Here's the results of last nights wrestling match with Plus. I think my render problem is actually an audio capture problem. I thought back on the problems I have had with capture since going to Plus. Number one - if I turn on my cam after launching Plus "Capture Sources" initializes 1394 as video source but usually does not initialize it as audio source. If I don't check this out and go to capture, the deck controls are grayed out and I might even have a screen capture image on the preview pane. If I click the drop-down and choose 1394, Plus may capture, usually to a "stuttery" clip, or it may crash. Version 9.1 did not have this problem when I used it to capture. Problem appeared again when I started upgrading through Plus 9.3.0. My version two days ago was 9.3.4 (LITE patch). Last night I skipped lite patch and went to 9.3.5 (FULL patch)Pinnacle recommends LITE patch for CD versions 9.3 and later, FULL for earlier versions. Now, if I turn on the cam and let the devices initialize in XP prior to launching Plus, I don't have the audio capture device problem and the captures are stutter-free. These stutter-free captures also render well when placed in a test project. I found that if a prior clip exhibited audio stutter in preview and was pulled into the test project by itself, it would not render with the audio in place. If the clip previewed ok then it rendered ok. For rendering the test I chose VHS quality mpeg since it will render quickly if it is going to render at all. My own conclussion is that something happened in the capture device initialization software when Pinnacle moved to Plus. The work-around seems to be: To turn on cam prior to launching if you know beforehand you are going to capture; Watch for clip stutter in preview as indicator of corrupted capture; If you are having problems with a prior project use a test project in VHS mpeg (or other low quality) to try to render a suspect clip; Re-capture bad clips. Thanks for the pointer to Version-10. "A-h-h-l-l-l believe it's bug-free when a-h-h see it!" I've worked with v-7 through Plus now. When it works it's great but it's been a pain.
Additional Info: MS has an XP (SP-2) 10-17-2005 patch for firewire problems at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;904412 They previously had a 3-30-2005 XP SP-2 patch for 1394 problem.
Update. I decided to recapture my video in .avi format. I started my project over and it worked fine. Looks as good as the original VHSc. Takes over 3 hours to render but it has worked about a dozen times. I did notice that it crashed when I opened any Hollywood FX. I uninstalled and reinstalled from my 9.1 CD. I did not delete any folders. Updated with the FULL 9.4.3.70 patch. Still works fine. I wish I could tell everyone exactly what I did to make it all work but I don't know. It did have render problems when I first started using S9. One thing I noticed is that the patches were reposted in June 2005. I suspect they made changes and reposted the patch with the same version number. I did have 9.4.3 that I dl'd early this year and it did not work.
Can someone please help me with this I am frustrated. I also have rendering problems, the problem isn't that it *stalls* the problem is that when I render and play it back, some parts of video our missing, it skips, it's all mixed up, some sections play smoothly but others aren't even there. First off, what do you think the cause of this problem would be, also if I were just to upgrade to studio 10 to fix this, how would that work? Could I just import my studio 9 project into studio 10?
Is the scrambled render on a burned disk? Can you render to an AVI or mpg file and play it successfully on a media player? That would point maybe to your disk burning process or hardware. Update to fail-to-render problem: The broadband-quality mpeg render does a nice job of testing for corruption in captured clips and renders much faster than the VHS quality. I was able to easily identify corrupted clip files by dropping them one at a time into an "unamed" project then test rendering. I think I will try the test render deal on the whole project once I get it back together using recaptures. Beats setting it to render 5 or 6 hours at bed time and finding a "clinker" the next morning.
I captured it from a DV camcorder. I plugged the camcorder into the vcr, which was plugged into my Dazzle 150 capture hardware, since I don't have the hardware that enables me to capture directly from the camera. It wasn't captured from a cd.
Hello all. I have had much frustration with rendering with this program version 9.4.3 just like everyone else. It always stopped at a random place every time. Someone in this thread (edman98) suggested that the rendering problem may be from capturing the video in pinnacle. I decided to download a program called 'WinDV'. It is free, and rated pretty high by users. WinDV easily captured my video in .avi format and saved to my hard drive. I then brought these saved avi files from the folder on my hard drive into a new project in pinnacle, and edited my video/made a menu like I normally would for my movies. And believe it or not, when it was time to burn the disc, pinnacle rendered completely and had NO problems. I have went through this process three different times recording 60 minutes of video each, and haven't had a problem... since I've used WinDV to capture my video. So yes, its kinda a nuisance to use a seperate program, but I really don't think its a big deal.. it really doesnt take much extra time at all. Give it a try if you are still having problems with rendering.
