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Hi all.
OK I am using a trial copy of Corel Videostudio 12.
I have never tried anything like it before so please be easy on me.
I have spliced together a friends wedding from loads of digital photos and 2 lots of DV videos (a Sony and a Panasonic) I have put a few tracks of music on it as well. Then whole thing is 1 Hour and 7 minutes long and when I play it back (through the project playback) it looks and sounds great (to me). I'm chuffed to bits and will now probably buy the latest edition.
But now for the problem: I have saved the project as a VSP and thats all ok. I have saved it as a Video file MPEG2 (which took nearly four hours to do) and that plays back on media player (not greatest quality, 2.5 GB). But when I try and burn it on a dvd ( tried dvd- and dvd+) it will fit (its 4.55 GB) but the process takes about 5-6 Hours!!! is this right?
When I do finally take out the dvd and try it on anyones dvd player, it seems to start of ok but then less than half way through it starts going blocky and the eventually freezes. The annoying part is it freezes in different places depending on what dvd player I play it in. But nonetheless it always goes juttery and freezes!! What am I doing wrong! Can anyone help?
My pc is running on XP pro
CPU is pentium4 2.5 Ghz
my Ram is 2Gb DDR2
and i have a 500GB hard drive
Many thanks ahead of any response.
Dave

Please read the following and provide the requested info so we can better determine what might be wrong.
http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?t=8959

First off, welcome to the Forums!

Although we still need that extra information requested by Black Lab, it sounds to me that part of your problem at least is that you are double rendering. Since that involves the lossy mpeg format, it is inevitable that you will lose quality.

You are starting off with DV format, which is excellent quality. When burning a DVD, you do not have any choice but to convert the edited project to mpeg-2 with certain properties which meet the international DVD standards. Now, given that you say your first converted video is only 2.5 GB in size for a 1 hour 7 minute project, I would say that you did not use very good quality settings for that conversion.

My own preference would be to do all your edits in DV format, then when you know you have finished editing, depending on how big your project is, select one of the following: either Share > Create Video File > DVD, or Share > Create Video File > Custom.

If you choose the former, this will certainly ensure you are converting to a fully DVD compliant mpeg-2. If you are in a PAL country, like me, you would have properties for that file like the following (this is the default setting):
24 bits, 720 x 576 (720 x 480 for NTSC), 25 fps (29.97 for NTSC)
Lower Field First
(DVD-PAL), 16:9
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 8000 kbps)
LPCM Audio, 48000 Hz, Stereo

Now with those settings, you would only be able to fit an hour of video onto a single layer DVD, so you would have to adjust these settings just a little to ensure you have a high quality mpeg-2 which will eventually fit on a DVD. In other words, you could not choose Share > Create Video File > DVD, but instead you would need to choose Share > Create Video File > Custom. A dialogue box will open, you give your new file a name then press the Options button. A further box opens with three tabs. Choose 'Compression'.

Now here, you can do one of two things. LPCM audio is the highest possible quality, but produces large files. So you can, with a project like yours, choose an alternative, more compressed audio format. In the trial version, I don't think you can choose Dolby, but you can choose mpeg layer 2 audio, which will give a similar, good quality but compressed audio. Using that, you can normally fit about 1 hour 10 minutes or so onto a single layer DVD. So that should take your current project.

An alternative would be to leave the audio at LPCM, but adjust the video bitrate down from the default 8000 kbps to around 7500 kbps. Again that will fit your project and still give you high quality mpeg-2 video. Then you OK out of that box, and Save in the next, to get start the conversion. That is a lengthy process, as you have found -- though I confess the time taken in your case seems just a tad long to me. But unfortunately, with different architecture in different computers, it is still in the ball park.

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 -- which again I am sure is happening since you say here that the process takes even longer than before.

Then build your menus and burn. One little thing you might want to look at here is in the menu creation stage in the burning module. When you open the burning module (Share > Create Disc), you first insert your video in the burning "timeline". If you want to add Chapters, then click the Add/Edit Chapters button. Then you click next, and the page where you choose a Menu template appears. Once you have selected a template, you click on the Edit tab on the same page to select background music, change the background photo etc.

Down in the bottom left corner of the Edit page, though, is an innovation which first appeared in in VS10, and has been continued in subsequent versions. I have found that it slows down my burning stage enormously, and even brought it to a complete halt, which could also be a factor in your case.
Now I never use it.

There are two icons, one above the other, labeled Menu In and Menu Out. Using them is supposed to animate the transition from the menu to a selected video clip. You will see that the Menu In icon is disabled by default (circle with diagonal line through it). But the Menu Out button is enabled. And this was the culprit. Click on the icon and it brings up a choice of animations. Choose the disabling one identical to the default for Menu In. Then proceed to burn. I think you should notice a considerable improvement in the speed.

Finally, while still on speed, there is a widely (though not unanimously) supported view here that you should use a relatively slow speed for burning. For example, I tend to use a particular brand of DVD because they are reliable. I get them with a maximum speed of either 8x or 12x. But when I am burning a video DVD, I never use a burning speed above 4x. this ensures a more solid burn and thus improve the chances of your DVD being read properly by a wider variety of stand-alone DVD players. If you have 16x or 20x rated DVDs, you probably will not be given the option of 4x, so in those cases, you would use, say, 8x.

When I do finally take out the dvd and try it on anyones dvd player, it seems to start of ok but then less than half way through it starts going blocky and the eventually freezes. The annoying part is it freezes in different places depending on what dvd player I play it in. But nonetheless it always goes juttery and freezes!!

This part of the problem sounds like a defective blank DVD or a 'bad burn".... Even though it's happening at different places in different players... Some players are more tolerant than others, and you might get different results when you play it a 2nd time in the same player. As Ken suggested, burning at a slower speed may help.

I've had a spindle of DVDs that apparently had lots of flaky discs, and I now run Nero CD-DVD Speed (FREE!!!) to test all of my DVDs after burning. It's a lot faster than sitting-down and carefully watching the DVD all the way through... especially if you're making more than one copy! If you check your bad DVD with Nero CD-Speed, I suspect it will find problems. If Nero finds a problem it's a disc-related data-reading problem. i.e. If you've got an encoding problem and you've burned a corrupt MPEG file onto the disc, Nero will happily read the corrupt data and report no problems. This is good because it can help pinpoint where the problem is occuring.

"Bad disc" problems can be hard to diagnose. Sometimes you've got a bad blank, or a bad batch of discs. Sometimes a particular burner "doesn't like" a particular brand of disc. Sometimes the burner is flaky, etc.

You should also be aware that some stand-alone DVD players have trouble with "burned" DVDs. I think this is becoming rare with newer players, but some have trouble with all burned DVDs, some have trouble with -R, and some have trouble with +R, or homemade dual-layer DVDs. Your odds are usually best with DVD-R.

Hi Dave

We are assuming you are using Dv-Avi files from your cameras, can you confirm what properties your captured files have.

Either --- Right click a clip in the timeline and select properties, what are they.

OR

Set ¡¥Show messages when inserting ..............¡¦ from File ¡V Preferences.
Start a new project¡Xadd one of your captured files to the timeline.
An info window should appear, select Details.
Use your mouse to select the details in the right panel ¡Vcopy and paste the details to the forum.

Then select yes/ok