|
|
Noticed this on a regular forum scan, and decided to toss in my cents worth.
I don't think windows 10 has anything to do with it - the data is passed to the burner driver by the video app, and the burner does it's thing. One practice that's absolutely essential is to not try to burn the disk - feed data to it - faster than the disk can handle. For example, DVD disks typically are rated at 16x, and BR disks at 6x. Most burner apps default to a MAX burn rate, but if that exceeds the rating on the disk then what you get is a burned video that's missing chunks of data, because the burner had not completed the last data output (the buffer was not empty) before the next lot arrived. The lesson here is to make sure that when you burn a disk, that the burn rate selected is at or lower than the rating of the disk: for a BR 6x disk, if the burner only has burn rates of say 1,4,8 et al, select the rate of 4 (because that's lower than the disk 6x). Every burner has this feature somewhere - I haven't seen one that doesn't but sometimes it's squirrelled away somewhere.
I've had a BR, DL burrner on the PC for years. And every attempt at burning/playing a DL disk has been a failure.
The symptoms are the disk on playback plays Ok for a while, then the playing image pixelates and freezes. Abandon play is the only way out.
After a lot of experimenting - which wasted a lot of DL disks - I understood how the disks were supposed to work, and derived what I think was happening. DL disks have 2 layers, which are burned/recorded one after the other by a LED light beam creating a "burn" where data is to be on a track traced across the disk by the burner. The 2nd layer track is supposed to fit between those on the 1st layer. On the first or uppermost recording layer, playback worked fine. But my issues with pixelating always appeared - randomly, or so it sdeemed - somwhere on the 2nd or deeper layer. And it seemed like that the deep burn was not enough combined with either burn or read back thru the upper layer to avoid data errors when playback was happening. Thus the pixelating and play jamming effect. I tried several different brands of disk to try and avoid this issue, but that simply increased the randomness of event, not prevention.
Evetually, I gave up using DL disks entirely. My video creations are small videos lasting 12-15 minutes as a rule, usually a holiday vsiting a number of different places, one clip per place, plus a disk menu. Occasionally, a longer one at 30 minutes which is a "whole" project summary, plus smaller clips in greater detail for individual topics or locations. They either fit onto a single single layer disk, one or several clips, or it's a multi-disk production with different clips on each disk and appropriate titles in the disk menu and label. DVD FHD or 4K formats just impact the amount of data/number of clips you can put on one disk, not whether it's going to work or not.
|
|
|
As storage media, CD's and DVD's are slow, serial devices, and editors burning content to them offer menus as the way to by-pass slowly playing everything until you get to the item of interest. Playing them does require a player - either on a PC or attached to TV.
Other forms of memory - such as a usb stick - are essentilly portable RAM, and not slow. Which is why editors normally don't offer menu options for 'fast' memory devices. Rendered files in any playable format - mp2, mp4 etc - stored on them will play fine in a normal computer player such as VLC, and should quite playable when plugged in to a TV that has usb auxiliary input sockets
If you truly want a menu on the output, and storable on a usb device, then produce the project as an iso file. ISO is a standard format for a disk image, and because of that characteristic, a menu can be constructed for the content before production to the target media, which in this case would be a folder on the PC, such as a usb stick inserted in a relevant socket. When finished, VLC will play the iso file, and the menus you created for content access will be usable.
Another advantage of creating an iso file is that, with VLC, you can check the output: surprising how often spelling errors and the like creep into the composition at produce time and become glaringly obvious at that point. In that case an iso file does not waste a disk: you can re-do the composition correcting the percieved erorrs, and produce another iso file version as a check. I'd sugest the slightly different target filename as a means of discriminating between your efforts.
Once you are satisfied with the result in the iso file, you can;
- copy it to usb sticks and distribute them. But note that TV's/Smart TV's with auxiliary sockets usually don't support VLC as a player, so an ISO file probably would not play on such a device; or
- using an iso burner program - there are a number of free such items available - burn the iso file to disk and distibute the disks
|
|
|
|
Another source of jerkiness when playing is the resolution of the source material, specifically if it is FHD or 4K. Your PC might have enough grunt not to need shadow files for them, but DVD files are necessarily converted to mpeg-2 for the disk, if they are not already in that format. Have you developed shadow files for related parts of the composition before editing and rendering/DVD creation???
|
|
|
My point was . . .
that there was no issue with PD18 and missing re-distributables before the windows update.
