Nerovision Express 2 Transcoding Problems

@ Talksalot

Well I can't agree with you on this. Considering the almost infinite permutations/configurations of hardware/software/codecs out there, it's a bit of a stretch to expect 100% perfection/compatibility across the board with any software.

Whether it be firewalls, anti-virus, burning apps, etc. We have different processors, chipsets with various driver versions, OS updates, hardware from dozens of manufacturers (vid cards, capture cards, modems, all with various driver versions available). I could go on and on. With so many good alternatives/choices of programs that do essentially the same thing sometimes you have to move on and find the one that plays nice with your configuration. For every person who loves ZoneAlarm there's another who will knock it and rave about Sygate (or any other firewall or program type you use). It all boils down to what plays nice on your configuration.

NeroVision Express 2 is one of my used programs. I constantly convert all sorts of files, AVI (Xvid, Divx), MPEG1/2, VOB, PAL and NTSC, many times combining all in one project. I find it extremely easy to convert PAL DVD's to NTSC by simply loading the VOB's, merging them and creating new chapter stops, the results are much better than what the much more expensive MainConcept encoder (which is only an encoder) produces.

I originally came here because I could not do DVD photo slide shows (I've since gone to Ulead for that). I tried a few solutions, including updating to NVE3, but still no joy and unfortunately the first PAL conversion I tried with NVE3 failed... so I'm back to using NVE2 rather than racking my brain trouble shooting it (I'll wait for a few more Nero updates before I try it again).

I agree with Craig that many times it's not just Nero that's affected. A while back I had some AVI's that caused NVE to crash/disappear, but I found the same problem when trying the same AVI's in MainConcept encoder it just vanished with no error reported. That problem was sorted with some codec adjustments.

I can sympathize with your plight, but unfortunately one size does not fit all.

 

I had a 3.0.1.14 version od nve. I have not problems with converting, but I can not use subtitles
Does anyone know somethiong about it??/

 

~MysticE~

Possibly true in some cases, but so far I've personally had a huge success rate with the majority of software titles I use on my system (then again as a rule I don't use BETA or freeware). Instead I'd rather purchase known, respected titles such as NERO to accomplish difficult tasks and increase the odds of their working. At one time Nero passed this test, now suddenly it doesn't, and I find I'm not alone to great relief. The system I have is hardly unusual, it came as a Dell standard Dimension 8200 system, all I added was an IBM slave HDD and Belkin firewire card to it, all purchased through Dell to keep everything under warrantee, and installed by Banktec, Dell subcontracted specialists.

What I expect from any company that charges higher prices for software is they test it under most common configurations and scenarios before unleashing it on my system. Software which locks up systems or causes blue screens of death is inexcusable [Read: Microsoft]. In this particular case, it was at a time when I'd newly purchased a burner from Egghead.com and had limited time to test before returning as defective. Nero did not help this process any, and the limited license version made the Nero 6 copy Sony provided a further misery being as I could not use it with my LG internal CD/DVD combo drive to burn CD’s. Had to uninstall and re-install my older copy of Nero 6 Ultra for that + all the updates over again. Nice. Think I have every right to complain about that being as had I known this in advance, would never have installed that copy in the first place.

I understand your platform on this issue has leaned toward codec’s as the culprit, but I suspect much more is causing these problems. Noticed my question about Nero specific codec’s went unanswered however. The entire Nero bundle isn't the problem... it's consistently been NVE3. The rest of the programs apparently work amazingly well, as so far I’ve not had a problem with them. For this reason, there is no cause to expect these problems cannot be resolved, but nobody can deny this process has taken excessively long and is still causing problems for many people. Keep in mind that not everyone having NVE3 issues have posted here, many lurk, others may not find their way to this thread, and the rest don't have time to. There may be many more complaining in silence or thinking it is hardware failure or worse, personal inadequacies.

 

I have been following this thread for a while, hoping to get some clues on how to solve the issues I am experiencing on my system with NVE.
I have a new system (enough ressources in terms of RAM[512], disk[80GB] and CPU [1.6GHz Centrino]) and the latest version of NVE installed.
There are 2 issues I am having, which have partially been experienced by the people in this thread as well.

