Why does VideoStudio often have issues with laptops?

[Psyphus]

Greetings,

I've owned/used Corel VS X2 Ultimate, X5 Ultimate, X9 Ultimate, 2018 Ultimate, and 2020 Ultimate. I used X2 on my first laptop, and it worked perfectly. Later I upgraded to X5, and it worked, but not as well as X2. When my laptop died, I installed X5 on my new laptop (same brand, newer model), but it didn't work. So I tried X2, but it didn't work either. So I invested in X9, which worked perfectly for that laptop. After my toddler destroyed that laptop, I invested in a new one (same brand, newer model), but X9, X5, and X2 didn't work on it. So I invested in 2018, but it mostly didn't work either. Even tech support, using software to access my computer remotely, couldn't figure out why VS didn't work. It exceeded all the recommended requirements, the OS and VS were up-to-date with everything, and it made no sense why VS wouldn't work. Later, I replaced that computer with my present one (different brand, newer everything), and I found none of the VS Ultimates that I had worked on it. So I invested in VS 2020 Ultimate. Initially, it seemed to work fine; but then, when a project was longer or if I did many texts or transitions, I discovered that it would crash. So I tried making shorter clips with fewer transitions and VFX, but whenever I tried to compile it as an MP4 or MOV or WMV etc., it would crash. Even when the clip was 10 seconds long, it would crash when compiling it.

This brings me to my question: What's going on with Corel VideoStudio Ultimate? Why is it not working as it should on laptop computers? I've tried to install it on my wife's laptops, too (she's gone through a few over the years), but VS never seems to work as it should on any of her laptops, either. Don't get me wrong, those two instances when VS did (mostly) work with my laptop resulted in great videos being made, and my mom enjoyed the DVD home videos and slide shows of her grandchildren that I made for her. However, in retrospect, VS seemed to be extremely selective in what laptops it would actually (mostly) function on, and it bothers me that not even Corel's tech team can figure out why this is happening.


I did discover one oddity with VS 2020 that I was able to resolve. If the pictures or videos or sound clips or music that are used in VS are located on a different drive, it can crash VS if that drive is faster or slower than the drive that VS is installed on. The same thing happens if the drives are the same speed but one of them goes into power-saving mode due to inactivity.

That being said, after resolving those problems (by storing everything on the same drive that Corel VS is installed on), VS 2020 still has issues and crashes, and the prior versions of VS still don't function enough to do anything productive with them.

Any thoughts on how to resolve these persistent problems on VS?


Also, I know that complex video editing software *does* work on my laptop computer. In frustration, I tried products from some other companies and they all function great, but they also lack the DVD authoring software that I need to make DVDs for my mother (who has a DVD player but hates computers). Any suggestions?

Thank you.

[Davidk]

Your mention of differences between disks and laptops suggests several things that are windows related which may be affecting you
As a general observation, consider what is going on when running VS: the OS is in memory and provides services on call, the app is nominally in control but may be paging as it all may not fit in memory, the working memory is used by both, and then the app calls in data (video/picture/audio) clips to use and this data also needs to fit into the memory, and these are often on separate storage devices. So the working drives need to be optimised and as fast as possible, and the amount of RAM/pagefile in use also optimised.

1. disk policy. Windows allows disks to cache writes/reads, or not for a quick disconnect; the latter speeds thing up but is more subject to data loss if "something" happens. Particularly used with external drives, and that's more likely with a laptop. To set, use the disk management tool, select the connected drive and look at the settings in the policies tab.

A further item with external drives is the interface particularly for external drives (also applies to internal ones when they may be things like SDHC cards): laptops with internal drives seem to have faded from popular fashion, so an external usb-connected drive is more common than it used to be. The laptop may have a usb 3 capability, but if you plug in a usb 2 device, it only runs at usb 2 speeds. The reverse situation also applies. An indication that there's an issue with speed across these interfaces is if the play function of the app is jerky - runs, then stops, then runs again: what is happening here is that the internal caches run out of data faster than they can be re-filled, so the app pauses whilst the data gets re-freshed, and then it runs again . . etc. A lack of a proxy file also has this effect so it can be disguised in several ways. Utlimately, the data flow simply cannot keep up.

