Nero 7 Problems - Video Freezing

[HouseGuest]

I purchased the Nero 7 suite the first part of February. As far as the CD-DVD burning area, I don't have any comments, and I know that is what Nero is known for. But some utilities included with the suite are not working correctly and Tech support has basically refused any comment. Does Nero Tech support have a bad reputation?

My problems are Show Time will not play a DVD, commercial or home made, without the video freezing. Other players (WinDVD and Windows Media Player) work fine. This computer has an ATI chipset, so it may be related to that, but Tech Support has only given me their canned response and has since ignored me.

Also the update to NeroVision, broke that utility. The original version, 4.1.0.9, played and edited MPEG4 files fine, but after the update the video freezes whenever the cursor is moved in the timeline (audio OK). This problem is general and not related to any chipset type.

I have asked for my money back, but even customer service has failed to respond. Anyone know of anything going on at Nero that might cause this type of behavior? Anyone know what might be making the video freeze, with the timecode continuing? Have changed DVD drives with no effect. Updated all drivers and reinstalled many times. Show Time did play a complete DVD on an Intel based system.

Thanks,
Clark

[TaoTeWingChun]

ATI chipset? Are you referring to your video card, perchance? And what does that have to do with Intel?

I've got a laptop that runs an ATI video chipset with an AMD CPU and another with an NVidia chipset with an AMD CPU, and both run Nero 7's ShowTime and NeroVision with no problem.

Sounds like you have a conflict somewhere in the installation, or maybe you did not install the pieces correctly. Furthermore, you may now have a semi-corrupt Registry. I suggest you inventory all of the buring software on your machine and see what else might be causing you this conflict. Cleaning out your Registry (if you decide to uninstall it again) of all Ahead and Nero program references would also be a good idea, especially if you decide to re-install it.

Please post back with more info - you've given incomplete bits and pieces, we will need to know much more.

Cheers!

TTWC

[whitejremiah]

if you need a program to do all the registry cleaning for ya, give regscrubxp a try, google it to find it.....so uninstall nero completely, run regscrubxp, have it check for errors, then select all and fix errors, then try to reinstall and update again from scratch.....this will HOPEFULLY fix the problems.....good luck to you.

[HouseGuest]

I have an ATI chipset, like you have an Nvidia (ATI RS300). The onboard video is also ATI, but I am using an Nvidia card right now (I have tried the other way). The burning software is not in question since the only time I used it there seemed to be no problem, an no other burning software, except the WinXP stuff has been installed.

Show Time has not worked on this computer from the first time I installed it. It is just a DVD player, no burning involved. I have done a registry clean--a lot of stuff there. Plus a fresh install on a new hard drive had the same problems.

Show Time did work on an Intel based computer with a fresh WinXP SP2 install, which is why I can only speculate it might be related to the chipset. I even did a clean install to make sure there wasn't something laying around that might be causing the problem. The video (and audio) freezes at random times on every DVD I have tried and even froze on a DVD I had burned with Nero Vision. It seems to quit accessing the drive, like it forgets it needs it. The time code continues to move and the program continues to function otherwise. If I go back to the beginning of the chapter, it starts again and will run anywhere from 30 seconds to 1 hour before it freezes again. Since all other DVD playing programs I have tried work normally, I have to assume there is a weakness in the Nero software.

Nero Vision will lock up when I am editing MPEG 4 video (all I have tried) if I try to move the position marker in the timeline. The original version 4.1.0.9 worked fine, but the update 4.1.0.15 will put the CPU into an high utilization rate for several seconds and when it calms down, the audio and time code are normal but the video has frozen on the scene where the position marker was moved to. The MPEG 4 video I am editing is a PhotoShop Podcast. The exact same thing happened on the test computer, so it appears to be an update problem with Nero Vision. Of course, the updates come in one group so it might be a related file.

I have tried every combination I can think of as far as DVD drives/video cards/computers and updates. It has been 6 weeks and no additional response from Nero Tech Support, after their canned response, or Customer Service.

Thanks,
Clark

[TaoTeWingChun]

Let's get back to basics for a second:

? - How many physical/logical drives in your system?
? - Are you using a separate drive for your video editing functions?
? - What other DVD Player software have you used in this system?
? - Did you have an older version of Nero installed prior to buying Nero 7 Suite? If so, did you completely uninstall it before installing the V7 Suite?
? - Are your video card drivers up to date?

