Program Disappears??!!!

[Manzano808]

I've never seen anything like this. Relative searches turns up many thousand pages, so i decided to post this.

I followed DVDDoug's directions on having VS9 make a new DV-AVI file out of the Mpeg i've been trying to finish.

Original mpeg around 6.1 + GB
Finished Avi around 31 + GB

Played ok, but didn't check whole thing (approx 1.5 hours after cutting)

Then started Multi-trimming. Got almost all the way through (just pulling ridiculous commercials etc.) when the program ups and DISAPPEARS while I was cuing forward to next commercial.

No dialog or errors, just BYE BYE in a flash. Nothing in the Event Viewer either. But behold, checked TaskMgr and guess what? Yup the executable is listed in Processes, drawing around 27 MB of memory. GUI was nowhere to be found even after some time, so I manually stopped the process. After that, it just crashes with the usual error I see on this forum (paraphrasing) Gotta problem, gotta quit!! And it does.

I've been building, repairing, supporting computer systems professionaly since early '90s and don't recall seeing a windows program just up and disappear. Perhaps i've just been lucky. I've seen windows programs do just about everything else, but not just up and disappear.

Anyone know whats going on here?

Home brew Intel 3.2 GHZ, Asus P4800E Deluxe 1 GB Samsung RAM (Buffalo Tech), ATI 9800 AIW Pro, hdds WD Caviar Special Edition, Enermax 485 W Noistaker running off an APC SmatUPS 1500, Windows 2000 Pro SP4. No anti-virus or much else running. Very clean system and extremely solid (until now). In fact, I defragged all drives before untertaking the Avi file thing.

I'm hoping this isn't anything serious but I'm panicking now with even more hdd space taken up by this project!!!! I'm too fatigued to begin messing with this. Hopefully, somebody will have a clue later (even me? )

[Ron P.]

Hi Monzano,

First I don't have a solution, however I have also had VS9 vanish on occasion. However I have experienced the same happening with other apps. I ran a system check, and found the M$ WinDoctor reporting bad memory. So I think that is why my system does this on occasion. It works until it needs to use the memory address that's bad, then bye bye to whatever I'm doing at the time...

Now that said, if you have selected in the VS9 Preferencs Automatically Save Project Every... then VS should when you restart, ask if you want to recover the last project..
That's one way you can get close to where you were working before it ran off...

Ron

[2Dogs]

Hi Monzano,

your home-brew system sound a bit Ferarri - are you by any chance overclocking? That might result in some strange behaviours.

Other than that, your avi file size is huge. If the original 1.5 hour MPEG-2 is 6.1Gb, I'd expect DV type 1 avi to be about 18Gb or thereabouts.

I can't see any point in using uncompressed avi, especially as your source is MPEG-2. If you are simply chopping out commercials, and not adding effects, transitions and so on, a more realistic workflow might be to keep it in MPEG-2 and try to make use of Smart Rendering. With your system specs, you should be able to smart render at maybe 20x real time (see my recent (boring?) "Ram - a lamb. I am a dingdong?" post if you have the time!

Good luck!

[Manzano808]

First I don't have a solution, however I have also had VS9 vanish on occasion. However I have experienced the same happening with other apps. I ran a system check, and found the M$ WinDoctor reporting bad memory.

Yes, i've seen somebody else who reported this but didn't see that anyone responded. Funny that i've never heard of WinDoctor? Probably because I use so many other diag apps. I'll look into it. It would be real interesting to see if it can find anything after i check with my other apps.

I appreciate the memory check idea. Of course when I first built this I ran extensive checks (I have a bunch of high end diagnostic programs to use in my work) but I haven't checked since we fled N.O. I did have to deal with a few hdds that were goofy since, so it may be that other stuff got messed up as well. I'll check it again immediately.

if you have selected in the VS9 Preferencs Automatically Save Project Every...

Duhhhhh, I turned that off following another Guide's screen shot. It sure would have been nice to get some of that work back.

