I'm demented !!  

I have had so many problems life itself is too short to relate them all.   

After spending months fighting crash after crash after freeze after freeze, and through help on this forum, I upgraded the graphics card, installed a separate hard drive, upped the Ram, defragmented everything in sight, turned off the internet and disabled the Norton anti-virus.  I finally, six months late, got the project completed ready for "Make Movie".

The project is 85mins long and I settled on automatic at 80%.  Just when I thought I was home and dry the project will not burn on to disc.  It has failed in five attempts.  It starts and the curser moves along the timeline and then just stops, once after 350 frames, anther time after 1460 frames.  During the last attempt it stopped after 3660 frames.  The only thing to do is to close with windows task manager and open up pinnacle again and try again.  I have wasted five discs so far and am totally fed up, each one with a few minutes of the project on them, which I presume I can't use again.  

What is the problem and what do I do to correct it.  I don't want to land on the Moon, I just want to burn a flipping dvd, no rocket science required.

So come on lads,  the Cavalry had better arrive quickly on this one, as your not just correcting a digital glitch you'll be saving the sanity of a poor demented soul  !

I used to have a life once.  Then Pinnacle arrived and now I'm a shadow of my former self, pale, wan, cross-eyed, red-eyed and fading fast.

 Help !

P 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What version of Studio are you using?

If you are burning straight to disc, stop it right now! Create an image first and test that with a software player. Then try to burn that image to DVD.

There is another soul that seems to be up against the same issue. Wonder what has changed? 

 

JJN

 I'm using Pinnacle Studio 11 Ultimate.  I was in the act of "creating" the disc when it stopped.   I wasn't burning direct. 

On one occassion I tried leaving it alone for an hour or two to see if it would unfreeze itself but no good

I read all the your attached threads but I don't see anything there to help.  I do not have any menus in the project.  I do have transitions and one or two clips with effects like brighness and speed up.   The freeze didn't seem to happen on these clips or transitions

P

When you're working from within a project and they go to create a DVD either image or disc, your computer kicks up into high gear energy wise. Your software could be causing the problems or your system could be causing the freezes. If your cpu is overheating it could cause a freeze when you put that demand on it as could your memory or even your motherboard or your power supply. The power supply would most likely cause a reboot it it was the problem, though. I have used S11 to create DVD images with no problem, but I've also made sure I have a good power supply and good RAM memory, which I use memtest86+ to check. I use good motherboards and I update my bios's and board drivers regularly. What kind of system do you have?

Right on WeeWee!

 If you can't even create an Image on the HDD with make movie as image, you are not yet into burner issues assuming S11 starts OK to create the image files.

If you know where the rendering freezes, you can copy a chunk of your project at that point to a new temporary project and try rendering it. If you have a complex transition which repeatedly stalls, it could be you have a PC or graphics card speed/memory issue.

I don't want to be responsible for busting PC's. but let a high end gamer loose on yours with some hi res PC games for 6 hours. If they play well and the PC survives, it is probably a good starter for S11. If it crashes and burned, BSOD or freezes, then you got your answer. I'm spending a bit of time now reading up on what these overclockers get up to and I think there are lessons we can learn. Although I appreciate we are more 'Creatives' than PC Geeks. They use test apps like prime95 which can push all 2 or 4 cores of a CPU at 100% for hours on end, they monitor CPU and GPU card temperature and power supply voltages.

It's easy to knock S11 first. But unless you really know what your PC hardware is doing and what's actually in the AT case and how it's cooled (not just 'it was a new PC'), I think many problems can turn out to be hardware related or conflicts with other Apps. There are very few other programs that expect to run on a PC maxed out at 100% cpu with everything screaming for hours. 

This is the reason why a PC sold by a reputable firm for server or 'Extreme' applications is a different animal to a consumer Dell from PC World and costs a lot more money. Look inside a server PC running 24/7 and gaze at the massive heat sinks and fan cooling. My first HD project render on a 3.4Ghz single core with loads of level correction, noise reduction and some PIP took 10 hours to render and my PC finished it OK.

As has been suggested, render to the hard drive before ever trying to make the DVD  BUT before you start the render, delete the Auxiliary files (careful, not the projects).

