I gotta tell you I'm disgusted with VS

[DiscCoasterPro]

Hello everyone. First of all .. I know it is my fault for not saving my project often enough in this situation but .......

This program is unstable period!

I'm sorry, I tried this a while back, admittedly with mixed file types on the timeline and I got the ever so popular critial error must close program thing.
Ok, so I honestly put it on the back burner for a while and played with some other programs. Mind you I am registered with both VS8 and 9, these are not the trial versions.

Today, I decided to edit a long clip taken of my daughters college graduation. I put the clip on the timeline, I entered the multi-trim screen and proceeded to make cuts. On a few occasions I used the slide to 2X the playback as I scrubbed through. The last time I brought it up to 2x, the program just instantly closed, leaving me at the desktop. Again, I know I should have saved, but thats not the issue.

My system is a fresh install of XP Pro, on a computer which is offline. A P4 2.8C with a gig of pc3200 memory in dual channel. I am using Intel north and southbridge chipsets 865PE. Fresh defrag, and seperate HDs, and I'm very aware of any TSRs running (which are none).

I just completed the exact same thing using a program called Power Director with absolutely no issues. This is so frustrating because I like the VS interface but it has been nothing but unreliable. I have also recently purchased Premiere Elements, but honestly don't like the small preview monitor and have yet to play with that one much.

Oh well, I just had to vent. BTW, the clip was DV/AVI from my Panasonic GS200. This should not be a stretch for VS to handle.

there, I feel better

dcp

[Ken Berry]

To borrow a phrase that might have come from a dime store romance, "I'm sorry it has to end this way!" I really understand your frustration. But there are awful lot of other users out there for whom VS9 works just fine.

That does not help you, however, and I confess that I tend to agree with you that it might be time to move on...

While being a fan of VS9, that has certainly not stopped me from using other programs. You mention Premiere Elements. I think that is a fantastic program. The main drawback, though, is that -- like its parent, Adobe Premiere 1.5 (and predecessors), it is far more complex and far less intuitive than Video Studio (which, as you will readily agree, is complicated enough in itself). The learning curve for Elements is very steep, and I confess I still have a finger ready to push the Help button for just about everything I do. But the results are excellent if you have the patience.

BTW, you mentioned not liking the size of the Elements preview screen. Yes, it does seem tiny. And from the three little Windows buttons that appear in the top right corner of the Preview window, the middle one (to increase or decrease the size of the window) is greyed out, thus giving the impression the size of the window is fixed to its small default size. But in fact, if you hover your mouse over any of the edges of the preview window, or one of the corners, and left click, you will see little drag arrows which you can use to increase the size of the window quite considerably. It's admittedly a bit clunky, though, since you then have to manually reduce the screen size to get at the rest of the program! Worth bearing in mind, though...

I have also heard good things about an equivalent Sony Vegas program, though can't recall the name -- Movie (or Production) Studio or something like that. Needless to say, I haven't tried it, but if it is anything like its parent Vegas Video, it too should be an excellent program. I have used Vegas Video 5 and 6, and really like the results. Though the learning curve is also very steep, it seems a bit more intuitive than its Adobe cousins.

I had high hopes for Pinnacle 10, especially since it was said to have used the same engine as the high end Pinnacle Liquid Edition 6. Although I have a copy of it, I have not yet used it as the complaints about erratic behaviour seemed to start flowing in almost as soon as it was released.

Best of luck to you!!

[DiscCoasterPro]

Thanks for the words of both advise and encouragement Ken. Yes, I'm aware of the tabs in Premiere to resize, actually sideways isnt as much of a problem as up and down which looses some timeline.

LOL ..but that problem is solved anyway. I just tried a project in Premiere and by doing nothing more than spliting clips and sliding a saved portion to the V2 line, I'm getting sporatic program freezes. I dunno, I will admit to having SP1 on this system, and since it is off line I hate to update to SP2 if I don't have to. I can't imagine that is the culprit.

So far VS 8 seems pretty stable for me, as does Power Director. I just downloaded the trial vers. of the Sony program you suggested, but alas a message comes up saying it needs .net to run. It asks if it may connect to the web to get it. LOL . . I do have a switch sitting in my dresser, I just hate to connect this darn thing to the internet.

Wonder what is left. I did see a program called Edit Studio and I think the developers even answer your pleas for help LMAO .. oh well, lets see, I can scrub through my clips in the Cyberlink program ... save to file .... reopen in VS9.. split it up and add transitions ... save to file ... Open DVD Workshop and author it. .... Save to file .... Open Nero and burn it .... then put it on the shelf where the family will never play it ...

What a hobby!
dcp

[Ken Berry]

I guess the fact that Elements also freezes tends to indicate your problems are system related, rather than program-specific. Not that that helps. Power Director clearly works for you, but as you also realise, it is a somewhat more simplistic program that may also be less demanding on your particular system.

Now that you mention it, when I first installed Vegas Video, I found that I was both missing some .DLL file (which curiously enough I found in Adobe Premiere, borrowed it and inserted a copy in Vegas, and it worked!!) and the .NET problem. I had a version of NET on my computer, but Vegas 6 told me it was too old. So I had to find another, updated version, and after that it worked well.

Love your final vision of moving from program to program, but in reality, I suspect it is not far from the truth for a lot of us. I quite often capture with the software which came with my TV card, edit in VS 9, and then produce/ burn in Movie Factory. Then, like you, put the result on a shelf where no one ever looks at it! As you say, what a hobby!!!!

[sjj1805]

Disc Coaster Pro,

Before you go rushing off to the opposition!
If you are willing to fork out loads on other programs, why not give the trial version of Media Studio 8 a whirl first.

