Menu chapters and Video Freeze or skip

Post by **Ron P.** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 7:02 pm

VS PRO Help File wrote: Optimizing MPEG videos
VideoStudio's MPEG Optimizer makes creating and rendering movies in MPEG format a lot faster.

It analyzes and finds the best MPEG settings or the Optimal project settings profile to use for your project. In doing so, it saves time by keeping your project's original segments with settings compatible to the Optimal project settings profile and maintains high quality for all segments including the ones that need re-encoding or re-rendering. As an additional feature, you can now specify the file size of your output to comply with file size limitations for your project.

After selecting MPEG Optimizer in the Share Step Options Panel, VideoStudio displays the MPEG Optimizer dialog box and shows what percentage of your project needs to be re-rendered.

The MPEG Optimizer automatically detects changes in your project and renders out only the edited portions, making render time much shorter and faster.

The red sections on the optimizer bar, will not create problems. It is just showing you the amount (percentage) that needs to be recoded, generally due to some effects, transitions, or added clips. Those areas reflected in Green do not need to be recoded.

I would use the DVD NTSC setting, because the MPEG-2 video file will meet DVD specs. Just using MPEG-2 does not guarantee the file meets DVD specs. The bitrate of 9200 may be a little high, depending on the length of your video. If it is 1 hour or less it should fit on a Single Layer DVD. More than 1 hour, you will need to use a lower bitrate. Most of the time for Standard Def DVDs, using 8000 or less should produce a very good quality video.

Brianottawa · Post by **Brianottawa** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 4:21 am

First, thanks for the tips and advice...I have been able to creat my chapters menu, although it was not as easy as it shold be...took some time.

And after going through all that, I have sarted to burn a DVD. I had checked the stettings in some of the drop down info menus, and it was telling me that the DVD would brn at 8000 kbs, which was great, although I didn't tell it to do that, I ust assumed that this was what it was defaulting to.

Unfortunately, after takng for ever to render and reare to burn to DVD, I see that the actual speed s at 16x and 22160 kbps. ??

Clearly I needed to set the speed slower, but I did not see any tab or spot where could set that up...where do I do that, at what stage?

Cheers!

Post by **Ron P.** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 9:37 am

To set a slower burn speed, click on the i with a disc icon located in the lower left of the final screen. This opens the burn options dialog window, where the speed can be adjusted..

Post by **Ken Berry** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 12:26 pm

Could I also ask where you found the bitrate which you say was 22160 kbps? That sort of bitrate is only consonant with high definition, and simply cannot be set by Video Studio if you chose to burn a DVD -- it is way beyond the maximum total (video + audio) bitrate of 10,000 kbps...

If you produced a video in the editing module which had a bitrate of 8000 kbps and the default burning bitrate is -- as you suggest (and I agree) --- 8000 kbps (check in the middle of the three icons in the bottom left of the burning screen, then it would have burned at 8000 kbps. Moreover, if in the same icon, you left the box 'Do not convert compliant mpeg files' ticked as it is also by default, then your original bitrate of 8000 kbps would not have been altered in any case.

Brianottawa · Post by **Brianottawa** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 1:30 pm

Thanks Ron, thanks Ken. First, I did go to that disk with the i on it (final screen before burning) and when I went to the disk speed options, the lowest speed option in the drop down menu was 16x, then 24, 40 48. Nothing lower.

The kbps info I noted was what the bar information told me during the final, final stage of the burn to disk, after all the rendering, converting ect. I did leave the 'don't convert compliant MPEG box checked, as directed.

I wonder if this is a verion issue. I am using VS X2 and my screen boxes are gark grey, and I noticed Ron, your screen captures are showing the boxes as light grey. Also...my top bar refers to the program as being a Corel VS...yours says Ulead. Are you using version X2? Have they eliminated the lower speeds in the newer version?

Post by **Ron P.** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 1:51 pm

The screenshots are just from Steve's tutorial From Camcorder to DVD with VideoStudio. I think he used VS 10 or 11, however the method and information is the same in VS Pro.

Your burner in your PC may not be capable of a burning speed less than 16x. That's fine if that's the case. However in WinXP you can set your burner to burn at a slower speed. Go to My Computer where it shows all your drives. Select and right-click on your DVD burner, and select properties from the menu. You should get a dialog opened like in the following screenshot..

Brianottawa · Post by **Brianottawa** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 2:19 pm

Hummm...Ijust put the disk in the player and by all accounts it seemed to play alright. I didn't watch the whole thing mind you...but I was able to advance to all the chapters, I was able to view the footage at the begining, middle and end with no skipping or frequent freezing, so maybe it has worked after all!! Wouldn't that be something?

We will watch it tonight and see what sort of quality we get.

