VideoStudio 10 Plus

[kailuakid]

I have a 5 year old Window XP with P4 1.2Ghz with Azus Motherboard. I have a 16X DVD Burner. I edit home movies and photos for the family. For me to Download a Movie from my video camera using firewire connection it takes me 1 hr to download a 1hr. movie from my camcorder. I then edit the movie build a menu and burn it on a DVD. That 1 hr video takes about 3.5 to 4 hours to burn because I have to burn it at 4X on my 16X burner otherwise it freezes or doesn't recognize the disc in either of my two DVD Players. Would buying a new PC cut my download and burning time. If so what would be the best Processor, Motherboard and Memory to buy? Does the Video Card speed/Memory play any part in the downloading and burning of home videos?

[Ken Berry]

First, one major misconception. DV *always* takes real time to capture, regardless of the computer. I have a Core 2 Quad and various others all with Firewire, and each one takes one hour to download a one hour mini DV cassette. It is the nature of the beast, I am afraid.

You also seem to have a workflow where you edit then go straight to the burning module (Share > Create Disc) and the conversion of your DV to DVD-compatible mpeg-2 takes place during the burning process. Frankly, with your current computer, I am surprised it manages to do all these complex steps together on the fly in just 3 - 4 hours. But in fact for its resources, that is not a bad time.

Our recommended workflow was really designed with people with computers like yours in mind. After you edit, your first convert the DV project to mpeg-2 (Share > Create Video File > DVD). Unfortunately, this will still take some time with your computer -- I would estimate about 3 hours.

After you produce your new mpeg-2, you go to File > New Project. Don't worry about giving your new project a name. The objective is just to clear the timeline of your current project.

Once that is done, you select Share > Create Disc > DVD. The burning module will open. Use the Add Media button at the top to insert your new mpeg-2 in the burning timeline. Then go to the middle of the three icons in the bottom left of the burning screen. There is a little box beside the words 'Do not convert compliant mpeg files'. Make sure that box is ticked (it usually is by default). That way, your already compliant mpeg file will not be re-encoded. Then build your menus and burn.

Yes, buying a new computer would speed up the conversion time, whether using your current workflow or our recommended one. My Quad will convert a 1 hour DV project to mpeg-2 in 35 - 40 minutes, depending on the complexity of the project. But my old P4 3.0 GHz would do it in about 1 hour 15 - 25 minutes...

I also would not be too worried about being *forced* to use 4x burning speed. We in fact recommend burning at a low speed if your burner and the rated speeds of the disc permits it. Even with my Quad, I use 4x... And it has also been my experience that regardless of the computer, every burner will take roughly the same time to perform the actual burn (putting aside the conversion/multiplexing aspects). And I find that every one of my 8 DVD burners takes between 13 minutes 40 seconds to nearly 15 minutes to burn a full single layer DVD at 4x. The difference in speed is attributable to the different brands and features of the burners rather than having anything to do with the computer.

I should add that I won't make any specific recommendations about CPUs, motherboards etc. You will get a million recommendations on that. But if you want to future proof yourself a little, and particularly if you will eventually move to high definition video (and particularly AVCHD), then I would be thinking in terms of one of the higher end Core 2 Duos (2.8 GHz/3 Ghz) or even a Core 2 Quad. Since most of these these days come with Vista, which is a resource hog, and RAM is so cheap, I would also be going for at least 2 and preferably 4 GB RAM. Most of these upper end computers these days already come with a higher end graphics card usually with a fair amount of RAM of their own which are more than adequate and can handle dual monitors and things like that.

[sjj1805]

SUBJECT: Please use a subject that describes your exact problem instead of making us guess what's in your post.

Sorry if you this sounds like I am telling you off - I am not.
You can alter the title by using the button on your first post.

The purpose of providing a meaningful title is this.
There are a number of members on the forum who try and help troubleshoot problems - myself included. In the early days of the user forum it was not too difficult to be able to read all of the posts submitted since the last time I (or one of the other troubleshooters) had logged on.

On the Forum Home page at the top right is a link
view posts since last visit In the forums early days this would perhaps range between 10-30 posts. Today however the board has grown in popularity and more products are now catered for including the former Intervideo products before the merger with Ulead.

There have been days when I have logged on to find over 70 new posts since my last visit. It is of course impossible to read each and every one of them and so it is necessary to look at the titles to pick out posts where I feel I am able to offer some worthwhile input.

if you are viewing perhaps the VideoStudio forum and a post is entitled
"VideoStudio" - it doesn't really give you a clue, similarly in the PhotoImpact forum a post entitled [PhotoImpact] is equally as meaningless.

Giving a post a suitable title is a means of helping us to help you.

[dmstockt]

So I'm just going to jump right in here...

Up until recently, I was running about the same machine as you are talking about... then I set it to work one night with some 1080i video and awoke to a terrible failure. eh, a good excuse for upgrading.

I'm now running a core-2-duo utilizing the 1333 FSB speeds and 2 GB ram... WOW, what a difference.

HOWEVER, now I've re-installed my VS 10+, it seems like there are things that have moved, things that are not there... etc.. I can't get it to give me 1440x1080 project property, and it acts like it doesn't want to play nicely with MPEG-2...

I did have to call Corel to get a S/N... I'd been running on the same "original" software S/N that I got with a DVD burner about 5 years ago... where it is now, I have no idea... I've got the disk, but no S/N... I did save the download and the email from my last upgrade (from 9.0SE to 10+), and with that information they were able to generate me a full version S/N, problem is that I think it is just a VS 10 liscense, and thats why I can't get 1440x1080.

Any thoughts on my issue?

Get yourself a new motherboard, (I got an MSI and it is really cool). I myself didn't bother with the quad-core processor... I wanted to continue running XP, and I don't think XP can utilize the quad's capabilities... and no matter, going from a P4 to a core-2 duo is going to be like getting out of your Smart ForTwo and into a Lotus... Lotus is fine, I don't need a Lambo... (until it's on the used lot

Mommy is calling, needs the baby's highchair out of the back of the car, gotta go. Cheers! Dan