Creating output from project on a memory stick.

[mwsing]

I have a movie project that I have just created two output DVDs from and now wish to produce an output on a memory stick so that a friend can play it on her computer> have signally failed to do this and have been in touch with Corel, who can't seem to find the problem. Here is what I have done:
1. I have created a file on my C drive that plays perfectly well on my computer. The only problem is that it will not copy to a memory stick. Why?
2. Secondly Corel advised that I should render it directly to the memory stick – this is what I did:
a. I first tried to render the project to an 8 GB memory stick, but it told me that this was not large enough, even though the project size is only 3.84 GB.
b. I then successfully rendered it to a 32GB memory stick, even though the project is so small. This worked, although it took about 3 hours to render.
c. In addition, there are a whole lot of miscellaneous photographs and movie clips also on the stick that have nothing to do with this project and I cannot imagine how or from where they have been picked up. They certainly were not there before doing this rendering.
d. When I played this project from the memory stick the quality was appalling, so this whole episode was a complete waste of time.

The question still remains – since I had already rendered it to my C drive, why can’t I just copy this rendered file to the memory stick. The saved file is labelled as an M2T file, not MPEG – why? As noted above, it plays perfectly on my computer.

[Ken Berry]

m2t tends to indicate you rendered it as an AVCHD file -- is that correct? Why didn't you choose mpeg-4 which would have, of course, given you an .mp4 extension.

As to why it wouldn't copy to a USB stick drive, I have no idea. I copy most of my output to either USB stick drives or external hard drives which play beautifully on my HDTV -- and that includes .m2ts files. Mind you, with some of those I changed the extension to .mpg and they played just as well.

[mwsing]

I've just opened the project again and the settings are MPEG -4 AVC (1920x1080,30p,15mps). I haven't changed them so I assume that this was what they were when I rendered to the C drive. I will try rendering again with these settings and see if I get the same result.

[Ken Berry]

What version are we talking about here, by the way? I can't see that in your first post above, nor in your Profile...

[tletter]

The only problem is that it will not copy to a memory stick. Why?

- A space issue?
- A write-protection issue?
- Is the USB formatted as FAT, FAT32 or NTFS?

tletter
https://www.youtube.com/user/tletter

[Davidk]

Since you seem to be happy with the file created on C:drive, perhaps there are 2 issues here - 1) why windows would not copy the file, and 2) various issues rendering to a usb stick. So, several questions:
1. what is the windows error message when you try to copy? (screenshot ie prt scrn, save as .jpg, and attach to a post to the thread). I have encountered this sort of thing on occasions and it's always been a write protected device - either by a nearly invisible write protect on/off slider on the side of an SD card, or by a security program on the USB stick. If the latter, the only solution I ever found was to totally (NOT quick format, do a hard format) re-format the device, which would give you a clean device and should then enable copying. test that with a different file.

2) You mentioned an appalling quality when the file was played from the memory stick. Clarify just what you mean by appalling: grainy, poor colour, etc, or jerky with loss of sync between vision and sound. Screenshot it? Played back how? using a player like VLC, or via VS?

Re jerky, what sort of USB memory stick (usb2 or usb3) and does the PC have a matching socket?? This has to do with the data transfer rate across the interface: if you are using a usb 1 device, forget it - way too slow: it might render eventually, but playback will be terrible, vision/sound all jerky and out of sync. Consider: either VS or a player is using data from a local cache, and using windows to get - import - data in chunks from the attached device to that re-fill the cache to replace played data. From personal experience when the cache runs out before a refill is done: the player empties the cache before it gets re-filled, the vision stops but usually the sound keeps on and thus out of sync. Leave it go long enough and it may re-sync. This is especially evident with usb2 sticks, less so with usb 3, and very evident with larger files and low PC RAM fits. Better with directly plugged SD cards - because the hardware interface is faster. The hardware interface - stick attaches to PC - is only as fast as the slowest part, which is usually the memory stick/card when a usb interface is in use.

Assuming you tried playback using VS, have you tried playing your rendered file using a player like VLC, and if so what was the result?

[mwsing]

Thanks for all your input. What I found was that when I rendered my project to an .mp4 file on my hard drive, then I had no problem copying it to the memory stick - with great quality too. So it seems that the m2t file was the problem. In answer to your question about the poor quality when I tried rendering direct to the memory stick, it was very grainy and blurry.

[canuck]

When you copy a file to a memory stick, it does not matter what format the file is in. To Windows Explorer all files are just data, it doesn't matter if its video, jpg or what ever. So whether the file is mp4 or mt2s or anything else is irrelevant.
I have not found any difference in quality when rendering to memory stick or to a hard drive.

[mwsing]

Thanks for that. I shall keep a careful watch and see what happens in future projects