VS X10 Ultimate Crashes during render

[Dijenga]

Not a big file, only about a 3 minute promo but every time I try to render I have one of 2 results:

1. Program crashes to desktop.

2. Although the same video rendered with X8 ultimate is less than 55 MB on my laptop in X8, it renders on my desktop with X10 at almost 680 MB.

I am using Share>Mobile Device>MPEG-4 (1280 x 720, 30p, 2.5Mbps). Same settings in X8 renders properly every time at under 55 MB. Was hoping to present this demo tomorrow.

This is a fresh install after replacing my HDD on desktop. Help says there are NO UPDATES. Is there possibly a patch? If so, where do I look for it?

Thanks!

[Dijenga]

I've been patient. Patient over a few dozen crashes. I have even gone so far as to uninstall and download the product again and try ... hoping that the previous install is defective (twice) . . . but apparently the product is not compatible with my system or it is broken. The render operation always hangs at 99% and most of the time it crashes to desktop. When it doesn't crash, the file is HUMONGOUS!!!

A simple 3:06 video (three minutes, six seconds) - 1280 x720 2.5 MBS (supposed to be for mobile devices - read REASONABLE IN SIZE) is now up to 687 MB after this last install.

What is the screw up with this software? The patch is supposed to be included in the download. so it should work, right???

Silly me, I purchased the program and got sick before I could really use it. Now that I'm able to get things going with the project, I find out this version of the software is completely worthless for what it was purchased to do --- to do a better job of what I normally do in X8.

Could someone please help, or was X10 just a money grab??? If so, I promise not to waste my money again. I've already dropped PSP because of your restrictive licensing --- and it wasn't nearly as frustrating as this!

[tletter]

I've already dropped PSP because of your restrictive licensing

Just so you are aware, this is a volunteer forum, i.e. people who respond to your questions are NOT Corel employees. So if you decide to drop Corel products that doesn't affect forum participants.

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

[Dijenga]

Fair enough.

Their support leaves much to be desired, probably why this is where they direct us for support.

[Dijenga]

definitely a growing problem. Got the project (unchanged) to render today . . . up to 699 megs

[Davidk]

So, given that you are - apparently - mainly concerned about the file's size, have you tried any alternative approaches?
Such as
- rendering the project to a lower resolution? Given that it's for a mobile device ie physically small, even a lower res file can look OK. Try it with a 720x480 mp4 file, select from this panel:

- or, render it using a different method yielding the same result. Try it with a computer file having the same resolution properties: this method has the same res profile but renders by a different selection

And you will note that with this approach, there are a lot more mp4 options available.

[Dijenga]

So, given that you are - apparently - mainly concerned about the file's size, have you tried any alternative approaches?
Such as
- rendering the project to a lower resolution? Given that it's for a mobile device ie physically small, even a lower res file can look OK. Try it with a 720x480 mp4 file, select from this panel:

The attachment mobile resolution render.jpg is no longer available

- or, render it using a different method yielding the same result. Try it with a computer file having the same resolution properties: this method has the same res profile but renders by a different selection

The attachment mobile resolution render 2.jpg is no longer available

And you will note that with this approach, there are a lot more mp4 options available.

Tried the 720 x 480 route. It distorts the video so badly that it is (for what I am doing) unusable. This is video for a business that I had plans to start up --- marketing products for local businesses --- and the stay at home order gave me the time to get started on setting up the business so that I don't have to go back to my old job as internet sales manager. At 62, I want to work for myself until I decide to retire. Purchased the equipment needed (old equipment worn out) which is the only reason I haven't been examining the other offerings.

The Mobile device settings at 1280 x 720 is 2.5 Mbps . . . kinda like a youtube video . . . which, by the way, you can't export from X10 because Corel uses an insecure connection which Google (youtube's owner) refuses to allow to connect.

The next biggest problem is constant crashing. If I render a file, there's a 1 in 3 chance that it will finish rendering and 2 in 3 that it will dump me back to the desktop.

