Sony DVD Architect studio 2.0 freezing up...

[Ricer]

...while rendering?? Anyone else have this problem? I just started using this program yesterday and designed my own DVD with a main title page and a scene selection. I did everything by the book, followed the directions, etc. When I was finished and satisified with my work and ready to burn, rather than burn it I decided to just use Architect studio 2.0 to first render the movie from avi to mpeg2 and then come back and burn it to DVD later. So I left my PC to render the movie file and left the house to run some errands. When I came back 4 hours later the rendering process was hung up at 90% and it said that it was trying to render the audio (The movie did NOT have the video and audio seperated). Architect 2.0 however was NOT frozen up. I opened up the task list to double check this. So I cancelled the process and decided to try it again later. So last night before I went to bed I decided to try again and render the movie but this time I restarted my PC, fired up the Architect 2.0 studio and decided to try and render AND burn at the same time. When i woke up today....*surprise* the rendering process was froze up again at 90% and the progress timer said that 7 hours and 46 minutes had passed. So apparently i'm getting hung up at 90% with this app.

*Has anyone had this problem as well?

*Any suggestions or helpful info I should know?
Many thanks in advance.

[noone]

wait for dap or joe they know it all.

[dap OLD werewolf]

What is the original audio on the avi? Is it ac3, ogg or something that you might not have the codec for? I assume that this is occuring with the same video file and not different files. And it sounds to me like it encodes the video ok and stops at the audio, so I would assume that you might not have the audio codec needed. Does the audio file play in Sony DVD suite?
What you can try doing is:
1. Get the audio decompressor from www.rita.LT in the Tools section and decompress your avi, then load the PCM file as your audio source.
OR
2. Stick the avi in VDub and "save as wave" and use the .wav file for the audio source.
Also, use GSpot to make sure that you have the proper audio codec that the original avi needs:
http://www.rita.LT/video_tools/help/gspot.htm

The other possibility as that the indexing on the avi is corrupted at that point, or some other corruption problem, if it is happening to the same file and not others. You weren't clear on whether you are trying different files or the same file.

[dap OLD werewolf]

wait for dap or joe they know it all.

Don't know it all, have just made LOTS of mistakes

[Ricer]

Dap, thank you very much for your reply. I will try to be a little more concise this time in explaining my problem.

Ok, I tried to render a completely different movie using DVD Architect studio 2 last night and it rendered the video fine and then froze again when it got to the audio. If I don't have the right codecs for my project then what you are telling me is that DVD Architect 2 is not a complete program? I'm digressing but apparently my Architect studio 2 is freezing up when it tries to render the audio.

The original movie I tried to render using Architect 2.0 washed through Gspot and gave me this info:
Video:
4CC and Name are Xvid
640 x 272 resolution
918 kb/s, 23.976 FPS
Audio:
0x0055(MP3) ID'd as MPEG-1 Layer 3
160 kb/s VBR, 48000Hz.

I tried to use Virtual DubMod on the first movie and got this message:


However it still let me save the audio file. I'm not sure if I did it right but after the movie opened up in Virtual DubMod I went to STREAMS-->Right Click the movie file, Selected FULL PROCESSING, then clicked the SAVE WAV button. It worked but my audio file is 1.22 Gigs! Is that normal? The movie file is 885megs in Avi format...

Anyways, i'm a super noob when it comes to making my own movies but one thing I know for sure is that my PC is fighting me every step of the way. I know it is clean and free of any virus', trojans, spyware or any other nasty entities as I use Ad-Aware professional, Spybot (latest ver.), Spyware Doctor and Microsoft Antispyware Beta. They run daily with system restore turned OFF.
I tried using programs like WinMpg and Avi2Mpg, etc and they all start to render or convert a movie from avi to mpeg and then they freeze up and XP pops up with the little "There has been an error, would you like us to transmit your error for you?" or something to that effect. My PC just refuses to convert avi to mpeg with stand-alone programs

So how can I solve my problem with the Sony DVD architect studio 2.0? You mentioned codecs but is there a way to add codecs to the Architect software? I haven't been able to complete a single DVD movie yet with Architect but i'd really like to be able to use this program as it gives me the perfect tools to complete what I want to do

[Ricer]

The saved .wav file from Virtual DubMod is a legit file with no errors however when I open up Dvd Architect 2 and try to use the .wav as my audio source file, after I select it DVD Architect tells me that there is no source audio selected and comes back with a status of NONE.