2. Tune the paging memory allocation - basically, a re-allocation of memory to the paging file, so any slow disk drives are less likely to be called on during a process. Essentially, this is a memory reservation for use by applications that are too big to fit into memeory: the overflow goes to the paging file, which may be re-freshed or updated by the app. For programs like editors using a lot of memory-hungry visuals, this is important. More RAM is good for this. The usual recommendation for the paging file is about 1.5 times the size of RAM, and there's a suggestion that with more than 16gb of ram it may not be necessary, but don't throw it away. And I note your specs indicate 32gb which should be more than enough. Windows will often suggest an optimum allocation for specific machine, which is usually not the default that comes with the OS: find the advanced system settings page, choose advanced tab, then the performance settings button, the advanced tab again, and there it is: the numbers for virtual memory.

[lata]

Hi Roger
Very strange that you are having these issues over the years using various Laptops and different programs.
You said “X9, X5, and X2 didn't work on it.”, do you mean.
1 / you could not install the program
2 / could install but would not run
3 / would run but crashed so often as to make editing difficult.

X9 and X10 were very stable from what I recall, from VS 2018 onwards there were reports of Silent Closures, the program simply disappearing, I would however consider installing VS X9
You do not mention the types of video files you are using, Video Studio will cope with most videos although does struggle with some formats, the recommendation there would be to convert the video to a more editable format. The same can be said for audio formats, convert those to wav to see if things improve.
As you are intending to burn a DVD Disc I would convert my video files to Mpeg2 as that format is used to burn DVD’s. Then edit the project to finally render to DVD Mpeg2 (Share - Same as Project Settings), using this video to burn the disc.

[TonyP]

Laptop hardware can be problematic for video editing. You have to have fast drives if accessing anything, from the program to video/audio/photo files. Most laptops are not "optimized" for video editing. Especially in the past. As more and more people edit on laptops, they aren't using baseline laptops, but ones with fast NVME's. And I would never allow anything to go to "sleep/hibernation" while editing. I can see the software looking for something that isn't there, that was there causing a possible software conflict it can not resolve.

[Davidk]

If you have enough storage available to put everything on an internal drive, I suggest you do it. That might be the C drive on a laptop, and if it is an SSD (either sata or NvMe) you should not be having access time issues.

[excalibur1814]

Corel VS can have issues with your sandwich, your shoes, your car or just about anything. Look left, it'll crash.

Seriously, I've used CVS on a LOT of different hardware. My current config is a 13th gen Intel nuc and a Surface Pro 9. Either of them can crash at any point in time, as did the huge desktop with a LOT of spare resources. I, basically, make sure that the proxy files have finished and elevate vstudio.exe (Task manager, Details tab, scroll down, right click, Set Priority, Realtime) to realtime. Overall, I'd NEVER 'not' save a project every few minutes/changes. It's simply an application that cannot be trusted to function 100% at all times. Sure, I do like it, but I'll never trust it.

[rwernyei]

Excalibur1814,

Thank you for your very detailed post of how you cope with unexpected CVS crashes. That totally explains it all. The reason why everyone gets so emotional when I mention DaVinci is because you're all suffering from CVS PTSD. Now I get it.

[Psyphus]

Your mention of differences between disks and laptops suggests several things that are windows related which may be affecting you
As a general observation, consider what is going on when running VS: the OS is in memory and provides services on call, the app is nominally in control but may be paging as it all may not fit in memory, the working memory is used by both, and then the app calls in data (video/picture/audio) clips to use and this data also needs to fit into the memory, and these are often on separate storage devices. So the working drives need to be optimised and as fast as possible, and the amount of RAM/pagefile in use also optimised.

1. disk policy. Windows allows disks to cache writes/reads, or not for a quick disconnect; the latter speeds thing up but is more subject to data loss if "something" happens. Particularly used with external drives, and that's more likely with a laptop. To set, use the disk management tool, select the connected drive and look at the settings in the policies tab.

