Power Calibration Failed (When Burning)

[Ken Berry]

Zé -- in point of fact, Windows 7 comes with its own disc image (.iso) burner. You just double (LEFT) click on the ISO file and the built-in burner will open. (If you have associated the .iso extension with another program, then right click on the .iso file to open its Properties, and on the first page you can change the Open With to the offered in-built burner...)

I also use Nero to burn .iso files...

But if that gives you trouble, I really would be thinking it is your notebook's burner which is the problem. I usually make my own external burners by buying the burner itself, and separately and external box, and simply put them together. The only actual external burner I have bought was an ASUS, coincidentally bought a few years back for a notebook which only had a DVD player, but not a burner. It continues to work well...

As for how I got 'Zé', well I speak both Spanish and Portuguese (and have lived in Portugal, Brazil, Venezuela and Chile), so know a bit about names, apart from having one good friend in Brazil who is called José -- and whom everyone, including myself, calls Zé... Easy!

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Ken
Interesting that Windows 7 has its own Image Burner, will remember for the future

Thanks

[zelopes]

Yes, indeed! I just burnt two discs with the Windows burner using the ISO files generated by two attempts at burning with VideoStudio.

The still unexplained reason why VS seems incapable of finishing the burn process remains more or less as a mystery...

Ken or Ron, I'm not sure, have previously said that the cryptic "Power Calibration Failed" message has nothing to do with VideoStudio and I have no argument to contradict that. But I must confess that it certainly looks like it might have something to do with it.

In fact, most of the reasons advanced as possible causes have been shown as not applicable to my case, otherwise it would not have been possible to burn the ISO files of the same videos, using the same discs, the same drive and just a different burner. Does this make sense?

Even the possibility of the culprit being my Matshita drive, either by itself, by reason of a dirty lens or as a combination of the drive brand with the discs (particularly with the dual layered ones) should be removed from the list, in my view. Again, this may not be a certainty, but it seems to go a long way in that direction, does it not?

Already after burning those files with Windows Disc Burner I revisited the burning step of VS and still got the same results. For whatever reason, though, mere coincidence or not, the process seemed like going just a little further than in previous attempts.

It may or may not be of interest to report that in my last attempt, the burning process reached the point where the two box-wide bars that keep showing the progress had the following captions over them:

The first bar read: "Output disc..."
The second bar read: "Writing image..."

This stage had never been reached before and my ignorance inhibits me from deciding whether this has been a coincidence or it had any significance.

What do you guys think?

P.S. - Ken: I sort of knew that something of that kind would explain your "proficiency" in the spelling of those forms of Portuguese names... Fairly good traveler, I would say. Good for you.

[Ken Berry]

I revisited the burning step of VS and still got the same results.

....the burning process reached the point where the two box-wide bars that keep showing the progress had the following captions over them:

The first bar read: "Output disc..."
The second bar read: "Writing image..."

The above implies to me that you were trying to burn the "image" file (ISO) in VS X2. If this is the case, then you have not really taken any notice of earlier posts in this thread that X2 cannot burn an ISO file. It just does not have the ability to do so...

[zelopes]

Wrong conclusion, Ken, I'm sorry...

The ISO files were those I burnt using the Windows burner, as I stated before. All these files I have tried to burn with VS12 -- and this last one too, for sure -- were MPG files.

I mean, don't overestimate my own self acknowledged ignorance!...

The observations I reported on my last entry are different from all the previous ones only for the process having reached a point never reached before. Nothing else, except for the one time when the message was not "Power calibration failed" but rather "Corel VideoStudio has stopped working..."

No, by all means, the cause of the failure comes from somewhere else and, as I suspect, in spite of statements made to the contrary, VideoStudio may still be the culprit. Certainly not my drive nor my discs.

Don't you agree?

[Ken Berry]

But the problem for me was the fact that you said the latest error message said (in part):

The second bar read: "Writing image..."

That message (to me at least) clearly refers to writing an image file i.e. an ISO file. An mpg file is a video file, not an image...

[zelopes]

Ken,

First off, thank you for your continued support.

Thinking about what you wrote in your last post, it occurred to me that what you refer as the "Writing image..." issue might have something to do with the option I had taken to create an image of the disc. Does this make sense to you?

At this stage, what Ron said about DVD brand compatibility and/or the size of the disc (being a dual layer), an opinion with which Trevor concurred, doesn't seem to be applicable here, since I was able to later use one of these discs and also another one, a regular 4.7 GB disc, when I burned the ISO images I described before, and encountered no issues.

Now, you stated before that one thing that the infamous "Power calibration failed" message did not come from was VideoStudio...

As I said before, I'm not prepared yet to challenge that assertion, but let me be blunt... What if, in fact, it turns out to be a VS12 own issue?

I tell you this, I used Ulead VS 10 and 11 Plus and this same DVD burner before with no issues whatsoever. The drive was installed in a ThinkPad T42 and now I have been using a T61, but I don't think this would be the cause of the problem.

Also, on my past experience using that equipment, my OS was Windows XP and now I'm using Windows 7. But, again, would the OS be the reason for the problem? Possible, maybe, but quite unlikely, since I believe VS12 is fully Windows 7 compatible. Or so they state...

In summary and in all honesty, Ken, I keep leaning more and more towards believing that the issue may be actually residing within... VS12!!!