After the update starting PD18 yielded the error message indicating missing redistributable(s).
A reasonable deduction says the update did it. MS gone loco?? or is there something else going on here???
|
|
|
As opto said, a really interesting question . .
I run PD18 on windows 10, and - as is the norm for win10 - you get the updates whether desired or not. The only at your discretion is when they install.
I having read this topic, and recently done the monthly update, I checked PD18: not a problem with it opening with the last project I made with it.
So, several thoughts . .
- maybe this is an issue with a different version of windows? I run the home edition . . . but there are professional and other editions
- If PD18 needed a specific visual C++ redistributable(s), why did it work before the windows update (must have had it then to open without error) and not after??? those re-distributables are "common" software - once installed, it's not normal for any software to remove them, since other apps may also use them. In the description provided, one is left with the conclusion that MS removed them as part of the update, and that would be very unusual.
Re-installing the re-distributable may have fixed this issue, but why did it happen in the 1st place?? anyone have ideas . .
|
|
|
|
A link to the YT video clip?
|
|
|
|
Perhaps you could explain what that YT video suggested to do the removal, and how it didn't work in your case?
|
|
|
Hi Tomasc,
Great info.
I am not really into "chapters" - essentially parts within a larger video - and prefer to create smaller clips for specific places or things, which helps the management of the overall effort by breaking it into smaller chinks. These usually work out to be between 8-15 minutes long.
Distribution by DVD has been a long habit for a range of reasons, the main one being that older family members who would be interested (kids?? phfft. too into social media to care) are used to playing DVD's and have the gear for it. Doing it by dropbox or usb stick entirely feasible but unfamiliar territory for them. So a menu is a necessity.
I like menus to be direct, as simple as possible, and the idea of a root in these circumstances just made it hard until I realised it could be dispensed with. Along with that, adding extra text to a standard theme was really useful in another editor I use. If I am reading your response correctly, every variation to a standard menu (extra text variation in font sizes colours etc) needs another unique menu, using the menu maker and usable only once.
In the example - I just chose a theme from the standard ones in the ultimate package. The number of menu items supported per theme is not very evident and 3 seems to be a common number. In this case, the number of clips exceeded the size of a DVD, making the whole project a 2-disk affair, and labelling which disk was what is usually helpful. But adding extra text to label the disk, or movement buttons (next page, back etc) just wasn't available. I can't even add text to the title (eg disk 1 of 2) and just highlight it and specify a reduced font size - nope, the font size applies to the whole title.
Overall then, usable but not as flexible as others I have used. I'll get used to it.
|
|
|
Finally, my project reached the point of creating the disk output. And I find that I'll need 2 disks to carry all the items I want. Not a problem: just mark the titles of each disk with disk 1, disk 2 etc in the menu.
And after a lot of fiddling around, I've found several items about creating the menu for the disk I need help with. A screen capture attached for reference for these
1. That intermediate menu between root and items is a bug-bear: what I want is the video items on the menu page or pages. removing the root menu seems to give that (item at bottom of menu preferences) but unticking that also seems to remove the ability to have play first or introductory item (that box gets unchecked too). However, the list box where that play first video is specified isn't blocked when root is disabled, and when an item is specified here, it plays on preview.
Which is what I want, but it seems to be contradictory. Is this normal???
2. Altho there is an ability to specify font, there's no ability to specifiy line spacing: you have to find a font which minimises line spacing in menu title descriptions. In the attached, the default font has a closer spacing than my preferred one (CataneoBT), so reluctantly I've used the default: which is at odds with the font I've used thru the various editied clips. Is there any way in this menu presentation to specify a line spacing for any font???
3. The font colour is not altereable; take the default, which seems to be releated to the general menu background colours. Is there a way to specify a font colour??
4. Adding text to the menu. eg, next page, back page, home alongside the arrow symbols. Is there a way to add text to the menu. at this level.
basically this isn't about creating a whole new menu, but making small changes to the theme which has been selected.
|
|
|
Hi Tomasc,
Thanks for the reply.
Since PD is in a series of files (14 for ultimate) is there any specific order of removal from programs and features?
