After modifying all thumbnail frame-positions, Preview fails

[Gurce]

Hi,

I'm using Video Studio 11 Plus. I'll re-count my steps here.

1) I saved a 3hr VHS tape to the hard-drive in DV/avi format (39 GB)
2) Using Video Studio, I "Create Disc --> DVD"
3) I change compression to 2800kbps (so it can all fit on a 4.7GB disc)
4) I manually add chapter positions for each episode within the 3 hours of footage (a total of 15 chapters)
5) I now manually re-position the thumbnail of each chapter to somewhere within the footage that better reflects the content of the episode.
6) After doing so for each chapter, I press the "Preview" button to review the results.
7) The hard-drive whirs away forever with nothing happening on-screen. It appears that the software has locked up in some way.

After spending 8 hours of my Sunday wrestling with this problem via trial-and-error, I'm suspecting the following:

1. If I leave the thumbnail frames at their default positions, the Preview will work fine
2. If I modify just 3 out of the 15 chapter thumbnail frames, the Preview button still works fine.
3. If I modify all 15 chapter thumbnail frames, the Preview button doesn't appear to work anymore, the software stalls, yet the hardware keeps whirring minute-after-minute.

This makes me suspect that unfortunately it may be a flaw in the actual software.

Nonetheless, I'd be interested to hear if anyone out there has had this same experience?

Or has anyone been successful in a project similar to mine? (large 3hr DV/avi file, many chapters, all with their default thumbnail frames modified).

Apologies for lack of detail, but I'm fairly exhausted after tackling this issue for my entire Sunday. Hopefully, I can elaborate in future posts (my system info, etc).

Ok, thanks for any help/info.

Regards,
Gurce

[Ron P.]

Welcome to the forums,

Please complete your System Information in your profile. Clicking on this button --> will take you to a short tutorial, explaining how to find and complete that information. This way it will always be available, and will save you from retyping it in the future.

Now the reason I ask the above is due to the workflow your using. Going straight into the burn module with a project file places a very large demand on your PC. In order to create a DVD, any "titles" (main video clips in the burn module timeline) must be converted to DVD Compatible MPEG-2 video files. With this workflow these are created in a temp file, then deleted after the DVD is burned. Now adding to this task is your rearranging the thumbnails (chapters), creating the menus, and if you're using motion menus with effects, all done on-the-fly so that you can preview. That's a very demanding task to require a PC to do.

A Suggested Workflow has been developed to help guide you through the mine-field of video editing, as it pertains to Ulead's VideoStudio Programs. They can be viewed here:
Suggested WorkFlow for VideoStudio

Simple Description of Suggested Workflow
1. Capture video to PC.
2. Edit Video
3. Create a new video file, Share>Create Video File
4. Clear the timeline (after saving your project) (File>New Project)
5. Go straight to burn module (Share>Create Disc)
6. Insert the DVD Compatible MPEG-2 video file (not a VSP)
7. Add your Chapters and arraign them
8. Build your menus
9 Burn either disc or DVD Folders, or ISO image files.

With creating a DVD Compatible MPEG-2 file before opening the burn module will relieve the enormous task placed all at once on your PC by asking it to do it all at one time. While the program is designed to be able to go straight into the burn module using your project, and several do without problems, if in fact you do have trouble, then using the alternative Suggested Workflow enhances your chances for success..

[Gurce]

Hi Ron,

Thanks for your response. I've filled out the system info as specified.

> large demands on PC
I've got a fairly beefy machine, striped hard-drive too, to (hopefully! ) speed hard-drive access. Also, I didn't think I was asking a great deal from VStudio in this project, since the project file consists of just a single DV file, no effects, no cuts, no transitions, etc. Fairly basic.

Nonetheless, I'll give the workflow steps you mentioned a try and see how it goes (fingers crossed )

Thanks again for your time.

[Gurce]

Hmm, interesting results to report so far.

