Dazzle DVD Complete- Major Problems

[Joel Ertl]

I bought Dazzles DVD complete based on the discussions on this board, but I have had nothing but problems.

The main one (other than random crashes), are that it won't generate menus after adding chapter points. After hitting "regenerate menus" is says that "auto regeneration failed- check .log file". The log file doesn't provide any useful information.

I've tried this with several different files and projects- I even used their project wizard, they all do the same thing. Thinking that it was a faulty install, I re-installed the program, but that didn't help either.

I'm using Windows XP, P4 1.7, 512 meg ram.

Has anyone else gotten this to work?

-Joe

[pdmath]

Yes...the auto generate menus works fine on my system which is Win2k. Haven't had any crashed yet either. Wish I knew what to tell you to help in your situation but I don't know.

Is it possible that you might need to totally download the program again? Maybe something is messed up with your original download file. If you used Digital River, you should be able to go there again and redownload.

Phil

[Joel Ertl]

I just re-downloaded and re-installed the program. I've still got the same problems. Even following the wizards I get the same error.

I know alot of people seem to like this program, but I'm feeling like I just wasted $100.

-Joe

[Lamont Cranston]

Auto-generate menus works fine with win 98 se. Give Dazzle tech support a call. I had a problem with install and they called me back withing an hour or two with a solution. Jeff Merik, who started the thread "Solution to Ulead & MyDVD audio/synch Problem" runs XP and posted his email address in thread is: http://forum.vcdhelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=81768
He may be able to help you.

[spiderman2k1]

XP you should get the update for it or use windows 2000 i had 98SE and had crash's

I bought Dazzles DVD complete based on the discussions on this board, but I have had nothing but problems.

The main one (other than random crashes), are that it won't generate menus after adding chapter points. After hitting "regenerate menus" is says that "auto regeneration failed- check .log file". The log file doesn't provide any useful information.

I've tried this with several different files and projects- I even used their project wizard, they all do the same thing. Thinking that it was a faulty install, I re-installed the program, but that didn't help either.

I'm using Windows XP, P4 1.7, 512 meg ram.

Has anyone else gotten this to work?

-Joe

Window XP hates capture cards! short of speeding $200.00 on a card you will never find a card that is cheap and works good with window xp

[Joel Ertl]

I haven't used DVD Complete to capture. I use a firewire card to capture and TMPGenc Plus to encode to mpeg2.

The problem is it won't generate menus after chapter points are set. It will generate menus if there aren't chapter points though.

-Joe

[Joel Ertl]

Another update.

I just installed the DVD Complete onto my daughters machine (windows XP) and it ran fine.

I then reinstalled in my system and went through the exact same steps, and got the same failure message on menu generation.

-Joe

[Joel Ertl]

Lamont,

How did you get ahold of Dazzle? I've waited on hold twice (at my own expense) and given up. I've sent them emails and gotten no response.

I've tried everything I can think of to get DVD Complete to run. It just keeps getting worse the more I use it. It won't generate menus or labels. I installed it on another machine and it work a little better, but is still flakey (text doesnt show up on buttons).

I would really like to get my money back, but I bought it online. I may have to stop payment on the credit card.

-Joe

[Lamont Cranston]

How did you get ahold of Dazzle? I've waited on hold twice (at my own expense) and given up. I've sent them emails and gotten no response.

Joel,
Tech Support's phone number is 203.315.4230 Monday thru Friday 8:00AM-9:00PM EST. You will be on hold for a while.

Did you email jeff-marek@yahoo.com for some suggestions? He was the first post about DVD Complete, is running XP and volunterred to answer questions.

What motherboard are you using and what do you have plugged into the PCI slots besides the IEEE 1394 card? Did you shut down all the programs running in the background?

[Joel Ertl]

I finally got it to work. I used Windows to uninstall, set up a new user, then installed it so that only that user can use the program.

Everything seems to work now.

On the other hand, I find the program rather limiting. It seems like you are forced to use their templates for menus- and all of them are ugly.

I would like to be arrange the elements on the screen. I can move the hotspots on the screen, but not the bitmap. The template also seems to limit the number of buttons on each page.

Maybe it will grow on me as I use it, but for now I like the way DVD Workshop does things better.

-Joe

[Lamont Cranston]

Joel,

If you are not happy with the menus you will eventually be able to create your own (not there yet). Look in Help under Themes:

DVD Complete™ has a simple, linear scripting language it uses to generate the menus and labels for themes. Advanced users can script up their own themes if they are familiar with Basic Programming or simple scripting languages. For more information visit support at http://www.dazzle.com/support/suppcontent.html

IMHO The fact you can do slide shows with variable delay per slide, crop, add music and dialog and include them with your movie on the same DVD leaves the others in the dust.

[jeff_marek]

I'm curious with the installation problems. When you installed it and it crashed, were you installing it with an account that had administrator rights?

