Saving Project after creating Menu's.

[juniet]

Hi All
When using VideoStudio10, Can anyone tell me if the DVD project is saved anywhere after creatng chapters and choosing Menu's? Or is there a way saving a project with the menu's and chapters already added?
I.e. When I go to Share >Create Disc> add video files. And after I Add/ Edit Chapters, Change Thumbnail's & select what SmartScene Menu..etc

There's been some occasions when I need to re-edit or burn at a later date. Is there anyway of saving the project at that point in VideoStudio10?
It doesn't actually give me an option to save, but when I close the window (bottom right) it says "Saving project" but I don't know where or if or what its actually saving, so I have to do it all over again next time when I am ready to burn my DVD.

Any idea's?

Douglas ( AKA.. Juniet)

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Douglas

Yep that¡¦s possible.

When you close the burner module, vs indicates that it is saving the project.
I believe this to be saving the info back to the project.

Once complete you are looking at an empty project.
Save this project as say ¡¥My create disc¡¦
(in fact I save the empty project using the correct properties before creating the disc, when I close, just File ¡V Save)

All the menu structure will be save to the project.

Opening the project at a later date will show an empty project until you go
Share Create Disc¡Xall menus should be preserved.

Please note, further editing of the video files may mess up your menu and this process.

Hope this Helps

[Ken Berry]

Just to clarify a little. When you close the burning module, it always says that it is saving something. But despite Trevor's guess, none of us know for sure exactly what it is saving or where it is saving to. And the one thing that is certain is that once you close the whole of Video Studio, whatever is saved automatically is lost.

So what you have to do, once you have built your menus the way you like is to close the burning module, ignore the automatically saving message, and instead manually save your project. Then re-open the burning module and everything will be as you made it. And that will also be the case if you totally close VS and later reopen it and that specific project.

It's all very klunky but at least it works. Why they haven't installed a separate Save button in the burning module, which is what many of us have been calling for for years, is beyond me...

[westlight]

juniet was referring to VS10 in the original post.

I'm assuming the same "save project" holds true for VS11 plus? I'm not at the PC were I have VS installed right now but have been running into that same problem.

Thanks

[Ken Berry]

It applies to successive versions of VS, up to and including VS11.5+. We have collectively complained about the lack of a simple Save button for years, to no effect. It would be nice if it were included in VS12 when that eventually appears, but I am not holding my breath...

[jcsaba]

Welcome to everybody!
I use UVS 11 Plus. It is not clear for me from the above how to save menu: Ken says that before closing the burning module we should ignore automatic saving and save the project manually. In the menu creating module all along with the burning portion I see no saving option only close option. Closing the DVD authoring wizard as its is called under share step, the project gets automatically saved, I see no possibility to save it manually. After exit from the share step I come back to the Video Studio Editor interface. Here I can save manually (File..., Save as..). What surprises me is that many things get saved (including menu template, frames,navigation buttons, layout, chapters, name of title etc) but chapter names, (the text itself did not get saved, but the font attributes did!!) and selected thumbnails (where I had changed the scene thumbnail of a chapter manually) have not bee saved.
What do I wrong? However, the things in the menu I managed to save, could be saved by the automatic saving.
My basic problem is that when I tried to change the scene thumbnails, the program stopped several times, actually got frozen and could be closed only by windows task manager.
Is tehere any recommendation to solve these issues?
Thanks in advance

[Ken Berry]

The automatic saving will only work if you don't close Video Studio totally (i.e. the burning module AND the main program). If you close Video Studio without manually saving, then you will find nothing in fact has been saved by the automatic save when you next open Video Studio.

There is no Save option in the burning module, or when closing it, apart from the automatic save. That is the very point I was trying to make!! And as I said, you can ignore the automatic save because it only applies as long as you keep Video Studio open. So you do as you suggested, and close the burning module, let it do its automatic save, but then go to File > Save to save the existing project file manually, or File > Save As, to create a new project file. If you do the latter, then of course you need to open the new project file when you next open video Studio, and not the older project file.

If you do that and still have trouble with some of your menu not having been saved, then I don't know what the problem is. But if you haven't already done so, you should go to the Microsoft DirectX website and download the latest update patch. The current one is dated March 2008 and can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en
Note that it updates both DirectX 9.0c (XP) and 10 (Vista). The number of your DirectX installation will not change, but the patch gives extra functionality in a number of areas and corrects other faults in the VS burning module which appear linked to Windows updates.

[jcsaba]

Dear Ken!
Many thanks for your help. I downloaded the latest DirectX (update of March, 2008), but it has not helped much yet. As I noticed the basic problem seems to be the error when selecting new scene of chapter thumbnails, which causes the UVS to stop. It usually occures after a few successful thumbnail changes (in my project in progress I have 8 of them) in which case nothing can be saved. If I try to save after creating one or two new thumbnail scenes (before UVS stops), neither the new thumbnails, nor new chapter texts will get saved. Change of chapter names without any changes in thumbnails can, however, be mostly saved.
I imported into my UVS 11 Plus some contents from DVD Movie Factory 6 the way described in this forum, I wonder this can cause such problems.
Has anyone experienced similar problems?

