Can't create any videos

[starrion]

Hi All,
I hope this is not covered anywhere else but I will be honest, my frustration level is about at 11. Between the lack of customer support and searching through articles and FAQs and threads for hours, I am about fed up.

Anyway I am hoping you folks can help me. I took some videos with both my phone (MPG4) and a digital camera I have (3GP). I saved them to my hard drive. I can watch them on my computer. When I want to edit them however I am having difficulty pulling some of the larger files into VideoStudio X4 Pro but the bigger problem is, even with the smaller files I get pulled in, I can't create any type of output. When I try I get a crash and a message to send the dump files in. Which I have learned on this forum there is no way to do! (added frustration).

I originally had Dazzle and it had its issues. Stability mostly but it did a good job. Then Pinnacle bought it and they basically forced you to upgrade to their Studio program which really was much worse. So after a couple of years fighting that program I decided I would get something new. ALL the reviews said this was the way to go. This was a great program. I tried the trial version and it seemed to work fine. It appeared to be a good basic video editor which is all I need. So I buy the thing and install it and now I can't even use it. You know how frustrating it is to work up a video only to have it crash and burn when you go to save it?

I am going to go have a drink and hope someone can help me and I find an answer when I get back to a place where I can deal with this!

Silly question, we are all here because we are having problems of one sort or another. I am still hopeful this will turn out to be a good product but if I can't get this issue solved I can't even use the program at all.

[Ron P.]

Welcome to the forums,

Without a little more information it's difficult to say why this is happening. Please go to the this sticky post at the top of the forum, Please Read this First before posting, and provide the required information. We do appreciate you completing your system information in your profile. That leads me to this question, which may be causing the crashes. Is your system information correct? A 1.1Ghz processor? If so and you're video files are much of anything beyond simple DV, you just don't have enough horsepower, especially if they are AVCHD.

To try and cope with highly compressed video files, you need to make sure you are not running any services, resources that are not essential to editing your video. You might want to read through Steve's article Creating a Video Editing Profile.

[starrion]

OK, so here is where I stand now. After getting away from it yesterday I sat down this morning and followed your advice.
Setting up the Video Profile was nice, took a while but I got the desired results and I don't mind putting in the work to get where I need to go.
So I tried a small video file (3gp about 45 seconds) It imported it fine and while I did not edit it I was able to save it as an AVI file but nothing else. Still crashed.

I also tried Importing an MPEG-4 but it never pulled it in and just crashed.

Yes, unfortunately my processor is only 1.1 Mhz.

What would you recommend now?

P.S. Thank you for your help. I apologize for the tone of the post yesterday. I was very frustrated. On top of this issue I am dealing with my ISP and my VOIP provider because I am having trouble making outgoing calls and because of access issues I can't fix it myself and my ISP seems to have no idea what tech support at the VOIP company is telling me to tell them what to do. My frustration with technology was at an all time high I think!

And thanks for the welcome to the boards! I really am hopeful I can get this to work. It seems like a great software package!

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

Can you provide a little more info regarding your video files.

With the clips in the timeline, right click and select properties, what are they?
Do this for all types.
You could insert the image to the post using the Upload Attachment option to the bottom of the post.

Can you also say if you are in Pal or Ntsc country.

Quick Time
This has caused crash problems for some users using the latest versions.
It is recommended to install an earlier version of QT
Yep I realise this relates to X3
By the way the X4 software installs version 7.5.5 provided a later version is not installed

If you still have problems then converting your video to a more editable format may be the way to go, many on the forum use a small program called “Super”

[Ken Berry]

But overall, I really think your computer's old processor carries a lot of the blame. The recommended minimum system requirements for X4 include the following (available on the Corel.com website):

Intel® Core™ Duo 1.83 GHz, AMD Dual-Core 2.0 GHz or higher recommended

Your processor falls well below this. So just getting the program to work with any video format will be an enormous challenge. And as already indicated by Ron above, if your mpeg-4, for instance, is high definition mpeg-4, then your system simply would not be able to play it, let alone edit it -- and that would probably be the case using even SmartProxy which is built into VS and used to allow less powerful computers to work with the more demanding formats.