Anyhow, I agree with the comments about having limited control over the menus. DVD Workshop does a great job of letting you rearrange stuff as does DVDit PE. Unfortunately, most of us can't get DVD Workshop to actually work.... I'd buy it if they would fix the audio synch problem.

On the positive side for DVD complete, it does a much better job walking you through more complex tasks such as setting up a intro video and other things. I know more than I ever wanted to about DVD creation after using the rest of the programs. If I had started with DVD complete, I would have been up and runing without all the pain. The other thing I like about DVD complete is the way in which it auto-generates chapter stops. You can take a two hour video and say ... "I'd like 12 chapter stops" It will automatically put them in for you .... THEN you can move the sliders around and reposition them as appropriate. Finally when you are choosing the clip you want to display on the main menu for a chapter stop, you get almost a full screen image. DVD Workshop makes you use a tiny little window... a nit but...

Enjoy.

Jeff

[Joel Ertl]

About the installation problems. The program never crashed the machine (Windows XP), but when I would run the auto-generate menus and labels, it would give me an error message. I think that it wasn't finding some of the elements it was looking for and aborted.

Intrestingly, I installed it on a different Windows XP machine and it would go through the script without generating errors, but the resulting menus would have elements missing.

My current installation seems to be working correctly.

-Joel

[wjlud12]

Dazzle now has a 14 day Trial Version which I downloaded yesterday as I too was experiencing the out of synch problems with many of the other authoring programs.

Unfortunately, my first experience was not positive as I continuouly receive the following error message when attempting to build an image or burn to DVD-R:

"The Build/Mux Process Failed"

I then check the DVDComplete log as instructed and receive the following:

ERROR: PacketParser: Assertion Failed:
C:\Dev\DVDCre8\VobMux\MPEGL2Parse.h 868
Can't Continue
ERROR: VideoTSBuilder: MUX Failed
ERROR: VideoTSBuilder: Build VOB Failed
VideoTSBuilder:
VIDEO_TS FULL BUILD FAILED

I E-Mailed Tech Support with this info and am awaiting a response. However, if anyone can give me any feedback that may help resolve my dilemma in the interim, I would be grateful.

My configuration is:

OS - Win XP
MB - Soyo SY-K7V Dragon Plus
SC - Creative Audigy Gamer
RAM - 512 SDRAM
Modem - PCI US Robotics 56 K
VC - GeForce 3 Ti 500 v. 2311

[Joel Ertl]

I had all kinds of problems with DVD Complete not being able to complete its built-in scripts. Many times it didn't seem to be able to find files it was looking for.

I had better results by reinstalling (Windows XP) it as the only program in its own user, then restricting the program to that user.

I finally gave up. There support never responded to any of my questions. However, they did refund my money.

Good luck.

-Joe

[stgre]

wjlud12 I have the same promlem as you.

I have also sent an email to support.

If you get a reply from them please post it in the thread

[chaseru]

Anyone know how to select no music during the menus screen. It seems like your forced to select one of their awfull songs to always play during the menu screens.

[Lamont Cranston]

Anyone know how to select no music during the menus screen. It seems like your forced to select one of their awfull songs to always play during the menu screens.

You can add your own mp2 or wav music iin the C:Program Files\DVD Co0mplete\Music, or wherever yu installed the program. Just add a silent music clip.

[wjlud12]

wjlud12 I have the same promlem as you.

I have also sent an email to support.

If you get a reply from them please post it in the thread

stgre,

I discovered that my problem was in the conversion process. As I use DVD2AVI to separate/prepare the video and audio streams for TMPGEnc, I always selected "Forced Film" which DVD Complete does not appear to favor.

If this is your scenario, uncheck this option under video, then use the deinterlace feature (I chose even field) in TMPGEnc.

Since this revision, I have not had any further error messages.

Hope this helps. :)

[stgre]

wjlud12

I am not so good at this things, I exported a movie from Adobe Premiere using TMPGEnc and coded it as mpeg2.
The movie is from my DV camera.
I have also tried to convert a movie from divx to mpeg2 using TMPGEnc.
It gives the same results.

Do you have any idea what could be wrong.

[wjlud12]

wjlud12

I am not so good at this things, I exported a movie from Adobe Premiere using TMPGEnc and coded it as mpeg2.
The movie is from my DV camera.
I have also tried to convert a movie from divx to mpeg2 using TMPGEnc.
It gives the same results.

Do you have any idea what could be wrong.

Sorry stgre, but I'm rather a newbie myself and simply work with DVD backups at this time.

I don't have anything I can offer re: DV recordings. But try the search feature on the various DVD online Forums. In addition to VCDHelp, here are a few others: afterdawn.com and mpucoder.com. Although the latter is primarily for IfoEdit topics.

Good Luck!