? I wonder where it went... I was looking for it myself.
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Was it started by Dreven?

I have a Windows Vista Premium system with a 2.4 GIG CPU, 3GIG of RAM and an Nvidia GeForce 8600GT card.

I have been using PD8 to produce HD images from my Canon hf-11 camera.

I don't do much with menus, but have done some. I have also burnt DVD's without problem.

I have produced WMV files, HD DVD(MPG) files and m2ts (H.264 AVC) files without issue.

In early PD7 I had a problem with crashing, but haven't had any problems in PD8.

Most of my videos are 1920 X 1080 and 30fps but I have produced combined projects with some 4:3 mixed in (also with these same 4:3 - stretched).

I can test something that doesn't work on other installations if that would help??

Fred - two things...

1. I think you're onto something there...
2. Love the new avatar

Cheers - Tony
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Videocentricity wrote:

We had an ongoing topic regarding testing of the PCs and PDR8 Preferences...
...will Cranston, Robert, Peter and others please come back at their leisure to continue?

Hi Videocentricty,

If you're still willing to shepherd this project, I'm still willing to pitch in by testing uploaded clips on my rig, and post the results, including Preferences info or screenshots. And/or change my current Preferences to suit a test.

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Here is the situation for anyone who wants to test this.
Reboot your PC
download this clip

http://www.yardwolf.com/images/TEST.MTS

Open a new PDR8 project and add the clip to the timeline four times

Go to Transitions

Just under the Menu Choice CREATE DISC you will see the Library Menu icon


Click and choose Apply Fading Transitions to All


Now run the project timeline

Does the audio play and the image run without freezing ?

You should have sound from the beginning through the end.

ONLY if you get a freeze then

1. Screen print your PDR Preferences, for the first three tabs to an image and
reply to this post

It will look something like this
http://www.yardwolf.com/images/prefs.jpg

2. add a brief description of your PC

CPU type, Graphics Card, Installed Ram, Operating system

I think thats as simple as it can be defined for now. If you can't solve the problem - Change the problem

Ron et al -

Test completed on my seriously underprivileged system

1. Followed instructions to the letter
2. Ran smoothly in preview window (apart from bobbly clip)
3. Produced (mpeg2) - no freezes

Cheers - Tony
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Ron;
Ran the test:
1. Got warning message regarding PAL format of video (PD8 converted to NTSC) when I drug it to timeline.
2. No crashes and audio completely there.
3. Produced a test.m2ts file(no errors or crashes)
4. Produced MPG file (no errors or crashes)
5. Ran "stabilizer" fix to try the effect on "bouncy" and first time I previewed timeline the sound from the first clip did not play (other three did) re-ran preview a second time and sound was good across all clips.

Here are my screenshots, the only difference I can see is that I have 10 minutes auto saved turned off my import and export folders are different and I have CUDA enabled.

I also tried PAL and NTSC with no difference to the frozen second clip with sound continuing to the end. Also if I actually produced the video it has no problems.

Cheers

Robert
My youtube channel====> http://www.youtube.com/user/relate2?feature=mhsn

Robert;
My settings are a little different. In addition to the differences you have mentioned, MY setup has:
1. Enable file processing to speed up high-definition video editing checked
2. Transitions set to 2 seconds
3. check for updates unchecked

I too have CUDA turned on.

Fred,

I also forgot to mention that originally I had transitions set to 2 seconds and only recently extended it to 4 seconds. I had the same problem at 2 seconds that I now have at 4 seconds. I found when working on a project if I had the default set to 2 seconds in preferences I couldn't extend the fade on any of the effects past 3 seconds. There is a relationship between the default in preferences to how much you can extend the time on the timeline.

Having PD work on low resolution shadow/proxy files may have something to do with it..............

OK problem solved, I just enabled low resolution shadow/proxy files and the clip played through fine.

Good work Videocentricity in sticking with this problem.

Now if we could just find the solution to my edited 1920X1080 video rendering problem?

Cheers

Robet My youtube channel====> http://www.youtube.com/user/relate2?feature=mhsn

Hey Robert;
I helped, too!!

I am bucking for my first "gold star" ...LOL

Sorry Fred, you helped also and if it was up to me I would give you a gold star. My youtube channel====> http://www.youtube.com/user/relate2?feature=mhsn

Working with shadow files means you are no longer playing the problem clip, just a low-res conversion of it.

It also means that with a large number of clips, you're having to wait around while the shadow clips are created, and for some reason that seems to take longer than one would expect as compared with the performance of MediaShow Espresso in doing conversions. It's intended for users whose PCs are simply not up to AVCHD replay at all. With the excellent performance of PD8 in replaying full HD AVCHD on a Cuda / quad core PC, it completely spoils the point of using PD8 in the first place to use shadow files.

I've spent so much time on playing around with every combination and permutation of possible fixes for this that I'm now seriously behind with many other matters, but I'm not particularly blaming Cyberlink for this type of clips not working happily in PD8 - so far I've only found one NLE which seems happy to handle it with no problems (problems in others range from similar freezes, or low fps playback, or flat refusal to play at all) - and that NLE is so simplistic that it doesn't provide a solution. However, it does show that it's possible to handle this format.

I did try converting the problem material AVCHD > AVCHD with MediaShow Espresso but then PD8 smart renders it with the known problem of jumping frames at transitions, so that doesn't work.

So for the time being all that can be done is to convert to full HD mpeg2 and work with that - and MediaShow Espresso does that very quickly, and the end result is very acceptable (to me at least). But it would be nice if one day this particular flavour of AVCHD would work natively in PD8. I'm pretty sure it's being looked at.

Peter;
I am using a quad core with nvidia CUDA and turning off shadow files causes the video to freeze during preview. Production still proceeds successfully in either setting.

Although I understand how editing a "changed" version in preview could effect the perceived end result, I have not run into this as a problem in any of my projects. Maybe I don't have the "granular" need when joining my clips that others do. If I drop a frame during joining, it still looks good to me (and those who view the videos).

I ran your project. It actually crashed when adding the fade effect the first time, but I reopened PD and had no more trouble. It ran fine and built into an mpeg 2, which runs fine.

__________________________________
CORNBLOSSOM

Hi Everyone,

Re-tested clip again per instructions (Shadow off - Tried at both PAL and NTSC settings), Also did a couple of Splits and Trims, and inserted 3 .bmp images, and added a .wma audio file to the #1 music track.

Results...
No preview issues to report. All quiet on the Western Front.

So, why are some members (with lower spec'ed systems, so it would appear), able effortlessly play this AVCHD clip, without audio drops or stutters, while others can't? Is there one definitive answer yet?

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One thing I will try is the complete uninstall, registry clean, reinstall thing. Who can tell...

On THIS thread, the only reported problems have been the stutters (which appear to be resolved by shadow-file usage) and the crash reported by James (on first adding fade, but worked on restart), on the 1280 X 720, 50fps, H.264 AVC clip.

Videocentricity? What other issues are we trying to explore??

The chief issue with this kind of format of video is that here at least, when you get to the point where PD8 plays from one clip to the next (with or without a transition) the audio carries on but the video freezes. Press stop or pause, there's some seconds of vigorous CPU usage, then one can attempt to replay again. It doesn't always happen and a better test might be putting the sample clip ten or even twenty times onto the timeline and see if it plays end to end with no video freezes.

Meanwhile I have done a complete uninstall, and deleted from the registry everything that appears to be related to PD, and uninstalled all versions of VB runtime (and ffdshow) - and the problem is still there. So that's not a solution.