OK, my final comment on this issue: Pinnacle is crap. I'm sorry, but while version 10 and its patches seemed to fix some of my issues, the primary 45 minute project I had been working continued to have audio stuttering. I gave up. I know this wasn't a capture problem because my video parts, when rendered, worked fine. It stuttered on audio added from CD or .wav files. I think if you're looking to create 10-15 minute simple projects, Studio is a decent piece of software. If you're looking to render larger projects or do any kind of professional editing, you need to get something else. Last week I got my copy of Sony Vegas + DVD. I did 10 days worth of research looking for an affordable professional video editor. Vegas is about $400, but in 10 days I will tell everybody on this list that it is worth is price in gold. Gone are almost all of my problems. Vegas has its own collection of issues, but I have found a simple workaround for all of them. The rendering engine is light years beyond Pinnacle's... faster, more effective. I believe one of Studio's problems eminates from the fact that it renders DVDs within the software. I mean, rendering an MPEG from Studio is an entirely separate process from rendering and burning a DVD. You can write the DVD files without burning, but both MEPEG rendering and DVD burning are 2-4 hour processes for every 30 minutes of footage. Vegas + DVD is actually two applications. You create and render in Vegas, and then use AVI or MPEG files (created in Vegas) in the DVD authoring program. This is an enormously effective and simple concept. You get your footage to look how you want it to in Vegas, and then the DVD authoring program simply implants that video. Last night I had 90 minutes of Christmas footage for my in-laws I ws converting from VHS to DVD. The MPEG rendering process took 4 1/2 hours (which, incidentally is far faster than Studio would have taken). But once it was rendered, burning the DVD took 20 minutes to burn, with copies taking only 3-4 minutes each. If I had to criticize Vegas for anything, it's that things are not as well laid out as in Studio. A lot of the Studio stuff is intuitive. Vegas is a professional-level program, so you have to do some snooping to figure out things like how to change button images in the DVDA program. There is a much steeper learning curve, and it costs $200-300 more. But you know what? It works. After the last 4 months with Pinnacle, it could be written in Japanese and I wouldn't care...
I also had the problems rendering. I removed the software, and re-installed form CD to version 9.3.6.13. All problems solved ! Good Luck from Holland !
I will not buy another pinnacle project in the near future, maybe I'll buy studio 25 or something, because it seems it will take them that long to get everything right, it's a great product, great features, horrible execution.
Wow, that meany problems..? Yikes. My buddy has Ver 9 and recently started having problems with it freezing while rendering. I thought Ver 10 would be a good bet, however I found 9 reviews on pricegrabber . com and the reviews are horrible. Link to the horrible reviews is shown below. I am going to take a serious look into Sony Vegas.... http://www.pricegrabber.com/rating_...d=12432623/id_type=M/form_keyword=pinnacle 10 more bad news.... http://reviews.cnet.com/Avid_Pinnacle_Studio_Plus_10/4852-3670_7-31528139.html?tag=uolst and yet a few more....(from the pinnacle weboard) http://webboard.pinnaclesys.com/read_threads.asp?WebboardID=1&ForumID=1299&lng=1&SectionID=273 The Pinnacle board mentions a 10.2 patch availability.....anyone running the patch. I am waiting to purchase until I get good word that its stable.
My luck finally ran out. I changed a few scenes in my project which changed the length from 57 minutes to 63 minutes. It failed to burn. Rendered okay but refused to burn the disk. After much trial and error I discovered that 63 minutes is too long. Even though the diskometer says it had 3 minutes of free space. I tried the automatic bitrate setting and that doesn't work. I selected custom and reduced the bitrate in steps until I got to 6500 Kbps which worked. The diskometer said 11 minutes free space. After I burned it I checked the file size on the DVD and it was 4.29 GB! I think Pinnacle forgot that 4.7GB disks really only hold 4.37GB! After much research and many trials it seems that 59 minutes is the max size for full DVD quality. I also removed all the music, 290Mb worth and the diskometer showed no change. Anyone else have this experience with Studio9? PJ
I have used Studio 9 successfully for the past several months. Yes it does occasionally freeze. (So does Sony Sony Vegas + DVD). Perhaps it is how I use the program. I record programs from TV into an mp2 file. I use Studio 9 to edit. I do know that a separate large hard drive for capture and rendering is a must. (internal, NOT external) Defrag the capture drive religiously. Save often while editing. Do no other work on the computer while rendering. I believe that Studio may have software and hardware compatibility issues. Why else could I have success with the following? P4 2.4ghz running Windows 2000 with 1 GB RAM Video card is a 3 & 1/2 year old ATI 8500 All-In-Wonder Soundcard is Turtle Beach Montego DVD burner is a Plextor 712 SATA Operating system hard drive is a 40 GB Seagate 7200 PATA Capture Drive is a 250 GB Seagate 7200 SATA Again, virtually no problems. Even my motion menus come out beautifully!