1. Dazzle DVC90 external capture card (I am using a laptop) is not recognized (and btw. blamed by Nero support for all subsequent issues). Interestingly enough NVE V2 did recognize a video input signal from Dazzle, however no sound. Upgrading to NVE V3, this capability was lost (shall we rather call it downgrade?) with the added "feature", that the screen, that pops up for checking the compatibility of the recognized capture card asks to choose the device to be tested, but the window is empty (there are no dropdown fields or whatever should be there to make a choice). All you can do is move on to the next screen, which then allows you to choose the audio input, which all of a sudden does have drop down fields to choose from! After completing compatibility tests NVE certainly does not recognize any input signal from Dazzle anymore!

2. I could however workaround this issue by using Pinnacle Studio , which came with the capture card. It allows me to capture an MPEG-2 file from the analog VCR on the other side of the capture card. Pinnacles Quickstart version however does not allow certain functionality (such as multi-level menues). Since I had purchased the full version of Nero Reloaded, I was going to use NVE to author the DVD. Using NVE for creating animated thumbnail menues is very slick and easy and I had a project of 4 MPEG-2 files ready to burn in no time at all. The simulation step in the end, looked great and I was looking forward to the final product.
Unfortunately I never got beyond the burn step. After coasting the inital DVD, I went to burning either as an image or to disk. No matter what the output choice was supposed - the problem always was the same: at random places (never the same, sometimes it runs for 2 hours, sometimes it only manages 2 minutes), the process stops running and just hangs there without any error message or shutdown or whatever. You only realize it, if you check taskmanager (shows 0% CPU) and the bar for the remaining time, which does not move. Everything else however behaves as if nerovision.exe was still running (time is still ticking and progressing on the screen); except you cannot cancel it by clicking on the Cancel-Button (at least it has no effect) and you have to kill the program. It does not freeze the computer, however you do not get an error message either. It's just like NVE has gone asleep during transcoding and cannot be woken up again.
Since the hangup always happens at different spots, I cannot check system ressources at that very moment, but afterwards there is no shortage of either RAM or disk space!? It's frustrating!
Btw. I have done all the things mentioned here: clean re-install, removed Pinnacle or any other potentially disturbing programs, stopped antivirus programs etc.

 

I too have been having problems for some months.

It was nice to see that I was not alone.

For many reasons I do not think that NVE is totally to blame. When I uninstalled and reinstalled a known good copy of NVE (that had worked fine for me last summer) - my problems did not go away. NVE clearly has bugs - I'm suspecting the fix is taking so long because of sloppy programming by MANY vendors all interfering with each other.

During my debug I noted that NVE encodes in 2 steps:
a) First step preview screen is blank
b) Second step preview screen shows video being worked on.

(Third step is Blue screen or sieze)

During the first step NVE is writing AVI files to the local TEMP directory (Documents & Settings/USERNAME/local settings/Temp. The files end in TMP (I think) and have NVE embedded in the name. Change the extension of last written file (after crash) to AVI and you can see what was being worked on before the crash. These files are cleaned up during a successful burn.

Not a silver bullet for this problem but another tool to help debug.

I use Raid drives - Promise controller. Anyone else using RAID?

 

~jgcha~

Not using RAID, but was confused by your statement. If you had a known good copy of NVE, why are you reporting problems? Is it that you installed an upgrade and experienced problems afterward, then re-install the working version which then failed? Or did you simply uninstall and reinstall the "known good copy" of the program, and if so, how would this make it no longer work? Something seems missing i.e. also installing sloppy programming by MANY unspecified suspect vendors *grin*[point taken btw]... which made me curious. Do you have knowledge of programs that might be causing the problem? If so, please share this info if you can. Perhaps the rest or some of us here also have this software in common and should remove it.

I'll admit using APC battery backup with APC Powerchute software which is unimpressive as being wholly compatible w/WinXP, and Norton's Systemworks & Personal Firewall which are known to interfere with several Direct X intensive programs [specifically 3D games] until unenabled, but even with these shut off NVE does not work for me. Consider myself fortunate not to have experienced a blue screen like some reported, and will count my blessings, but it makes me nervious to hear. Takes only once for me to remove software capable of this from my machine, and rarely do I try using it again. Not worth it.