If the render still hangs, blow up the time line where it is stopping and look for gaps. I've had small gaps, 1 or 2 frames, introduced inadvertently and they can raise havoc with rendering.  You don't see them unless you have the time line really blown up.

Deleting the Aux files before rendering is a standard practice for many of us as it fixes a lot of rendering glitches.

Jerry 

One other thing you can try is going to Make Movie and output to an .MPG or .AVI file instead of an image.  If it doesn't work, the problem is likely with the clips or source files you used in your project.  If it works you at least know where the problem isn't.  And as a bonus you also have an .MPG or .AVI file you can drop into a new project and use to burn your final DVD,  if the quality is still acceptable.

I'm still demented! and fed up

My project was playing ok in Pinnacle.  Then when I tried to "Make Movie"  it started to stop at random spots alone the timeline and everything froze. 

Now the project won't even play in Pinnacle anymore without stuttering.  The video falters and the sound is out of sync.  I had three copies of the project on the hard drive and all are the same. 

I tried removeing the opening clips and edited 3 minutes from various parts of the project to bring it down from 85 minuts to 82 minutes long and saved it all under a new name. 

It then came up with loads of green on the orange timeline and I waited for it to render which tool well over an hour.  I then saved it again under a new name.  This version comes up rendered but still wont play with out stuttering in Pinnacle. 

I looked in the Pinnacle manual and followed the advise on page 249 re "video and audio stutters" and went on the pinnaclesys.com support as suggested.  I did almost all the things outlined there but still no good

 I have another project which is 1 hour long and it plays in Pinnacle no problem. 

Is the project too big at 82 minutes.   Is there something I can upgrade in my computer to solve the problem

My specs are : 

MS Windows XP Professional (5.1 build 2600)
Intel D915gav
Processor  - Intel (R) Pentium (R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz (2CPUs)
1526 mb ram
352mb used 1779 available
DirectX 9.0C
Intel (R) Express Chipset Family
1280 x 960 x(32 Bit) (60 Hz)
Invidia EN7200GS - 256mb

 

To delete auxilliary files  is it just a matter of loading up the project and deleting under "File - Delete Auxiliary files  - and ticking the current project option"

How do I carry out a "Render" myself I thought that was automatic.  When there is green on the orange band at the top of the timeline I wait until it dissapears.  Is that it or is there a way to give a direct instruction to carry out a render.  

 

 Any more thoughts lads

P

 

 

 

 

Video editing programmes aren't like running most PC apps. They take a PC to the limits of its resources. We know that Studio can use all 4 cores on the new Intel CPU's. But I don't know if it's written for dual processors. Just because your mobo has the slots filled, doesn't guarantee programs can use them. Perhaps I misunderstood your PC spec, but you appear to be using the motherboard inbuilt graphics adapter? If so, you are sharing your PC processor (which may be one!) for both very intensive graphics and CPU work.

The properties options for vid & audio allows you to turn off background rendering. When this is enabled, Studio works in the background producing the Aux files you've been told about. Whilst this is supposed to save time when you go to Make Movie, you can easily get a situation where the background render stumbled/stopped and this is being remembered if you don't delete Aux files before making the movie image. Stopping background rendering just means when you start Make Movie, the first scan of your project is to render and create those Aux files, and then apply all the effects.

Open up XP Control Panel/Admin Tools/Computer Management/Event Viewer/Application Log. See what errors you have and come back after you've fixed any problems or don't have any errors, even after opening Studio.

If you get that far, start the demo project Our Backyard Circus. Treat it like your own and try to produce a finished movie using the same output criteria (dvd or whatever Image). Come back if it works OK.

 

Thanks Voxmagna for your thoughts, but tonight has been a total failure. 

Forget about the burning difficulties, now I can't even get any version of the project to play properly on the computer.  I spent the last two hours loading up pinnacle, loading up the project.  I tried loading different versions of the project as I saved it a few times under different names.  Pinnacle froze on one occasion at 40% loaded.  On two or three ocassions the project froze during loading.  When the project did apprear to be fully loaded it stuttered and then froze.

I checked the  XP control panel like you said.

There were lots of error messages and warnings.

