How much disk space do I need?

[enrique]

I have a lot of photos that I need to put onto DVD. After reading everything on Ulead's website and trying the demo I decided to buy DVD Pictureshow 3.

But it tells me I don't have enough free disk space. I have about 1500 photos (can't remember exactly), grouped into 6 slideshows. All of the photos have been resized to 800x600, they're just plain ordinary jpg photos.

So anyway, since a DVD holds 4.6GB of data, and I have just over 10GB of disk space free, that it should work. It doesn't, even if I wait 12 hours it gets to 30% and fails because of disk space. My notebook has 30GB total, 20 being used with important programs and data. It's a 1 year old Pentium M 1.6, 1GB ram, with a DVD+R burner.

So to put it simply, how much disk space do I need? And why does it take so long to make a DVD?

Can I use a network share to store whatever temporary files it's creating? (I have a file server on a 100 mpbs network).

[2log]

You need a local hard disk to set your working folder to. It can't be a removable or network drive. The working folder is normally located in:
"...\My Documents\Ulead DVD PictureShow\3.0". Delete unnecessary files or files that you no longer use that are in this folder then you can also try to set the working folder into another folder or drive (as long as it is a local drive which means a hard disk directly connected to your computer or another partition of the same hard disk).

Also, at step 3 or the burning stage, make sure you only have one option checked. You can either choose to burn it directly, in which case it will need up to about 4.3 ~ 5 GB of space to store the temp files. You can save it as a disc image or save it to a dvd folder where it will need equally the same hard disk space. If you have all three enabled, it will need triple the hard disk space.

[enrique]

Thanks for your reply 2log. I've already cleared up as much space as I could. I was hoping an external drive or network share would do the trick but I guess not

I have a notebook so I only have one drive and it's not easy to just add another one. And yes I only have one of those options ticked, not 2 or 3. And I have 10GB free, which isn't enough. During the burn process it filled up my HD and failed.

So far it's looking like I can't use this program as it's meant to work and I need to purchase a new HD, backup all my data, reinstall Windows, reinstall all my apps, and try again. That's about $200 worth and a day's work

[heinz-oz]

Are you sure it filled up your HDD? Could also be that you have set (default, if I'm not mistaken) a max. file size for your temp files. If that's the case, remove the limitation and try again. Yes, it could take that long to convert your jpeg files to mpeg. The system needs to create a video file out of your images in DVD compliant mpeg. Don't forget to set the 'Anti flicker' option since you may find some of your images displaying an annoying flicker in areas of fine detail or distinct horizontal lines. it's best to use an image editing program like PhotoImpact to introduce a slight vertical motion blur, 1 or 2 pixels worth is usually enough and does not degrade the overall image quality. In PI, you could set a batch task to perform this action on all your images. Because of the number of images, you need to pay attention again as to where your temp files live and remove any file size restrictions.

[2log]

10 GB of free hard disk space is more than enough for you to successfully render a project... Make sure to choose only one option in the burning stage as I mentioned in my earlier post.

There should also be a file size indicator in PictureShow. Be sure you don't exceed the 4.38 file size limit there...

Also, I don't know if this suggestion is a bit too late but make sure that you're using NTFS as the file system format of your hard disk. This is because if you are using FAT32 in formatting your hard disk, it will only allow up to 4GB of single file size. Theoretically, in NTFS, there's no file size limit so... this is going to be a pain in the *** if you have FAT32 file system...

[enrique]

Yeah it certainly filled up my hard drive. I'm new to Ulead products, not new to computers

I'll see how the slideshow turns out and try the blur trick you mentioned if necessary. For now I just want it to finish

The meter at the bottom shows 4.03GB. Definitely below the size of a disk. My HD is formatted as NTFS. I just can't work it out

[enrique]

An update:

I removed more photos from the project, I decided I'll split it onto two DVD's. I also archived some photos I was storing on my HD, ended up with over 11GB free. It still warned me there wouldn't be enough free space but I tried it anyway. And after running all night it worked

So thanks for all the suggestions. It's possibly a bug in how it measures required disk space, and it really did need more than 10GB. But at least I now know how to make it work

[2log]

Contact Ulead Tech Support for this. Go to http://www.ulead.com/tech/techsupport.htm and submit an email through the Techincal Support Form (http://www.ulead.com/tech/suppform.htm).

[heinz-oz]

One thing is constantly overlooked, you need the 4. something Gb for your project, another 4. something for the temp files during the render plus the same space again to create the image that is eventually burned to disk, plus your swap file is needing space also, plus your disk may be badly fragmented, it's amazing how quickly that will happen. The end result of all that, if you do the sums, shows that your HD, in all honesty, is too small for that kind of work. I personally have never liked doing these things on a laptop because of a number of reasons, generated heat being one of them, the advantage of having a separate drive from your system drive to render to is the major one. As you said yourself, it ain't that easy to quickly add another drive to a notebook.

[2log]

hhmmm... I guess so. It would really be advisable to have a larger free disk space when rendering a dvd project. But having 10 Gig free disk space should be enough for you to burn the project. Debuging your hard disk would really be a good idea. This way, it would be easier for your pc to estimate and locate the free space on your hard disk.

Take not that at the final or burning step, there are three options for finalizing your video: Burn to DVD, Create DVD Folders and Create Disc Image File. If you happen to enable more than one of these options, it will double the file size needed for the project. Make sure to check only one.

[2log]

Hey, take a look at this thread Not enough disc space started by PRB14. I'm not quite sure what is happening here but it's supposedly working...