[starrion]

OK, so I deleted Quick Time and installed the older version. Didn't seem to make a difference.

I am in the U.S. So I use NTSC.

I can not find anywhere where it gave me a version 7.5.5. If you tell me where to look I will try to find it but I gave the only numbers that looked like a version to me.

I am able to insert 3gp files and save as AVI but that's about all. I am attaching a screen shot of the properties of the 3gp file.

The attachment 3gp properties.JPG is no longer available

I can't import any MPG-4 files so I can't get the properties. I tried to attach a 10 second MPG-4 file here but when it gets to 100% everything just clears out and there is no text and no video.

I went back and I put an old CPU I had in the machine which is a 1.5 GHz (Don't ask because I don't understand why this is the way it is, other than when I bought this motherboard and CPU USED, I got screwed). That didn't make a difference either, but I know its still under the recommended speed.

Why would the CPU speed make a difference in importing or writing the files? I could understand it taking forever but why would it not do it at all and give me an error?

I am strating to think I have to get a new computer (which I can't afford).

[Ron P.]

I can not find anywhere where it gave me a version 7.5.5. If you tell me where to look I will try to find it

At the top of this forum there is a sticky post called Earlier QuickTime Player Versions, go there for links to Apple's website where you can download an earlier version.

I can't import any MPG-4 files so I can't get the properties.

In the screenshot you provided look at what it says beside Video Type, which is MPEG-4 SP video. I'd say that's an MPEG-4 file wouldn't you? Ok may be a little unfair, because video file types can be confusing. With video what really counts as the video format is the codec used. There's several file types that use different codecs, *.avi is the biggest having over 800 different codecs used in the avi wrapper. MPEG is also a wrapper, and can hold different codecs. 3GGP is another container format.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GP_and_3G2.

Why would the CPU speed make a difference in importing or writing the files?

When you edit a photo you're working on just one or two photos, which would be the equivalent of 1 or 2 frames of video. Video is made of many frames. Your camcorder or camera nowadays, records those photos at various rates. These are called the frame rates, and the unit of measure is time, namely seconds. According to your screenshot that video file was recorded at 23.633 frames per second (23.633fps). So for every second of video you will have just shy of 24 frames or 24 photos. According to your screenshot, that video file has 330 frames, so you're in essence working on 330 photos at a time just with that one clip. Would be that bad if all those photos were around 320 x 240px. However your frame size/resolution is 1280 x 720px, that's a High-definition format, not a Standard-Definition. Not only must you work on 330 photos, but they are 330 HD photos. If you have a digital still camera that takes photos of that resolution, which most take much higher resolution, open 330 of them in your favorite photo editing program and see what happens. I know my computers would freeze up and crash, because I don't have enough RAM and Virtual memory to handle it.

Are you understanding why they set minimum system requirements for video editing programs the way they do? It gets more complicated, because with video you may also deal with interlaced video, which uses 2 fields to produce a single image/frame. Video editing is very demanding on computer resources. With my laptop, which is a Dual Core 1.73Ghz, a very low-end, processor, I don't even attempt to edit any highly compressed video file formats. It just will not handle it. I could edit the file in your screenshot, because it's not using one of the highly compressed schemes, like AVCHD, but if I tried to get to complex with my project I would have the same problem as you.

I hope that gives you a better understanding as to why you're having the problem, and what you may need to do to overcome it. Basically you're trying to pull a freight-train with volkswagon beetle. It just doesn't work...

[starrion]

Ok. I get it now. Makes perfect sense. Until I can get a faster machine I'll try shooting lower resolution. Maybe it will help.

Could you explain why its a 3gp file but says mpeg-4.

Seems like I should be able to insert a file with an mpeg4 extension then.

I do truly appreciate the time you are spending teaching me. I am pretty tech savvy but this video stuff has really been all hocus pocus to me.

