MF4 Freezes on moving menu

daniel · Post by **daniel** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 9:33 am

I tried a moving background, menu AVI file of 30 sec.
Preview freezes at 13% when rendering menu.
Actual rendering (last step) also freezes at 13%
If I set the menu length to 29 secs instead of 30, preview is OK
but final rendering stops at 7-8% (tried 28 but no change).
If I disable moving menu it's OK. No fancy things, just videos with menu.
With or without sound (on menu I mean).

I can do it with VS9 without problem, but not on MF4 (with patch 2).
I went down to a single video clip (MPEG) no change.

Anyone had this and found a reason and/or solution?

ploggy · Post by **ploggy** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 9:40 am

try converting the AVI to MPG using VS9 then use it as a motion menu. See if there is any difference

daniel · Post by **daniel** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 9:05 am

I will try, but to me adding the thumbnail videos for the buttons on an already encoded MPG background will not give the same quality as on a clean AVI file.

So tha'ts not THE solution, I'd rather have VS9 make the output, I prefer quality over custom button size and placement.
You see a video clip picture for 1/25th of a second, but you see the menus over and over again so the perceived quality should be tops.

daniel · Post by **daniel** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:48 am

nope, MPG or AVI, still freezes in preview at 13% building menu with 30 seconds, previews OK at 29 seconds, but then rendering freezes at 14% when building moving menus...

If I go to still menus it goes to the end.

It's good that I didn't pay much because I never was able to get a single DVD the way I wanted it since buying the program.
Every time I had to do it with VS to get to the end.

Next time I will take full advantage of the 30 days before buying.
At my age you would think I'd know that. Oh well.

ploggy · Post by **ploggy** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 9:22 am

try using a diffrent MPG or AVI for the menu background and output it to DVD-folder to test if the problem is with the file you are currently working on.

daniel · Post by **daniel** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 10:43 am

I will tonight, for science's sake, although the DVD is already finished via UVS.
At the end Ulead make you pay the same list price for VS9 and MF4, and all you get are resizable/moveable buttons. Not even multi-layer menus.
I am not even sure the slide shows are real slide shows... The addition of titles and transitions make me think they are really making movies.
That takes up a lot more disc space than a real slide show, especially if you display the images for a long time.

Anyway about the subject, the file is a simple AVI made from Cool3D and rendered to MPG from within MF4 (via Export), it plays OK via Media Player or PowerDVD and poses no problem to VideoStudio so I don't think it's suspect.

If the background file was a problem wouldn't it stop before 13%?
I guess it has something to do with rendering the contents of the menu buttons.

daniel · Post by **daniel** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 7:08 am

Well I tried another AVI file and it still freezes. At 30 secs preview stops at 13% while at 29 preview works OK but generation of motion menus stops at 13-14%.

However the problem is in the programs, not the file, because when I strip the project (5 clips) down to just last (36 seconds long), it renders OK to the end, with the same background video on the menu.

But any other clip, even alone (longer) make it stop after slowing down progressively. Then CPU usage suddenly goes at 100% and it stays there for hours, disk writes also stop. The cancel button does not give hand back (but the button grays out when clicked).

So it's clear MF4 chokes on the generation of the buttons miniature video.
Remember, the data is not terribly suspect since Video Studio makes it OK.