ULead Problems- UPDATE

[Mister Mike]

After many many hours I finally was able to download a home video add titles and burn my first DVD. ABFT Thank you for you help The main problem was I transfered the video to my pc in mpeg format. When I did it in DV it was so so so much easier. They don't comment in the Ulead guide which is better to use. But now that I have done this I have a question or two to ask.
1. The video tape I transfered was a Hi8. Most of my old tapes are 8mm but still can be transfered with my Digital Camcorder. Should I expect any problem in ULead?
2. How do you add chapters in Ulead. It's not a must but it would be nice if I could shuttle thru the dvd to see different scenes. i.e birthday party, summer vacation, christening etc.
3. My old 8mm tapes contain more footage than I can fit on one dvd what is the best way to burn. Do I need to make two files or can I just program it to burn from Point A to Point B and then make another dvd from Point B to the End?

My biggest question: the video takes up a huge amount of Hard Drive space. After I burn the dvd can I delete the video file from the pc?



I downloaded a 2hr 3min hi8 video onto my pc. PC info Dell 8200 80 gig hard drive 2.0 htz I am having the following problems.
1. After I added a main title to my video I tried to add a title to a clip on the same footage. The jog bar and timeline fastforward were so slow in accessing a scene they were almost impossible to use. It took almost 15mins for the scene to play.
2. Play back of the inserted title took just as long. I am not talking hi tech here. The title was only four words long!
3. After I abandened the title issue. I tried to burn a dvd disk to see how it looked. The capture bar stated that I had 6.9 kb of video and that the disk only holds 4.7kb I know a standard disk can hold about 2 hours of video &/or 4.7 kb. Why is my 2 hour and 3 min of footage using up 6.9 kb ???

I thought I would split up the footage into two halfs but with the problem I had just trying to add a title and access scenes I just gave up.

I have cleaned up my pc to the best of my knowledge and I have read the step by step guide lines from Ulead. What could be making this process so so so slow?????

[thecoalman]

drive 2.0 htz

Is one ofthe issues for your trobles. 2mhz Fill out your computer specs, how much ram do you have? Here's a quick tip: Match the project settings to the source video. This is not for final output but for use while editing.

3. After I abandened the title issue. I tried to burn a dvd disk to see how it looked. The capture bar stated that I had 6.9 kb of video and that the disk only holds 4.7kb I know a standard disk can hold about 2 hours of video &/or 4.7 kb. Why is my 2 hour and 3 min of footage using up 6.9 kb ???

Output file size is dependant on the video settings not the length of time. You need to lower your bitrate or use a less quality template.

FYI that's gB not kb.

[Mister Mike]

Coal Man to the rescue once again. Thank you. What is the best way to get all of my pc info. I found my packing slip with an itemized summary of what I bought but no listing of the Ram. I will try to post the info tonight. I am not sure what you mean by match the project setting to the "Source" video. Could you explain a little more. Sorry about the incorrect letter references. kb vs gB. etc. I was typing fast and not thinking.

[thecoalman]

Imade a mistake too should be 2ghz in the first line.... Anyway, go to start>control panel>system there's some info here, more can be found clicking the hardware tab and selecting device mangaer. You probably don't have much ram I'm guessing.

If I remember correctly there's a project settings option for VS. If you match what your source video is (e.g. the avi) it won't have to render anything while your editing. the project settings can be changed at any time.

You can also match your output but to preview you generally have to render the output to do so. Which is fine too because VS uses the "smartrender" feature (again I'm not %100 positive). Anything encoded during the editing process won't have to be then for final output.

Guess it's really a personal preference. Basically match your source for faster editing or match what you want for final output for overall time saving.

[Mister Mike]

Coal Man I updated my PC info. You are correct not much ram only 256. Can I add more? Get back to me if anything else stands out. Thanks Mike

[thecoalman]

Although capable 256 is not enough, XP will eat up nearly that much on startup. More ram will speed up your computer overall. It's cheap too.

[Mister Mike]

Although capable 256 is not enough, XP will eat up nearly that much on startup. More ram will speed up your computer overall. It's cheap too.

Coal Man
My PC currently has 256 RDRam. (PC800) (ECC I think vs. Non ECC What's the difference?) I must upgrade in pairs. But I can add on to my existing 256 mb. So adding two 128 modules will bring me up to 512. Two 256 modules will bring me up to 768 mb ram. But I am finding out that RDRAM is $$$ compaired to DDR Ram. The cheapest 128mb so far is about $70 so $140 for a pair. The 256MB are around $100each $200 for the pair. I don't think I want to invest that much in a 2+ year old pc. I even checked ebay (Trustworthy for memory???) and the prices are a little cheaper but not by much. Your thoughts?

[thecoalman]

Guess it depends on how much you want to spend...

