VS 11 Plus Can't preview DVD

[telstarbob]

I had VS 10 Plus and purchased VS 11 Plus download. After downloading and installing, the program seemed to run OK. Then when I put together a short project (just one avi file captured-nothing else) and went to share create disk I could not get a preview of the DVD after I clicked on Preview. I clicked on play button and an expanding bright horizontal line appeared briefly and nothing happened. The DVD was created successfully but a preview could not be viewed. This worked fine on version 10 plus.

2 GByte RAM. Intel Core Duo 6300. 500 GByte Hard Drive. Very fast computer. Never any problems before. Windows XP Media edition.

[Ken Berry]

As I just wrote in an immediately preceding thread, at the very least we need to know the exact properties of the .avi clip you used. Unfortunately, there is a wide variety of video formats out there which happen to use .avi as their extension for convenience. In other words, it is merely a carrier format. There is 'true' or uncompressed .avi which is huge -- 65 GB per hour of video. Then there is DV/AVI from a mini DV video camera -- still very large at 13 GB per hour. At the other end of the scale are highly compressed mpeg-4 formats such as DivX and XVid which also use the extension.

So right click on your .avi within Video Studio (either on the timeline or in the Library pane) and copy down ALL its properties here please. That will at least be a start... Note that you have to right click within VS. Doing so just using My Computer/Windows Explorer will not give you all the properties.

You should also tell us what editing you did to it, and whether, after editing, you first (as recommended) went to Share > Create Video File > DVD to create a DVD-compliant mpeg-2 of your project. Or did you jump straight from the timeline to Share > Create Disc?

[telstarbob]

Ken,

Thanks for your reply.

The avi file was captured in VS10 with a mini dv camera through firewire.

properties:

File
File name: D:\Videos Cap-Temp\uvs071029-0

File format: Microsoft AVI files -- OpenDML
File size: 11,968,958 KB

Frame rate: 29.970 frames/sec
Duration: 3398.565 seconds

Data rate: 1267.37 kbps

Video
Compression: DV Video Encoder -- type 1

Attributes: 24 bits, 720 x 480, 4:3
Total frames: 101,855 frame(s)

Audio
Compression: DV Audio -- NTSC

Attributes: 48.000 kHz, 16 Bit, Stereo
Total samples: 163,131,130 samples

This same file when used with VS10plus creates a preview successfully when I go to share - create disc. In VS 11plus it does not. If I create a DVD compliat mpeg-2 file I still get the same result - no preview although if I create disc I get a perfect DVD. I just can't preview in VS11 plusbut I can in VS 10plus. In VS10plus I got a preview going straight from the timeline and also through mpeg-2.
This was a big surprise to me. Any help would be welcome.

Bob

[Ken Berry]

You should go to the Microsoft DirectX website and download and install the November 2007 patch. Your DirectX will still be version 9.0c but it will be updated in a number of aspects, one of which appears to fix that preview problem in VS11 which only some users seem to have... Let us know if it works.

[Ron P.]

Talk about bizarre and coincidence.. ,

As I was going through this forum, reading and answering posts, coming across this one, I decided to check the possibility of VS not providing the Preview if the Target Display was set to DV Recorder. I have my laptop setup beside me that I'll use for this. So I launched VS11+...

I set the Playback Target accordingly, went to the Burn module, dropped a clip into the time-line, and guess what... no preview.. . So I reset the Target Playback to Preview Window, and still no preview..

My laptop is running Vista Home Premium. However I've never ran the DirectX update (Nov '07). This is the kicker, I've never had this problem, not being able to preview anything. So I done the DirectX update and (as Gomer Pyle once said) surprise, surprise, surprise.. It works again!!

I think this is what caused it to fail... wait for it...... a Windows Update that auto installed yesterday.. I know it's hard to believe, but I know for a fact that the Preview was functioning yesterday before that happened, and that is the only modification made. The laptop has been left turned on for the last 2-3 days..

Thanks again M$. You must cross-train your programmers as mechanics. They certainly know how to through wrenches in cogwheels..

[telstarbob]

Ken

I installed the activex patch and the preview which worked on vs 10+ now works with vs 11+ ! Thank you very much. How did you come across this solution? This should be a great help to many users I think. The support staff at Corel dud not seem to know this. I will let them know.

By the way, I just noticed that before and after the patch, the help screens in VS 11 would not come up wen I clicked help. Any ideas?

Thanks again so much! I can tell that you have helped a countless number of people. Hope you have a good holiday.

Bob Brown
Professor of Math & Computer Science
East Georgia College

[Ken Berry]

Thanks -- and great holiday for you too!

As for the Help files, did they work at any time? If not, you may not have installed them. They don't come with the trial version of the program for size reasons. But you can download the Manual from the Ulead.com website (by choosing Download > Documents across the top of the home web page and follow the prompts...)

But if you downloaded the program, then the Help files should have been installed as part of the second major file you would have downloaded (Extra Content). On the boxed disc version, I think the Help files are on CD2.