A further item with external drives is the interface particularly for external drives (also applies to internal ones when they may be things like SDHC cards): laptops with internal drives seem to have faded from popular fashion, so an external usb-connected drive is more common than it used to be. The laptop may have a usb 3 capability, but if you plug in a usb 2 device, it only runs at usb 2 speeds. The reverse situation also applies. An indication that there's an issue with speed across these interfaces is if the play function of the app is jerky - runs, then stops, then runs again: what is happening here is that the internal caches run out of data faster than they can be re-filled, so the app pauses whilst the data gets re-freshed, and then it runs again . . etc. A lack of a proxy file also has this effect so it can be disguised in several ways. Utlimately, the data flow simply cannot keep up.

2. Tune the paging memory allocation - basically, a re-allocation of memory to the paging file, so any slow disk drives are less likely to be called on during a process. Essentially, this is a memory reservation for use by applications that are too big to fit into memeory: the overflow goes to the paging file, which may be re-freshed or updated by the app. For programs like editors using a lot of memory-hungry visuals, this is important. More RAM is good for this. The usual recommendation for the paging file is about 1.5 times the size of RAM, and there's a suggestion that with more than 16gb of ram it may not be necessary, but don't throw it away. And I note your specs indicate 32gb which should be more than enough. Windows will often suggest an optimum allocation for specific machine, which is usually not the default that comes with the OS: find the advanced system settings page, choose advanced tab, then the performance settings button, the advanced tab again, and there it is: the numbers for virtual memory.

Good evening, David,

Since this forum keeps logging me out (and my response is lost) when I finish typing my response by pressing "submit," I'll try to keep this one short.

Thank you for your informative response.

All of my laptops had the newest Intel i7 processor, the maximum amount of physical memory that their respective motherboards allowed, and an NVIDIA GeForce video card with dedicated memory. All of my prior laptops had a single internal HDD, but I replaced that HDD with an SDD in my last laptop. That same SDD became my secondary (D) drive in my present laptop since my present laptop allows for two SSDs. It is with regard to my present laptop that I noticed the issue with VS crashing when using two (internal) SSDs of different speeds. As mentioned in my initial post, I resolved that problem by moving all of my projects and media files to the same drive I installed VS on (that is, by C drive).

Thank you for providing a detailed list of recommendations. I did all of those things years ago (when I initially set up my laptop), but I went through what you wrote to double-check that I did all of those things. Everything is set up properly. I set up the virtual memory to 64 MB (minimum) and 5120 MB (maximum) on my C and D drives, since it seems to work better than the default.

I'm already familiar with bottlenecked speeds with data—for example, USB speeds being limited to the lowest maximum speeds provided by either the motherboard, USB cable, or external hardware (e.g. external HDD).

I've also been optimising my HDDs daily since the mid-1990s when I used Win95 on my 80386DX computer (with 8MB memory, 2MB dedicated Matrox Millennium video card, 4MB Sound Blaster AWE32, and 330 MB WD HDD) and ran a local BBS off it. Granted, I don't really need to do that with my SSDs. I use my external HDD only to back up files that are on my SSD; most of the time I don't have it attached to my HDD.

I also reduced the visual effects to only three items (none of them is an animation), I uninstalled many of the pre-installed apps (including the weather and news apps, which regularly access the internet, and games), and I daily check MS Store, MS Update, Lenovo app, Intel Driver & Support app, and NVIDIA GeForce Experience app for the latest updates on a daily basis. I also optimise my system, scan for viruses, and check for vulnerabilities using BitDefender almost daily.

I'm not sure why VS has issues with my laptops. I did similar things with all of my prior (Toshiba) laptops, but I used different antivirus software with those ones (mainly, Kaspersky and before that I used Norton).

Do you have any other insights or thoughts on what may be causing VS problems?
Thank you for your detailed and helpful response!

[Psyphus]

Hi Roger
Very strange that you are having these issues over the years using various Laptops and different programs.
You said “X9, X5, and X2 didn't work on it.”, do you mean.
1 / you could not install the program
2 / could install but would not run
3 / would run but crashed so often as to make editing difficult.

X9 and X10 were very stable from what I recall, from VS 2018 onwards there were reports of Silent Closures, the program simply disappearing, I would however consider installing VS X9
You do not mention the types of video files you are using, Video Studio will cope with most videos although does struggle with some formats, the recommendation there would be to convert the video to a more editable format. The same can be said for audio formats, convert those to wav to see if things improve.
As you are intending to burn a DVD Disc I would convert my video files to Mpeg2 as that format is used to burn DVD’s. Then edit the project to finally render to DVD Mpeg2 (Share - Same as Project Settings), using this video to burn the disc.