[Davidk]

Basically, you said a similar effort worked in X8, but this one won't work in X10. Sometimes Corel manages to introduce issues when updating or fixing something, which they may or may not immediately fix. As an example, I had a project that rendered fine to mpg in 2018sp2/June2018. In a later version, dec/Jan2019, 2018sp3 or4, the render introduced a serious blink into the result when photos were being used in the overlay track. Traced to a service pack, it was reproduced, confirmed and altho carried over to 2019, has been fixed in 2020. The workaround fix suggested by Trevor was to render to mp4 at a similar resolution, and I've used that approach since.

Applied to your situation, have you tried to render to an equivalent resolution mpg/mpeg-2 file? YT will take those. This is also a way of identifying just what it is in your project file that is causing crashes: variable frame rates in clips are a prime candidate.

I've found that x10 has been pretty stable, no crash history the way I use it, which is just to generate the rendered files: what happens to them after that is often not via VS.

On another note, rendering and uploading directly to YT has been fraught with some poor reports, whereas a separate render and then manually upload of the rendered file to YT usually worked: it at least had the benefit of avoiding any upload issues that may be in VS. Note also that altho YT likes MP4 uploads now, it re-processes them into a format suitable for rapid download to a computer browser, so what a viewer sees on YT by the normal browser method is usually not an mp4 file.

[Dijenga]

On another note, rendering and uploading directly to YT has been fraught with some poor reports, whereas a separate render and then manually upload of the rendered file to YT usually worked: it at least had the benefit of avoiding any upload issues that may be in VS. Note also that altho YT likes MP4 uploads now, it re-processes them into a format suitable for rapid download to a computer browser, so what a viewer sees on YT by the normal browser method is usually not an mp4 file.

Actually the customer will post these to youtube upon delivery. I can't deliver a 3 minute video that weighs in at 700 megs!

I'll try the mpeg-2 suggestion and see if it will help.

Thanks all. May just have to go back to X8 . . . or even MoviePlus from (gulp) Serif.

[lata]

Hi Dijenga

I have never used the Share – Device – Mobile Device before but testing X10 there does appear to be a serious issue with the profile (1280 x 720 x 2.5Mb) for me it uses a very large data rate (H.264 Main Profile Video: 1777115948 Kbps) that would produce a 12.8TB file for a 1 minute video, totally ridiculous

To render the project can you use try Share – Computer – Mpeg4 - (1280 x 720 x 5Mb ) created a video at 34Mb for 1 minute
If you wish to reduce the data rate to 2.5 you can do by hitting the + symbol to create a new profile, now size is 18Mb per minute.
The lower the data rate the lower the quality especially if viewed on a larger screen

Project Properties
The other render option would be to modify the project properties, Settings Project Properties ( Alt+Enter) to match as closely to your video files, reducing the data rate to control the size, the frame size has only a small impact on file size, the data rate controls the file sizes.
If you give the properties of your video file we could advise on the settings we would use?

But yes I do have a problem using X10 and the Mobile route.

[Dijenga]

To render the project can you use try Share – Computer – Mpeg4 - (1280 x 720 x 5Mb ) created a video at 34Mb for 1 minute
If you wish to reduce the data rate to 2.5 you can do by hitting the + symbol to create a new profile, now size is 18Mb per minute.
The lower the data rate the lower the quality especially if viewed on a larger screen

The lowest data rate under "computer/mp4" at 1280 x 720 is 10Mbps. Is there supposed to be a 5Mbps here, or could it be a typo?

Seeing as how these videos will mostly be used for the customer's facebook and youtube, and most views are done on mobile, I could get by with 720 x 480 EXCEPT the video is no longer 16:9 aspect ratio (even though the format video is 16:9).

I guess I'll never know because now X10 crashes on every attempt to export video. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Corel wants me to throw more money their way (which WOULD HAVE HAPPENED if I could get this version to work so I can produce some original works (ex employer may have problem with my using videos I produced while in his employ even though I shot the pics with my camera, edited on my computer, and created videos on my equipment) to show to prospective customers.

