Videowave - Saving Very Slow

[john_salmon]

Please, can you offer any advice on how I can speed up opening and saving of Videowave projects in Creator NXT2?

 

When I use VideoWave from a recent download of Roxio Creator NXT2, I am very disappointed about how slowly it opens and, particularly, saves a project. Initially the projects do contain a lot (~ 300) of photos (*.jpg) and short video clips (*.mov) so that the video runtime is ~30 minutes.

 

VideoWave is stable - no error messages - and projects rendered impressively fast (using hardware rendering). Also, transitions could be added quickly to the project – much quicker than in my previous version (v 9) of EMC, although saving was still intolerably slow.

 

Each time I make a minor change to a project, saving takes at least 10 minutes, sometimes more! (Reviewing Task Manager info shows that significant CPU is being used for the duration, but there is very little impact on memory or disk activity after the first minute). This is much, much slower than when I was using EMC 9 on a Windows XP computer. So, although I have gained by significantly quicker rendering, overall I am finding the experience of using Videowave NXT2 very frustrating - worse than using EMC9.

 

My computer has the following spec:

 

Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz

Memory: 16GB

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770

Hard Disk on which Roxio EMC & OS saved: SSD, SanDisk SD6SB1M-128G-1006

Hard Disk on which photos and EMC Projects saved: 2GB

OS: Windows 8.1, 64bit

 

By the way, I installed Creator NXT2 from the downloaded files with anti-virus software off (but firewall was left on) on a computer that had no previous Roxio products installed. I have performed a 'repair' of the software but this had no impact on the speed of saving a project. I also elevated the priority of Videowave to 'high' in Task Manager but this again had no noticeable impact on the speed of opening/saving projects.

 

Any suggestions about how I can speed up opening and saving Videowave projects gratefully received!

[sknis]

Hey John, Did you look at the processes during save? Are any of them using some CPU time during/after the save?

 

Do you have any kind of automatic back-up running? How about some categorization or optimizations?

 

How many processes do you have running. Are you the only one using that computer?

 

cd shows essentially zero CPU usage in his screen shots. You show 4% what is running?

 

Have you ever used msconfig then start up to see and limit what starts at boot?

[sknis]

You are saving the project (save as). rather than outputting the project?

 

Where are you saving the project to - a USB connected drive or internal drive. Defragged (frequently)? Do you clean the proxy files if you are doing a lot of editing (tools/options)?

 

Just to check, create a small project and save it to your SSD and then do the same for the Hard drive. How much difference?

[bimicher]

Please, can you offer any advice on how I can speed up opening and saving of Videowave projects in Creator NXT2?

 

When I use VideoWave from a recent download of Roxio Creator NXT2, I am very disappointed about how slowly it opens and, particularly, saves a project. Initially the projects do contain a lot (~ 300) of photos (*.jpg) and short video clips (*.mov) so that the video runtime is ~30 minutes.

 

VideoWave is stable - no error messages - and projects rendered impressively fast (using hardware rendering). Also, transitions could be added quickly to the project – much quicker than in my previous version (v 9) of EMC, although saving was still intolerably slow.

 

Each time I make a minor change to a project, saving takes at least 10 minutes, sometimes more! (Reviewing Task Manager info shows that significant CPU is being used for the duration, but there is very little impact on memory or disk activity after the first minute). This is much, much slower than when I was using EMC 9 on a Windows XP computer. So, although I have gained by significantly quicker rendering, overall I am finding the experience of using Videowave NXT2 very frustrating - worse than using EMC9.

 

My computer has the following spec:

 

Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz

Memory: 16GB

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770

Hard Disk on which Roxio EMC & OS saved: SSD, SanDisk SD6SB1M-128G-1006

Hard Disk on which photos and EMC Projects saved: 2GB

OS: Windows 8.1, 64bit

 

By the way, I installed Creator NXT2 from the downloaded files with anti-virus software off (but firewall was left on) on a computer that had no previous Roxio products installed. I have performed a 'repair' of the software but this had no impact on the speed of saving a project. I also elevated the priority of Videowave to 'high' in Task Manager but this again had no noticeable impact on the speed of opening/saving projects.

 

Any suggestions about how I can speed up opening and saving Videowave projects gratefully received!

That 2GB you posted must be a typo or?

[cdanteek]

That 2GB you posted must be a typo or?

 

Hard Disk on which Roxio EMC & OS saved: SSD, SanDisk SD6SB1M-128G-1006

Hard Disk on which photos and EMC Projects saved: 2GB

 

The project size I read as 2GB saved on the SSD Drive 128GB in size.

[bimicher]

I don't read it that way

 

A 2GB dmsm project file?

[cdanteek]

I don't read it that way

 

A 2GB dmsm project file?

 

First sentence in post number two is asking the question.

[john_salmon]

Sknis: Thanks for your reply and stimulating me to perform further investigation.

 

Yes, VideoWave is very slow when I am simply saving the project (save as) rather than outputting the project. The projects are saved to an internal 2Tb HDD - Sorry for the typo in my first message! .

I schedule Windows 8 built-in software to defragment the hard drives on a regular basis. After your question, I checked both drives and the report was that there was no fragmentation. However, I did defragment the drives and performed a comparison – see below.

I had not cleared the proxy files recently. I have now compared the time for saving a project before and after clearing the proxy files.

 

I have performed some tests that you stimulated. I added the same 50 files (mainly *.jpg but also including a couple of *.mov files) to a new 16x9 VideoWave project and then saved.

 

When the files were on the internal HDD and the project was saved to the same drive it took 4min30sec to complete.

When the files were on the internal SSD (same drive as the OS & Creator program) and the project was saved to the same drive it took 4min15sec to complete. [i must admit I was expecting a bigger difference]

 

I performed the same tests after defragmenting both drives. The time to save the project was exactly the same as before (i.e. 4m30s & 4m15s).

