Visual and sound sync problem in project using Ulead 11

[gillyv]

Have downloaded about 10 minutes of footage from our Sony HDR HC5E. This went well and thumbnails were created. Then tried a small amonut of editing to project. Saved file. Seems to have saved as a VPS file. Then on reviewing file the sound and visual are erratic.
I encountered a similar problem when trying to view footage on a home movie DVD. This forum suggested downloading a decoder. Media Decoder I think was the name and that fixed it and the files were viewable with correct sound and Visual.
Speed of processor 3.06GHz Memory 1GB. We have about 32.5 GB of free disc space on our computer.
Hope you can help

[Ken Berry]

VS11, and indeed VS10+, could already handle the HDV format from your high def mini DV camera. I have a Canon equivalent (HV20). You will also see from my System button below that I have a Core 2 Quad computer, which is pretty powerful as these things go. However, previewing my HDV files in VS11.5+, playback is also a bit erratic and jerky in Project mode. I don't have any trouble with the audio, but then again, I have a lot more system resources than you do. In reality the VS preview window is only meant to give you a general idea of how things look, and this is nowhere more true than with high def video! The important thing is to see how a final, rendered project plays back.

You don't say what your intention is with the video or what playback equipment you have. But if you render it to the same format as the original downloaded clips, you have a variety of choices. I use Share > HDV Recording to send it back in edited form to the camera. Then I can connect the camera via its HDMI connection and play it in high def on my HDTV. Great quality. Or I can burn it to a hybrid AVCHD disc which means high def format but on a standard DVD. But that needs a Blu-Ray rated player or the Sony PlayStation 3 to be able to play it. Or of course you can down-convert to standard definition mpeg-2 and burn it to a better than average quality standard def DVD...

[gillyv]

Thanks for the reply Ken.
Am I correct in understanding that the erratic behaviour of the edited footage when previewed is just a thing that happens in preview and would not translate itself to that file being burned to a DVD. In other words when Grandma and Grandad sit down to watch their 80th birthday video, on the DVD we give them, they will see a viewable video.
They have a computer of a reasonable kind for those who generally use a computer for email and word documents and a standard TV, so it needs to sit happily with these. So I think your last option would be what we would have to do.
Bythe way what is a VPS file.? The HDR Sony records in Mpeg 2 is that correct? Has the file been converted to VPS when it was saved? Are they the same thing? Could you clarify?
cheers for now
G

[Ron P.]

Am I correct in understanding that the erratic behaviour of the edited footage when previewed is just a thing that happens in preview and would not translate itself to that file being burned to a DVD.

Yes, the preview is most often going to be a very rough idea of the finished composition. So don't base the outcome on what you see during a preview.

One thing that Ken pointed out is that the newer "Hi-Def" formats require a powerful PC to smoothly edit them. Yours is certainly powerful enough for the SD (standard definition), however will probably be real slow when trying to edit any HD or especially the AVCHD formats.

VSP=VideoStudio Project, which are basically small text-like files, proprietary to Ulead/Corel. They contain instructions such as what clips are being used, where cuts are made, transitions and placement, and so on. There are no original source clips actually "inside" your VS project, just thumbnail representations linking to the originals. The video clips from your camcorder are not converted to anything, they remain unchanged. You can reuse the same "source" clips over and over, each time creating a new video file from your project. I've used the same sources cutting them in a variety of ways, putting together videos that are somewhat different. That's the great and magical aspect of digital Non-Linear editing.

That said, when you are finished with all your editing, you create a new video file, by going to the Share step, and selecting Create Video File. VS then uses the VSP (project file/instructions) to build this new video clip, copying the bits and pieces from the original clips you captured to your PC.

I do believe that your camcorder does record using the MPEG-2 codec. MPEG is considered a lossy format, meaning that each time it is recoded, you tend to lose quality. For example you have Video-A that you captured from your camcorder, and now you edit in VS, and render (create) a new video file, lets call it Video-B. That's just the first generation recode of parts of the original clip, not any real quality loss. Now if you would use Video-B and create yet another video file, that would be the 2nd generation, maybe a little loss, but still might not be noticeable. If you repeated this several times, you would however see that the quality has dropped. If you use Video-A as the source for creating the new video files, then you will still only be at the first generation recode...

[gillyv]

Thank you Ron for your informative and helpful advice and knowledge. I had suspected it was to do with the HD we now use. Previously when I have done some editing in SD I had no such problem and we were able to view the preview fine. Now that we are using HD we need to help our computer come up to speed. What do you recommend? I'm not a high end user just a mum doing editing on family video.
The info about VPS has helped me to understand what that file is all about. Just to clarify. when we have finished all the editing we select Share step and 'create video file'. This would then gather all those bits of info. This would be the file that we would copy to disc. From what you say this would have a little loss of quality but not very noticable.
Now in order for the Grans to watch this on their computer and SD TV do I have to do anything specific in the copy to disc part. One time before (a different project)I copied a file of pictures to DVD and it was fine on the persons computer but would not play on the TV
thanks for your help in advance.
GILLY