 

Craig
Are you aware that NVE 3100 has lost the option during a DVD slide show to return the viewer to the menu after each program (slideshow)? I wasalso somewhat shicked to find that it is not possible to go back to 3027 and use a project created by 3100. Surely this was not the intention?
Ron
PS Quality was excellent and shimmer or whatever you want to call it (due to over-sharpening images appears to be absent. Good!

 

i was having the same transcoding problems trying to author/burn a dvd. my source files were .avi format. i had to .avi files that i was trying to put onto a dvd. i wanted a main menu with two choices, each leading to one of the .avi file. selecting one of the choices would lead you to another menu with chapter selections for the video. the only editing to the source files was to take out some footage - now transitions, titles, etxt, etc. i was able to successfully author the videos and get the files ready to burn. during the transcoding process, nero would hang for a while and then stop.

i e-mailed Craig Campbell who was responsive and helpful with possible solutions - starting with upgrading from NVE2 to NVE3. well, after not being able to get the files successfully transcoded, i decided to use another program to transcode the files first and then use NVE3 to burn the disc. when i loaded one of the source .avi files, my computer hung - leading me to believe the problem wasn't really with NVE3 but with my source .avi file. so i opened the .avi file with another program, edited it and saved it. after that i was able to successfully author and burn my dvd.

i would like to thank Craig for his time and effort in assisting me. Craig was extremely responsive to my e-mails, answering each one in a timely manner. in each e-mail Craig provided clear suggestions for me to try. as we all do, i was quick to blame NVE for the problems i was having when it was really my source file. one suggestion i would make is to try editing/saving your source file in another program to determine if there is a problem with the file.

 

~stefan7~

Could you please elaborate on which other program was used?

Even though I find using another program to make NVE work a less than acceptable solution, it may be the only one we have for some time. Being as none of my .avi files (and I have many) work with this program, it hardly seems plausable they all could be the 'source' of this problem.

 

i tried to use TMPGEnc to transcode my original .avi file. this is what locked up my computer and led me to believe the problem wasn't with NVE.

i used MS Movie Maker to edit the original .avi file. once i edited it and saved it, NVE had no problems transcoding the file. while i was authoring the original .avi file in NVE, it had no problems with the .avi file. it wasn't until NVE tried to transcode the file that the problems occurred.

one final note - i'm not saying that the source .avi file is the cause of all the problems out there... it was a problem i was having and i am trying to offer another possible solution. i do agree that having to use several programs to author/burn a dvd isn't ideal. while i haven't burned a lot dvds (yet), this was the first time i encountered any problems with NVE and it turned out to be something in the source file.

hope this helps...

 

Talksalot:

Sorry I was not clear.

I have been having problems with NVE for months - since ver that came out in OCT approx.

I cleaned my machine removing as many remnants of Nero SW that I could find. Uninstall does not clean them all (common practice all SW). Pieces scattered all over - did not log all locations.

With a 'clean' machine I reinstalled the Aug 2004 BR & NVE(2). That version worked fine for me (at the time). It failed now.

That tells me that some SW has changed my setup and is (at least) helping cause my problems. I have no idea yet what is the root cause.

I also note that repeated attempts using same files results in DIFFERENT crash points and sometimes different symptoms (Blue screen, Crash/Reboot, Sieze, Halt with Nero errors).

I am adjusting one variable at a time to attempt to determine root cause. I suspect ALL software - Microsoft, Pinnacle, Nero, ATI, Creative being at the top of my personal list. It is most likely one of them are 'helping'.

After 20 years in QC troubleshooting (not software) 1st step in problem solving is to collect what is - in this case Audio/Video/OS hardware & software. If everyone listed their:

1) OS and ver (mine=XP home current ver)
2) Video (Mine ATI All in wonder 9600 - current sw)
3) Sound (Mine Soundblaster live plat - current sw)
4) Video Editor - (Mine Pinnacle Studio 8 ATI version)

If no coorelation is found - dig deeper into other HW/SW. It is likely we all have something in common - wonder what it is?

 

~jgcha~

Now that I get a better picture of what you did, started thinking if maybe I did something similar... but realized that wasn't it. Not saying Nero didn't work before I started trying to author DVD's, might very well have, but I'll never know. Can confirm it did everything else very well, and this is why I was surprised to find this one aspect acting so screwy. I also used Nero's clean tool to remove clutter left behind and re-installed twice, but that made no difference. Only other software of a similar vein (DVD authoring) was installed after Nero's failure to perform, so that wasn't it either.