They read  "Error  -  (Source) Application hang  (Category) (101)   (Event) 1002" 

The largest number of errors read 

"Error  -  (Source) Autolive update scheduler   (Category) scheduler event   (Event) 101  (user) System

Tonight I got a warning      "Warning - WinMgmt     (Cat) none     (event)  63  

 and all tonights errors were "application hang"

I tried cutting the project in half to see if it would handle a smaller version of the project but when I when I highlighted the last 30mins of clips and pressed CUT it froze and then crashed.

Would it do any good if I uninstalled and reinstalled Pinnacle.  I have two hard drives, one for business and one for Pinnacle.  I noticed that the Pinnacle program is loaded onto my C drive whilst my files are all stored on my Pinnacle drive.  Would it help if I reinstalled Pinnacle onto the Pinnacle drive. 

I went looking for the Circus thingy but haven't a clue where to look for it so I haven't tried you Circus suggestion yet.

 I'll check with my computer man about the PC processor being shared by the graphics and CPU.  Whats the solution there? a bigger processor? I thought the 3gb one I have would be big enough.   Is there a bigger speced one I can get

Yours still demented,

 P 

 

 

 

      

 

 

 

 

 

     

FWIW & I mean no offence to Voxmagna but IMO, there has been a lot of unecessary detail, some of which IMO is irrelevant (eg; Overclocking etc) & possibly incorrect, has been entered into, which is possibly confusing for the OP.

IMO, OP should go back & re-read the earlier Posts & take the advice already given by acknowledged Experts, if he hasn't already done so.

I know this have been mentioned in other threads, but you should delete your render folder before burning.  I was getting similar problems, but by deleting the entire render folder it seems to fix the problems.

 

See this thread http://forums.pinnaclesys.com/forums/thread/121191.aspx

 jwvaughn  may be right.  Gaps in the time line, even if tiny, can frustrate file export or disc burning.  Gaps wrecked some of my early projects. Fortunately, they were visible enough to find.  I also had problems with occasional bad clips.  The best preventive medicine was to break a project into units, create and export clips no longer than 5 or 10 minutes each, and then combine the good exported files into a longer master project for disc burning.  It can be very tough to spot all the gaps or flaws in a single 85 minute work.  On the other hand, if you fail to find the bug in a 5 minute sub-project, it takes much less trouble to magnify the time line, diagnose it clip by clip, or rebuild it from scratch.

Try this: save your project under a different name, eliminate all but the first 5 minutes, try to export it as an MPEG2 or AVI, and see if it plays.  Try the same with the nex 5 or 10 minutes of the project, and so on.  Sooner or later, you'll find the part that is wrecking the burn.  My guess is that the problem will be near the beggining, since that is where you probably have the menus, fancy transitions, and other effects that you probably did the most to "baby" or substitute, which increases the risk of gaps or flaws.

I defer to others on the topic of how best to spot where the gaps or bugs are in a single mega-project, or how best to close them systematically.  The approach of inserting a title frame, widening it to fill the gap, and then deleting it works.  But  this seems a bit ad hoc.  Ideally, there'd be a single "find and close gaps" command, or a detector for "sick clips" or "bum transitions."

I doubt the problem has anything to do with deficiencies in your PC.  A P4 chip should be enough for a standard definition DVD.  But make sure you do not have conflicting software in operation, too many programs in auto-start,  or an overload of spyware.

You didn't say what DVD burner your using. I too had problem with failed or mid-complete-fail burnings as well. After I updated the firmware on my burner, everything seemed to correct itself. I was using a Plextor DVD burner and went to their site to check for firmware updates.

Peadarotti:

My specs are : 

MS Windows XP Professional (5.1 build 2600)
Intel D915gav
Processor  - Intel (R) Pentium (R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz (2CPUs)
1526 mb ram
352mb used 1779 available
DirectX 9.0C
Intel (R) Express Chipset Family
1280 x 960 x(32 Bit) (60 Hz)
Invidia EN7200GS - 256mb

 Look at his system specs.

Before this he was using onboard video & later he upgraded to Nvidia EN7200GS. This setup is not possible to run S11. You will need Nvidia 7600GT at the very least. This is only my opinion. 

 

 

 

 

Search your computer for *.stx and locate the short Studio demo programme MyBackyardCircus. Read about it in the manual!