Just a thought.

[2Dogs]

Before you abandon all hope, do check the XP event viewer, which can often give you more clues as to what's causing the problem.

And the more programs you load, the more likely problems may be!

I avoid the Microsoft Net framework like the plague - it's just a conduit for advertising and data mining with some superficial functionality.

I very much doubt a lack of SP2 is a cause of your troubles either - my VS pc never connects to the net, and will not be "upgraded" to SP2. One of the big things with SP2 was the introduction of a firewall - but it's far less effective than any freeware program, such as ZoneAlarm.

Good luck, hope you work it out!

[heinz-oz]

I might be pooring salt on some sore spots here, sorry, not intentional.

My first and last experience was with VS 5. Just too rudimentary for what I wanted. I went the MSP way. First with MSP 6.5 Director's cut and later upgraded to MSP 7 which became really good after SP3. I never looked back.

I would like to give MSP 8 a try but am a bit weary about some of the issues reported with it. I am preparing myself though. Just upgraded my memory to 2 GB PC3200 dual channel RAM since MSP8 supposedly will really take advantage of that. For the time being MSP 7.3 does what I want though. I'm a firm believer of the saying "If it ain't broken, don't try to fix it"

Even though I have two legal copies of VS 7, came bundled with some hardware I bought, I'm unlikely to use it or upgrade to VS9 for the same reasons I abandoned VS5.

[DiscCoasterPro]

Interestingly the Premiere Elements problem was a computer lock up while "generating a peak file". As soon as this peak file finished, the computer locked.

The AVI I imported was captured via firewire, thought DVD Workshop2 from my gs200. It was a type1 AVI. I converted it to type 2 using the Ulead free converter, and No more lockup with Premiere.

The Ulead converter however did manage to mess up audio for quite a while in the middle of this 12g clip that was fine prior to conversion ... .LOL I attempted to convert the file using the Canopus converter and it wouldn't even complete the process, so now I get to suspect a corrupt file .. haha

I have another AVI type 1 that I tried in Premiere with the same lock up. I am now trying both the Ulead and Canopus converter on it, and will see what happens to it when I bring it into Premiere.

Using the Canopus converter on this second file resulted in the same failure to complete conversion. Ok .. now for the Ulead converter ... Ulead did complete the first file, just messed up the audio. Same results with Ulead also, completes the conversion, Premiere no longer locks up, but the audio is reduced to static for the last third of the clip. The previous audio mess up was mid clip.

I am more than willing to try Media Studio. (actually VS8 seems pretty good to me also) I'm just thinking that the same programmers are doing both or at least taking notes from each other.

I'll tell ya,another program that just ran smooth was the Edius software. Its just that there are no third party books written on it, and it's a bear! Ahh .. I'll keep playing and see.

Either way I'll still be a buttinsky around here ..as I really enjoy reading all your knowledgable posts!

thanks guys,
dcp

[sjj1805]

I'm just thinking that the same programmers are doing both or at least taking notes from each other.

I suspect they are different programmers as I have found a number of subtle differences between the two programs. Here's two

1 The anti-flicker filter option when rendering with Video Studio
Although there is one in Media Studio you cannot just select it in the same way as Video Studio ie. Share, Create Video File, Options, Apply Anti-Flicker.

2. No Positioning grid in Media Studio like the one on the overlay screen when using Video Studio.

[ggrussell]

Not sure which version of Premiere Elements you are talking about, but PrEL 2 requires SSE2!! I learned the hard way. I have a very fast Athlon XP and PrEL 2 will NOT install. I just get a dialog box saying my computer does not meet the minimum requirement.

As far as I can tell, the ONLY AMD CPUs with SSE2 is the Opteron, Athlon 64 and two Sempron CPUs.

[PeterMilliken]

Hi DiscCoasterPro

I use VS9 on two computers - a Toshiba Notebook and a "generic" desktop system (don't ask me the specs - I don't know! ) without a single crash.

My nephew "borrowed" my VS9 to do a school assignment and installed it on my fathers computer - which was purpose supplied when he purchased Pinnacle Liquid Edition 5. My nephew reported that VS9 crashed a number of times for him. But not badly enough to stop production of the assignment using VS9 rather than Edition 5

My first inclination was to ask whether you have tried trimming clips whilst they still reside in the Library (I have never tried putting them into the timeline and then trimming them) - something that I suspect most of us do (based on my own experience of course ) - purely as a suggestion because sometimes bugs exist in the "lessor used" pathways through software - and I suspect trimming a video clip whilst it is in the timeline is a "lessor used path" for VS9. When I trim clips in VS9, I then use the "Clip -> Save Trimmed Video" to create a completely separate video file of the trimmed clip. This shows as a separate clip in the Library. Once I have trimmed my raw footage into separate clips/video files, I then move them into the timeline with appropriate frills/filters etc I have never, ever received a crash when using this "workflow".

Perhaps it is an incompatibilty with your hardware - another computer would help resolve this - but may not be possible!

Some weeks ago, whilst trolling the Internet, I came across the following review: http://video-editing-software-review.toptenreviews.com/. They rate VS9 in second place - with PowerDirector 4 as first place. Since PowerDirector 4 was also listed as having a cheaper RRP I was immediately interested and downloaded a trial version - just haven't had time to load it and take it for a spin. You might want to look at this one as an alternative to VS9.

The best of luck,
Peter

[sjj1805]

I had a look at Power Director in view of the above post.
It is in many respects similar in appearance to Video Studio so you would easily pick up its interface. It also ships with the same smartsound quicktracks.

One thing that I immediately noticed though was it only creates projects in 4.3 there is no widescreen format.