I did however go to your site and download Avi Audio decompressor ver 1.4 and decompressed the audio to a PCM.avi. I then tried to use that as a audio source in DVD Architect and atleast this time it recognized it. However I haven't tried rendering it yet so I don't know if the PCM.avi audio source file will work. I should know by tonight. Any other suggestions? Thanks for the help, by the way

[Guest]

Many apps, like VirtualDub don't like vbr audio and apps like TMPGEnc won't even load them, you need to decompress the audio (this is not to say that vbr is bad, I personally prefer it, but for most apps it just means an extra step in the conversion). Unfortunately I don't know DVD Architect but perhaps it also doesn't like it. That's why you need to decompress the audio. You got that error that you gave a screenshot of in VDub simply because it was vbr, I get it all the time, just ignore it. It's strange to me that DVD Architect didn't recognize the .wav file, but the decompressed PCM file that you got while using the audio decompressor is also a WAV, it's a PCM wave, but it also has the video in it. Hopefully the PCM file will work and you will be able to use the audio in the pcm file as your audio source, and yes it is normal for it to be such a large file - both with saving to wav in VDub and decompressing with the decompressor you are "decompressing" the mp3 audio back to a wav file, which is at least 10 times larger.

DVD Architect probably does come with codecs, but I was thinking maybe your AVI had audio which isn't standard, like ogg or even ac3 isn't recognized by a lot of apps. But since it's a regular mp3 I would think it isn't a codec issue.

What is interesting to me is what you said here: "I tried using programs like WinMpg and Avi2Mpg, etc and they all start to render or convert a movie from avi to mpeg and then they freeze up and XP pops up with the little "There has been an error, would you like us to transmit your error for you?" or something to that effect. My PC just refuses to convert avi to mpeg with stand-alone programs."

So this means that it's not DVD Architect which is giving you trouble, it means that you are having trouble in general with the conversion. So a basic question, are you sure you have enough hard drive space for the conversion? A two-hour video file as dvd-quality mpeg2 can take anywhere from 6-12 gigabytes.

[dap OLD werewolf]

Oops, that was me answering above, forgot to log in

[Ricer]

Thanks for the advice. I have about 10 gigs left on my storage drive. It seems that with the WinMpg and Avi2Mpg, it encoded the audio fine but then it errored out while trying to encode the video.

I'll try clearing some extra space on my storage drive and try loading the PCM audio file into DVD Architect and making my DVD. I'll let you know the results later tonight or tomorrow morning. Thanks for all your help, again.

[Ricer]

Ok, as of 10:16AM I am officially over my 90% freezing point but another problem has reared it's ugly head. I started my rendering process at about 6:45pm yesterday and i'm currently only at 95% total progress on my rendering of this movie. The video process went about as smoothly as it can go but it appears now that I'm 3% into the audio rendering process and I'm averaging about 1% every ~2-3 hours. I'm wondering if it has to do with the fact that its using the PCM file as an audio source? There has got to be a faster way to convert movies from Avi to Mpeg. Spending 15+ HOURS to only get to 95% completion is ridiculous. Is there a faster way to do this?

[guest]

try program called avs video converter. it's not free but i bought it couple years ago been well worth the money will convert avi directly to dvd

[Ricer]

Thanks for the suggestion "guest" I will look into it. I don't have a dime invested in the DVD Architect. A good friend of mine used it. He recently died in a motorcycle accident and his mother gave me the program, although it was missing the manual but I was able to download it from Sony. I've been wanting to create a tribute DVD for his parents with all the footage I have of him but so far have been unsuccesful and frustrated. I was hoping this would make a nice gift for them.

I will see how much hte AVS video converter is going for and see if I can swing for it.

BTW, I tried to use Avi2Mpeg again for ships and giggles. It converted the audio successfully but once it got to the video it spit this out:


This was with ~22 gigs of free space on the drive
*Sigh*
Here is some info on my PC if this is in anyway helpful to those graciously trying to help me with my problem.
P4 2.6
512 megs RAM
FX5200 overclocked a little
twin 80 gig HD's. One has my OS on it, the other one is formatted only and used for storage, which is where I keep all my files.
Foxconn 865A01 Mobo

I'm beginning to think my converting problem is PC related now but I just don't how, or why. It's a squeaky clean PC as far as spyware/malware/trojans/virus' are concerned so that can't be it. And to add to that, if I use my Nero VisionExpress Software (came bundled with my DVD burner) to create DVDs, it works fine. The only thing is that the Nero VisionExpress wouldn't allow me to create a scene selection menu which is why I dont like using it. Instead, with Nero you are forced to stick all your chapters on the main splash screen which looks messy and unprofessional IMO.

[dap OLD werewolf]

http://www.rita.LT/video_tools/help/avitodvd.htm

From what you said when you started the thread I assume that you want to convert to dvd quality mpeg2 for authoring to dvd, not vcd or svcd. The above will tell you how to do it with TMPGEnc Plus and TMPGEnc DVD Author. TMPGEnc Express is also a great app to do it.

If you meant vcd or svcd just look for the appropriate subject question on the help page here:
http://www.rita.LT/video_tools/help.htm

[Ricer]

Thanks Dap. I will look into TMPGEnc and see if that program will help me achieve my goal. Shame I can't use the Sony software. It seemed like quality stuff and easy to use