After using your recommended workflow, I converted to dvd/mpg video first, modified all the chapters, I tried going direct to the Burn step (I was too scared to try the preview, in-case it failed). I waited for about 10 minutes, and finally the total progress bar moved! By about 1%

Hmm... So I assume the Preview required a similar amount of time to prepare things... So, it looks like it was my impatience to blame somewhat. However it feels a little bit cruel of Ulead to leave me waiting for 10 minutes without any feedback of progress. Who could blame me for thinking that the program had crashed.

After realising that the secret ingredient was "patience", I retried burning this project with the original (very large: 39 GB) DV/avi source files.

I waited 20 minutes before the progress bar moved to 3%... That is 20 minutes of receiving absolutely no positive feedback that the system was doing its job properly... That's kinda frustrating...

Still a long way to go on the progress bar, but atleast it updates more regularly now, the blue bar increments every minute or so, this is more tolerable and re-assuring. I'll leave the machine overnight and report the final results tomorrow.

So, what is this initial step that Ulead is trying to do when you press the Burn button (last step of the wizard)? Why does it take 10/20 minutes to complete this step? Why isn't there any feedback on the progress of this step? (The program seems to lock up until it's done, and then moves onto "Convert title..." step)

Well, whatever it is, I can only hope that Ulead consider adding more re-assuring burn status info into future versions of this application, just to re-assure the user that the system hasn't crashed during steps like this!

[Black Lab]

On my machine it can take anywhere from 1-1.5 times the project length to complete, depending upon many factors of course. But, make sure your burn properties (cog wheel in lower left of burn module) match the properties of the MPEG-2 file you previously rendered. You do not want to render again (and that's what will happen if the properties do not match).

[kfenaughty]

I can report the same frustrations as Gurce! I've just upgraded to VS11.5+ after running into the limitations of VS9SE. I have a DVD-compliant MPEG that I wish to author, and it has 13 chapters. For simplicity I stripped away other clips in the project as the problem seems to lie with chapter thumbnails.

So I opened a new project, went to the the Create disc -> DVD step, added the MPEG file (via "add media file") , then gone to the create chapter part. I let it choose the 13 chapter points using "auto-add chapter".

If I then choose a thumbnail menu and preview the result, it comes up pretty quickly with a faithful preview. The problem arises when I change the thumbnails chosen by VS. As I work through the thumbnails, the response to the right-click -> change thumbnail noticeably slows up. Then choosing "Preview" sees the computer flog itself for many minutes before finally delivering a preview! Yet all that has changed is the thumbnail picture! The chapter points are still the same!

The slow Preview would also seem to translate into a very slow burn as well. All this is frustrating because at least VS9 could handle changing a mere 13 chapter thumbnails - pity it couldn't do Dolby 5.1, though!

I, like Gurce, suspect a bug... But grateful for any suggestions or confirmations.

[kfenaughty]

Okay, so it's a wet and cold Sunday, the family are doing other things...

I made sure that DirectX was up-to-date, as there is a June release. I then persevered with authoring the DVD as I originally planned. The above symptoms remain: each chapter thumbnail change becomes slower and slower to perform: right-click and wait 20 seconds for the menu to pop up. Sometimes it would pop up and vanish before I could choose "change thumbnail". In this case, I had to guess where that option would appear on the screen, and place a click there for when it did arrive! Then many more seconds before the slider window appeared.

Anyway, I finally got them all done. I skipped the Preview bit, went straight to Burn, and then created DVD folders on disk. Basically it took one hour before the progress bars showed any life, and then the disk was completed in ten minutes. It looks fine!

The verdict? Well, VS isn't actually broken, but I have to say that going from a burn time of 10 minutes to 1 hour and ten minutes just because I changed the thumbnails of 13 chapters suggests some efficiency is being badly compromised. It looks to me very much like it is just the rendering of the DVD menu that is affected - everything else steams along once that has been done.