And other editors have software tools to cleanup/remove various msi files, registry entries etc which are useful for a clean slate and especially if there is a corrupted file/installation interering with anything new. Does Cyberlink have anything like that for PD?
|
|
|
I'm thinking about purchasing a 2nd PD license (now, PD19) and transferring my current PD18 license/installation to a 2nd computer. I have the PD18 discs so a new install is easy enough. BUT
Is there a specific procedure required to uninstall/clean-up the existing PD18 installation?
|
|
|
There's an alternative way to burn discs . . and this way avoids making a lot of drink coasters and serves to isolate where the problem may be.
1. use PD18 to create the disc image file - output to an iso format. See the manual, p468 - save to disk image file.
Use a player like VLC to play the result: if OK, next step. If not OK - there's an issue with the creation of the image file in PD18.
Notes;
a. This approach also allows you to make corrections to any of the projects that are the content of the disk, without wasting a disk. Typically, spelling errors or typos in the menu that you only detect when playing the final result will prompt this.
b. With this method, you would have to use another program to burn the disk from the image file - apparently burn a disk from a disk image file isn't a feature of PD18
2. use a 3rd party image burner - several free on the net - and burn the disc from the disk image file you have confirmed is Ok.
if the disk plays Ok, you are home free. If not Ok, then your disk burner has a problem.
|
|
|
I regularly check my PD18 ultimate for updates. And lately I've been getting a PD18 update pop-up just after PC start - suggesting I do so. But when Pd is loaded, check the updates panel - there are none available, I have the latest version (see screenshot). Or do I? the screenshot has a panel about an upgrade special, . . .
Can someone clarify Cyberlink's usage of 'update' versus 'upgrade' terminology please. To a user (this little black duck) it seems to be very confused.
|
|
|
|
Not hardware accel? getting out of my depth here. If you are using the video speed features (see manual p202, video speed in the tools option), for those who have experience using this feature, clarify just what you are doing to vary the speed of the clip(s).
|
|
|
Hardware acceleration can be an issue for video editors. What is involved is a) a driver which uses a companion special purpose cpu that speeds up the processing, rather than relying on programming a normal x86 unit (the video editor - PD18 - makes calls to the driver to do the render processing in accelerated mode). This video cpu may be on a display adapter if you use one, or as part of the x86 processor chip powering your PC; b) the system hardware itself, and c) software compatibility between these and the editor itself.
Problems with the various parts of acceleration can manifest in different ways.
If you are using a display adapter, the driver for that may be the cause of your problem: ensure that it is up-to-date.
Often, simply trying to render in accelerated mode gives error messages. In my case, I run an intel core i3 processor that Intel claims to have a video cpu on-chip. However 2 video editors (PD18 and Video Studio 20201) that I use both generate errors when attempting to render 'with acceleration', and both work normally when not accelerated. They both could not be wrong and after an extensive interchange with Intel, it seems that the driver for my graphics chipset (which both editors use in acclerated mode) has an issue using the special video cpu, and Intel won't be updating it. Which led me to the following.
You remark that the un-accelerated is smooth. If you cannot identify a cause of the jerky rendered result, then possibly you will have to workaround it. For example; use small duration projects (up to say 15 minues) with un-accelerated rendering. This way, the extra time to render (compared to a nominal accelerated process) will not be very obvious. For me at least, this wasn't a big issue - I never work with large projects (say, 40-60 minutes each) because changing anything in composing the project file gets tedious when they are that large.
|
|
|
Mocca,
Something not rendering? in english please . . ?
|
|
|
Reviewing this thread, Diri made a comment re backups (he did not know how to do it) that hasn't been addressed.
Backups are basically copies of the PC contents, used when things go bad to restore the status quo as of the time of backup. There are 3rd party programs to do that, or there is a facility in windows to do it.
A backup copy will be the same size as the backed up data, but since PC's can have a lot of programs, data etc on them, most backup software offers a facility to compress the backup file. The medium you backup to also needs to be of sufficient size to store the resulting backup file. The backup software also has/should have a recover feature that allows you to recover using the backup file, and generally a means of separately booting (eg a boot from CD feature) to the recovery program. That type of facility is essential - if your C drive is corrupted, a recovery method that relies on C is useless.