I did notice when I loaded back the avi file after starting VS up again it then asked the "do you want to have VS match the Project Settings..." question which it didn't do the first time. I wonder now if I was trying to edit with the mpeg settings as i never changed them? Oh well, I am finding out FAST that the world of Video Editing/Creating is one that is far more complex than I had ever thought.

Thank you very much for your response on this!

[Manzano808]

your home-brew system sound a bit Ferarri - are you by any chance overclocking?

No, I have never felt the need to overclock. Not that I haven't done it [very reluctantly] at a customer's request. I agree that it can cause a MULTITUDE of problems.

your avi file size is huge. If the original 1.5 hour MPEG-2 is 6.1Gb, I'd expect DV type 1 avi to be about 18Gb or thereabouts.

Actually the size is for the raw uncut file but after cutting, it would be around that long. We forgot to stop recording when the program ended so it went way over.

I can't see any point in using uncompressed avi, especially as your source is MPEG-2. If you are simply chopping out commercials, and not adding effects, transitions and so on, a more realistic workflow might be to keep it in MPEG-2 and try to make use of Smart Rendering. With your system specs, you should be able to smart render at maybe 20x real time (see my recent (boring?) "Ram - a lamb. I am a dingdong?" post if you have the time!

I'll go back and look at your post. I did a cursory read of it as it was very interesting. Can this speed be set or are you just measuring it during rendering?

I have tried and tried to edit in mpeg but continue to see final product out of sync (please note my other posts on this).

I FIND IT EXTREMELY INTERESTING that here I am, multitrimming the original mpeg so many times just to remedy the OOS problem, BUT IT NEVER CRASHED, yet when I attempt to edit the avi, then it crashes. Well, it's probably also something to do with the huge file size. No doubt, that is putting far more strain on system resources. But i am just learning about how this tech works, so i'm really not sure. I've read where editing in mpeg could strain it as well. Guess EVERYTHING that you do with video is a system checker/taxer

Again, when did a quick retry, the program asked if I wanted to match the Project settings with (avi) file settings. It didn't do that the first time, and of course i didn't check. Perhaps that is the reason it went South? It would seem that these settings should match, esp. when dealing with such a large file?

Thank you very much!! I'll defrag, try it again and report back.

[Manzano808]

Could someone please tell me what the VS9 version no. should be when it is up to date (patched etc.) ??

I have:

Code: Select all

 9.00.100 

Thanks!!

[Ron P.]

Yours should be up to date...9.00.100

[2Dogs]

....make use of Smart Rendering. With your system specs, you should be able to smart render at maybe 20x real time...

I'll go back and look at your post. I did a cursory read of it as it was very interesting. Can this speed be set or are you just measuring it during rendering?

No, you can't set it, other than by deliberately slowing down your pc. I just measured the smart rendering time on my system and scaled it to take account of your faster cpu and probably faster memory timings.

When you try to render your trimmed video, is it to the same drive or a separate physical drive? The latter is much quicker, unless you have some fancy striped RAID arrays or a flock of Raptors.

I have to admit I'm not a multi-trimmer, so I've not experienced the audio sync problems you're having. I once recorded a Formula One GP to my camcorder then captured direct to MPEG-2 on my pc and edited out all the commercials, but it's not the kind of footage you'd notice audio out of sync anyway.

Since you clearly have pc skills, I presume that we can eliminate drive space shortages as a cause, and temporary file locations.

[Manzano808]

Since you clearly have pc skills, I presume that we can eliminate drive space shortages as a cause, and temporary file locations.

Well, before trying to learn video editing/creating, i USED to believe i had a lot of space!! But no, i don't believe thats an issue.

I've just found that my converted (newly created) avi file is so far out of sync and it is far worse than the results were editing in mpeg. I will update my other post(s) to reflect this.

Thanks for the confirmation on version Vidoman!!

[Manzano808]

Not confirmed yet, but I believe that this Service from Raxco's PerfectDisk was causing the crashes and strange disappearing acts. I don't run this service but it starts up when you defrag, and remains afterwards.

In every case, it was running.

At any rate, I don't have the time to mess around with it. I'll either disable it or remember to manually stop the service.