Good evening, Trevor, thank you for your response!

As far as I could tell, all versions of VS were installed properly on my laptops and loaded properly. After loading, the problems varied from laptop and version to laptop and version. In most cases, the third-party features didn't work properly or at all. Eventually (when I upgraded to a newer and better laptop), the entire program would crash while editing the project and/or when adding media (including WAV audio files) and/or when compiling the project in any format and/or when playing the edited film in the editor. On my present laptop, VS even crashed when the project consisted of only 10 seconds of text on a blank background, regardless of its resolution. In all cases, none of the older versions of VS has functioned properly on my newer laptops.
The DVD burning feature hasn't functioned since, perhaps, X9 worked on my old/late Toshiba laptop (which my toddler destroyed).
I bought an external DVD player+burner for my present laptop, which works fine when burning data to it (from Windows) and reading data from it (with Windows), but VS always crashes when I try to use that feature.

All in all, VS has had several issues with all of my laptops.

Thank you for taking the time to respond and offer your suggestions!

[lata]

I just do not understand why you are having so many crashes as to make the program unusable.
Just thinking out loud here……….
1 / There must be a common denominator that is causing this, and yes that may be Video Studio, although you do say that “In most cases, the third-party features didn't work properly or at all.”

2 / I did ask what type of video files you were using just to rule those out of the mix.

3 / You mentioned having an external DVD burner that fails to burn discs, if you create a Disc Image ISO, ( that’s just a data file) are you able to burn that to DVD using other software, ImgBurn would do that, or does that fail as well.

4 / Do you use an external Hard Drive, those can cause issues especially if they “go to sleep”.

If you have not done so you should contact Alludo Support to see if they can help, maybe taking control of your PC.

Post Updated
5 / Some users have had issues with the graphics, changing or disabling the Acceleration options may help, worth a try anyway......
(F6) Preferences—Performance tab

[Davidk]

The mentions of AV software recalls ancient memories. From the discussion, you are using BitDefender now: 2 prior AV systems apparently caused no problems. And the ancient memory is that bitdefemder did cause a lot of problems, particularly with the OS. One reason why you see it mentioned in the sidelines of some windows system pages. So several suggestions;
1. Since you now use bitdefender and CVS is having conniptions, can I suggest you try turning off bitdefender and then repeating the actions with CVS which caused issues. In this condition, does CVS still cause the issue(s) you report?? Worst case if bitdefender does not allow a short 'turn off' feature, try uninstalling it, do your CVS testing and then re-install.
2. Disconnect the internet connection to the affected PC; CVS only requires the internet on installation, other times it should start normally, altho the program start may be a bit slower while the software figures out the internet is not available. In this condition, does CVS still cause the issue(s) you report??

As to losing responses, that's been happening to a lot of us. I understand it's been reported but Corel uses a 3rd-party website for the user forums so I don't know how often, or even if, maintenance to fix this sort of issue is done. Trevor (lata) came up with an approach which seems to work: when the response it lost, click the back arrow and often it will be back. Select the response, cntrl-C, and then submit again. When it logs you off, get in again, choose reply to the topic involved and then Cntrl-V to get your response back, and then submit again.

[Psyphus]

Laptop hardware can be problematic for video editing. You have to have fast drives if accessing anything, from the program to video/audio/photo files. Most laptops are not "optimized" for video editing. Especially in the past. As more and more people edit on laptops, they aren't using baseline laptops, but ones with fast NVME's. And I would never allow anything to go to "sleep/hibernation" while editing. I can see the software looking for something that isn't there, that was there causing a possible software conflict it can not resolve.

Good evening, Tony! Thank you for your response.

I agree that laptop hardware can be problematic for video editing and that one needs to make sure it's suitable for video editing. All of my laptops were suitable for video editing and significantly exceeded the recommended requirements of VS.

My laptops only go (went) into sleep/hibernation mode when my children unplug(ged) them (when I'm not around) and the battery is (was) low.