Here's a link about ram.... http://www.computer-memory-upgrade-stick.com/index.html

Try www.newegg.com for purchasing.

[offline]

Hi Mistermike,

you have maybe 3 issues. One, you need 512kb memory to process video with ulead (as thecoalman suggested.)

Two. Your hard drive not only needs extra space
for the video, it also needs space for virtiual memory. You are taking a double speed hit for
having both a small hard drive and low memory.

Three. Are you sure you are editing DV and not
mpeg? Mpeg editing can be dead slow on the most
powerful system without an additional mpeg hardware card. Also, is the Smartrender option
checked in Ulead?

Try http://www.pcpitstop.com
and see what it says about your system.

Cost the fact that you will need at least double
the hdd capacity (1'd get at least a 200Mb drive)
and expensive RDRam on a 3 year old system.

Can I suggest you don't buy Dell in the future
Get a clone pc made up for your video needs.

[Mister Mike]

Thanks for the help. Again just to be clear. I am looking to transfer my home videos onto a dvd disk. Add a few titles like occasion, place, time etc. Nothing fancy at all. But I do have about 30 to 50 tapes piled up. I would also like to download some things off the net and covert and burn but I will work on that task after I get this one going.
I will pick up two 128mb modules and bring the ram up to 512mb
I never would have thought a 80gb Hard drive would be considers small. Right now depending on the cost I would consider adding a external HD to my system.
As for my next pc I have no problems working on my PC (adding drives, memory etc.) but I doubt I could build one without some help. I purchased a dell due to their support. You wait a long time on the phone to get answers but I don't know that much about trouble shooting to build my own with no outlet for support. And with the family and two jobs my time is limited.
I will check to see how I am editing. I don't know if I am in DV. I will also check to see if "smartrendering" is on. I am assuming it should be off.
I will run pcpitstop when I get home tonight and report back.
What do you think of buying memory off of ebay? I checked back again and found more listings and the cost is much cheaper than other places.
Coal Man Newegg.com rocks I have used it many times before. But the price on RDRAM is better than most but still about what I listed above.
As per Coal Man site link ECC vs. Non ECC it appears that both will work in the pc but ecc is a little more expensive and runs a little slower. Does that sound about right. Thanks again for all your help

[anzimike]

Mister mike;
ulead products are a bit tempermental. Very poor prediction of final disc space when encoding. It is useful to enable advanced encoder options per jerry jones tutorials. I am not familiar with vs, but have used ws and mf. See if you can enable advanced encoder options similar to ws look here;
http://www.jonesgroup.net/media/id137.htm
The jerry jones site has some great tutorials re ulead products. Also if you don't have it there is full online manual on ulead site. for vs 8;
ftp://ftp.ulead.com/pub/Manual/videostudio8/vstudio8e.zip
or vs 7;
ftp://ftp.ulead.com/pub/Manual/VideoStudio7/vstudio.zip
as already mentioned above ulead products are memory hogs and ram requirements are high. best of luck with your projects.

[Mister Mike]

After many many hours I finally was able to download a home video add titles and burn my first DVD. ABFT Thank you for you help The main problem was I transfered the video to my pc in mpeg format. When I did it in DV it was so so so much easier. They don't comment in the Ulead guide which is better to use. But now that I have done this I have a question or two to ask.
1. The video tape I transfered was a Hi8. Most of my old tapes are 8mm but still can be transfered with my Digital Camcorder. Should I expect any problem in ULead?
2. How do you add chapters in Ulead. It's not a must but it would be nice if I could shuttle thru the dvd to see different scenes. i.e birthday party, summer vacation, christening etc.
3. My old 8mm tapes contain more footage than I can fit on one dvd what is the best way to burn. Do I need to make two files or can I just program it to burn from Point A to Point B and then make another dvd from Point B to the End?

My biggest question: the video takes up a huge amount of Hard Drive space. After I burn the dvd can I delete the video file from the pc?

[offline]

offline said:
Three. Are you sure you are editing DV and not
mpeg? Mpeg editing can be dead slow on the most
powerful system without an additional mpeg hardware card.

Sometimes it pays to read your replies

[lordsmurf]

Contact me about your RAM issue.
I may be able to help you out.

[monkeyking]

1. Delete all the files if you wish. Sometimes the problem is finding `where the software put them. Using explorer to hunt for big directories, I]ve found several GB of interim files that had been generated by my editting.

2. I had one DVD projects that exceeded the DVD size. I saved the project to the hard drive rather than disc and then used a program like DVD Shrink (a free download and easy to use) to compress it. It was 20 year old VHS so no big loss in quality.

3. The other alternative is to do smaller projects. In my opinion, a 30 minute DVD of my home video is more than enough evdience for a jury to acquit my audience if they beat me up for making them watch.

