New user of DVD MF Pro 7

[FBX]

So I jumped right into making my first DVD with some 8mm footage I captured on my HD camcorder. I ended up doing some rather extensive editing, titling, and transition effects from within MF Pro 7. As such, I discovered a rather alarming set of bugs in the program, and I wanted to list them here to find out if they have been addressed in the patches:

1. As far as I can narrow down the cause, it appears that if you alter a soundtrack file AFTER you have assigned it to an editing project, you will then corrupt the project and render it unloadable the next time you run MF Pro 7. I discovered this when I added some soundtrack files to my 8mm editing project. One of the soundtrack files was about 5 seconds too long, so I loaded up my sound editor and shortened the track by 5 seconds. When I loaded up MF Pro 7 and pointed to my saved project, it loaded the project COMPLETELY EMPTY. I lost 4 hours of very careful editing work as a result. I had this happen a few more times, and that's when I figured out it the common factor was editing my sound files mid-project.

2. Changing a typo in text overlays is NOT sufficient to cause MF Pro 7 to detect a change has been made in the video. I discovered this when I burned my project onto disc after changing a typo in my end credits. When I loaded up the new copy in my DVD player, the original typo was still intact. I reloaded the project in MF Pro 7 and it showed I did in fact make the correction. After scratching my head in disbelief (and ruining about 3 blank DVD discs), I got the idea to add in a transition effect to see if this was enough to 'trick' MF Pro 7 into realizing the video had been altered. My idea worked, and the next DVD burn finally contained the corrected typo.

3. Random 'Unspecified Error' messages when attempting to burn a DVD project. I did some research online and found out this had something to to with the program being 'finicky' about custom DVD menus. After many, many, MANY attempts, I ultimately had to turn off any and all menu transitions, as this seemed to be the most common cause of the 'Unspecified Error' messages.

After telling my father about all these troubles I was encountering, he suggested I demand a refund. I'm willing to consider it just first-release bugs, and I'm hoping that the patch I found fixes these issues. I have to say though, it doesn't seem like this software was very heavily bug-tested. It took me all of ONE DAY to find these rather glaring issues...

[DVDDoug]

I'm sorry you are having so much trouble.

These problems are probably related to the file format from your camcorder. You didn't say what camcorder you are using or what format it puts-out.

There are thousands of formats & format variations, and unfortunately the Corel products have trouble with some of them. Worse, Corel doesn't warn you about this potential problem, and the software doesn't seem to know why it's having trouble! Sometimes the software doesn't seem to know there's a problem!

You may be able to set-up your camera for a different format, or you may need to convert your files to a different format (possibly with a 3rd-party program) before editing and DVD authoring.

The less-compressed formats are generally the least trouble. DVDs are MPEG-2, which usually works (although MPEG-2 is not the least-compressed or most trouble free). Movie Factory is going to have to convert your files to DVD-compatible MPEG-2 with DVD-compatible audio before it burns the DVD anyway.

...he suggested I demand a refund.

If Movie Factory doesn't work with the files from your camera and you don't want to bother with work-arounds, Corel offers a 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee.

...And, you could have downloaded the free trial.

I'm willing to consider it just first-release bugs

This is version 7.

[FBX]

It's not the file format of my camera. If that were the case, I wouldn't be able to make DVDs from the files in the first place. If you actually READ the details of the bugs I listed, you'll see it has nothing to do with the format of the source files. I already detailed the cause of each problem, which is entirely software related.

I hate to say this, but I expected a better more thought-out reply than "your camera files are incompatible". That's like telling a patient complaining of chest pains that his shoes are to blame. It makes just as much sense.

[teknisyan]

I'm sorry to hear that FBX,

Can you tell me if you have recently updated your DVD MF Pro 7 and DirectX? If your answer is not to both, you can download all update for DVD MF Pro 7, hereand Direct X here.

[DVDDoug]

It's not the file format of my camera... If you actually READ the details of the bugs I listed...

You might be right! Did you READ the word "probably" in my response? Nobody can know with certainty what the problem is until/if the problem is solved. This is a user-to-user forum and we can only guess and try to help you solve the problem, or help with your decision to give-up and get a refund. Do whatever you want. You don't have to listen to anyone here... or to your dad...

Most people are not having these problems. People with MiniDV cameras rarely have "weird" problems. But, people who download random files from the internet will run into problems sooner or later when editing or converting (files that play perfectly on WMP or other players). People who edit highly-compressed video from "still" cameras often run into problems too. Many strange problems go away when the files are converted to a "better" format before editing. This leads me to conclude that many weird/strange problems are file/format related.

[FBX]

So after installing the patch, I discovered some of the problems continued to persist. Nevertheless, I managed to figure out direct causes on a couple of them:

1. "Unspecified Error"

This massage came up again after I attempted to burn a project I had successfully burned the previous day. Since it was the EXACT same project as before, I knew there was some sort of default option getting reset within the program. I discovered it was the DVD menu transitions getting defaulted to their factory settings, rather than saving the fact that I had turned them off. Upon turning them off again, the project then burned successfully without a hitch. Now I ask you, is that because of my camera files? Absolutely not. That is the fault of the software, using menu transitions that causes it's own writing function to fail and create "Unspecified Error".

2. Video editing not matching the output disc.

I mentioned this coming up when I tried to edit a typo in the end credits of my project, only discover the output disc STILL had the typo intact. I have since discovered this is due to how the program stores the temporary mpeg file conversions it has made. It seems the program gets confused and improperly assigns older conversions to the current burn session by mistake. I found a fix to this by manually deleting all previous mpeg temp files, thus forcing the program to make/use a new current one. Everything has been burning with the proper updates since then. Yet again, this had nothing to do with my camera file formats. It was entirely the rather buggy nature of MF Pro 7 mishandling both it's own temp files, as well as it's own menu transitions.

[vasco]

I get the same as your paragraph 1 above. It's a bug in the software and very annoying. My advice is ALWAYS burn to an iso file first and burn to a dvd disk as a separate operation, but don't burn from MF burn.now, use another piece of software or if you have windows 7 use the built in burner.