Problems rendering HD movie in Pinnacle Studio Plus 11

[Siciliano]

I have a relatively fast PC and GPU (Pentium D Dual Core @ 3.7 Ghz each core/ 2 GB Kingston HyperX RAM, Nvidia 7950GTOC GPU w/ 512 MB DDR3 RAM).... yet, I'm unable to get a *watchable* video rendered @ 1080i in any format!

It does the rendering without any errors, in any format/resolution (although it takes a LONG time, even with my computer, for a high res 1080i render), but no matter what, the outputted video comes out VERY choppy, and pretty much unwatchable on ANYthing over 720p.

Is this a known problem with PSP 11? Is there anything I can try to attempt to remedy this?
I don't think it's a Window Media Player 11, or Vista problem, because I've downloaded some pretty impressive video samples here that were rendered in 1080i, and they play completely smooth on WMP11.

I'm using Vista Ultimate by the way...


Thanks in advance for the help.

[bluegrass]

I'm a 10.7 Pinnacle user so I can't do any testing to help you out but I thought I was reading a few users here on this forum that were using PS11 with good results. I was about to purchase PS11 thinking from what I heard it was OK. I suggest you try a couple different file formats and see what happens. Maybe someone here with 11 on Vista can respond.

[white_2kgt]

I've been using Studio since version 8, after I got my HV20 and tried doing some quick edits/renders with 10.7 I finally gave up and got Vegas 7. I got so sick and tired of the activation/nickel/dime you crap with Studio as well.

[Siciliano]

I've been using Studio since version 8, after I got my HV20 and tried doing some quick edits/renders with 10.7 I finally gave up and got Vegas 7. I got so sick and tired of the activation/nickel/dime you crap with Studio as well.

Are you saying you had the same problems rendering in high res 1080i, or just general problems? I did notice it's not just captures from the HV20...I tested out some high res 1080i rendering with a few various video files (varying file types), and the outcome is always the same - VERY choppy video. So, I know it's not the wonderful HV20.

It's a shame because I've been using PS since 10.0, with my old Hi8, and I love it...it's very easy to use, and it's intuitive. I've never had the need to render at such a high res until now though, so maybe it's always been a problem with PS, and I just didn't know it.

I got a hold of a Vegas free trial not too long ago... I took one look at it, and hated it...I hated it even more after messing around with it. There's a serious lack of GUI, which is a huge con for people like me that just do very simple editing (cut/move/transitions/titles/simple effects/etc). There's nothing worse than an almost exclusively menu-driven editing program...or maybe it's not, it just appeared that way to me after tinkering with it for a few minutes.

If anyone here has had ANY success at rendering high res video @ 1080i in any format using Pinnacle Studio, I'd love to hear you chime in!!!


Thanks...

[BarnOwl]

Sorry, can't help you there.......I used Studio 11 Plus for about a month now and it works like a charm on Vista Business. There must be something wrong with your setup/installation.
This is actually the most stable Pinnacle I've used. Clearly since Avid provided part of the code things have improved. Check out my "Butterflies" clip in the footage section, rendered with Studio 11.1. Doesn't look choppy at all.

Did you download the latest 11.1 patch yet?

[white_2kgt]

I got a hold of a Vegas free trial not too long ago... I took one look at it, and hated it...I hated it even more after messing around with it. There's a serious lack of GUI, which is a huge con for people like me that just do very simple editing (cut/move/transitions/titles/simple effects/etc). There's nothing worse than an almost exclusively menu-driven editing program...or maybe it's not, it just appeared that way to me after tinkering with it for a few minutes.

If anyone here has had ANY success at rendering high res video @ 1080i in any format using Pinnacle Studio, I'd love to hear you chime in!!!


Thanks...

Yup, I had the EXACT same impression when I started out w/ vegas. I did a few 5 minute clips in it and I got the hang of it. Vegas isn't a program that you will start up and begin making quality movies with in a few seconds it takes a little effort on your part to read the help files. That's all I did and it is a much more capable editor than Studio. Believe me, I sunk a lot of $$$ into studio over the past years so I didn't make the switch lightly, and yes, I had a problem rendering high quality HD video's w/ decent file sizes out of Studio 10.6 (10.7 never would work for me).