Brianottawa · Post by **Brianottawa** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 2:22 pm

Thanks Ron, that's terrific! I'll check that out too! Thanks so much for your help!!

Brianottawa · Post by **Brianottawa** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 10:00 pm

I just tried to change the burn speed on the computer but Vista does this differently than XP, and the feature to make that change is not available in that place. I did a search on the web, but can't seem to see a way to change the speed setting on Vista.

If Windows keeps making enhancements and improvements to their OS I'll be using a pen and paper again in no time.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 10:07 pm

the lowest speed option in the drop down menu was 16x, then 24, 40 48. Nothing lower.

The problem is that those disc speeds you are getting are NOT DVD speeds, but CD speeds. So I guess the obvious question is what type of disk you are using -- can you give also give us the brand?

And what about my other question above above that enormously high bitrate -- where did you find that?

Both the above factors, though, really make me wonder what you have chosen both as medium (CD or DVD) or format (DVD or, say, AVCHD hybrid disc)...

Brianottawa · Post by **Brianottawa** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 2:19 pm

Hi Ken,

I selected DVD in the choices to burn. I used a Memorex DVD+R recordable DVD. When I look at the Properties it said my Mpeg conversion was 8000 kbps.

I saw the speed and bit rate info during the final burn stage after I clicked on 'burn disk', and after it converted and did all that stuff it needs to do to prep the data/disk, and as it was actually burning to disk there are two status bars...the lower bar on the screen was telling me that it was going at 16x and taking 22160 kbps. At this point I thought: "well, that's not going to work." But lst night we watched it and it seemed to be working no problem. Although I would feel better had I seen it at a lower speed and bit rate, as per your previous comments. I'm not sure what to do to controll that.

I'm quite puzzeled by the whole thing. I'm sure the software is great, but I must admit it has a LONG way to go with respect to being user friendly.

Should I be selecting DVD to burn...or AVCHD? Not sure what that even is. I want high quality, but I am not using a HD vid camera. I have a HD TV, and a BlueRay player. I selected DVD, because that was what I was using to burn to.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:49 pm

If you do not have a HD camcorder then you need to create a standard definition DVD. Think of it this way.

A HD TV set can play High Definition (HD) video and also Standard Definition (SD) video.
A SD TV set can play Standard Definition video but it cannot play High Definition video.

Similar situation with DVD Players.
Blue Ray can play HD and SD.

"Ordinary" DVD players cannot play HD/Blue Ray.
"Ordinary" (SD) blank DVD discs are cheap, Blue Ray discs are expensive. A work round by the boffins to get 20 minutes of HD Video onto a cheap "Ordinary" SD DVD disc is by using a cheat method - AVCHD - this is sort of a half way house between HD?Blue Ray and SD. When you create an AVCHD disc you cannot play it on an ordinary DVD player - you need either a blue ray player or a playstation 3.

It is also worth noting that Discs are becoming less popular now due to the advent of SDHC memory cards. These postage stamp sized memory cards can now go up to 32 GB, even that is being surpassed as we speak by another format SDXC which goes up to a whopping 2TB (yes - Two Terra bytes!)

I can see the day when we go to the local Video Rental shop and come out holding a stamp sized SDHC / SDXC card rather than a disc.

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 7:53 pm

I can see the day when we go to the local Video Rental shop and come out holding a stamp sized SDHC / SDXC card rather than a disc.

And I lose stuff now!

Brianottawa · Post by **Brianottawa** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 9:18 pm

Wow, that would be something...that's pretty small and a lot of capacity. Very cool. I don't have a problem with disks going away, so long as I can transfer my movies easily. My next hurdle will be to transfer my tapes from my older video cameras to the computer....made more challenging by the fact that my cam corders are not working anymore!

Looking forward to hearing what Ken has to say about my speed and feed problem...Good Morning Ken.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 10:19 pm

As for the size of SD cards, don't forget that there is now also the micro SD card, which is only around 0.5 cm (or 1/4 inch) square! I currently have two -- one in my HDV video camera (for the still photos), and one in one of my mp3 players. Some of them, at least (e.g. the Kingston ones I have), come with adapters which allow them to be inserted into mini SD and normal SD cases!! But those micro ones are very difficult even to hold on to, even for someone like me who has fairly small hands... So very easy to lose. Both of mine hold 8 GB...

As for the speed and feed problem, I suspect the latter word explains the 22,000 kbps -- in that it is the speed at which VS is feeding in the data to be burned, rather than the bitrate actually burned on the disc, if that makes any sense. But I remain puzzled by the 16x. In the explanation you gave, it seemed clearly to be a CD drop down list as only they have that variety of speeds up to 52x. But it could just be that if you were using 16x DVDs and selected 16x in that drop down list, then it simply burned at the maximum speed for that disc i.e. 16x. But if it plays OK, then it *is* OK!!