Can render as avi but not wmv

robster wrote on 1/30/2005, 11:46 AM

I tried over a dozen times to render a 4 minute project to wmv format (jpeg stills set to an mp3 audio file) and each time, approx 70% into the render, I got a blue screen crash. I then tried to render it to avi and presto, rendered flawlessly the very first try. Any theories as to why this happened?

I want to use wmv a lot in order to minimize file sizes and to do so, I will need to address this issue.

Thanks!

Comments

ScottW wrote on 1/30/2005, 11:53 AM

What happens if you render to AVI using an NTSC DV template (or uncompressed) and then pull that AVI file into VMS and render to WMV from it?

You may also want to do a dust patrol on your CPU. Open up the case and with canned air blow the dust off the CPU fan and heatsink - encoding is a very processor intensive thing to do, and if the processor is right on the edge as far as temps go, encoding can push it over the edge.

robster wrote on 1/30/2005, 1:43 PM

Updated my version of 4.0 (from Build 42 to 48) and re-tried a wmv render, all the while monitoring CPU temp. This time, it worked!!?? The CPU is running a little hot (77-79C) during the rendering so I'll pull the fan/sink and re-apply fresh paste to promote better heat transfer and clean up the sink, too. Might also upgrade to a better fan.

I thought the problem might be a bad stick of DDR so I ran two different memory diagnostics on my system and both passed flawlessly. I think you are right on as to the true source of the issue. This has been going on for over a year!!! Previously, I used Pinnacle software for movie creation and had continuous blue screen crashes -- I thought it was their buggy software! Clearly, it's a h/w problem and has to do with CPU temp.

I am very grateful for your wise advise, Scott!