I am a new user of Studio, and have been unable to complete the first project I have attempted due to the dreaded hang-up during rendering.  After doing much searching and reading on this forum, I believe I have attempted almost every trick I've come across to try and fix this issue, but nothing has allowed me to finally complete and burn my first DVD with the software.  I will list out what I've done so far and I'm hoping that someone might be able to catch something I missed or offer some new ideas.  Thanks in advance!

 The project I am working on is using video captured from an 8mm VCR using the PCI card included with the Studio MovieBoard Plus.  The capture worked flawlessly with zero issues.  I was very pleased with all of the editing features as well, and had no problems besides a few minor bugs that were easily fixed by re-starting the software.  However, after about 15 or so tries I have been unable to render and create a disc image of the finished product, which is a bit on the long side at approximately 140 minutes.  Here are my system specs and what I've tried:

 Software:  Pinnacle Studio v11.1.2.5231

System:  Windows XP sp2, 32 bit, 2.4 GHz Intel Q6600 quad core processor, 512MB GeForce 8800GT video card, 4GB DDR2 800 RAM, 500 GB hard drive (system was built new earlier this spring, drive partitioned in two and mostly empty)

Here are the total sum of everything tried for my lastest attempt:

- disabled non-essential background applications (although there is a possibilty I left some unnecessary tasks going because I can never really tell the difference between critical and non-essential tasks)

- un-installed McAfee anti-virus (it was the only way I could figure out to completely shut it off)

- deleted Auxilliary files

- turned off background rendering and checked the option to re-render entire movie

- confirmed no double-codecs (I'm pretty sure I was checking the right place)

- did not use progressive scan

- used "safe mode" to write disc image only

- copied and pasted entire movie into new project (although I've found this step to be very annoying; all of my chapter links get deleted, as well as any transitions at the beginning of the overlay and title tracks)

- i've tried to render both with a menu and without

- monitored the processor temps and found all cores to range from 50-60 with occasionaly spikes to 65 (this is the issue I know least about, and am worried might be my problem)

 Almost every attempt has ended in a hang-up at a random place in the movie, usually relatively near the beginning.  There was one time where when I checked it in the morning after letting it run overnight that the program told me it had completed the image.  There was an error message on the screen also (not a Pinnacle one I don't think) that said Error R6025 and talked about a "pure virtual function call".  The bottom line was that the VIDEO_TS folder only had about 200 MB of files in it instead of the expected 4.7 GB, so my celebration of a completed rendering was cut short.

 Thanks again for any feedback!

- Jon

 

 

 

As a test: Render the whole project as a AVI full screen DV. then re-render it to a DVD image (ISO or Video_TS) see if it plays back on the pc fine before you burn it to an actual DVD (a DVDRW is recommend) . If it does render fine and just recreate the menu and your done.

I gave this a try and was unable to render the AVI file.  The software hung up the same as it was when I tried rendering straight to the DVD files.  What does that mean?

Are the video drivers up-to-date?

GeForce Release 175 WHQL
Version:     175.19
Release Date:     July 9, 2008

That sometimes fixes random failures of Studio.

Jerry 

I believe it was up-to-date at the time, but I am going to download the latest version and give it a try right now.  A co-worker of mine had another suggestion that I wanted to see if anyone had any experience with.  Right now I have 4 GB of memory (2x2GB) installed on the machine, but I am only running XP32.  Is there a chance that the fact that XP32 can only recognize 3.5GB somehow is causing issues during rendering?

 Jon

I doubt having 4 GB memory on XP 32 bit causes the rendering issue but I would like to hear what other geniuses will say.

Try dividing the project into 30 minutes and render the effects separately then re-add the rendered AVIs to a new project.

Marc,

  I have admired your advice from afar for quite some time. However, you let me down with this response. All of the workarounds that are becoming necessary for studio users to get a dvd out of this program are becoming too much. Why should we have to resort to a two step process? Is it our hardware configuration? Please tell us what you use to get a dvd out the first try. I have a pretty up to date system, maybe I am using the wrong setup???

Criticizing some good advice is going to get you very far on this forum. Marc has always been fair and knowledgeable. Since his arrival he has been very exceptionally helpful.

