VS4: Titles exporting/sharing problem

[fossil]

I am having a problem with titles. There is no video involved currently. I have experimented with many exports, including custom, mpeg, wmv, same as project settings, and I get the same results each time. The font, colour, size, etc. are irrelevant. There are "bits" missing out of the text.

I have used VS 10, 11, X2 and X4 so I thought I had a clue. Apparently not.

Here is a sample of how the title looks on the preview:

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll11 ... render.jpg

This is how it looks after rendering:

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll11 ... render.jpg

I am using the following:

VideoStudio ProX4 with all updates installed
Windows Vista
32-Bit
1.90 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core TK-57
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
512 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (2 total)
Not hyper-threaded

1149.76 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
102.97 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T40N ATA Device [Optical drive]

Hitachi HTS542516K9SA00 [Hard drive] (160.04 GB) -- drive 0, s/n 080606BB6C00WGCPH2TG, rev BBCOC31P, SMART Status: Healthy
Seagate FreeAgent USB Device [Hard drive] (1000.20 GB) -- drive 1, s/n 2GEXCCWZ

Thank you. Any help is appreciated! I'm hoping it's just me doing something silly and can be easily fixed. I hope...

[teknisyan]

This can be a codec issue.. Here are some of the codecs that you may want to install.
RealPlayer: http://www.real.com/
DivX: http://www.divx.com/en/software/divx-plus/codec-pack
XviD: http://downloads.xvid.org/downloads/xvidcore-1.3.2.zip
Windows Media Player: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... dia-player or just download the Windows Encoder at http://www.microsoft.com/expression/pro ... rview.aspx
QuickTime: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
Direct X: http://on-msn.com/aLrk0j (WinXP)
Direct X: http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/window ... tx-11.aspx

[fossil]

Thanks for the response. I'll give this a try because I have several projects pending.

[fossil]

I have still not solved my problem or figured out what is wrong.

I installed the codec packages suggested above. I upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate from Vista Home Premium. I also removed Pro X4 and reinstalled ProX2. Unfortunately while Pro X2 couldn't read the .vsp file, I experimented with titles and Pro X2 exported the titles that are rendering with the broken text in Pro X4 without a problem. I uninstalled Pro X2 and reinstalled Pro X4. Still have the same problem. Also any of the premade title cards available in Pro X4 show broken text occasionally on the time line. By way of experiment, nine of the ten premade title cards I dropped into the title time line rendered with broken text.

I should have mentioned previously that while the preview plays without the broken text, I can run the scrubber over the title cards and see the broken text, though not every time. It's random on preview but always on render.

I am at the point where I will make my title cards on a photoshopping program, import them as jpgs, and render the video projects I have completed to date. Then I will have to remove Pro X4 and return to Pro X2 if I can't solve this problem.

I would also like to understand what the codec has to do with titles when there is no video involved. I admit I won't understand all the codec issues and I might not understand that they're related to still images not just video. Other jpg images aren't affected by this problem. It is only the text on titles.

Any other ideas are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Ken Berry]

I can't help you on the text problems as I have no idea what could be causing it. In all my years on the Board, I can only recall one other user having a similar sort of problem, but only with certain fonts, and certainly not with the titles provided with the program.

If it will help your workflow, however, there is no need to uninstall X2. You can have multiple instances of Video Studio on the same computer, depending on what your operating system will take. Win 7 will accept X2 with a patch to make it fully compatible. It will also, of course, accept X3 and X4. But I guess you could try making your titles in X2 and 'sharing' them as video file them in the same video format as your whole project in X4. Then you would just have to insert those new videos into the X4 timeline at the appropriate points. Or in an overlay track if they are words against a solid colour background. That way you could chroma key out the colour background and have your words appear over the main video in the title track.

As footnotes to your other comments, while VS can open VSP files created in earlier versions, earlier versions cannot open VSPs made in later versions. You can, however, save a VSP in X4 which is in X3 or X2 format -- though it will lose any features that are in X4 but not in the earlier versions.

Finally, while I don't think your problem is related to codecs, the question of video codecs is relevant. Although you might include text titles and still images in your project, they still need to be rendered into video format in your final output. So video codecs thus become relevant to the whole exercise.

[fossil]

Thanks so much! I will at least reinstall X2 and not have to uninstall it. That's good information.

It's great knowing I have a problem nobody else has. I feel really special. And yes, it is the preinstalled titles also. I've driven myself nuts the past week experimenting with all sorts of things to try to rule out what is and isn't working. I think the easiest thing for me is to finish these four or five projects up with X4 using X2 for the titles (or heck, even WMM *cringe* which will make a darned title, and then dump X4 for good. *sigh* It doesn't do me any good to have a product that I can't use and can't figure out how to make work. I'm not even saying it's not me but if I can't beat it into submission, then I need to rethink my own abilities and what I can make work for me. I make videos for fun and this is just giving me more grey hair.

Thanks again.

[BrianCee]

Grasping at straws a bit here to try and help - are you putting the title in the 'Title' track - and is there anything at all in the video track - if not could you try just putting a colour block in the video track for the duration of the title.

[Ken Berry]

You also might want to experiment a little by downloading the trial version of Corel Motion Studio 3D which makes very professional titles. BluffTitler and Xara 3D are other titling programs I also use, though I am not sure if they have trial versions. But you could try making a simple title in one of them, exporting it as an uncompressed AVI (which is what I do, though you can save it to other formats as well), and then see if you can play it successfully in X4 with no bits dropped from the text.

And by the way, though X4's titling is a good deal more sophisticated (for everyone but you!! ) than its predecessors, many of us still prefer to use these third party software packages, as well as other programs for other parts of the editing process: transitions, audio, filters, music, voice-overs etc. To my mind at least, this does not diminish the value of VS, but enhances it!

[fossil]

Grasping at straws a bit here to try and help - are you putting the title in the 'Title' track - and is there anything at all in the video track - if not could you try just putting a colour block in the video track for the duration of the title.

I've put titles in the video track, the title track, the overlay track. I've tried about a hundred combinations! LOL! I've used VS for about six years now in its various incarnations so I'm really big on experimenting when things go wrong! Thanks, though. Yes, I've done color blocks, overlaid ten different fonts, colors, sizes, etc. You'd be able to walk to Paris with the time I've spent playing with this the past two weeks.

But I do appreciate you taking the time to consider the problem and respond. That means a lot.

Merry Christmas!

[fossil]

You also might want to experiment a little by downloading the trial version of Corel Motion Studio 3D which makes very professional titles. BluffTitler and Xara 3D are other titling programs I also use, though I am not sure if they have trial versions. But you could try making a simple title in one of them, exporting it as an uncompressed AVI (which is what I do, though you can save it to other formats as well), and then see if you can play it successfully in X4 with no bits dropped from the text.

And by the way, though X4's titling is a good deal more sophisticated (for everyone but you!! ) than its predecessors, many of us still prefer to use these third party software packages, as well as other programs for other parts of the editing process: transitions, audio, filters, music, voice-overs etc. To my mind at least, this does not diminish the value of VS, but enhances it!

Oh, okay. Thanks a bunch. *beg* I told you I feel special. I do use uncompressed avi files as well, and there's not been any problems importing any other files I've made elsewhere. It's just frustrating to be able to see the problem on the time line and not be able to fix it. I like to fix things!

Yeah, sort of like using WMM to make the title (which I resorted to!). I did also try a jpg title page from my drawing program and of course, the jpgs are fine. I will definitely give one of those a try. I will also try a combination of ProX2 and X4. Heck, might as well experiment more.

Merry Christmas!