Video Studio 11.5 Trial - Frame Unreadable

willcox · Post by **willcox** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 6:24 pm

Hi, I am new to this forum and need your wisdom and help. I hope I can describe the problem, so apologies upfront if I fail. I am a great fan of VS10 and have used this with great success. I have recently bought a new camcoder Sanyo Xacti HD100 and wanted to continue with the VS 10. However I see that does not edit MPEG4 so I have downloaded 11.5 on trial. I have successfully created a project and go to create a video file and after 15 minutes it advises me that a frame is unreadable and aborts. Tried this three times with different clips and the same results. What am I doing wrong! I have limited knowledge of this new technology and am probably doing something stupid. I contacted Corel help, they won't help unless I call which is difficult during worktime. So what do I do and do I upgrade to VS11.5

PS I did get DVD Movie Maker with the camera, I produced a DVD lasting 5 mins duration in 7 Hours ! The results were jumpy/jerky. Is this an alternative. I do prefer VS and I burn with Nero and the results are terrific.

Please advise if you need anymore data

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 7:45 pm

Welcome to the world of MPEG-4 editing. MPEG-4 (as well as WMV, DivX, etc.) is very compressed and is really a distribution format and not meant for editing.

I know you said you tried Movie Maker, but was it this particular clip? If not, can you try this clip with Movie Maker to see if it handles it?

willcox · Post by **willcox** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 2:33 pm

Jeff,
Thanks for the reply.The clips are the same that I used in Moviefactory. I am open minded and am prepared to use Movie factory however what puts me off is the 7 hour creation time. Surely it should not take that long to create, it was only 5 Mins of footage. In previous forum responses I have seen it looks like it should be an hour. (The clip was HD format)
It's good to discuss this I will list a few questions you could help me with, my main purpose is to take camcorder footage, add titles, music and sometimes stills, save and burn to Disc for watching on a plasma TV. :-

1. Is Videostudio not suitable for this with MPEG4
2. Is Moviefactory a better option and does it allow me to meet my objective above.
3. Where can I get a guide to use Movie factory, it did not come with the camera. It is a special version especially for Sanyo.
4. Why did it take 7 Hours.
5. The results from moviefactory were jerky, some of that is camera shake, could it be the creation onto Disc.

I could go on, you can probably guess that this is all new.
Thanks

Post by **Ron P.** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 2:49 pm

Yes it should take that long. In fact when working with such highly compressed formats, it is not uncommon to take twice that long.

PCs even though are ten times more powerful then they were 10 years ago, still are not that powerful when it comes to editing high quality, high definition, and highly compressed formats.

A simple analogy would be looking at the video from the viewpoint of photos. If you have 5 minutes of video, that runs at 29.97 (I'll round up to 30 to make the math easier) frames per second, that equates to 30 x 60secs X 5 minutes = 9,000 photographs that need to be completely changed. Set up a batch conversation on your PC to convert 9000 photos on your PC and see how long it takes..

willcox · Post by **willcox** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 4:11 pm

Was it a good idea to buy a MPEG4 camera! Will it be quicker if I change the quality seeting on the camera. What posts the same quality I had with my Mini DV camcorder.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 1:09 am

willcox wrote:Was it a good idea to buy a MPEG4 camera! Will it be quicker if I change the quality setting on the camera. What posts the same quality I had with my Mini DV camcorder.

There are now several different formats of camcorder on the market and what may suit one person may not suit another - it is a matter of choosing the right one for YOUR needs. The following observations are just my opinion based upon the limited equipment that I have available. Someone who is "in the trade" will be better placed to provide qualified advice.

I find that of all the formats I have edited the one that gives ME the least trouble is DV. This stands for Digital Video and is a Microsoft format.
This format uses about 13GB of hard drive space per hours worth of video.

The next format that I use quite extensively is MPEG2 - this is the format that my TV cards record in. In the past I had audio/video synchronization issues when editing MPEG2 and after hours, days or even weeks of investigation I eventually narrowed MY problem down to transitions. The audio would go slightly out of synch at each transition so that near the start of a video you didn't really notice but at the end it was irritatingly obvious. There are plenty of posts on this forum and suggested work rounds if you become a victim of this issue. My own cure was to purchase a purpose built MPEG editing program - my view is and always has been that programs like VideoStudio are meant for editing video from DV camcorders but I accept that technology is forever moving forward and HD is upon us.

MPG4 and its sister formats DivX and Xvid are highly compressed and although they have small file sizes the quality is surprisingly good. Many TV stations now make some of their programs available on the internet, some free and some via subscription. Many of these TV companies provide these programs in MPEG4 format where 1 hour has a file size of approx 700 MB.

Again this is only my view, others may have different opinions, these highly compressed formats are meant for viewing and not for editing.
That does not mean to say you cannot edit them but that if you do then the sort of issues you may face include possible audio/video synchronization issues and horrendously long render times.

I have found that the easiest and quickest way to edit MPEG4 type formats is to decompress them to MPEG2. You may ask why I chose MPEG2 and not DV - the reason is that every time you alter a format you lose quality.
If the intended final output is to a DVD video disc then the final format must be MPEG2 and so (with smart render) other than your edits the majority of the video will smart render when you execute your editing decisions.

Converting a 1 hour video from MPEG4 / DivX or Xvid with VideoStudio - or any of the other former Ulead Range of products can easily take 12 hours to achieve. If you do a search of Google you will find several purpose built conversion programs that will convert a 1 hour MPEG4 to MPEG2 in about 40 minutes. The one I use is not free and actually converts the MPEG4 into a playable DVD. I then simply rename the VOB files to MPG and import them into VideoStudio. Of course this isn't the correct way to import VOB files but it is a tried and trusted method for the material I am working with.

If on the other hand I was retrieving videos from one of my previously made DVD Video discs - properly authored with DVD workshop 2, then i would use the import from DVD feature.

The point I am making here is that you can be flexible in how you approach things - find a method that works for YOU.

willcox · Post by **willcox** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 4:43 pm

Many Thanks, this is just the info I needed, it is good to discuss this. I wish I had used the forum before buying the camera. However, What MPEG4 to MPEG2 converter do u use. I would like to keep VS to edit.

alpine · Post by **alpine** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 7:22 pm

The HD1000, which is what I think you meant rather than HD100, is a newish Sanyo model that produces H264 AVC encoding encapsulated in an mp4 container, unlike the older Sanyo HD cameras which used mp4v.
VS11.5Plus, with all its patches does support import of AVC as well as mp4v, though only on the full non trial version and whether it gets on with with this inside an MP4 container, I'm not sure. If you can put up a single clip somewhere, I can tell you whether it at least reads it in OK. You will need a powerful PC, as with AVCHD camera output, to edit this with reasonable performance.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 11:17 pm

... and you will also need a powerful computer just to play AVCHD video back in that format...

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 11:37 pm

willcox wrote:Many Thanks, this is just the info I needed, it is good to discuss this. I wish I had used the forum before buying the camera. However, What MPEG4 to MPEG2 converter do u use. I would like to keep VS to edit.

Like I said it is not free, you might want to try out a few free ones first.
The one I use is Convert x to DVD which creates a very basic DVD - a 1 hour MPEG4 takes about 40 minutes. Doesn't create very exciting DVD's but I like the speed it converts the MPEG4 into a more usable format which I then use to author a "proper" DVD with one of my "Ulead" progams.

willcox · Post by **willcox** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 6:30 am

Thanks Guys, a lot to think about. Educating a Newbie is hard work but worthwhile. I will try to work on some of the suggestions and keep checking the postings. Again, Many Thanks