If you can't render that to an image file and do a test burn WITHOUT errors in the Windows App log., you are on to a no-starter for more complex work which may have the gaps or complex effects others have mentioned.

The app log is actually quite useful, since it tells you the time errors were generated. If you note when you opened Studio, then when you started a project render, it may tell you roughly when (where) your PC crashed and burned with overload or error.

Get that working first to be certain your PC is up to the job. Otherwise your initial question may contain many layers of uncertainty with many permutations for replies.

Thanks to all for your inputs, greatly appreciated.

I read all replies carefully and tried all suggestions. 

Firstly I think that the title of this thread is misleading some.  I first noticed my problem when I was trying to burn a disc, hence the "burn baby burn"  title.  But the actual reality is that the project wont even PLAY properly in the viewing screen in Pinnacle, even when I'm not burning.  It starts and I have picture and sound but they stutter and are out of sync.  If I stop it and rest a second and play again it may be ok for a minute and then it's off stuttering again and then it hangs.  Sometimes I lose the picture in the viewing screen, it goes black and Pinnacle freezes and it's shutdown time...again!!!

Consequently when the Create Movie process tries to burn a disc or save to file it falters when playing during rendering.  I don't know enough about the workings of a computer to work out whether it is the fault of the graphics card, not enough ram, or the processor size or speed. 

Joe diamond thinks deleting the render folder will do the trick.  I can understand doing that before BURNING a disc,  but would I need to delete the render folder before simply PLAYING the project.

 Tonistein thinks it the graphics card -  I'll leave the upgrade of the graphics card to the end as a final option if all else fails, as I've have only just upgraded to my present card and my computerman says it should be as good as the one speced in the Pinnacle book, and I don't want to spend more money unless it is absolutely necessary.

David Lee -  My burner is an LG Super multi RW.   It seems to function ok.  single core

Joe Diamond recommended I read thread 121191 from Timeless Moments.  I read it eagarly and thought it was very clever, unfortunately though I tried the 16 steps several times I failed each time while the project was playing during rendering for saving to file.  the cursor simply stopped moving across the timeline.  The blue spiral barbers pole kept on turning but even when I left it alone for a whole hour it still just hung there.  So I never got past step 8.  

I then tried Voxmagna suggestion about My Backyard Circus.  I loaded it up. It played perfectly, it rendered to file spot on and then it burned onto a disc perfectly which in turn played on the TV through my DVD player.  So somethings are working correctly. somewhere 

JWVaughn suggested to check for gaps. 

I've checked for gaps and as far as I can see there ain't none.  When I extended the timeline I could see there was a vertical black line with the blue of each clip immediately on either side of it at each joint.  I presume if there was a gap there would be two black vertical lines with a white bit between them.  I did not see any white bits. 

I booted up in selected startup mode and made sure that the internet was disconnected and the anti virus disabled along with several other programes not required.  So I don't thiink there is interference from competing software.

Life is too short to start breaking the project up into 5 and 10 minute sections.  I'm demented enough as it is.  Besides the project stops at different frames every time never the same place.  This suggests that it is not a rogue frame, transition or clip.

Today I got an error message from windows saying : 

"Windows - Virtual memory minimum too low - Your system is low on virtual memory - windows is incresing the size of your virtual memory paging file - during this process memory requests for some applications may be denied"    

Does that indicate an inadaquacy in my computer spec somewhere ??

Thats it for tonight lads - its 2 a.m.  and I'm off to bed.  Hopefully when I boot up tomorrow the internet will be sagging in the middle with the weight of your solutions to my problems.

Thanks in advance lads.  Good night!

P 

 

Your PC uses an odd size amount of RAM. I'm still puzzled by the dual processor configuration and whether both are being used. Is that RAM shared by each CPU? Is it the same memory type/brand single block or matched pair? 

If Backyard Circus worked for you then that definitely points to faults on the time line or far too much PC work for effects rendering.

Have you tried dragging an hours worth of scenes on to the timeline without effects and rendering that? If your project still stops at different frames then that would suggest it's your PC.

You didn't say much about any errors reported back from Studio in Windows Event Logs? I can't believe there aren't any. Studio does have it's own logging files, but going into those might push you further into overload.