[Rondo]

I use 2 hard disks - one an 80 for capturing AVI/DV & the other 40 for encoding to MPEG. This is perfectly adequate for 1 DVD's worth of material (I used to do it on the 40 alone & that too was OK).

VS8 wil tell you what you are editing in.
EITHER
- right click on the clip in the library to the right of the screen & select properties & read the 2nd line
OR
- select File, Project properties from the menu top right.

Regards

[Mister Mike]

offline said:
Three. Are you sure you are editing DV and not
mpeg? Mpeg editing can be dead slow on the most
powerful system without an additional mpeg hardware card.

Sometimes it pays to read your replies

Offline: Yes it does. I thank you again for your help. If I did not change it to DV I would not have gotten anywhere. But I am still having a problems when I transfer reg 8mm vs. the Hi8 tapes. It does not split the scenes in reg 8mm and adding titles and previewing are much more difficult.

I am also having a big freezing & skipping problem on the 8mm when I transfered it to dvd. What am I doing wrong? Could it be that I forgot to disable my screen saver?

ANd who ever commented about erasing the video footage was correct. My Hard drive was full and it took me a while to find out where the video footage was stored so I could erase it. I thought when I deleted it in Ulead it would go to the recyle bin but it did not. the files where in another folder.

[offline]

Yes,

Ulead keeps everything, not just raw video, in the
ulead directories under My_Documents. You can
safely delete the lot unless you want to keep the
template, cut titles, loaded graphics etc.

May I suggest you ask your freezing and skipping
problem in a new post in the DV forum.

[Rivers]

I had trouble with skipping frames in Ulead 8, I tried an SE version of Pinnacle 8 on the same laptop with the same settings and it worked fine. It may be just the programme you're using to capture.

[VideoTechMan]

Thanks for the help. Again just to be clear. I am looking to transfer my home videos onto a dvd disk. Add a few titles like occasion, place, time etc. Nothing fancy at all. But I do have about 30 to 50 tapes piled up. I would also like to download some things off the net and covert and burn but I will work on that task after I get this one going.
I will pick up two 128mb modules and bring the ram up to 512mb
I never would have thought a 80gb Hard drive would be considers small. Right now depending on the cost I would consider adding a external HD to my system.
As for my next pc I have no problems working on my PC (adding drives, memory etc.) but I doubt I could build one without some help. I purchased a dell due to their support. You wait a long time on the phone to get answers but I don't know that much about trouble shooting to build my own with no outlet for support. And with the family and two jobs my time is limited.
I will check to see how I am editing. I don't know if I am in DV. I will also check to see if "smartrendering" is on. I am assuming it should be off.
I will run pcpitstop when I get home tonight and report back.
What do you think of buying memory off of ebay? I checked back again and found more listings and the cost is much cheaper than other places.
Coal Man Newegg.com rocks I have used it many times before. But the price on RDRAM is better than most but still about what I listed above.
As per Coal Man site link ECC vs. Non ECC it appears that both will work in the pc but ecc is a little more expensive and runs a little slower. Does that sound about right. Thanks again for all your help

I would not recommend Ebay for anything as far as memory purchases, theres no telling the condition the memory modules are in and often are used. Go to a reputable dealer to buy the memory modules. Plus, ECC memory is mainly for server use, not really for the home user PC, and plus it really wont benefit the home system too much.

You could always ask a shop to build a PC for you, just let them know what you want in your system spec-wise. I also recommend using a seperate hard drive for AV work and your other HD for just the system drive. Transferring DV content to the puter takes up lots of space (about 13-14GB per hour of footage) so I would guess for an 80 GB drive you can store about 4 hours for raw DV content, but you also have to leave room for file processing as well.

VTM

[Mister Mike]

I had trouble with skipping frames in Ulead 8, I tried an SE version of Pinnacle 8 on the same laptop with the same settings and it worked fine. It may be just the programme you're using to capture.

I am capturing, editing and burning all within the Ulead program. I am just starting to get the hang of the Ulead program I hope I don't have to get another program now.

Video tech man. Thanks for the info. $$ right now are tight so a new pc may be a while off but could I add an internal or external hard drive to my existing system? If this is a good idea which is better internal or external? and If I do that and bump up my Ram to 512 will that be enough for a recreational video burner like myself?

Thanks again for everyones help

[Rondo]

Another thought on dropping frames: ensure that any USB devices are disconnected. I had tremendous problems with dropped frames until I found my scanner was causing the problem.

Regards

[Mister Mike]

The only usb I have connected is a SD card reader. I will disconnect that and my screen saver and give it a try.

[offline]

Rivers & others. You are talking about a problem with shared resources
by two or more devices.
You may find the following useful:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1199759#1199759