You can find a list new features and my personal review if you click the "What's New" link near the bottom of this page, if you're interested.
http://muvipix.com/sms12.php

+1 for Steve's site and the accurate overview. Don't overlook the new video tutorials either.

Excellent, thanks for the info and I'll certainly be looking at this later :-)

I've had a look at some of the improvements in features over v11 and these will certainly come in useful, but the main issue I am having is with the random errors. I'm finding that I'm spending 30-90 minutes rendering a movie, then having to watch the results every time to look for the errors, then re-rendering again. This circle repeats until I have a rendered movie without random errors.

It's the stability I'm looking for more than anything, and maybe the 64-bit v12 will sit seamlessly on my 64-bit machine without the seemingly troublesome WOW64 dll throwing a wobbly!

I have been using MS12 64bit for over a month now (up from v10 the last few years) and have not had a single crash with it so far. I'm finding it to be quite capible and worry free on my i7-920 machine with a GTX260 video card. Rendering with CUDA enabled cards is significantly faster for me with this new version vs v10.

Cheers,
Pete

Certainly worth knowing - I've just wasted three hours rendering a 2-pass 720x576 mpeg using the DVD Architect template and it's full of glitches in the first minute and a half of film. This is really hacking me off now, I've spent 7 months editing the movie so that everything is spot on, now I can't even render a simple mpeg :-(

I can't vouch for the DVD Architect 5.0 that comes with it. I haven't tried that one yet.

Cheers,
Pete

Cheers Pete. Actually I'm not even getting as far as DVD Architect, I'm just trying to render a DVD compliant mpeg file from my movie project in MS11, and it's falling down every time...

I can't believe that! I've been using DVD Architect Studio 5 since Movie Studio 9 -- and I've even used it with video created by other video editing programs -- and it's never failed me!

What format of video are you loading from Movie Studio to DVD Architect?

I find this hard to believe either. For me the Studio 10/11/12 mpeg-2 DVD Architect PAL templates consistently render successfully (not counting 'low memory' in the earlier versions).
https://www.custcenter.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1105/
Are the GPU drivers updated? No codec packs installed? Reset to default settings?
https://www.custcenter.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2744/
https://www.custcenter.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4168/

Have you tried to install the 12 trial? Your version 11 doesn't mind. The trial goes to its own folder.

DVD Architect has never failed me either, it's the rendered files from MS11 that are!

I'm creating the project in MS11 using AVCHD raw footage from the camera, rendering full HD mp4 files as I go along to check the movie editing. Now editing is finished I've asked MS11 to render files suitable for DVD-A, and I've used the DVD-A template in the render options, which MS has installed specifically for use in DVD-A to create a DVD. I believe it's an mpeg file, under MainConcept. I don't know the exact settings offhand and I can't check at the moment because MS is busy. The files I load into DVD-A are DVD compliant and require no recompression.

But, every time I use this template I get jittery visuals and freeze frames, no matter what I alter the settings to. I've tried 2-pass, setting quality to zero, reducing the bit rate to an appalling level, but it just doesn't seem to work...

MS11 and DVD-A have just ejected a Blu-Ray disc of my movie, so I'm going to watch that now and report back in 10 minutes...

John. I never had any luck with 2 pass rendering. This always resulted in very big mpeg artifacts randomly appearing. Try single pass which is what I always do.
If the stuttering you're talking about is occasional tiny jerks as if single frames are being missed this is a problem I've had to contend with from day one. I've tried V12 and that didn't cure it. My remedy is to run the rendered video through my old editor, Media Studio Pro (it smart renders so I don't lose quality) which seems to cure any mpeg indexing issues and gets rid of the apparent missed frames. If you haven't got access to Media Studio Pro, try running it through VideoRedo which worked also for me. I simply use MSPro as I already have it and VideoRedo costs.

OK - I've just watched the Blu-Ray of the movie and not a single glitch, stutter or cough!