With all those aborted attempts, have you audited your HDD (s) to see if the space you've got left is what you expect, or has it been gobbled up by Studio putting vid and render output there? It sounds like you are working with big projects, the temporary and other files which Studio creates can be huge.

Windows paging usually reserves space on your C: drive equal to twice the installed memory value, unless you tell it different. HDD paging is bad news for these apps during capture and replay and any suggestion from the OS that you need more reserved, suggests it thinks there isn't enough static RAM, or it's got sucked off by some other process. Just because your OS reports the RAM, doesn't mean when you are using it in anger, it will all work. Many apps work quite happily with lower blocks of memory until a memory intensive app comes along and pushes the entire memory on speed and size. Windows error reporting doesn't always tell the real truth as a user might expect. Usually, they mean there are things wrong and BSOD is getting closer. The more you do with Studio with a flaky PC, the more garbage gets generated and problem complexity increases.

Your Windows Event Logs tells you about errors and until you can say you aren't getting any, your 'Jury' of helpful Studio users could be just going round in circles clutching at straws, because we assume you have a fault free PC platform capable of running S11.

You mentioned 'adequacy of computer spec'. But it doesn't stop there, you have a bundle of PC parts specs all joined up inside your PC case. How do you know all the element parts of your PC system are working correctly together delivering adequate performance to run S11?

You can't be demented about Studio until you are confident your PC is' up to the mark' - well that could be 3D Mark benchmarking. Sometimes PC users seem very reluctant to run PC tests after spending a lot of money, many of the tests are free downloads. Assuming tests finish (might not in your case), you might discover your actual PC performance is lower than 'reference' PC's and you then know which parts need to be replaced or reconfigured in software.

Thanks Voxmagna,

I noted all your ovservations.  I did report my error you should find them above in an earlier post on this thread.  They were mainly cause by the Norton anti virus "Live update rescheduler" with one or two "Application Hang"  I now start windows with with most applications turned off through "msconfig" 

You see this project did play properly once and I managed to play it onto the hard drive of my DVD player so I have a full copy there but I wont be able to burn it onto disc from there as I can't compress it as pinnacle does.   

Today I cornered my very busy and now very tormented computer man and we spent some time checking my computer system.  He tells me that I have only one processer but it has two threads.  Does that make sense to you.  I don't have two processers.

I watched the operation of the CPU on Windows Task Manager - Performance, during play and rendering of the project.  The PF Usage, which I believe is the ram, was alwasy around 1.25gb out of 1.5gb so OK there.  The CPU Usage though was maxing out at 100%.  The project played ok when it was below 100% but when it went to 100% and the computer was calling for more above 100% then the video and sound stuttered and the problem happened.  There were whole sections where the demand on the CPU was above 100% in some instances I had added a cd track so I thought maybe that was pusinh it ove the limit.  But then I found that in other cases there was only the camera soundtrack and no cd track and it still went above 100%.

I hope over the next few days to carry out a good few checks on my system and if all fails I'll have to consider a new motherboard if that is the only option left.  In the meantime we are trying to eliminate other possiblilities before getting the cheque book out.

maybe over the weekend I'll make time and patience to experiment with the project break it up in bits like its been suggested.

I have to get to the bottom of this as I want to be able to do my projects I have a few ideas lined up.  But for now its all systems stop.

I'll keep you posted.   

P

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

If your system is an Intel 915 chipset, your CPU should not be double thread. It should be a P4D 830 Dual core 3.0Ghz - a first generation dual core processor. The only problem is that this CPU generates a lot of heat. I had this system briefly 2 years ago & everytime during rendering, have to open up the casing & direct a fan inside. Sold it to a friend who use it in his office. What type of RAM are you using? Should be DDR2 400, 533 or 667. Try to use RAM that are of the same type & value., eg. 1Gb x 2 or 512mb x 4. Then you will get dual channel RAM & your system will perform better.

Thanks Tonistein

I'll pass this on  to my computerman on Monday

I dont think that I'd have the timeor patience to go opening the casing and cooling it down.  But I realy do want to get to the bottom of my problem so I'll see what the man says on Monday,

P

Monitor your CPU temperature over an hour whilst the processor load is 100%. If it runs around 55 or even 60 deg C you may be OK. If there's no sign of the temperature staying stable, you are stuffed with that PC.