Then you mentioned Creative. I installed 'Creative File Manager 2' & 'Creative Mediasource Editor' for use with Nomad Jukebox 3. Granted previous versions were poorly thought out and buggy, but has since been revamped and works outstandingly well. Is this the same software you reference as being questionable? Hope not, as I'm not likely to remove either to author DVD's over transferring data and audio into a well used Mp3 player. Need File Manager to transfer data, & Mediasource to transfer audio, but this software is never used on video that I'm aware of.

Glad you've drawn a clear picture of what you did being as I'm not good at guessing. To someone new to this process, I'm not aware of all the different software used to convert, edit or author. So far I've wasted a great deal of time & money trying those I read about being the best, and won't spend more until I'm sure of this. Pinnacle is next on the list, and I have a copy somewhere, but that's the last straw. I'm getting burned out on experimenting.

As for useful input:

1) OS and ver (mine=XP home current ver)
2) Video (Mine ATI All in wonder 9600 - current sw)
3) Sound (Mine Soundblaster live plat - current sw)
4) Video Editor - (Mine Pinnacle Studio 8 ATI version)

My specs are:

1) OS: XP Home v 2002 (SP1)
2) Video: Gforce 4 TI4600
3) Sound: Turtle Beach Santa Cruz DSP
4) Video Editor: Tried using TempEnc, Cucusoft Pro, and DVD Decrypter rip to ISO

If .avi files render perfectly in Gspot and necessary codec are reported as installed, then run perfectly in Nero ShowTime, shouldn't they in NVE? Logically, it would seem so. Two titles in the same package working with video should work in tandem. If it can play, it should also author (in a perfect world)... but that could be a layman's perspective, professional opinion may vary.

Meantime, I'm going back to learning more on the subject. If someone discovers a magic bullet for converting .avi files into those NVE likes better, I'll give it a shot. Would be a time consuming process, but will if that’s what it takes.

 

Talksalot:

Well, Truth be told, so far your setup and mine are totally different!

OS - I'm running SP2. I won't go into the LONG debug of that disaster! (Running great now - I think...)

Creative - No, I have an old Sound blaster Live Platinum. Creative doesn't even update it very well anymore. I blast MP3s to CD and DVDs - don't have a portable player.

Be aware that Nero's clean tool CLEANS OTHER SOFTWARE'S REGISTRY ENTRIES. Pinnacle complains every time I use the Nweo cleantool. (That tells me that Pinnacle is ALSO fooling with Registry entries - sigh - at least it lets me know.) This may be common codecs that are being tweaked - I don't know, neither program gives me a clue what it's doing. Difficult to debug.

Clear error messages would help everyone - hmmm?

I tried quite a few DVD authoring tools about a year ago. Nero was the best non-commercial program that I came across.

When CD burning started I aquired a 1st generation (1x) burner to play with. Talk about horrible software/hardware/media. It was about the 3rd generation (4x burn) where things started to get useful and the CD/Coaster ratio approached 50% - or at least it seemed like that at the time. It took about 1 1/2 years for that to happen.

DVD burning is kinda at 2nd generation I think. Nero's problems are to be expected in my mind. You can change vendors - and end up with a different set of problems.

I must agree with your previous statements about some SW working best with some configurations. It can be very time consuming and expensive to find that SW, however.

Welcome to the world of Hi-Tech!

Nero (and other vendors) push too hard to update without proper QC. Not sure that's all their fault.
Customers want compatibility and function NOW. SW turnaround 10 years ago was about 1 year. How often does Nero update?...

 

I'm using the last version of Nero VisionExpress3. So far I have burnt 2 DVD (that's my whole experience), both less than 1.4GB. This morning I was trying to burn a 2.99GB DVD and Nero closes without a message or notice or nothing when the Transcoding of my menu1 starts. I was trying to add some background music to my menus and I was trying to make them run for 120secs and the other for 320secs. That caused that the file I was trying to burn increased from 1.2GB to 2.99GB.
I've been looking for answers since then but I gave up. I had to cut the lenght of the menus background music from 120secs and 320 secs to just 30secs. Now it's working but obviously that what I did is not an option or fix action.
Something I did notice is that when you have an animated menu(s) you can preview them in the page with the "remote control". When I tried to preview the longer menus (120 secs and 320secs), Nero closed, without notice, message, etc., after 20-25 secs.
I know this doesn't help you guys, but if this problem has a fix-action available (that I couldn't find), please let me know. (by the way, I have a Dell, PentiumIII, 933MHz, 512MBRAM, two hard drives (one is a 250GB hard drive dedicated to Nero where my captured videos and Nero software are saved and installed).
Thxs

 

~jgcha~

Sorry for being so slow on the uptake. Didn't realize Creative made Soundblaster being as I've never owned one. Only reference was the Mp3 player, and couldn't figure how video applied.

