I’ve recently successfully burned some home films to DVD and they worked great.
I visitied some other forums to get some tips and tricks on how to do this more efficiently and to try to find out specifically why the rendering process takes soooooo friggin long. I use Pinnacle Studio 9.0.
I found out that tons of people are having difficulty with this process and specifically with this software. I was one of the lucky ones so far, though some have stated that the software worked great when they first installed it and then somehow deteriorated to the point that it would always hang and freeze on them after using it for a while. I did a lot of searching and found that a lot of people are unhappy with the Pinnacle products, though most of them said they really like the ease of use and the interface, they gave up on the product when they couldn’t complete the rendering and burning process.
Why is it so difficult for a company to fix their software? It also seems like a few people brought up problems with other software too (Roxio, Nero, Adobe(not so much), etc.)** like there is some inherent widespread problem with people trying to render movies to make them compatible with a DVD player. **
Why such the hassle?
What software do you use to make home movies and what problems have you had?
Besides the all-night rendering process I haven’t had any crashes or other complaints.
Any tips and tricks for the beginning home movie hobbiest is greatly appreciated.
The movies I have made were uploaded from the camera as AVI’s and rendered to MPEG2.
obligatory specs;
P4HT, 3.0ghz, 1G.RAM, 128M PC Express video card, TV tuner, 2 very large harddrives, WinXP Media Center 2005.
I just recently started using Roxio Easy Media Creator (version 7.5). I bought it when I ordered my new system a few months ago, but have just gotten around to using it in the last week or so. It seems pretty easy to use. Drag and drop video, pictures and sound into a story board. Tons of “transitions” to use between scenes, and various other kinds of effects that I’m just learning how to use. My projects so far have been pretty simple … some very simple animations, setting a few favorite movie scenes to music, etc. Haven’t burned anything to DVD, but rendering seems simple enough to make MPEGS that play fine on real player and in Media Center. So I’m gussing they’ll burn simple enough once I make something worth burning. The rendering to MPEG does take a few minutes, but I’ve only made clips that are a few minutes long so far.
My system:
Intel Pentium 4, 3000 MHz
RAM: 2048 MB
OS: Windows XP 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2, with Media Center 2005
Display: NVIDIA GeForce 6800
Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II
PHILIPS DVD±RW DVD8631
SONY DVD-ROM DDU1615
Monitor: 19-inch Dell Ultrasharp flat panel
If there is such a problem, it’s probably because editing and converting digital video is a very complicated subject. What you’re trying to do requires several steps, and many people prefer to use a different program for each step. All-in-one programs like Pinnacle can sometimes spread themselves too thin, and when something goes wrong with them, it’s not always easy to pinpoint exactly where things went south.
By far, the most time-consuming step in the process is conversion to MPEG-2. Any transitions, effects, and filters you add will make that step take even longer.
You may want to consider using a different program for conversion. There is very little disagreement that the best (and fastest) software for this is Cinema Craft Encoder. The professional version of CCE is used to encode video for commercial DVDs, but is prohibitively priced for the average hobbiest (about $2000). CCE Basic, however, should be enough to suit the home user, and, compared to it’s bigger and bulkier brother, is practically a steal at $58.
The best advice I can offer is to head on over to VideoHelp.com and read the guides and forums until your eyes bleed.