I have no problems at all with AC-3 Files. The first time you open the file, it does take some time to load it, if it's really too big. But that happens only for the first time. Are you sure you're not changing or moving anything (one file for another one) or even re-rendering the file? Everytime you (let's say) "re-render" the files in the project, keeping their same names (or not), new files are created. That's why it takes a little time to load it. As soon as you open DVDA, the application sees these files as new files, what they really are.
If it's not the case, you can try to make a forensic analysis to find out what's happening. And please take note: my pc is rather old, very old: Athlon 1,7; 1Gb RAM. I insist: there are no problems at all around here. Must be your machine. I'm about to upgrade it for a P4 3,2 or even another Athlon, 3,2. Any ideas?

Cunhambebe, I do not touch these files at all. I have P4 3.4g( very quick rig)

Can you do me a favour and do the following on your system.
I create a AC3 5.1 file with Vegas about 1 hour long.
Open DVDA2 and in the explorer window click the file once with your mouse
Is DVDA2 working your hard drive frantically for at least a minute ?
If yes ok I expect this for the first time cause it is doing its thing.
Now once it has finished load that file into the project and save it.
Leave it for a while and open the project again. On my system it takes ages again to reload that file. I have 3 P4 systems and it does the same on all 3

I still think it does something screwey with large AC3 5.1 files

The first time you load the .ac3 (or any audio) file it "creates peaks", which on my slow PC (650 mhz) takes a minute or so for a 1 hour file.
But you can do other things while this is happening.

Mark

Hm. Does the same thing happen on reload if you go to that AC3's timeline? I'm not sure what DVDA is doing during the Open File dialog, but for me it doesn't build the peaks until I go to the timeline. Once I've let DVDA do that, opening the project again goes quickly.

I do notice a bit a pause (no major hard drive activity) for 5-10 seconds when I first click on an AC3 file in the Open Dialog box. Most of the AC3's I've been dealing with lately are @ 43 minutes. I'll try a 1hour file tonight and take notes if you think it'll help.

My system is a dinosaur compared to yours. ;-) AMD Athlon, approx 1GHz, 512 RAM.

Rob

If you use an hour+file that 5-10 seconds pause could become 20-40 seconds. Try it and see. It cannot be just me

I wrote: I do notice a bit a pause (no major hard drive activity) for 5-10 seconds when I first click on an AC3 file in the Open Dialog box. Most of the AC3's I've been dealing with lately are @ 43 minutes.

ghosty6 wrote: If you use an hour+file that 5-10 seconds pause could become 20-40 seconds.

Are you extrapolating that directly or exponentially? ;-) A one-hour file is only about 40% larger than a 43-minute file. Your theory there assumes an increase in wait time of 300%. How come for why? Assuming there is any relation between the wait time and the file size (and that the wait isn't the same whatever the file size), I'd think the estimate would move up to 7-14 seconds.

It cannot be just me

I'm sure it's not just you. But that doesn't mean it's everyone either. :)

At any rate, I wil do a test with a larger AC3 file shortly and post my results.

Rob

Just created a 1 hour 25 minute AC3 file (combined two 43 minute ones).

No increase in load time for me. Sorry.

Are you losing your SFK files somehow, or are they getting moved? The first time I dragged my 1 hour 25 minute file onto a timline, it took about three minutes for DVDA to build the peak file. Once that was done, every subsequent load of that AC3 file (whether I save the project itself or not) was instant.

Rob

AC-3 files take a long time to load on my computer as well. If I have a 90 minute AC-3 file, if I right-click on the file, it takes 10-15 seconds before the Insert Media list pops up. I have a 2.8 GHz PC with Win XP Pro and lots of memory.

bStro...thanks for the test, anyway I still think DVDA2 does something strange with these files..however I can live with it for now...thanks

Sorry for the delay. Unfortunately I don't have such big AC-3 files around here. I do have some 38 minute AC-3 files and I have no problems at all with them. Despite the fact my processor is rather old (Athlon 1,7), I am lazy just to think the job I'll have to do when I upgrade.
;)

Update, To some extent it is my system, however my discovery could help others.

I use a 200G WD SATA drive for all my media work.
What I have discovered is that I have only 40G free on this drive and it needed a defrag. The defrag certainly speed up the loading time on these files, however not quite enough. So I split this drive into 2 partions 1 160G and the other to 40G. I put all my DVDA2 assets in the 40G and viola no problems.

So it has tought me that I will never use such a large drive for this sort of work. Anyway thanks to all who have helped me on this issue...