His suggestion of rendering small chunks of your project is a good one. Do you get any specific errors? Does it always stop in the same place? You do mention some erros/locations in your original post. During your editing file may have been corrupted and doing it piecemeal is a good way to figure it out. Have you triend making a movie of Our Backyard Circus (default movie)? If it works, chances are it is your system.

Have you turned off your overclocked bits (non-techno term for going back to a standard setup)? Sometimes overclocking does stress a system much moreso than in other apps and it becomes apprent only during intensive render.

 Almost every attempt has ended in a hang-up at a random place in the movie, usually relatively near the beginning.  There was one time where when I checked it in the morning after letting it run overnight that the program told me it had completed the image.  There was an error message on the screen also (not a Pinnacle one I don't think) that said Error R6025 and talked about a "pure virtual function call".  The bottom line was that the VIDEO_TS folder only had about 200 MB of files in it instead of the expected 4.7 GB, so my celebration of a completed rendering was cut short.

If you can get that far, sometimes all it takes is to UNCHECK "always re-encode video and click make movie again. Studio may start right where it left off.

Marc P.:

I doubt having 4 GB memory on XP 32 bit causes the rendering issue but I would like to hear what other geniuses will say.

While we're waiting, I'll add that 4 GB mem hasn't caused me any problems with rendering.

withersdm:

I have admired your advice from afar for quite some time. However, you let me down with this response.

Thank you, I guess.

 

withersdm:

All of the workarounds that are becoming necessary for studio users to get a dvd out of this program are becoming too much. Why should we have to resort to a two step process? Is it our hardware configuration? Please tell us what you use to get a dvd out the first try. I have a pretty up to date system, maybe I am using the wrong setup???

Dividing it would allow us to easily pinpoint what is causing the freezing. It's a two edge diagnostic solution.

Ok, it looks like today was a busy day so I have some catching up to do in trying stuff out.  Just for the record, that earlier post criticizing Marc was somebody else.  While I am frustrated with the situation, I am very grateful for the help and am confident you guys will help me sort this out. 

Marc P.:

Try dividing the project into 30 minutes and render the effects separately then re-add the rendered AVIs to a new project.

 

I will get to work on this right away, but I want to clarify what you mean by rendering the effects seperately.  I am going to break the project up into 30 minute segments, but keep my transitions, etc. in each segment.  Is that what you intended?

markk655:

 

Do you get any specific errors? Does it always stop in the same place? You do mention some erros/locations in your original post. During your editing file may have been corrupted and doing it piecemeal is a good way to figure it out. Have you triend making a movie of Our Backyard Circus (default movie)? If it works, chances are it is your system.

 

I never get an error message during the render process- it just sits at the same screen with the progress bar not moving (and frames not counting) for a very long time.  I can even cancel the render at that point with no issue.  As for the errors that came up during editing, I don't remember the specific messages unfortunately.  I was able to render Our Backyard Circus and create a disc image for DVD with no problem, so I don't know what that means.

markk655:

 

Have you turned off your overclocked bits (non-techno term for going back to a standard setup)? Sometimes overclocking does stress a system much moreso than in other apps and it becomes apprent only during intensive render.

 

I don't have any over-clocking on my system- that was the other guy who posted.

markk655:

 

If you can get that far, sometimes all it takes is to UNCHECK "always re-encode video and click make movie again. Studio may start right where it left off.

 

I'm a little confused on this issue since I've seen this option recommended both ways, but I'll definitely give it a try.

 

Thanks guys, hopefully the end is in sight!

 

markk655:

 

 

If you can get that far, sometimes all it takes is to UNCHECK "always re-encode video and click make movie again. Studio may start right where it left off.

 

 

I'm a little confused on this issue since I've seen this option recommended both ways, but I'll definitely give it a try.

There have been a few successes with this including myself.  Studio would just hang for no reason, giving me a partially rendered file. I would stop the task, restart Studio ensure that the box is unchecked and then re-render. Miraculously, Studio would start where it left off. If you continue to have issues, definitely delete the auxillary files and keep the box checked. But it is definitely worth a shot. More info here.

