Video Studio Ultimate 2021 Crashing on Render

[daveRolph]

I have quite the love hate relationship with VS.

I have must have been using it for at least 20 years now and producing an end of yead DVD and then also Blu Ray and now also USB (to get the 4K).

Although I am a long term user its only for a couple of months in the year, no matter what version I run there always seems to be reliability issues, hanging slow downs and crashing (I have multiple hardware and quite high spec and new, its usually software issues).

I have a few this year also and while I can get around most I wonder how I can work out what is happening with this latest crash.

Because I am rendering to a single MPEG-4 Format (for USB Pen stick for TV) I have put 5 movies files in the same project and rendered together it seems to crash VS without any warning.

I want to produce 3840 - 2160 and I have rendered otther projects as a test with this format and love the results.

How can I work out why its now crashing ?

Sorry in advance I appreciate I may need to provide more info.

[Ken Berry]

Did any of the videos in this latest project come from a smartphone? This often causes problems because many recent smartphones use variable framerates for their videos, and VideoStudio does not like this. It prefers standard framerates like 25/50 fps for PAL or 29.97 (30) or 59.95 (60) fps for NTSC. If any of the clips in your project show Properties with framerates outside these numbers, then we normally suggest you put that clip through a third party video converter to produce a video with a standard frame rate but otherwise the same properties as the original. Many of use here use Handbrake which is freeware.

[daveRolph]

Yes most of the clips come from iPhone we have an on going theme with our end of year productions that have hundreads of clips (2-3 seconds long each). Having to do this makes it an impossible task if we have to go outside of VS. Having said that we have been doing this for years. Each project has multiple videos that were already put together from VS anyway. We do slow a lot of the clips down also and I have always been a bit confused with frame rates, I used to think adding more frames to the video allowed it to be smoother but often video clips where we pan to the side look much more jerky with VS. Any additional advice would be really appreciated, this year the outputs looks so good in 4K so I want to see this through.

[tletter]

hundreads of clips (2-3 seconds long each). Having to do this makes it an impossible task if we have to go outside of VS

HandBrake can batch convert files.

we have been doing this for years

If that is the case, then what has changed? Can you simply readopt your old workflow?

I used to think adding more frames to the video allowed it to be smoother

Not the case as added frames are interpolated at best.

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

[daveRolph]

tletter, thanks for your replies, I did not like the idea of having to mess around outside of VS but I do have handbrake and have used before but I had a breakthrough, If I render to MPEG-4 4096 X 2160, 25p, 40Mps it does not crash. When I said I have been doing it for years I mean seconds clips from my iPhone, what changed, well going 4K I bet is it. For the frame rates what would you recommend ? My End of year production is all the best photos and videos of the year, I started this 22 years ago and produced a DVD, the thing grew and more and more of the family wanted them, now its DVD, BluRay and this year 4K USB Pen Sticks. I know there is not one solution fits all and I am learning all the time what works for each media.

[tletter]

... but I had a breakthrough, If I render to MPEG-4 4096 X 2160, 25p, 40Mps it does not crash.

If your source video resolution is UHD (Ultra High Definition) at 3840 x 2160 pixels, then rendering at 4096 x 2160 would cause some output degradation. However, that said, if it at least allows you to render your project then that's a win as long as it looks fine to you on the target video player.

For the frame rates what would you recommend ?

A frame rate that matches that of the source videos. VS's "Show message when inserting first video clip into the Timeline" preference, will allow VS to match the frame rate of the source video when first creating a new VSP.

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