PC Hard Freezes when making DVDs

[hstake]

I have a Dell Dimension 4600C XP SP2, Pentium 4, 2.8 Ghz, 256MB RAM with 35GB free disk space. I have Directx 9 installed. I have the latest drivers installed.

I am trying to covert my camcorder tapes to DVDs. I have used Pinnacle Studio 9 Quick Start, DVD Shrink, Tmpgenc, Windows Movie Maker, Sonic My DVD, etc... and I am having troubles.

I have a Dazzle Digital Video Creator DVC-80 (hardware that accepts either s-video or audio/video cables (yellow, red, white) on one end and it plugs into a USB port on the other end. I can capture my camcorder movies and save them to my PC just fine through Pinnacle Studio. The problem is when I have a 90 minute video and I choose the "make disc" option, which writes it to a DVD. After 10-40 minutes, my pc will hard freeze (can either unplug pc or hold down on/off button for 10 seconds to turn it off) and my screen will be pixelated. If I make an mpeg file, it blue screens. I can make an avi file no problem. I have even tried converting that avi file to a DVD using Tmpgenc and it hard freezes no matter what length the movie is. I can't use DVD Shrink because it hard freezes. I have noticed that if I have a 45 minute camcorder video and I choose to make a DVD from Pinnacle, it will work fine (as long as I choose the "most video on DVD" option instead of automatic). I can play movies that are 90 minutes long no problem!!

I have emailed Pinnacle Studio Support many times and they have told me to do a dozen different things - none of them seemed to help my problem. I have spent many hours on the phone with Dell trying to diagnose the problem. I have defragmented my hard drive, ran scan disk, did a few hardware diagnostics, etc... And nothing seems to work.

Some of the things that Pinnacle had suggested to me:
1. In Windows XP, go to Performance Settings under System Properties: Advanced, and set the system to optimize for Best Performance.
2. Please also update your mainboard chipset drivers, sound card and graphics card drivers from the respective manufacturers website.
3. Also, disable all power management and screen savers etc. Reset your screen display settings to 800*600 and 16 bit (24 bit if you are using a Matrox graphics card) and ensure you have the latest videocard/graphics card drivers.
4. Download Directx
5. It is recommended that your hard drives be unpartitioned, defragmented and less than 70% full at all times.
6. Please ensure the DMA of your hard-drive is enabled.
7. Make sure that your hard disk has atleast around 20GB of free space, remove all un-necessary temp files, and empty the recycle bin.

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I have been told by Pinnacle that my system configurations should work with their software. Dell also has confirmed that it should work. However, they suggested getting a new graphics card or upgrading my memory. However, I can not upgrade my graphics card because I have a slim case. I have just bought some new memory to be upgraded to 512MB and it will arrive next week.

A couple people were surprised that I can make my pc hard freeze like that considering that I have XP. The HAL should not let it hard freeze in XP UNLESS I have bad memory or a problem with the hardware. But, Dell is not accepting that at all. My pc's 1 year warranty expires March 15, 2005. One other notable problem that I have is that my DELL LCD TV blacks out sporadically while I'm working on it for 1/2 second to 1 second at a time. I called Dell about this and they said to unplug everything and plug it back in. It still blacks out a couple times a day. I have just switched monitors and now I'm using my old monitor just to see if it happens with this one. If it does, then something must be wrong with my video card. If it doesn't, then that black out problem must be with the LCD TV.

Can anyone confirm if they have had similiar problems with the same pc? Anything else that I can try? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!

[Prot]

Does video share memory, or do you have a separate card? if it is shared, you are not getting a full 256mb system memory, and shared memory does slow down screen refreshes, and switching between apps.
If you have shared memory, I believe this is your problem. Upping memory to 512mb will help, or better yet, invest in a video card.

[northcat_8]

OK first things first....DO NOT LISTEN TO PINNACLE...if you are calling Pinnacle for tech support, then you obviously have not visited their BBs.

Sounds to me like you have a HD space and RAM problem. As your HD space fills up the drive runs slower.

I would also have to ask if you are reading and writing to the same IDE channel or same HD? When files are large that is not a good idea, and could lead to your current problems, since you can't read and write at the same time, the system has to pause one to complete the other.

If you are capturing a 90 minute video, that's going to be about an 18 GB DV-AVI file. Pinnacle Studio 8 would only capture DV-AVI, so I assume you are capturing to DV-AVI.

If you are, then you only have 17 GB of space left. Pinnacle will use a TEMP directory and it can get quite large.

I would first of all get more RAM. 256 will work, but you need to close all unecessary programs, applications, and services that are not needed. You can help your Physical RAM out by making your page file 2.5 - 3 times whatever amount of RAM you have...in your case, Page File should be 768 MB.

Also shut down system restore and any realtime monitoring progs (anti-virus).

Bottom line is dude, I have Pinnacle Studio 8 and I have never gotten it to burn a DVD and now would not trust it to do so. The Pinnacle software seems to be very particular as to which configs it likes and which it doesn't. I have heard S9 is the same way.

I think increasing your page file will help you.
I capture with Studio 8 and I edit with Studio 8 or Adobe Premiere but I convert with TMPGenc Plus 2.5 and I author with TMPGenc DVD Author.