within VS, you can navigate to the cam and transfer altogether bypassing the Sony software. I doubt this will work but worth a try. It's the old Sony proprietary thing again.

[heinz-oz]

Hi Tim,
The SR-52E is a Hard disc Drive cam. It records in MPEG2 and has a docking station that you seat the cam into for connection to a computer. Within that docking station is a USB 2 port then a cable to the computer, right?
Here's the problem Sony used to have regarding their MPEG2's, not sure about now.
When you use the Sony software to do the transfer from the cam to the computer it used to have some sort of proprietary thing going on that made the MPEGs incompatible with other software programs. The workaround was to use the "export" function within the Sony software to output the MPEGs to another location on the computer THEN import into editing software of your choice. Why? Hey, it's Sony.
Try that and see how it goes.
The other thing you could try is to see if, from within VS, you can navigate to the cam and transfer altogether bypassing the Sony software. I doubt this will work but worth a try. It's the old Sony proprietary thing again.

Exactly my sentiment That's why I would not touch anything SONY

[tjanes]

Thanks for your replies.

The Sony only has USB2 connection. Once connected the camera's disk is seen in File explorer and I can directly see the mpg files.

I just dragged and dropped the mpg files from the camera to the PC.

There is a Sony utility to do the same job, but I did not use it. I am pretty sure that it just copies the MPG without modifying them, but I will check.

The mpg properties as reported by VS are
PAL DVD
MPEG2 Video, Upper Field First
24bits, 720 x 576 4:3
25.0 frames/sec
Variable bit rate (Max 9100kbps)
Dolby Digital Audio
48000 Hz
256 kbps

These MPG work just fine in VideoRedo and DVDLab.

Tim.

[lancecarr]

Hi Tim,
Well the MPEGs look totally standard so...ummm... I guess this is why I gave up editing MPEG2's!
Here's a list of things I would do to try to get the crashing to stop in no particular order:
Update Directx to the latest release, there was recent one.
Clean out temp files and defrag the disc.
Make sure you have plenty of (contiguous) disc space for VS to work with.
Disable all unnecessary background programs and services (crtl+alt+del) including anti-virus and screen savers, anything that may decide to update itself spontaneously...EVERYTHING!
Disconnect from the internet.
Re-boot on safe mode and run the repair option for VS.
Make a sacrifice to the god of video editing...a small goat or sheep should suffice.
Good luck!

[Black Lab]

@Black Lab
are you sure this also applies to hard disk cameras? I have no experience with these and wouldn't touch one with a 10 foot barge pole, especially not a SONY one but that is an entirly different subject. DVD cameras, the ones which record straight onto a mini DVD disk, usually do not have the firewire port.

@tjanes
Does your new camera have a firewire port? If not, how do you connect the cam to the PC?

Heinz,

You are right. I read the first line about a DV camcorder and based my answer on that. I need to brush up on my reading comprehension.

[DVDDoug]

It seems to me that the combination of the Sony SR52E and VS do not work together.

It looks as if I will be looking for alternative software.

I've had occasional trouble editing MPEGs too. I bought a special-purpose MPEG editor from Womble. No more crashing or "lip-sync" problems!!!! (I still use Ulead for DVD authoring.) Or, for simple "cut & splice" editing, VideoReDo offers a good low-cost MPEG editor.

You might also try downloading the VS11 trial. It appears to be more tolerant of various MPEG files.