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I have yet to complete a successful burn of a dvd since I was forced to "upgrade" to VS12 from VS10. The mpeg file is significantly shorter than the disc capacity. Sometimes it burns successfully (those were experiments rather than the final project) but most of the time it either freezes or I get the "video studio has encountered a problem and needs to close" message. In the process Windows is compromised and I have to restart. I Can't even eject the disc. This always reveals the problem that something called mediahub.exe is not responding.
I might add that I work with no programs open, no internet connection and all virus and spyware software disabled.
I am at a loss as to what to try next? I just successfully burned a disc, went back and added a few titles to the chapters, tried to reburn and bingo, VS12 needs to shut down.

I suspect that mediahub.exe may be your problem. And as you may already have guessed, it is not a part of Video Studio. Check your computer and you are likely to find you have either an old Sonic DigitalMedia LE software installed, or a newer Roxio Easy Media Creator. The packet writing software in these usually takes control of your burner and denies it to other programs such as Video Studio. The Roxio module is called 'Drag to Disc'. If you have that, it has an internal control which allows you to disable it. I am not sure about DigitalMedia, but you would need to look to see if it can be internally disabled. Both these packages are often pre-installed when you buy a new computer. And if you have them but never use them, you could try uninstalling them and then see what happens when burning a disc with VS.

Hi Nicholas

Sorry to hear you are still having problems, I remember your posts from the past.

In addition to Kens advice , Nero has a similar program called InCD, this also takes control of the CD drive.
Although I don¡¦t know if this program is associated with (mediahub.exe)

Same solution though, if you don¡¦t use, uninstall.

I am afraid that mediahub was not the problem. I uninstalled all the Roxio products such as My DVD LE but I am still unable to burn that project. The burn step either ends in "Video Studio has encountered a problem and needs to close ....." or else it hangs (although the Task Manager claims that the program is still running). The problem does seem to be related to this particular project, since I tried a small test project which burned ok.
I did all the "good" things like coverting my project to a single mpeg file, so I have nothing on the timeline. The length, according to the info on the burn page, is ok to fit on the disc. Heck, this is not the first one for me

Have you done a regedit search to see if mediahub is still on your computer, despite your having uninstalled related programs?

No, Ken, I have not but, meawhile, I think I have found the "problem": the duration of the project was slightly longer than one hour. With VS10 I used to routinely record on dvd up to 1 hr and 10 min, but with VS12, as soon as the duration goes over 1 hr, the system quits. I just burned a project which ran for 59 min 55 sec
Those numbers which appear on the burn page which show the available and required spaces (plus the numbers in brackets !!) seem to be totally meaningless.
Anyway, I do appreciate your patience and, as always, willingness to help neophites like me.

That's strange as I have burned quite a few DVDs using X2 which went over 1 hour by say 10 minutes or so. However, I achieved that by either reducing the bitrate a bit, or more often, by using Dolby or mpeg layer 2 audio instead of LPCM (either of which usually give about 10 minutes more space). I confess, though, that I did not actually burn a DVD itself using X2. For a long time, I have used VS in various versions to 'burn' a DVD folder. This then allows me to burn a number of DVDs easily, and for that I use Nero.

However, I think if there were a general problem with burning over one hour of video to a single layer DVD using X2, we would have had lots of complaints from other users by now.

Thanks Ken. Indeed I was using lpcm audio, whereas in the past I usually usde Dolby. Is there any easy way of knowing before rendering the project to a single mpeg file whether it will actually fit on the disc?

I always first convert any completed project into a DVD-compatible mpeg-2 in the Editing module, before I ever open the burning module. That includes setting the final bitrate and choosing the audio format while still in the Editing module. Then I know exactly how big -- and thus how long -- the final video will be when burned to the DVD. And when I insert it in the burning module, and have the 'do not convert compliant mpeg files' box ticked in the Options icon there, I will know that a (for example) 4 GB mpeg-2 file produced in the Editing module will take up 4 GB when burned to DVD. I always tend to aim for something around 4 or 4.1 GB, so as to leave a couple of hundred MB for the menu. The more complex your menu is (e.g. using video backgrounds and other effects), the larger the menu will be.