Oh and every new version of Studio has been 'the most stable ever' that's b/c it was such a buggy pile to begin with.

[Siciliano]

Sorry, can't help you there.......I used Studio 11 Plus for about a month now and it works like a charm on Vista Business. There must be something wrong with your setup/installation.
This is actually the most stable Pinnacle I've used. Clearly since Avid provided part of the code things have improved. Check out my "Butterflies" clip in the footage section, rendered with Studio 11.1. Doesn't look choppy at all.

Did you download the latest 11.1 patch yet?

Hey BarnOwl ... yes I did download that butterfly vid, and it was awesome. I wish I knew why the hell I'm having problems and you're not! I did download and install the latest patch (11.1) and I'm still having the same issue.
I have a dual boot system, so I'm going to install PS on XP, and see if I have the same issues. If it isn't a vista issue, I really don't know what it could be - I'm more than sure my PC & GPU are capable of HD rendering.

I'm a PC guru (usually), but I'm stumped on this one...


Update:

I installed PS11 on XP, and no dice... it's doing the same thing. The best possible HD render I can get with very minimal stutter is MPEG2-1440x1080i - but unfortunately the sound stutters and there are "jaggies"! I'm dumbfounded. I don't have a slow computer by any means... it goes above and beyond the minimum requirements!

[bluegrass]

Hey BarnOwl ... yes I did download that butterfly vid, and it was awesome. I wish I knew why the hell I'm having problems and you're not! I did download and install the latest patch (11.1) and I'm still having the same issue.
I have a dual boot system, so I'm going to install PS on XP, and see if I have the same issues. If it isn't a vista issue, I really don't know what it could be - I'm more than sure my PC & GPU are capable of HD rendering.

I'm a PC guru (usually), but I'm stumped on this one...


Update:

I installed PS11 on XP, and no dice... it's doing the same thing. The best possible HD render I can get with very minimal stutter is MPEG2-1440x1080i - but unfortunately the sound stutters and there are "jaggies"! I'm dumbfounded. I don't have a slow computer by any means... it goes above and beyond the minimum requirements!

There's no sense in going beyond 1440 because that's as high as your gonna capture from tape anyway.

[Siciliano]

BarnOwl, I checked out the file details for that "Butterflies" clip, and it seems that it was only rendered at 720p...?? That's pretty surprising to me, since it looks much like full HD (1080i)!

What *exact* settings did you use to render that clip?

I can render @ 720P like lightning, and it comes out very smooth... my whole issue is rendering @ 1440x1080/60i and above.

[Siciliano]

Well, I've been messing around with Vegas 7, and some of the HD renders came out just like they did in Pinnacle. But after some tinkering, I was able to render a completely smooth WMV HD vid @ 1440x1080 @ a data rate of 38129 kbps / 29 fps.
The only problem is, it's not very compressed - from only a 20 second capture, the resulting WMV file is 121MB!

Are these programs trying to tell me that my Pentium D, dual core @ 3.7 Ghz isn't fast enough to render a nice compressed HD file???

Have any of you done successful HD/HDV renders, AT 1440x1080i OR ABOVE, with good compression (in any program)? If so, what are your system specs?

[mik]

38129kbps is 4.6MB/s. that's a lot for 1440. why don't you try 2MB or 3MB

[Siciliano]

Well, the problem (at least for me) is definitely Pinnacle Studio!

I've been messing around with all the different file types and settings for rendering in Vegas (it has A LOT more settings than PS11), and not only was I able to render a completely smooth video as a WMV @ 1440x1080, I even did a successful and smooth render as a WMV @ 1920x1080! I know the DV tape only outputs 1440x1080, but I did it just for the hell of it, to see if it would work, and it did.

Vegas seems to lack the vast selection of transitions and effects that PS11 has, but what matters the most in the end is the quality of the render! That said, I'm sticking with Vegas for now.


Thanks everyone for your feedback.

[white_2kgt]

Vegas seems to lack the vast selection of transitions and effects that PS11 has, but what matters the most in the end is the quality of the render! That said, I'm sticking with Vegas for now.

It has just about as many as Studio 10 did out of the box. Look for them at the bottom on one of the Tabs.