[Ron P.]

I don't fully understand and so far have never tried to use any of the mobile video formats, which the 3G, 3G2, 3GPP are. They are the container/wrapper, just like a paper sack in a grocery store. The containers use a slew of different file extensions, *.avi, *.mpg, *.mp4, *.wmv and so on. They will have header information, that tells operating systems, and stand-alone players to play or not to play them, and how.

For example if you insert a video DVD into your DVD tray on your PC, and rather than play it, right-click on it windows explorer, and choose Explore, you will see 2 folders, VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS. The latter will most likely be empty. However open the VIDEO_TS folder and see if you can find any *.mpg files? The International DVD Specifications state that all video DVDs must use MPEG-2 video files, which will have the *.mpg extension. They're there, and they certainly are not hidden. See if you can find any files that have the *.vob? Should be a few in there, along with *.ifo, and *.bup. The *.vob files are nothing more than mpeg-2 video files, with a little more data tacked on so your stand-alone DVD player knows how to play them. The *.vob file is a wrapper too.

You watch much YouTube? Those use FLV (Flash Video) files, which are the most efficient files for streaming video. Streaming is a method used so the internet does not have supply with the whole video file at one time to play it. It can feed you little chuncks, progressively so you can start watching your video while it is being downloaded. Well guess what, the codec (CO=Compressor, DEC=Decompressor) used in most FLV files is some form of MPEG-4.

CODEC's are of course programming code, used to compress data for storage and delivery, then decompress it for viewing/use. There's a ton of variations around. Each will have a slightly different approach, even those using the same file extenstions. To compress data they use algorithms to determine what data is kept and what is thrown away, yes thrown away, discarded. Colors is a good example for this. They will sample colors in an image, and just keep 1 of each, and then use that sampling to replicate throughout the image. So if you say have a square 10 pixel X 10 pixel image that is red, well they are going to sample and keep the upper-left red pixel, and the remaining red pixels are discarded. Now to re-create that same rectangle, the decompression, they wil just use that 1 pixel sample from the upper-left of the previous one.

So now with that in mind, CODECs used in video files, must compress a lot of data. The larger the image, the more crisp and clear, the more detailed, must be compressed more in order for the files to be smaller in size. SD (Standard-Def) video uses resolutions no larger than 720 x 480pxs. Some of the higher-compressed formats are MPEG, and DivX. Any resolution greater than that are HD (High-Def) videos, and thus must use yet a compression scheme that is able to compress and decompress many times more. This is what taxes computer systems. To use a video file, be it play or edit, your computer must decompress these extremely fast. Imagine having a sheet of paper that is 100 ft X 50 ft, folding into a tiny little package of only 5 inches X 2 inches. But you not only have the 1 sheet of paper, you have thousands of them, if not millions. You must be able to fold each one of them into those tiny little packages, and then unfold them in nano-seconds. That's why it takes more and more horsepower in computers these days to do what appears to be very simple things.

When your computer was built, there was no such thing as the 3GGP formats using the current compressions. The internal chip-sets for your RAM, hard-drives, and video cards have the proper coding to be able to deal with them. These current formats are written to make use of the current multi-core processors, the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit, which is on the video card itself, along with a massive amount of dedicated RAM), and even how the RAM on your MOBO is able to be used. All of these things need to work in harmony. Would be nice if they did, but those that make them, and those the write the software, don't work together that much. So when you try to put them all togther they don't always get along..

[starrion]

WOW! Thanks for the info. I really appreciate the lesson. I have a much better appreciation and understanding of the topic. And again thank you for taking the time to teach me!
I wish I could return the favor!

It would be nice though if an. Mpg-4 had an mpg-4 extension and there was just one mpg-4 CODEC and so on. That would make life easier.
I assume that probably has a bit to do with copyrights or they just find better algorithms for the CODECS so they have a new CODEC but if they changed extensions everytime there would be a lot of extensions to deal with (which would still be less confusing )
Rob