After clearing the proxy files, I only performed the test with the files on the HDD; again saving took 4min30sec.

I also performed the test after stopping 2 or 3 programs, including the anti-virus program (I previously encountered a conflict between some anti-virus software and an earlier version of EMC), but saving the test project again took 4min30sec (very consistent!)

 

The time to save the project seems excessive to me – and this is compounded when I am trying to save significantly larger projects. As mentioned before, I was able save similar VideoWave projects more rapidly when using EMC9 and Windows XP.

 

I can only assume that I am suffering from a conflict between VideoWave and some other program. I shall investigate further – until my patience runs out!

 

By the way, I was concerned about the possible negative effect of Roxio Media Manager so I have not started to 'monitor folders' in Media Manager and no watched folders are listed.

[sknis]

We'll have to do some thinking.

 

By the way, never defrag your SSD. it is not needed and may shorten its life.

[Delboy]

When I had this problem last year I bought a new hi spec PC with a clean install and there was no difference in the absurd time it takes to load and save projects. As far as I am concerned it is the naff software and the only thing that is sure is that roxio are never going to sort this problem out. The last time I upgraded to NX2 thinking that might improve things but it was worse and as far as I could see there was fewer facilites so I had paid for a downgrade. Never again.

[cdanteek]

You need to download and run the trial of HD Tune on your drives here, http://www.hdtune.co.../hdtune_255.exe

 

If you have a problem with a drive it should show.

 

It gives you benchmark transfer rates, drive info, health, and a error scan for your drives.

 

First pic is my SSD Drive, second pic a raid stripe array two WD 640GB Black Drives, third pic WD 1TB Black Drive.

 

 

 

[Jim_Hardin]

Just as one benchmark VW Project 299 pictures took 40 seconds for First Save.

 

Moved one picture, and next Save took 33 seconds.

 

New Project - File Open took 7 seconds.

[john_salmon]

Thanks to all who replied.

Sknis: Thanks for advice re defragging SSD. I was aware of a potential problem and don't usually do it but I was keen to see if it had any affect and I had software that offered to 'Optimise SSD' so I used this on this occasion.

Jim: The times you report for saving a VW project are in line with what I was expecting. Proves there is something wrong with my set-up.

Cdanteek: Ran HD Tune 2.55. Not sure how to assess the info. The average transfer rates for your & my drives are comparable. But both your SSD & HDD use less CPU and have shorter access times than mine. However, the biggest discrepancy is in the Burst Rates; your disks show faster values. {I wanted to copy the screenshots here but don't know how to do it! Forgive my ignorance} Are these differences likely to be significant? Is it likely that the lower speed exhibited by my disks could explain the very long 'VideoWave Saving Time' that I am experiencing? I must admit I had thought the issue was more likely to be with the CPU and a conflict with other software on my system.

 

Thanks again for everyone's input. BTW I shall not be able to respond to further suggestions etc. for the next few days.

[cdanteek]

Posting a .jpg image on the site, http://forums.support.roxio.com/topic/74120-posting-a-picturescreen-cap-on-roxio/

 

In your Bios, Storage Configuration, SATA Configuration, is it set to IDE, Raid, or ACHI?

 

My computer has the following spec:

 

Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz

Memory: 16GB

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770

Hard Disk on which Roxio EMC & OS saved: SSD, SanDisk SD6SB1M-128G-1006

Hard Disk on which photos and EMC Projects saved: 2GB

OS: Windows 8.1, 64bit

 

You build it or what make is it?

[john_salmon]

Hi Sknis,

Yes, I did look at the processes running during a VideoWave save. Other than VW itself at about 15% cpu no other process was using a substantial amount of cpu - no single process consuming more that 0.1- 0.2% intermittently.

I also had previously disabled the start-up processes via Task Manager, rebooted and checked the time taken to save my test VW project (50-files) – saving still took ~4m30s. Furthermore I ended a few of the active tasks in Task Manager (tasks that I thought might possibly be affecting VW) but my VW test project again took approx. 4m30s.

When I disabled the start-up processes, Task Manager indicated that there were still 32 Background Processes & 24 Windows Processes running but no single process consuming more that 0.1% intermittently and total amount of CPU shown appeared to be less than 1%. When HD Tune was run it used 0.5-0.7% cpu but the CPU usage according to HD Tune was 3.2 – 3.6% - I have no explanation for this discrepancy.

I am the only person using the computer.

I do not have an automatic back-up running – I perform back-ups at a scheduled time.

I do use Copernic Desktop search which does index info on the PC but I have it set to “restricted (optimised for low impact)”and I tested a VW save with this software stopped and it had no affect on time to save the VW project. Other than Copernic I do not believe that I have other categorization or optimizations running.

Looking at the specs of systems used by people who have replied to my post, I did not notice anyone using Windows 8.1 (64bit) - could my use of this OS be an explanation for my long VW save times?

It is a mystery to me! I shall continue to investigate and report back if I find the cause. Thanks for your input.

[john_salmon]

Thanks Cdanteek for your additional response.

 

My PC is an HP Envy Phoenix 810-150ea; the SATA configuration is ACHI.

 

Here are the screenshots from HD Tune 2.55:

 

 

 

I mentioned in previous post that I thought that my problem was indirectly or directly associated with the CPU. My reasoning was that when saving a VideoWave project, Task Manager indicates that disk activity is over quite quickly (within 15 seconds with the 50-file test performed previously), memory utilization is not very significant but CPU activity stays high (although usually only up to 16% of total available) until the project has been saved.

 

Thanks again for your advice. I look forward to getting more ideas but please note that I shall not be in a position to reply for several days.