VS11/Playback DVD and other small problems

[robspa48]

Hi,
I¡¦ve been using Ulead VideoStudio 8 for a while, then recently switched to UV 11 plus as an upgrade, and bought the boxed item. A few short questions:
1. I¡¦ve installed VS11 plus and used it already; can I now safely (I mean w/o unpredictable side effects) uninstall VS8 which is still included in my list of applications?
2. After rendering my video (which was captured and edited as MPEG2 since my processor wasn¡¦t fast enough to support AVI capture) I had some typical audio/video out of sync problems which I could solve by unchecking ¡§Perform Smart Render¡¨, as I also did with UV8. I hoped this problem had been solved by switching to UV11+, but it wasn¡¦t. Any comment on this practical impossibility to benefit from use of SmartRender?
3. After burning a DVD from the final MPG2 file and playing it on a standard DVD player, I sometimes experience some irregular playing at some points in the film with stop&go of the images, jump to following chapter, etc. This doesn¡¦t happen when the same video and/or DVD is played in my laptop.
My DVD player (a Philips) works perfectly fine with other DVD+RW (commercial or recorded by myself), and this unusual behaviour only happens with DVDs burnt with VideoStudio. The phenomenon occurs less frequently when I first burn an image of my video (iso file) and then use the image to burn the DVD. Should I systematically format the DVD (for ex using InCD which pops-up and proposes the formatting) before burning the disc? Any suggestion would be welcome.
Thanks for your help

[Ken Berry]

1. You can remove VS 8 without problems. If, however, the uninstall process tells you it has found a particular file which it thinks is no longer needed, my tendency with VS is in fact not to delete it. But in effect, there should be no problems.

2. Not sure what I can suggest regarding your out of sync problems. This has been covered ad nauseam in a million other threads on this board. And in fact, the general feeling is that VS 10 and 11 had largely overcome the problem. I have never experienced it, but am willing to admit I might just be lucky, but that has been using all versions since VS7 on 4 separate and totally different computers (and operating systems -- ME, XP and Vista). Mpeg-2 is not made for editing. There are specialised mpeg editors out there for people who do experience out of sync problems, like Video ReDo and Womble.

But I am intrigued that you think your computer is not fast enough to capture AVI. Again, it is usually the exact opposite which is the case. And if you are talking about capturing DV/AVI then no effort at all is involved on the computer's part since it is simply transferring video in exactly the same quality as on the mini DV tape to the camera in real time over firewire...

3. Again, problems with burning and slightly jerky discs has been covered a zillion times. High end brand name players like Philips are particularly finicky about what sort of discs they will play, not even just brand or type (+R or -R). Some don't like rewritable discs at all, some don't like discs with certain colour dyes. (I'm not kidding.) You also can't compare it playing commercial discs with home made ones. Commercial ones are not burned, they are pressed. Some players don't like home made ones at all, so you are in fact lucky you can usually get them to play by using the ISO method. I personally nearly always convert my projects to a DVD Folder (i.e. Video_TS) and use Nero to burn that to disc, so the approach is similar, even though I have a DVD player which seems to play anything round and silver that I throw at it... And I don't do that because VS can't burn a proper disc. In fact I use that successfully on many occasions too. It's just that burning the DVD Folder allows me to make umpteen copies easily, just like the ISO approach does.

There is also a polemic here about the burning speed, but the general (though not unanimous) view is that you should burn at at least half (or lower) the rated speed on the disc. That appears to help a wider variety of DVD lasers read the signal embedded in the disc.

One warning flag did, however, go up when you mentioned InCD. That program is one of the single most inimical programs to a successful burn of a DVD that exists. And again I am not kidding. Nero itself recognised it and since VS7 somewhere along the line, they took it out of the automatic install sequence and put it in the Custom sequence. In other words, you now have to consciously choose to install it, rather than have Nero just assume you want it and install it as part of the general suite. It is one of a class of programs called packet writing software, and the problem with them is that they in effect take over the burner and impede, and in some cases actually block, another program's access to the burner. With InCD you actually have to uninstall it. Just it, not the whole Nero suite -- it shows up separate under Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel...

[robspa48]

Thanks a lot Ken for your quick reaction.
Actually I uninstalled VS8 and InCD. As to the capture issue: I was myself intrigued and frustrated I couldn't capture as AVI since I experienced plenty-really plenty- of dropped frames even if I close all other applications and follow the recommended procedure. The result was the same with VS8. I was then obliged to capture as mpeg and did all the editing and so on on mpeg files. Any idea on the reason why I couldn't capture as AVI? Eventually all my movies were done with this method even if it's stated that VS is not the best solution for editing mpg. Also, I even mix up mpg files with avi files imported from other programs, as well as wav, mp3 etc for audio files, resulting in a mosaic of different formats (where mpg and wav are however dominant) which are eventually rendered in a satisfactory way.
As to the DVD player: it's somewhere intellectually frustrating to accept that the player acts in an unpredictable way towards home-made DVD (even DVDs of the same brand, I mean Philips!); so, please, give me the brand of YOUR DVD player which seems so kind and tolerant. I understand from your answer that there is no ¡§best practice¡¨ protocol which always results in a burnt DVD which is not jerky on whatever DVD player (I burn discs at 2.4x, when max speed is 4X): as I said, this is frustrating.
Last point: I was unable to make a movie 1 hour long because of program crashing even at the preview stage, and was obliged to cut it into three 20-min movies which I eventually combined at the Share stage. With the Task Manager I can see that the Paging Memory builds up very quickly to 1-1.8 GB, I get sometimes the message that virtual memory is unsufficient and the program closes down because of an error. Even when the application is closed, it takes quite a time for the virtual memory to go down to 300-400 Mb. Any advice on this point?
Once again, I really appreciate your help.

[Black Lab]

I was myself intrigued and frustrated I couldn't capture as AVI since I experienced plenty-really plenty- of dropped frames even if I close all other applications and follow the recommended procedure.

Is your machine connected to the Internet? Your machine could be automatically updating software without your knowledge, which could cause dropped frames while capturing.

[robspa48]

thanks Jeff: no, I had disconnected my machine from Internet when capturing.