Sounds like a neat way of doing it but I can not see how this can be done in EDIT. Can you give me a pointer? I have been doing things through SHARE and the Create Video File option which is much more constraining than what you describe.

Well, it sounds as though you are using the same workflow... as long as you are, in fact, doing your editing and then choosing Share > Create Video File as you said above, and not Share > Create Disc immediately after you have finished editing.

It's the workflow which a number of us here have followed for years. But for the sake of completeness here, I will outline the steps I follow in detail, just so you can compare it with what you do.

You do all your editing (in the Editing module, obviously). Put all your transitions, titles, background music, voice-overs etc together the way you want. Then you simply choose Share > Create Video File > [DVD]. I put the latter in square brackets because that is where you may -- or may not -- have a little extra work to do. If you think your project is less than an hour (or of course it is only going to be one project which is later burned to a single DVD with other projects), then you can simply choose Share > Create Video File > DVD, and accept the default properties which would normally use a high quality bitrate (8000 kbps) and probably LPCM audio. Those settings would allow one hour of video to be burned later to a single layer DVD.

But if you want to vary things -- for instance, if your video was UFF and the default settings were LFF -- then you will need to use Share > Create Video File > Custom. Then you can go into the dialogue boxes which appear and vary the properties to what you want -- for example, change the Field Order, or the bitrate or the audio format etc. Then you OK out of all that, and a new DVD-compatible mpeg-2 will be produced -- all still while you are in the Editing module.

Note, that if you think you are going to be using those same properties for a number of projects, then it is a good idea to make a custom template with those properties using Tools > Make Movie Template Manager. That way your new template will appear at the bottom of the drop-down menu when next you choose Share > Create Video File.

Note also that 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. Then build your menus and burn.

One other variant of this is to ensure in File > Preferences > General, you tick the box beside 'Show message when insert first video clip'. That way, next time you insert a file in the timeline at the beginning of a project, you should get a message asking if the project properties should match the properties of the video file. If that is what you want, then you say yes. Then you do your editing. And then, when you choose Share > Create Video File, you can choose either Same As First Clip or Same as Project Properties.

Many thanks for that Ken. Actually I have been following pretty well the work flow that you suggest, following a posting by jchunter_2 bak in 2004.
What tripped me up now was the failure to realize that lpcm requires more space than dolby. Everything seems to work fine now.
By the way, since I often mix dvi and mpg clips in the same project, I do not use Smart Rendering when I render.
Have you tried the Optimizer in the VS12 "create a video file" option? I find that it takes just as long as "custom".
All the best.

By the way, since I often mix dvi and mpg clips in the same project, I do not use Smart Rendering when I render.

That's exactly why you want to use SmartRender; so you don't re-render the MPEG-2 clips.

Hi Nicholas

Smart Render works when rendering a video file using the same video properties.
The portions that have been edited receive full rendering, smart render has no effect, the portions of video that have no change get Smart Render applied, which speeds up the conversion process.

When you render a DV-Avi to Mpeg Smart Render has no effect.

If you render a Mpeg 2 file but change the Bit Rate, (say lowering the bit rate to make a smaller file size), then again Smart render has no effect.

I use the Make Movie Manager to create my templates.
Each time I create a home movie I find I am using the same source material, that is from my camcorder.
I edit in a similar way and finally Create a Video File, which always have very similar properties, the only change may be the bit rate, and only when I have a long movie.

So I use the Manager, and I know that my render settings are gonna be the same every time.

On July 23 2008 I posted a problem I was having in rendering a project comprising both DV/avi and mpeg2 clips. The problem manifested itself in the audio for the avi portion appearing with the mpeg2 portion (!) and part of the video was "frozen". Ken Berry made several suggestions including turning off Smart Rendering. I did so and all my problems went away. So, although I do not feel qualified to dispute what black lab and trevor andrew write, all I can say that turning off Smart Render works for me when I mix dv/avi and mpg2.
By the way, has anyone tried the Video Optimizer in Share>Create Video in VS 12?
Is it not equivalent to Smart Render? I tried it and it works but no saving in time