Alane1313 your post once again confirms the problem most people are having here is caused by using Version 9 to CAPTURE video and then render it. Like many others I now use a seperate capture process to then edit and render in V9, and it works just fine. The fact you have to do this is the issue, and tech support at Pinnacle just does not recognise the issue... despite the lenghty dialogue here. It has nothing to do with, spec of PC or cards, memory or disk defrag. It has everything to do with software that does not function as advertised.
Thanks for answering, Radioham. I don't think alane1313 can have read the thread. We went through all this stuff at the beginning - then people began to realise that the software is faulty. Nothing whatsoever to do with hard drives, defrags, processor. Please let's not go down that road again. Let's keep telling the world that the latest version of Pinnacle 9 is faulty, and we should not be paying anything to have it fixed, or to go to a new version (which seems to be faulty as well).
I have had some problems capturing and using video from other sources. I used Nero 6 to capture some video and edit with Studio. Nero used AC3 Dolby to encode the audio. Studio won't decode the audio unless you buy the addon codecs pack for 9.95. Which I really don't feel like doing. Other problem I had was capturing with the WinDVR application. When dropped into Studio those videos wouldn't run. Studio acted like it was only one frame long. I was able to salvage all the videos by using Nero and exporting the video as an Mpeg. In Nero you can select PCM audio which Studio can use. PJ
WinDV does it for me! I've been hugely frustrated by this bug in Studio Plus (how Pinnacle can continue to ignore such a failing beats me!). However, now use WinDV as suggested above to capture all video. WinDV is also better since you can just leave it to run (Studio stops after 15 mins). FINALLY - i can create decent size films. Thanks to all above
Re: lizmik's comment about Pinnacle 10.2 patch on Dec 27. I think it was my mistake or typo. The latest 10 patch is 10.1.2, not 10.2. I don't think Pinnacle will fix version 9 now that 10 is out there. I returned 9 and received a refund and bought Studio Plus 10. Mostly it works very well for what I am trying to do. I have patched to 10.1.2. However, from the start, the Import DVD Titles has not worked properly for DVD's I created on a TV DVD recorder (I am in the NTSC area). When imported, the sound is interrupted by short breaks when viewed in Studio and many times it cannot even be viewed and crashes the program. Strangely the MPEG file made by Studio, plays OK (without the sound problem) using a different DVD playing program. If I import the DVD title to MPEG using the free program DVDx, it works perfectly in Studio, so that is an easy work-around. (DVDx has the advantage that you can import only part of the DVD if you want) Other DVD titles made on my computer using programs other than Studio, do get imported OK, so it may be something to do with how my TV machine makes the DVD files. Also, I found that short 15 second video clips made with a digital still camera, are very slow to process when creating an ouput file. The clip will start to render normally and get slower and slower until it is down to taking 2 seconds to render one frame. There is not much CPU activity or memory usage, but lots of disk activity and sometime Studio crashes. It seems the files from the still camera are 25 frames per second and I guess Studio is translating them to 29.97.
Super8: Pinnacle is working on patch 10.2 according to their webboard/forum. They indicate they are looking for Beta Testers. I am a newbie, but maybe some of the more advanced users can help with Beta. [bold]Here's some info directly from the board:[/bold] Straight from the Pinnacle Web Board: http://webboard.pinnaclesys.com/rea...2444&ThreadStart=15&Pos=26&cntThread=50&lng=1 ================================================================ Topic: Pinnacle Announcement - Studio 10.2 availability Posted By: Travis White, Pinnacle Systems - Product Manager 12/30/05 As this coming update to Studio 10 is strongly needed, there will be no work on Studio 9 until after its release. We do not have a comfirmed schedule for Studio 9 at this time. 12/19/05 Pinnacle has investigated and reproduced a number of user reported issues with Studio 10.1. Pinnacle is developing a Studio 10.2 update. Among the issues addressed by this update are: - Long program load time - Program responsiveness and performance - DVD creation/compatibility A beta version of Studio 10.2 will be available to the public in early January 2006, and a release is planned by the end of January 2006. We are seeking a limited number of customers to participate in a private beta test of Studio 10.2. Please email rollade@pinnaclesys.com to apply ================================================================
LOL, I trashed 10 after I tried importing avi and mpeg with no success. 9 Plus keeps ticking though. I've had no problems whatsoever with 9 Plus at all. I unlocked every possible code in 10 and still couldn't get the damn thing to recognize the videos. Waste of time. Pinnacle "Gates'd" us. Sent out a beta version to collect more dough, all the while they still hadn't even perfected 9. I guess lucky for me at this point I've had no problems.