Depending on the backup software you use, you can:
- backup a single file, a folder (of files), a whole disk partition (drive) or the entire PC in one operation.
- run a schedule to perform the backup
- backup to different devices.
- backups are generally recommended to be done on a regular cycle - how regular depends on how much data you have and how often that data changes. You might for example backup the entire PC once a quarter and selected drives like C more regularly (once a week? or once a month).
- there is plenty of material on backing up obtainable by google searching - maybe more than you think.
- once you have a regular backup cycle going - expect that it may be years before there is any need for it: no need to store everything - just the backups for the last year?? but when something fails/goes wrong, you will thank your lucky stars that you have a the means to recover from it.
- keep a copy of all backups on a device that is NOT normally attached to the PC: if you are ever ransomeware attacked, these off-line stores are your means to recover without paying a ransom. In this latter case, disconnect the affected PC from the internet before you start (prevents re-infection while you do the recovery), connect the off-line backup store and then boot from the recovery CD to a) re-format the affected drives, which will probably be every one except the external backup store, and then b) recover the drive contents from the backup files on the backup recovery store.
How I do it;
- I use the Acronis True Image software: determined years ago by it's ability to boot from CD to the recovery program. The recovery CD has a built-in linux OS, so a recovery is independant of the OS on the PC itself. Every new TI version comes with a pre-compiled recovery disk in an iso format that you just have to burn to disk to use.
- I have 12 active and logical drives on my PC, content on each one determined by type of data (one drive for music, one for video, one for application programs like PD etc). Each one is backed up on a regular cycle.
I've had cause to use backups to
- recover from a corrupted file (recovering the whole drive was easier than trying to find and recover the affected file)
- recover from a failed drive (replace the relevant HDD unit, re-start and restore the partitions on it from backup files); and
- when upgrading a drive - eg replace an HDD with an SSD - as before, replace the affected unit and recover the drive content using backup files.
If this sounds to complex to start, see your local PC shop or technician for advice on getting going. But once the routine is established, it really is easy.
|
|
|
You put applications onto an alternative drive at install time. In the installer, the custom option usually presents a choice of drives and folders for that. If the app is already installed, don't move it (registry entires are tied to this location as part of the original install process): 2 choices - live with it, or un-install and clean up the registry to remove any unlinked entries, then re-install in a custom folder on a non-C drive. Make sure there is enough space for it there.
Some applications will not offer a custom choice, and PD plug-ins (prodad etc) are an example - they just blast their way onto C. Not much you can do about that, even if you have selected a custom install.
|
|
|
I followed this link, which led to another posted by a moderator regarding the un-install of an MS update (KB5001330). However the link in that MS update to detail doesn't describe anything that has apparent impact on reading audio in a clip.
So I can accept that it is so, but it makes no sense.
|
|
|
As opto indicated, location is a personal preference, but there are considerations that impact it. Such as:
- don't overfill your drives - keep usage of any one below 75%, particularly C, or the files on it will be fragmented, and the OS will spend a lot of time swapping the pagefile into and out of RAM; both things that seriously impact on performance.
- try to keep C just for the OS. This is the most used drive on the computer and if anything happens to it (corrupted by malware/device failure) you will have to either replace it or re-format it and then restore from backups (at best) or do a complete new install - including the software apps.
- locate your software and data on separate drives from C. Particularly keep the data separate from the editor program that uses it; you may find the the same data is useful in several applications, and if you replace the editor with a new version, typically the un-install of the old version will remove all the older app folders which may include the data files.
- SSD's are still typically used for the C drive - if you have a desktop with additional drives they are commonly hard drives and have a small but measureable disk access delay. Putting the OS on C and having any apps and data on physically separate drives minmises that access delay and improves the performance of the computer considerably. Example: I had HDD's for C and software and data drives, 12 logical partitions on 4 physical HDD in all. A regular AV scan using a package (AVG) of this configuration took over an hour. Just replacing the C drive with an SSD immediately halved that, to just over 30 minutes.
- this sort of improvement would be apparent in tasks that are intensive (rendering) and usually time consuming, but it affects the whole PC in the same way for shorter duration activities: like edits.
- lastly, having your programs, including the OS, on separate drives makes backup routines easier to do: backup by partitions (drives) means that each one is modular and re-usable by restoration in the same way.
|
|
|