My present laptop has one of the best NVME SSDs on the market, but VS still has issues even when everything is located on the same (C) drive. I've installed, repaired, uninstalled, rebooted, and reinstalled VS numerous times on all of those laptops. In the past, when tech support had remote access to my laptop, even they couldn't find a problem with anything and not even the error logs helped them determine what caused the problems. So they recommended upgrading to the next version, which I sometimes did; but in most cases, the problems more or less remained.

I tried video editing software from other companies on my laptops (including professional ones, like DaVinci Resolve), and they worked fine. So why doesn't VS work? It doesn't make sense.

Thank you again for your feedback!

[Psyphus]

If you have enough storage available to put everything on an internal drive, I suggest you do it. That might be the C drive on a laptop, and if it is an SSD (either sata or NvMe) you should not be having access time issues.

Good evening, David,

Thank you for your suggestion!

I've always installed VS and stored all of my current projects and relevant media files etc. on my primary (C) internal drive.

The only exception was with my present laptop because it carries two internal drives (C and D), so I put the project and their relevant media files on the D (SATA SSD) drive instead of the C (NvMe SSD) drive. When that caused problems, I resolved that specific problem by placing everything on the C drive; however, other problems remained. I tried repairing VS and rebooting, then (when that didn't work) uninstalling VS and rebooting and reinstalling VS, etc., but VS's disdain towards my present laptop remains (minus the one specific problem aforesaid).

Out of frustration, I tried other video editing software (including professional ones, like DaVinci Resolve), and they worked perfectly. So ... yeah. Why does VS always seem to have problems functioning on most of my laptops (past and present)? It doesn't make sense to me.

Thanks again for your suggestion!

[Psyphus]

Corel VS can have issues with your sandwich, your shoes, your car or just about anything. Look left, it'll crash.

Seriously, I've used CVS on a LOT of different hardware. My current config is a 13th gen Intel nuc and a Surface Pro 9. Either of them can crash at any point in time, as did the huge desktop with a LOT of spare resources. I, basically, make sure that the proxy files have finished and elevate vstudio.exe (Task manager, Details tab, scroll down, right click, Set Priority, Realtime) to realtime. Overall, I'd NEVER 'not' save a project every few minutes/changes. It's simply an application that cannot be trusted to function 100% at all times. Sure, I do like it, but I'll never trust it.

Good evening, Excalibur!

Thank you for your response! Sarcasm aside, I did do those things if VS let me, but VS still had issues. What especially frustrated me was that other software, including professional software (like DaVinci Resolve), worked fine on my prior laptop and present laptop (I didn't try any other editing software before my prior laptop). After investing so much money in VS, it would have been nice to have a fully functional product that did what was advertised. Alas! This still isn't the case, and it's extremely frustrating and disappointing.

Thanks again for sharing your own experiences. Regrettably, I must agree that VS is not very reliable or trustworthy—but I think it still has the potential to be a great video editing software if VS can be reprogrammed from scratch to be optimised, stable, reliable, trustworthy, and function as advertised on all Windows-based desktops and laptops. Perhaps the reason it has so many problems is that it's basically outdated software that's been patched up and partially renovated with mostly cosmetic features—but what it really needs is to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground-up. I think some other software companies did that with their products and they ended up with a superior product that was fast, efficient, and worked almost flawlessly because it was designed to take advantage of all the latest hardware technologies and features.

Have a good night!

[Psyphus]

Excalibur1814,

Thank you for your very detailed post of how you cope with unexpected CVS crashes. That totally explains it all. The reason why everyone gets so emotional when I mention DaVinci is because you're all suffering from CVS PTSD. Now I get it.

Good evening, Rwernyei! Thank you for your response!

Actually, after trying some other video editing software (including professional software, like DaVinci Resolve) and discovering that they actually work on my prior and present laptop, I started to learn how to use those other products for my projects and (after many years) I have mostly settled with DR. That being said, VS does have some features that DR doesn't have (if VS worked as advertised, that is). If the makers of VS ever made a version of VS that worked on my laptop as advertised, then I'd invest in that version so I could use VS and those features to make home videos on DVD for my elderly mother (since she hates computers but she lives on the other side of the country and wants home videos of my family to view on her ancient DVD player). So, yeah. In my case, there's a bit more than emotional attachment and PTSD. Haha.

Take care and good night!