[Ken Berry]

After installing the DirectX update, did you restart your computer so that the new version would become fully active?

[jcsaba]

Dear Ken!
Though I am not sure if I did, but since then I shut down my computer and started again sveral times and I still experience the same problems. E.g. after your reply I checked again: out of my 8 chapters, my UVS gave up working when I started to change the 7th thumbnail, so 6 changes were successful. So having made all non-thumbnail changes in the menu, I started to set new scenes carefully and stopped after the most important first three and went on with burning without any save. UVS completed its job during cca 4 and 1/4 hours and created the requested image file wich, however, already contained the three modified thumbnail scenes. Do you think I should re-install UVS 11 to tackle the issue? I am afraid of that because I read somewhere in this forum that it's quite complicated. (Anyway is it not too long for UVS to complete a cca 67 minute film(creating image file, i.e. rendering the film, encoding into MPEG 2, authoring the DVD) with a Dual Core Intel Pentium 820 2800 Mhz, Memory 2038 MB (DDR2-667 DDR2 SDRAM) ?)
Thanks
Csaba Jurenka

[sjj1805]

jcsaba
Just to make sure you are doing it the recommended way.
Before going to [Share] [Create Disc]
instead go to [Share] [Create Video]
Now create either PAL DVD or NTSC DVD dependant upon your region.

When that has finished
[File] [New Project]
[File] [Save As] - Yes I know it's blank - trust me!
[Share] [Create Disc] - select the type e.d. DVD
Now use the Import Video button and import the Video you created above.
If required create chapters.
Go to the next screen where you now select and modify as necessary our DVD Menu(s)
When completed - instead of moving on to te burning page - exit the [Create Disc] function - ignore the message stating it is saving your project. Now use [File] [Save]
Now go back into [Share] [Create Disc].
You will now find your chapters and your menus are as you left them.
You can now move on to the burning page.

If you close VideoStudio you can now open it and then open your saved project. Once again if you go to [Share] [Create Disc] all of your chapters and menu(s) will again be intact.

[jcsaba]

Dear Mr. sjj1805

Thanks for your help. I did what you had suggested, everything could be saved except for the changes of thumbnail scenes. I had to set them again whenever I opened the file. But at least UVS 11 Plus did not stop when I changed the thumbnail scenes.
The workflow you usually recommend is creating MPEG-2 file after editing the movie. What about rendering the movie first with an output as DV AVI file (OK taking up large hard disk space) then creating the menu and converting the DV AVI file into DVD? This way, I can set the max. video bit rate for the movie with the menu just to fit on a 4,7 GB Disc, while converting it into MPEG wihout the menu, I can't maximize the bitrate because I don't know how much space my menu will require.

[Ken Berry]

DV format is not part of the international DVD standard. That standard only allows mpeg-2 (and mpeg-1 in some circumstances). In other words, once you go into the burning module, and build your menus, conversion is going to take place into DVD compatible mpeg-2 regardless of what the original format was. The menus also have to be in mpeg-2 format to work.

In other words, you cannot convert a final, edited project *with menu* into DVD format using DV format.

[jcsaba]

Dear Ken,

It is fully clear to me that the movie in any case sholud be converted into DVD compatible MPEG-2 file. My question is when to create the menu? In principle 3 possibilities:
1) When you finish editing you go to create disc (chapters, menu etc.) and with the completed menu you go straight to the burning module. This is the way which this forum does not recommend;
2) When you finish editing you go to create video file and select DV (DV-AVI) to render your movie first into an AVI file. When rendering is ready, you go to create disc, add the saved DV-AVI video file to your project to make chapters and menu and then burn it. In this case, when creating menu preceeds MPEG conversion, you can set the best video bit rate for the whole movie with the menu to fit on a 4,7 GB disc, but you need much hard disc space to save the DV-AVI file;
3) When you finish editing you go to create video file and select MPEG-2 by which you render your movie and convert it into MPEG-2. When your MPEG-2 file is ready, you go to create disc add the saved MPEG-2 video file to your project to make chapters and menu and then burn it. In this case when creating menu follows MPEG conversion, you have to leave some space for the menu when seting the video bit rate for the MPEG encoding unless you want to reduce your MPEG-2 file (re-encode) during the burning to fit on a 4,7 GB disc. It seems to me that this forum is favour of this workflow.

[Ron P.]

Fairly simple question with an equally simple answer...

Create your DVD menus just prior to burning your DVD, which is meant to include burning to folders or creating an ISO.

If you have no problems with proceeding directly to burning from the editor (using VSP files) that's what you can use. However IF you do encounter problems then FIRST create your DVD compatible MPEG-2 video in the editor. Once done proceed to the burn module without a project file, and insert the DVD MPEG-2 files, build your menus and burn.

Now in order to have VS save any menus created..
If you proceeded to the burn module with a project file, then you MUST when prompted to Save Changes made when closing the program.

If you done the latter (clear timeline) and inserted MPEG-2 files in the burn module, you MUST again choose to Save the Project or changes BEFORE closing the program.

Doing the above will save any menus created in the burn module.