Video freezing on edited mpg file playback

[landtuna]

Recorded an off-air TV program using WinFast 2000 capture card (mpg format). Edited out commercials using VS 11 as I have done literally hundreds of times before. Created a video file (again, mpg). Playing it back using Media Player, VLC or WinDVD results in an almost immediate video freeze but audio plays on.

Media Player seems to unfreeze video from time to time but never presents a normal video. The other players just freeze and remain there. File will play to the end with normal audio. The original unedited files play normally and even the edited ones play normally in VS preview mode. Importing the unedited file into VS then creating an output mpg file without doing any editing also results in a video freeze in the created file.

Have tried both VS 8 and VS11 and they are both doing exactly the same thing. Have also tried many different output file characteristics but results are again, the same. Preferences on both versions of VS are identical to previous successful settings.

I have recorded and edited over 160 episodes of this particular show before and never had this problem. No system changes nor updates done prior to the onset of problems. Video seems to freeze the first time at the same spot - sometimes it is just seconds into the video and other times it is a minute or more.

Searched the forums but didn't find anything quite like this particular problem. I did defrag both hard drives and each have 60+ GB of free space.

Ideas?

[DVDDoug]

Something must have gone wrong during capture, and you've got a corrupted MPEG this time. (It's not unusual for a "bad" file to play OK, but cause trouble when you try to edit or convert it.)

Both VideoReDo and Womble have repair tools that can sometimes repair a bad MPEG. (Both offer free trials.) You will probably have to "repair" the original file before editing it (before the problems show-up), and maybe again after editing it.

If that doesn't help, you can try editing with one of those programs. VideoReDo is a simple "cut & splice" MPEG editor, and Womble is a full-featured MPEG editor.

MPEGs can be "difficult" to edit, and although not everybody has problems, and not every file causes trouble. I've had enough problems that I now use Womble whenever I need to edit an MPEG.

[landtuna]

I downloaded the trial version of Womble and edited the original mpg files without a problem. The output files are both readable by all my DVD players.

Either Womble is "smarter" than VS and can figure out what is wrong with the captured files -or- this is another bug in VS which, after all this time and three versions, I have just uncovered.

The capture software hasn't changed nor have the settings so I am at a loss to explain the sudden failure.

[Ken Berry]

VS11 has a recognised bug when it comes to capturing from what it regards as an analogue source, which it would regard your TV card as being. We are still waiting for a fix from Corel/Ulead but understand it may not appear before Christmas, which is plainly ridiculous.

Your installation of VS11 may have corrupted the capture facility of VS8, though my own experience of having VS8, 9 and 10 on the same computer as VS11+ indicates that the first three continue to capture normally from both analogue and digital sources.

I used to have that same capture card (though have now moved up to the digital TV card from Winfast). Rather than use VS for capture from it, I used the Winfast software which came with it as I found that it gave me more flexibility than VS in the settings used. I would capture to DVD compatible mpeg-2 format, then simply open for editing in VS. You might want to try this workflow with VS11+.

[landtuna]

As stated in the original post, WinFast 2000 PVR was used to capture the analog signal. The format was mpg. There is no problem with any of my players reading the captured file.

Only after VS11 (and now VS8) get their grubby hands on the file does the error appear.

Even WinFast cannot read the edited file without freezing.

I also need to point out that I have used VS11 to edit these captured files for the past month and all worked well. Suddenly it doesn't work and apparently has also cratered VS8.

After using Womble for 10 minutes and seeing how easy and quick it is I am strongly considering dumping VS. This product doesn't seem to be well designed and the installation bugs in VS11 are inexcuseable.

[Ken Berry]

Sorry -- my advice was predicated on this from your original post:

Recorded an off-air TV program using WinFast 2000 capture card (mpg format).

To my mind, that simply tells me you used the card, not the Winfast software which came with it; and you did not state that elsewhere in the post, which concentrated on VS8 and 11.

What were the properties of the captured files before editing in VS? And what were the project properties you used in the editing and/or the final properties the edited files have? Maybe there was some inconsistency in that...

[landtuna]

After much experimenting and deleting both VS11 and VS8 and reinstalling VS11 I have found a workaround.

Simply changing the output to 'frame-based' instead of 'lower first' results in a playable output file. I don't know why this would make a difference since I've been using 'lower first' as my default since my initial VS7 and never had this problem before.

I am currently creating a DVD iso file using the 'frame' video and converting it to 'lower' (which is what a TV set wants) to see if that works OK. UPDATE = the iso played normally so guess this "problem" has a workaround.

In doing that I am just amazed at how badly Ulead screwed up the menu step. We not only lost significant functionality but the new menu options are not even close to what VS8 had. I am very displeased with this POS.

Having spent the past 31+ years in commercial software development I know it doesn't have to be like this.