Hi everyone,

I've been reading the forums and help documentation all day and I just need to know if this software is ever going to work for me. System info is in my bio (click my username). Maybe I'm missing something?

I bought and installed Studio Plus 12 today. After a smooth install on Vista, I was instructed to download a patch. I downloaded that and installed - now running v12.1. After quite a few activation warnings about MPEG-4/DivX and MP3, I finally got all of that going. (Shouldn't that stuff be included in the patch???)

In my excitement, instead of playing with a small video clip, I imported 6 short HD clips from my camera and promptly threw them into the timeline. (Studio imported from my camera just fine). So, I had about 5 minutes of video clips sitting there. Here are the problems I encountered:

1. Video would freeze during playback. Read forums, turned off background rendering but it didn't help.

2. If I turned off the preview in high resolution option, the preview was quite odd. It showed the upper right corner of the video with lines and ghost images in it. I wouldn't care if the quality was super poor - but I have to see the whole frame in order to know what I am editing...So I turned it back on.

3. Anytime I tried to watch a clip from any point, it would immediately default to the third clip and start playback from there. Didn't matter where the scrub was.

4. When I try to split a clip, the second half disappears. It's still there in the timeline, but the video and audio are not playing. I get a giant blue question mark.

5. The entire program was super slow, bringing up menus and options at a snail's pace and doing the whole "not responding" thing. Had to baby it along.

I finally got to the point where I just wanted to see what Studio would output, so I gave up on playing with any editing functions and produced an HD movie in WMV format. Took over an hour to process 158MB file of 5 minutes of video at the normal HD settings (1280X720, 4Mbits, 30fps, etc.)

Ran a similar video through Windows Movie Maker just now. Same input quality. Movie previewed just fine...program ran smoothly and I could make edits (transitions, etc). When I published the movie to WMV format (same HD settings as in Studio), it took TEN MINUTES to finish a file 135MB.

Can someone just tell me...am I really supposed to update my video drivers, encode my h264 videos into MPEG-2 before I put them into Studio, and then just "live with" the software to run agonizingly slow? That's kinda what I gather from the responses on the forums...

Please, please help. What am I doing wrong?

I should also mention that an imported 2-minute video from my camera at SD of 640X480 res is also freezing during preview playback without background rendering turned on. My problem is not, apparently, limited to HD codec /performance issues, etc.

Thanks.

That sounds like a bad instalation, but there may be a problem with your Video card and HD.

I'd suggest you try to seperate things out by doing a though test of SD video.

I should also mention that an imported 2-minute video from my camera at SD of 640X480 res is also freezing during preview playback without background rendering turned on. My problem is not, apparently, limited to HD codec /performance issues, etc.

Go to setup/project preferences/Project format and select Use this format..... NTSC Standard. Now - Start a new project (important  ) and put your 640 SD video on the timeline (or try the Our Fun Vacation) footage.

How does the computer work now?

With the HD footage, I see a bit of a problem with your Graphics card. My reading of your specs is that the graphics memory is shared, and you don't have 256 mb of video memory available, which is the reqirement for HD work.

It's never a bad idea to check you have the latest drivers for your video card.

and welcome to the forum 

I just googled you computer, as it's possible it has two graphics chips! That could really be confusing things.

HERE

Thanks for the reply.

I tried the SD test as you outlined above -- still having rpoblems. My biggest issue is when I split the video, the last half breaks. It shouldn't be doing that on such a small SD video, I would hope.

After the SD test, I went ahead and updated my video drivers. Restarted my computer and Studio runs that same - super slow and split clip is breaking.

Also looked into the "shared" video memory issue. Turns out that my video card has both dedicated memory and shared memory (memory it pulls from my system). The dedicated memory is low (just under 256), but the shared memory is certainly high enough to run HD movies (1.6GB). Because I have a lot of RAM left (2.2GB if I have done my math right), I don't think the video card is sucking the memory down to scary low levels.

Also - I would think if the problem were with my video memory, I would not be able to watch/preview my raw HD movies in Windows Media Player, Windows Movie Maker and Picasa (all of which run them just fine). I am able to import from my vid camera, preview (in bigger windows than Studio) with no freezes, and export the videos into new formats with WMM and Picasa with no lags and in a fairly short amount of time.

Soooo, I guess I need to try and reinstall Studio? 

Thanks,

Jess

Just sent an email to Support referencing this thread. I have requested a refund. I have done everything the support files have suggested to no avail. I just don't understand how I can run Sony Vegas, Movie Maker and Picasa with the exact same video files just fine, but Studio will not work. I am deeply dissapointed because this is the only software I wanted to use for my video editing. 

If anyone has any other suggestions beyond everything listed in the support files, please let me know. Are there known issues with the 12.1 patch? Are there known issues with my graphics card (see my bio)? I jsut don't understand what else I can possibly do to make this work. I spent $100 Saturday morning on this software and have put in more than 14 hours of research and troubleshooting time. 

Some have experienced problems with 12.1. You might try rolling back to 12 and see what happens.

Don

Thanks Don,

I should have mentioned that after I reinstalled the software, I played around with it before I installed the 12.1 patch/upgrade. The straight version 12.0 was no better than the upgraded version. :(

I was able to load a very short 1 minute HD clip into Studio tonight and I just went very, very slow with everything. I was able to get through the menus and even added two simple fade transitions. Unfortunately, when I went to render the movie, I got an error saying it failed to export/render. I looked everything up in the forums and saw other people were having this issue (http://forums.pinnaclesys.com/forums/2/219627/ShowThread.aspx). When I removed the transitions, it rendered fine. Of course, what's the point of exporting a clip with no edits or effects? Sigh. I've given up on this software and will continue to request a refund.