My videos are actually slide shows. The only video inserted into the project is a 9 second "branding" intro. When I produced it in X8 the file size was 1.62 MB. Compiling the same VSP file with X10 resulted in a 5.4 MB file. Don't know how the suggested settings would help because the software is completely unusable now. I can create VSP files, but can't compile/export the video because the software crashes on every export attempt.

[lata]

Hi
Not a typo---we can create / modify the profiles within certain parameters
Go to Share – mpeg4 - this profile MPEG-4 AVC (1280 x 720, 25p, 10Mbps)
Now press the + to Create a Custom Profile
Should open using 10000kbps (10Mb)
Give the profile a new name, I usually change the name to “My MPEG-4 AVC (1280 x 720, 25p, 5Mbps)”
Compression Tab – change the Video Data rate to 5000kbps
Press ok
I see the new profile available at the top of the Mpeg-4 profile options

16:9 or 4:3
The MPEG-4 AVC (720 x 480, 25p, 2.5Mbps) profile is 16:9 ratio.
Did you try rendering using that profile.
The video profile is anamorphic which uses Non Square Pixel Rendering, think of the pixels as being rectangular
Besides 720 x 480 is not 4:3, 720 x 540 is 4:3

For the crashes, you should try resetting the program, renaming the folder 20.0 to “20.0 Old”
When you launch X10 a new 20.0 folder will be recreated.
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Ulead Systems\Corel VideoStudio Pro (x64)\20.0
Otherwise you may have to re-install the program.
Before resetting you may want to Export the library which will allow you to import after resetting.

By the way, I am in the UK and as such my profiles use 25fps, your profiles should be 29.97fps

Post updated - thinking out loud
As your project is basically a slide show can you check the type of Jpeg images, I assume you are using Jpeg?
We can save Jpegs as Baseline encoding mode or Progressive however some users have had issues using Progressive
Generally Baseline is used for our images.
Right click any image from within Video Studio, properties- Jpeg tab – what is the encoding mode.

[Dijenga]

The 720 x 480 works great on a desktop, and displays properly.

The great majority of my viewers will be on a smartphone or tablet (our metrics at my ex employer bear that out). On a smartphone or tablet, the video is made more narrow, distorting the proportions of the object being displayed. When I first started doing these videos for my ex employer, that was the render size I used. While it should be 16:9 on all devices, the boss looked at it on his smart phone and brought it to my attention that the videos were not usable on their site because the customer got a distorted view of the product.

All of my images are jpg, but are slightly larger than the 1280 x 720 because I usually pan and / or zoom in / out on them. The compiled video should not make a difference because it should be rewriting each frame with only the information used for that frame. I'll experiment to see if it does indeed make a difference. That being said, using the VSP produced with X8 should give me similar results in X10 --- but it doesn't.

I thank you for your assistance. Will try these suggestions and let you know if it helps.

[lata]

Hi
Comparing X8 to X10 I would have thought the results would be comparable, the data rate is the one that affects the file size, I would suspect there may be a difference there.
X10 may have more options than X8?

If you set your project properties to match the settings used to render then they would be used by x8 and x10, the file sizes should be the same
Share – Same as Project Settings, option is a little greyed out so easily missed.

If your intro video is made to the output settings then Share – Same as first clip would also work and help keeping the render setting the same whatever program you use.

[Dijenga]

Hi
Not a typo---we can create / modify the profiles within certain parameters
Go to Share – mpeg4 - this profile MPEG-4 AVC (1280 x 720, 25p, 10Mbps)
Now press the + to Create a Custom Profile
Should open using 10000kbps (10Mb)
Give the profile a new name, I usually change the name to “My MPEG-4 AVC (1280 x 720, 25p, 5Mbps)”
Compression Tab – change the Video Data rate to 5000kbps
Press ok
I see the new profile available at the top of the Mpeg-4 profile options

You're a great help! This solved BOTH problem. I opened the MPEG-4 AVC (1280 x 720, 25p, 10Mbps) and did what you said, but instead of 5000kbps, I changed to 2500 kbps.

Solved the crashing --- not one crash using this setting so far.

It solved the size problem --- video is now < 60 megabytes in size.

Thank you so much for your help!!!