Is anyone here, in any way or capacity, connected to Corel itself? Or anyone with an "easy link" with Corel's technical people, who could try to find out what they may have to say about this?

As a matter of fact, the issue (whatever it is or whatever it may be coming from) is reported as widespread, even if I never found any solid explanation and/or definite remedy.

What else can I do?

Your comments, as the comments from anyone else, will be greatly appreciated, as always.

Thank you.

[Ken Berry]

I can't deny absolutely that the problem is associated with X2. However, if you did as I suggested very early in this thread and type that message into Google, you will see it is a common problem, and associated with many different programs .. and not just X2, or even VS...!! Hence my earlier comments...

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi zelopes

For further support, try the Corel site Support, you may have to plough through a few pages before you get to fill in a complaint.
I don¡¦t have any direct links, and these will vary depending on where you are in this big wide world.?
Usually an e-mail generates some response, and maybe followed up by phone.

The ¡¥admin¡¦ members may have a link for a more direct route.

Good luck as the ¡¥support¡¦ is usually for the latest versions of VS and that is now X3.
But it is early days with X3 and they may be still covering X2.
¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K¡K..
I can understand your thoughts as to VS X2 being partially responsible for the Power Calibration problem, given that you say earlier versions gave no problems.

But I have always understood that it is usually a hardware issue.

Well you seem to have a few options
Somehow fix X2, that¡¦s if X2 is the problem
If it is burner/disc compatibility then one of them has to be changed.

I know you have tried most things, I am loosing track on just what you have tried¡K¡K¡K.
In the meantime if you can successfully create a Disc Image, an ISO file, or a DVD Folder
Then use another program to burn the disc. At least it completes the DVD.

If that process is always successful then your back to the drawing board with X2

[zelopes]

Ken, Trevor, thank you very much for your continued help.

Do you know if a can use one of these converted video files to burn a DVD with VS10?

As you know, these files were captured with X2 (VS12) and was mulling the idea of trying to burn one of them into a DVD using VS10, which I still have installed in my T42 machine, running on Windows XP.

Any thoughts, please?

[zelopes]

I might have gotten the answer to my own question.

'"File not compatible"...

And zap, program closed itself.

No way out, I guess...

[Ken Berry]

If you are talking about a video file (.e.g. an mpeg-2) produced/rendered from a project in X2, then it should be compatible with VS10.

If you are trying to open an X2 *project file* (.vsp) then it will not open as VS is not backwards-compatible. In X2 you have the project open, and have to 'File > Save As' a VS10 project...

[zelopes]

More news...

...And I may have proven my case.

Thanks to Ken's hint, I did manage to load the file created with X2 into the VS10 environment. From there, I performed all the normal steps and guess what... I burned this file to a DVD with Ulead VideoStudio 10!!!

The facts:

-- This computer runs on Windows XP Pro
-- The DVD drive is the same (it was swapped from my other laptop)
-- The disc is of the same type as the ones tried with X2 (DVD+R 4.7 GB) in the other machine.

Where the hell does that "Power calibration" message come from? Where is the culprit?

Now this comes to remove a range of the previously suspected (or suggested) sources of the problem:

-- It does not come from the Matshita DVD drive...
-- It does not come from the discs...

So where can it come from?

Fact in point: It may still come from X2!!! Or it may still come from a bad work relationship between X2 and Win7... Unfortunately, I installed VS10 to my Windows 7 machine but, as I suspected, there are compatibility issues between the two, so I could not complete this extra test.

Here's what happened:

I could load, edit and trim my video clip captured originally with X2 but, for reasons unbeknown to me, when I click the "Create disc" button, it leads me, as expected, on the screen that reads "Add media" -- "Add/Edit chapter" -- "Create menu"... The clip even shows there in its expected place, except that, at the very bottom of this screen, the dark-blue bar with those three buttons for the settings on left side and (even more importantly) the "Next" button on the right side are all missing... And this, of course, prevents me from advancing to the next step (menu creation and burning).

If I could have this last test completed, I would have the final proof to enable me to say, without any doubt, that the fault resides squarely on X2, as I more and more come to suspect...

In any case, though, do I have already a sufficient basis for presenting my case to Corel?

I believe I do! What do you people think?

To all of you, I must reiterate, your hints and your continued help have been the one single reason why I managed to come to this point. I hope they will still lead me to a clearer, more definitive conclusion.

Many thanks.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi zelopes

I think there is some confusion regarding Video Files and a Video Studio Project.

After editing your project, if you Share Create Video File-DVD will create a video file (an mpeg2) suitable for burning a dvd.
You can use this video file (mpeg 2) in many different programs to burn a dvd, including VS 10.

In the same way, from the edit timeline you could do Share Create Disc.
But its this burn process that¡¦s causing the Power Calibration problems.
Here you can opt to create a Disc Image (ISO) or a DVD Folder (Video_TS) to overcome the problem, which leaves you using a third party program to burn the DVD.
You are using Windows 7 which is capable of burning the ISO hence creating your DVD.

At least you should be able to complete your DVD.

If you have Power Calibration problems using W7 to burn the disc, then I¡¦m afraid we are still looking at disc compatibility.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

Just read your last reply

There are known compatibility problems, one of which is the Next button being unavailable.
Using your keyboard hit Alt+N to advance to the next screen