Lots of questions that need answers here - please try to give us as much detail so we can narrow it down.

I highly doubt you're suffering from a chipset issue - sounds more like a software/driver conflict vs a hardware fault here.

Post back with your answers when you can.

Cheers!

TTWC

[TaoTeWingChun]

BTW, HouseGuest - did you know there was a patch for NV3? Follow this link:

http://ww2.nero.com/nero7/enu/Patch_for_NVE3.html

Good luck!

TTWC

[HouseGuest]

I did try the patch, even though it is for version 3 and not 4, and it worked fine before the update without the patch.

I have 1 DVD player and one SATA hard drive. Video card drivers are up to date, and even changing to the onboard ATI video did not help. The computer is a Shuttle ST61G4, which I suspect is part of the problem. I even removed the SATA hard drive and replaced it with a normal ATA drive.

Only other DVD player is Windows Media. I did install WinDVD after I had the problems and it played all DVDs fine, as does Windows Media.

No older version of Nero installed. Started with 7.0.8.2 and only updated after Show Time had problems. That is when Nero Vision broke, it worked fine before.

Some things just don't seem appropriate as a cause, since the video runs fine for a while and then locks up. Doesn't it seem strange that Show Time never locks up and the time code continues to move with the Video and audio frozen. I firmly believe Show Time is a programming deficiency that hasn't allowed for my configuration. The Nero Vision seems to be an update that doesn't work--why I don't know, but when it does the same thing on two different computers, it looks suspicious.

I have changed or tried everything I can think of. Different DVD player--new hard drive with clean install of just WinXP and Nero, all drivers I can find have been updated. One thing I don't know is whether the 2 problems are some way related. I am running the older version of Nero Vision, so that works now, but I cannot update without breaking it. Since I have alerted them to my problem, maybe they can find an answer eventually. I will keep experimenting until then.

Thanks,
Clark

[HouseGuest]

Just to keep everyone up to date, I found in ShowTime, if I used the Microsoft DVD navigator instead of the Nero one, I could play DVDs all the way through. I believe the latest update to ShowTime has fixed that problem.

I still have a problem with NeroVision, which the update caused, where the video freezes when playing an MP4 file if I skip ahead or back while the video is playing. That makes it very hard to use NeroVision to edit video, so I would say that all versions of NeroVision 4 after 4.1.0.9 are useless for me. The lastest and greatest released April 27th is still bad. Three different computers with fresh installs of WinXP gave the exact same results. ShowTime will play the same file and allow for moving in the timeline, without problems--strange! If anyone whats to check, I have been using the Basic Instinct 2 trailer I downloaded from the Nero site.

Still no help from Nero Tech Support on ANYTHING!!!!!

[HouseGuest]

I may have discovered something that will lead to a fix for NV4. It appears that I have 3 files which will play almost normally in NeroVision 4 v4.5.0.15 and they are all encoded at 29.97 fps. The ones that freeze up are encoded at 23.98 and 12. Perhaps anything encoded and something other than 29.97 fps will cause problems. I found the info about the files using Nero Recode.

[Cinemagic]

The newer version of Showtime is definately flawed and does freeze on a large variety of computers. I have three different computers all with the latest version of Showtime. A Fujitsu laptop seems to play fine, but two desktops with Asus MBs freeze frequently. Previous versions of Showtime played flawlessly. Whatever Nero did to their latest version messed it up. I have e-mailed Nero tech support but they have yet to reply. I think this is normal for Nero. They use to have the best product in its category, but now they seem second rate.

[HouseGuest]

I have also seemed to have found a temporary fix for NeroVision 4. If you are using the later versions and you can't edit videos encoded in a frame rate other than 25 or 29.97 fps, you need to replace a file called NeroFormatConv.ax in the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Ahead\DSFilter with one from an earlier version of NeroVision 4 (namely 4.0.1.9 from Nero 7 v7.0.1.4).

Hopefully a new update will be out in the next few days which will include the fix.

The newer versions of ShowTime did not seem to have the problem the earlier one did, but they may have messed it up again.