Jack: I tried 2-pass because the single pass wasn't rendering properly but it made little difference i.e. it didn't create a perfect render. The problem I am experiencing is missing frames - say something is moving across screen then it will appear briefly, freeze and then re-appear when it's movement has stopped. The problem is worse if I have speeded up footage or play a clip in reverse. In one film a speeded up and reversed clip didn't show any movement at all. However, and I reiterate, this is ONLY an issue I have come across when I use the MS11 DVD-A template for DVD's.

vkmast: I have no idea whether my GPU drivers are updated, everything else appears to work fine and this computer has never done anything other than use MS10 and then 11 etc, and Cubase. In fact it was bought specifically for those two tasks as I use a laptop for 'everything else'. There are no other codecs installed as far as I am aware, I just want to edit my HD footage and create a Blu-Ray and DVD disc and watch or upload mp4's, all of which I can do in MS11 as it stands.

I haven't installed the MS12 trial, I'm 2 or 3 days away from a competition deadline and I'm loathe to fiddle about too much, especially when I know I can create a Blu-Ray disc without errors (and always have been able to).

No, the issue appears to be rendering using that MainConcept template only. I purely want to create DVD compliant audio and video files that I can import in DVD-A to create a compilation DVD, without DVD-A having to recompress files again. Am I doing something wrong or is there a different way to do this?

John,
what are the bitrate settings that you use in rendering to DVD? See if there's something for you here
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=837997
(quote from a musicvid post there]
I might add that I always use a minimum bitrate of 2,000,000 in Mainconcept, which would affect artifacting in fades and transitions as you brought up. The Vegas default of 192,000 is woefully inadequate

And I trust you are using the final v11 build 322?

Hi vkmast.

Now that's interesting. Firstly, yes I am using the final build 322. Secondly, I'm wondering whether I am looking at this from the wrong direction? I tried reducing the maximum bitrate thinking the template/computer/whatever couldn't cope with a high bitrate (which is odd as MS11 has rendered some of my HD stuff at 30,000,000...) whereas maybe what I should have been doing was increasing the minimum? If I increase the minimum, does that make the rendering process work harder (and slower) but more accurately, or will it just cough and splutter even more because it can't keep up?

Can you upload a sample somewhere of the rendered footage that is stuttering?
Is it stuttering in the Vegas preview or in a player?

Hi, it's not stuttering in the preview window of MS11 although that doesn't really update quickly enough to be certain, and it certainly doesn't stutter on any other format, just the mpeg of the MainConcept DVD-A template when I play that file back in Windows Media Player. The missing frames are at the same place on every playback of a particular file, but the location of the missing frames varies with each mpeg render.

I've just burned a DVD copy of my movie using the 'Burn it to a DVD' function of MS11, so I'll be back in 10 minutes to report how that goes...

OK - the DVD visually plays back perfectly, but I'm not happy with the sound at all. Compared to the original it's 'pumping' and pulling up the low volume of quieter sections and destroying all the ambience. The 'Burn it to a DVD' doesn't give me the option of rendering the audio as a PCM file (even though when I select the output folder the audio file appears to have a .w64 extension) but the resultant audio render is the God awful AC-3!

I don't want much, really. Just to be able to render an mpeg without jitters and a PCM audio track. All DVD compliant and all within the remit of MS11. Supposedly.

John,
https://www.custcenter.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1105/
quote
When you choose Render As for the audio stream, select one of the two formats that DVD Architect will use for encoding the audio stream in the save as type field:

AC-3 Studio and Wave are available in VMS11.

Hi vkmast - yes, but the problem is I can't render a DVD compliant mpeg using the 'Render As' template window, I should be able to but I can't. I can create the PCM audio file no problem but the mpeg video file is the cause of all the issues!

I've created a DVD using the 'make Movie' button, then selected 'DVD with menu' but there is no option to alter the sound from AC-3 to WAV. But again, this only gives me a single movie on a disc.

All I want: the MainConcept DVD-Architect DVD compliant mpeg video codec to actually work. Not too much to ask, is it?

Tried again...

Make Movie > Save It To My Hard Drive > Render As:

MainConcept MPEG-2 > DVD Architect PAL Widescreen Video Stream:

Everything as factory set but raised the minimum bitrate to 2,000,000 as suggested previously...

Result = glitchy unusable footage

Now trying again using constant bitrate of 6,000,000. Back in a few minutes...