Encoding issues

[ridon127]

My friend is using PRE9 to burn a dvd. it is several hours of video and it is taking over 12 hrs to encode then shows an error. He googled the problem which lead him to this sight. After doing everything that was listed on the forum, it still will not encode. He is going to buy a new computer this week so hopefully that will solve the problem.. they did this last year with a different version of PRE and it worked just fine. He wants me to encode the video and save it to his external drive. My question is -- can i just encode the video and save it on his hard drive without burning it? Also, he is using PRE9 and I have PRE 7. Will I need to install 9 to do this? He called me after he found this sight and asked if i was on it because i had had the some problem and he saw my picture.. i thougth it was pretty cool.. I have told him to make sure all his drivers were up to date, do a defrag, disable anti virus and reboot the computer. Then only open PRE using the control/alt keys and that should do it, but it didn't..

[Steve Grisetti]

And, of course, ensure that he has lots and lots (like at least 100) gigabytes of free and defragmented space on his hard driver.

I've also recently started using this PC tune-up tool, and I've been thrilled with the results. It's fairly automatic, and it automatically maintains your computer. I like the free version so much I may buy it just to encourage the software developers! It may be worth running.
http://www.iobit.com/advancedsystemcareper.html

That said, yes, you can certainly do the encoding for him. Or most of it anyway. Just save your final video as a DV-AVI and give that back to him. Even the most basic computer should be able to transcode that to a DVD. And it should work around the main problem with his project (which, with a 12-hour transcoding time, is likely some non-standard source video).

If not, something much deeper is causing problems on his computer.

He can try downloading the free trial of DVD Architect Studio, and you can then give him a DVD-ready MPEG2 to create a DVD from. If he likes it, the program is a great deal for $39.

And if THAT doesn't work, you can always do all of the transcoding for him, burn the DVD to your hard drive and then just deliver the VIDEO_TS folder to him. All he has to do then is burn that folder to a disc and he'll have a DVD.

[George Tyndall]

Just save your final video as a DV-AVI and give that back to him. Even the most basic computer should be able to transcode that to a DVD. .... He can try downloading the free trial of DVD Architect Studio, and you can then give him a DVD-ready MPEG2 to create a DVD from.

Steve, I'm still unclear which of those two file types is the preferable one to create--DV-AVI or DVD-ready MPEG2--when one's goal is to create SD DVDs.

[ridon127]

thanks.. i probably knew the answer but sometimes i don't take time to think it through.. also, can i open his PRE9 file using PRE7?

[Steve Grisetti]

George, it depends on which program you're going to use. As I say in my first post, if you're working on a video editing project, you should use DV-AVIs as your source project. But if you're working in a dedicated DVD authoring program (like DVD Architect) you're better off using a DVD-ready MPEG.

[Bob]

...can i open his PRE9 file using PRE7?

No, project files are not backwords compatible.

[ridon127]

...can i open his PRE9 file using PRE7?

No, project files are not backwords compatible.

thanks!!!

[Steve Grisetti]

I'm not even convinced that project files are "forward compatible." I've never been able to open an older version project in a newer version of the program without some sort of buggy behavior.

[ridon127]

ok.. i think i have found his problem.. my friend brought me his external hard drive to see if i could encode the files.. he only has 84.7 gigs of hard drive space left. now i am wondering if i can encode the video and save the files to my hard drive..or will i have to move all his files to my drive? i have 750 gigs of free space so i have plenty of space to do whatever i need to do...
donna

[Steve Grisetti]

It should work either way, Donna.

Just make sure his drive is formatted NTFS and not FAT32.

[ridon127]

Thanks, Steve. We shall see what happens.

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[ridon127]

I have been encoding that video all night. it still has about 10% to go.. I have noticed one section of the video doesn't have a red line above it.. could it be a corrupt file? i am trying to burn it to a folder. It is 9 hours of video.. could this be the problem? i never have had any problems like this with my videos. this is the 3rd computer they have tried this on. tonight i am going to try to do it as a dv-avi.. maybe that will work but i think something is wrong with the video files..thanks guys!!!

[Steve Grisetti]

He's not trying to squeeze 9 hours of video on one DVD is he, Donna?

Typically encoding takes about 1 1/2 times the running time of the video -- and much more than that for hi-def video -- so 12 hour rendering would not be unheard of for 9 hours of video.

But -- seriously? Is he trying to fit 9 hours of video on one DVD???!

[Chuck Engels]

How long is the project Donna? I can't even imagine what a 9 hour long project would look like or if it would even work.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Nine hours even on a dual layer DVD is still a lot of video....however

....for that much video you will likely need a lot of temporary workspace. Do you have a lot of free space on the drive(s) that are being used as work areas?