MP3 editing problems

geordie wrote on 2/11/2002, 9:31 AM

HELP - required by a learner...
Just had the software for 1 week and I'm having no problems editing AVI files. I've just purchased the MPEG "extra" so I could save a bit on disc space. The MPEG files (640*480 PAL 25fps 44.1K stereo) load in fine but after a few simple edits, and approx 2 mins into a 5 min piece, the software will grind just about to a stop. Audio will play OK as the timeline scrol's, but the video will be frozen on a fixed frame, occasionally it will update to another frozen frame. In "play" it will take approx 30 seconds for the "stop" to indicate after hitting it. The hard drive access led is on permanently following any function request (e.g forward scroll) & will eventually go off. If the file is saved, the PC re-booted, & the file loaded again, the problem is the same.

Any Ideas ???

Comments

jimcho wrote on 2/12/2002, 12:46 PM

I learned long ago that VideoFactory does not work well with MPEG files as source material. It's too "compressed" to achieve reasonable real-time previews. Better to stick with AVI and get a larger hard drive for your media files.

Chienworks wrote on 2/12/2002, 2:15 PM

If you have the drive space available, open up the MPEG file you want to use as a source as the only event on the timeline. Render this to DV AVI format. This will take about 225MB per minute. Now use this .avi file as the source in your project and you shouldn't have those problems anymore. Of course, you have to have lots of drive space available to do this, and the quality will still only be as good as your original MPEG files (which probably isn't very good).

It's better yet to start with .avi files instead of .mpg if you can.

geordie wrote on 2/13/2002, 2:54 AM

Thanks for that ! I had tried just about every form of capture without much luck. I then tried an ATI capture with "I frames only" (whatever that is) and the result is much better, in fact it is usable. As you both say, the AVI quality is much better & I'll stick to that once I've upgraded my hard drive. I'll try that render to AVI option as well. Thanks again !