Thanks for info on Nero cleaning tools. Seems something like that happened when I used them, but Symantec's Windoctor repaired those changes and saved the day. Didn't know what caused it, and blamed something else for lack of an explanation. I always look to see which programs change, make a mental note and what transpired prior to the change. Might not be a bad idea to backup the registry before using cleaning tools being as XP system restore points aren't always reliable. Haven't had any problem using Windoctor to recover so far thankfully, but an additional safety net is always a good idea.

Sure Nero has several updates, but none have seemed to work. I'd be willing to wait longer for one that does rather than hold false hope each time while trying to see if the problem is fixed. I don't enjoy being a guinea pig. And you are absolutely right, I have a new toy and want to use it now. After years of using computers for business applications, I'd like to have a little fun for a change! Thought I'd waited long enough already to buy this burner, and by now things would operate smoothly with exception of dual layer. Guess that's what I get for being an idealist, but I'm not about to give up on Nero. It's still the best package on the market for now, and may be for a long time to come.

Hope I live long enough to be able to laugh at this thought one day! What we think of as Hi-Tech today will become tomorrows 8 track.

 

I have experienced every annoying issue discussed in this forum with Nero. I closed finally I closed out all my applications(Screen saver, virus checker, etc...) I went into task manager and shut down all extra apps. The system would crash even though I had little if any CPU processing and the PF Usage was brought down below 220MB. The burn worked! It woked several times now. Folks give it a try. Kill all the apps in task manager that have been activated by the user. I doubt that this will work for everyone but we can hope. Good luck!

 

Hello Erac,

Whenever you open Nero, it starts generating a log file, so even if you are never prompted to save a log file, or you never even get to the point of writing to the drive, you can locate this file on your hard drive at C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Ahead\NeroVision\NeroVisionLog.txt

I'm here in Germany to get information on the QA Process for NVE, and looking for ways to improve this process if possible. I'm also hoping to talk with the Engineers to see what they make of all the issues reported on this thread, and to get a better understanding for interpreting the NVE Log file to help better trouble shoot the product.

I hope to come away much more knowledgeable on this product.

Regards,

Craig
Nero Inc
USA

 

Craig,

This isn't directed at you because I think that you do a marvellous job and are the only person at Nero to actually listen to users and their issues.

Is there any chance that Nero can improve its online support offering? The Nero website has a very limited amount of information (the FAQs are pretty much a waste of time) and people have to find websites such as Afterdawn to answers their problems. Surely if Nero were really interested about looking after their paying customers they could improve their online support. Then we probably wouldn't haven't threads like this one running onto 14 pages and more.

Could you put this idea in a suggestion box somewhere at Nero HQ whilst you're in Germany.

Cheers,
Hywel

 

Hi Hwyel,

We are already taking steps to do just this. I can not yet state what is being done, as this intails some company politics and a significant rearrangement of resources.

But I hope in the next 3 to 6 months time, and hopefully a lot sooner, there will be changes in this area.

Both Nero Inc in the US and Nero AG in Germany are working together to do this. But in any company, when there are changes, they are slow to occur as you have to keep up the current support, even while you take steps to rearrange and improve the support process.

But the supports teams in both the US and Germany fully agree with your view, and have been discussing this for quite some time. And we have already begun the process to make the changes.

Regards

Craig
Nero Inc
USA

 

Craig,

Thanks for the reply. Its encouraging that Nero are making moves in this direction. I hope that it happens sooner rather than later, and I fully understand the issues about company politics and resourcing. We gone through a similar process at the company I work which has been pretty painful. In fact everyone in the IT organisation were issued with the book "Who moved my Cheese?" to help us understand Change!

Hywel