 

Well, I had an opportunity to try all the latest suggestions, and unfortunately I pretty much completely struck out.  I divided the project into 5 segments of approx. 30 minutes each and tried to render full screen DV avi files.  Only one of five didn't hang up, so I don't know if that was dumb luck or indicating that each of the 4 other segments have issues.  What's next?  Does anyone have a list of the bare minimum of background processes that need to be left running?  

long_beach_boiler:

  What's next?  

You mentioned that your Hdd was partitioned. You  might try moving the file to the other partition and try again. Move the Aux file location as well. Just pulling at straws here.

THIS link is for Enditall. It stops most background processes that are not essential.  

THIS would be something to do if not already.

Try putting enough copies of the sample movie on the timeline to equal your problem video and try again.

 

One more straw - to grasp, not break the camel's back...

I wonder if you dropped frames during the capture and those are disrupting the render?  I have had problems with mangled video at the start or end causing hangs but I presume it could happen in the middle also.  My suggestion is to run your AVI's through VirtualDub which will create a copy for you. Then, see what happens when you try to render those.

BTW, VirtualDub is a handy tool to have around. 

Jerry 

I have had rendering freeze and also dropping frames during the render.

One thing I did was make to make into smaller segements and see where the problem was.  I would also render to a file first as an image and then burn the image on to the dvd.

Sometimes I think the planets and the moon s ahve to align just right for Studio to work.  Just my 2 cents.

Well, I have made some progress (I guess).  I duplicated the Our Backyard Circus movie to fill a movie the length of mine- and I was able to write a disc image!  So, I guess what I'll attempt next is to start at the beginning of my movie and just keep adding 15 minutes or so and re-attempting to create a disc image each time.  It seems there must be some start of problem within my movie, and hopefully this will pinpoint the location.  I didn't have any dropped frames or problems with capture, so I have no idea what the problem could be, especially since the rendering was hanging up at random locations.

long_beach_boiler:

Well, I have made some progress (I guess).  

At least you are moving forward. (I finally get to use the snail smiley)

I'll take a wild swing that your capture might be the culprit. Jerry suggested Virturaldub which just might work. You could try capturing the video again as well. OR, HERE is a link that has two more programs that might just convert the file to a workable one.

 

I've run into a similar problem with Studio 11. During the rendering, it would freeze and simply wait for something altogether. For me the problem would be at the same spot every time, and specifically at scene transitions. So far the only way I've found around it is to go to these transitions, remove one or two frames and then restart the process. It is very annoying as the rendering is a somewhat slow process. If there are alternative fixes, I'd really like to hear it.

 

Best,

Martin 

Hello mbonke, welcome to the forum. Yours, rendering stops at the same spot, is different. To avoid this in the future, I suggest that you finish rendering when you add transitions. OR you can disable background rendering and re-enable it right before you burn the project.

To the OP, keep us posted. 

I have been pretty busy and haven't been able to put as much time into fixing this lately as I had hoped, but I did try and render the project in small increments (increasing in size) to try and pinpoint any transitions or clips that might be causing trouble.  However, I have had no success with finding anything.  Whenever I adjust the amount I try to render in order to try and narrow the window of where a problem area might be, the rendering just hangs up somewhere earlier where it had previously not had a problem. 

How short were your increments before they started failing again?

I started with 15 minute increments, but I was only able to successfully write a disc image for the first 15 minutes.  When I tried to do 30 minutes it failed, so I started backing off 5 minutes at a time.  The frustrating thing is that in these subsequent attempts it will some times stop at locations it previously passed with no problem. 

Something I'm thinking about trying is removing all of my transitions and effects and just leave my trimmed video clips and see if I can write an image for that.  If that doesn't work, I'll just try and render the raw, unedited file I captured from the VCR.  I don't see any reason why that wouldn't work since I was able to write an image of Our Backyard Circus duplicated to the same length.

 

Jon,

I commend you for sticking with your troubleshooting. There is no crystal ball, but a solution should eventually emerge. (Hopefully). If you render just your original .avi file and it fails, you might try a new capture of the tape.

I re-read the thread, and hope your latest attempts show sucess. However, I'm just swinging in the dark here. You mention that your Hdd is partitioned, I'm wondering if this has anything to do with your problems. Have you considered changing the default location for your auxillary files?

Make sure "Both" partitions are defragged.