I have been trying to get home movies from VHS to DVD for the past week. I have encountered so many problems. 90% of the functions need workarounds that in my view are unconventional and the unsuspecting user should not have to deal with it. I will attempt to outline the major issues and what I did to overcome them. I have to say before I start, if it wasn't for this forum and particularly ggrussell, I would never been able to get 'er done.
Issue 1 - Can't capture video in MyDVD from an analog VCR. HP told me to try MyDVD Plus Ver 7 that came with the computer. This worked and I was able to get the MPEG-2 video (Raw) on my hardrive.
Issue 2 - Non-intuitive program functionality (VideoWave). Issues here are too numerous, but the main thing is that the forum folks helped. Ask, provide your system requirements, be clear, and try, try again. I was able to get through the design of my movie with the help of this forum (albeit with much weeping and nashing of teeth).
Issue 3 - Outputting video production as MPEG-2. I had to roll-back all Microsoft security updates in order to perform this function (over 50 of them!). Now before anyone says anything about IE7 and WinPlay 11, let me say this. When I performed these updates, I do not allow them to come automatically. I went in and checked to see what updates were needed. I unchecked IE7 and WinPlay 11 and checked "Do not remind me again". So I do not believe this is the problem in my circumstance. I reinstalled Direct X (1/9/07) and updated my NVIDIA driver again just to make sure. These were updated at the same time the windows updates were installed. Before Outputting to MPEG-2, I rebooted my system after saving the production. As a note, there were several Windows Media Center updates in this batch - Maybe there is an issue there.
Issue 4 - Setting up a menu in MyDVD EMC 9. Very buggy to say the least. I originally tried to bring in a production file under Add Videos, which works, but when designing the menu and trying to burn an image file, the menu would not burn. I spent at least a day working this, and then through reading posts on this forum, I decided to render the video through videowave (see Issue #3 above). After I did this I brought the the MPEG-2 in and continued that way. I haven't retried bringing the production in after I rolled back - Maybe it works now.
Issue 5 - Burning to Image file on disc. While the image was rendering, I didn't get any imagery in the preview screen, but it was indicating that it was burning the image. After it completed, I brought up Disc Copier and viewed the image in preview there. I had no Menu imagery it appeared to only go straight to the movie. At this point I threw my hands up and decided my movie would not have a menu and burned the image to disc. I played it on a regular DVD player, and the menu was there! Go figure.
Issue 6 - Disc Emulator Set Up. I tried to set up a Dic Emulator in EMC 9, and it starts the process, asks me for a drive letter ( I tried default as well as selecting my own). Each time the computer rebooted itself and there was no emulated disc. The work around for this is to preview in Disc Copier
Issue 7 - Sytem Hangs & Freezes and other program limitations. Throughout the processes I had to save often and reboot the machine before I did anything that was graphics card intensive.
I hope this helps other folks (pay it forward kind of thing). It is rediculous to have to go through this kind of stuff when you purchase software, but this is my saga of getting through what the Roxio documentation says is "just a few clicks."
IMHO - I beileve that EMC 9, DirectX 9, and NVIDIA need to get together and patch their respective software/firmware. Most of these issues mentioned point to DirectX. I'm not a techy, but it seems to me that if I have to reboot before getting a function to work, then some register/buffer isn't clearing or something to that effect.
Now, my DVD is burned and I have a small issue regarding some jitter in the movie where it occasionally freezes temporariliy. It appears to happen between clips that I set up during the production in Videowave, but I will have to take notes and investigate. This should probably take me 3 - 7 hours and "just a few clicks. I think I will begin my quest in the forums.
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FLHaus
I have been trying to get home movies from VHS to DVD for the past week. I have encountered so many problems. 90% of the functions need workarounds that in my view are unconventional and the unsuspecting user should not have to deal with it. I will attempt to outline the major issues and what I did to overcome them. I have to say before I start, if it wasn't for this forum and particularly ggrussell, I would never been able to get 'er done.
Issue 1 - Can't capture video in MyDVD from an analog VCR. HP told me to try MyDVD Plus Ver 7 that came with the computer. This worked and I was able to get the MPEG-2 video (Raw) on my hardrive.
Issue 2 - Non-intuitive program functionality (VideoWave). Issues here are too numerous, but the main thing is that the forum folks helped. Ask, provide your system requirements, be clear, and try, try again. I was able to get through the design of my movie with the help of this forum (albeit with much weeping and nashing of teeth).
Issue 3 - Outputting video production as MPEG-2. I had to roll-back all Microsoft security updates in order to perform this function (over 50 of them!). Now before anyone says anything about IE7 and WinPlay 11, let me say this. When I performed these updates, I do not allow them to come automatically. I went in and checked to see what updates were needed. I unchecked IE7 and WinPlay 11 and checked "Do not remind me again". So I do not believe this is the problem in my circumstance. I reinstalled Direct X (1/9/07) and updated my NVIDIA driver again just to make sure. These were updated at the same time the windows updates were installed. Before Outputting to MPEG-2, I rebooted my system after saving the production. As a note, there were several Windows Media Center updates in this batch - Maybe there is an issue there.
Issue 4 - Setting up a menu in MyDVD EMC 9. Very buggy to say the least. I originally tried to bring in a production file under Add Videos, which works, but when designing the menu and trying to burn an image file, the menu would not burn. I spent at least a day working this, and then through reading posts on this forum, I decided to render the video through videowave (see Issue #3 above). After I did this I brought the the MPEG-2 in and continued that way. I haven't retried bringing the production in after I rolled back - Maybe it works now.
Issue 5 - Burning to Image file on disc. While the image was rendering, I didn't get any imagery in the preview screen, but it was indicating that it was burning the image. After it completed, I brought up Disc Copier and viewed the image in preview there. I had no Menu imagery it appeared to only go straight to the movie. At this point I threw my hands up and decided my movie would not have a menu and burned the image to disc. I played it on a regular DVD player, and the menu was there! Go figure.
Issue 6 - Disc Emulator Set Up. I tried to set up a Dic Emulator in EMC 9, and it starts the process, asks me for a drive letter ( I tried default as well as selecting my own). Each time the computer rebooted itself and there was no emulated disc. The work around for this is to preview in Disc Copier
Issue 7 - Sytem Hangs & Freezes and other program limitations. Throughout the processes I had to save often and reboot the machine before I did anything that was graphics card intensive.
I hope this helps other folks (pay it forward kind of thing). It is rediculous to have to go through this kind of stuff when you purchase software, but this is my saga of getting through what the Roxio documentation says is "just a few clicks."
IMHO - I beileve that EMC 9, DirectX 9, and NVIDIA need to get together and patch their respective software/firmware. Most of these issues mentioned point to DirectX. I'm not a techy, but it seems to me that if I have to reboot before getting a function to work, then some register/buffer isn't clearing or something to that effect.
Now, my DVD is burned and I have a small issue regarding some jitter in the movie where it occasionally freezes temporariliy. It appears to happen between clips that I set up during the production in Videowave, but I will have to take notes and investigate. This should probably take me 3 - 7 hours and "just a few clicks. I think I will begin my quest in the forums.
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