Trouble Burning DVD in Premiere Elements 4

[jstoehr7]

Here's the issue. I made a movie on Premiere Elements 4.0 that is 1 hr. and 22 min. long that has a ton of pictures and some videos. I put music to it also. I've tried burning it to a DVD and the first few times I tried it, it would get to 74% during encoding (the same % each time) and then say transcoding error. After reading several forums, I tried making all of the pictures smaller so that they are all now under 1000x750. Now when I try to burn it, it gets to 93% (same % each time) and I get the transcoding error. I've checked to see if I have any gaps in the movie, but there are none.

I have also tried saving is as DV AVI like troubleshooting tells you to do, but I get an error that says "error comiling movie. out of memory". I've also tried saving it as a MPEG, but while rendering it always comes up with some other error like "failed to return a video frame" and the farthest I got on that was an estimated 6 seconds until it was finished rendering! I've been keeping my eye on Windows Task Manager (but thats the only other program open) while I'm trying to burn or save, and the CPU is always hovering around 100% and the physical memory hovers around 66%.

I am new to using this program- I know some computer stuff, but I'm definitely no computer whiz. I tried turning my firewall off, turning the C drive indexing off, and disconnecting from the internet, like other forums have advised, but nothing helped. And I don't know how to turn off my virus protection.

I'm not sure if this is related or not, but my computer takes forever to load up the program, and once its loaded, I have to save constantly becuase the program is always shutting down. After using it for a few minutes, pictures turn upside down, or just go black- so I have to close the program and re-open it.

I'm not sure what computer specs you need to help, but here's what I have:
Windows Vista
Dell XPS 420
Intel Core Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz 2.39 GHz
4.0 GB of RAM
32 bit operating system
C drive has 130 GB free of 283 GB
D drive has 5.22 GB free of 14.9 GB

I hope I provided more than enough information for you to help me!! Whatever you could help me with would be fabulous!! Thanks in advance!!
--Jana

[ATR]

Good Morning Jana

Thanks for bringing your question from the Advanced to the Premiere Elements Forum
http://www.elementsvillage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46860

I did a copy/paste of my initial response to your question there and will await your answers to my questions........

Jana

From what you wrote, it sounds like the program is telling you that you do not have enough resources to deal with a project of the size that you describe.

Optimize your computer
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/415316?tstart=0

Of the 4 GB RAM (assumed installed RAM), just how much of that is available? My guess is probably 2 GB or less. Also, you need to move large files off the internal hard drive unto an external hard drive. Is that what that D drive is? If so, you need an external hard drive with greater capacity. Also, in Premiere Elements 4/Edit Menu/Preferences/Scratch Disks, direct the scratch files (preview files) to the external hard (formatted NTFS, not FAT32) with the larger capacity. In addition, go to the default location for those scratch files (My Documents/Adobe/Premiere Elements 4) and clear out preview files that have piled up at that location. In addition, any old project files (.prel) that you find there, either move them to the external hard drive, get rid of them if you do not want them, and/or think about opening the old projects and archiving them with the programs Project Archiver (Archiver or Copy option).

What project preset are you using in Premiere Elements 4? NTSC DV Standard or Widescreen? If so, please do not use photos whose pixel dimensions exceed 1000 x 750. That creates problems especially with a lot of oversized photos. What video formats are you bringing to the Timeline?

Let us start here. But, please continue the discussion by posting your thread in the Premiere Elements Forum here. Premiere Elements questions get lost in the Photoshop Elements questions when you do not do that.

To be continued....

ATR

I am looking forward to your responses, especially
a. clarification installed vs available RAM
b. clarification of local, internal, external drives
c. what is stored where...
are you using the default location for the Adobe folder, namely, local drive (C?)/My Documents/Adobe/Premiere Elements 4...?
where are scratch disks (scratch files) directed (C or D drive) and D being an external hard drive?

Because of the symptoms that you presented for now I am focusing on your computer resources rather than the suggested some classical remedies to DVD burn problems
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/PremiereElements/4.0/help.html?content=WSBE833F20-6147-4f38-8E4D-7F1CB5A5C5E9.html

To be continued....

ATR

[jstoehr7]

Good morning to you, ATR!

1. I optimized my computer like you suggested, but I wasn't able to do step 4, which was getting the basic vista look becuase properties isn't an option when I right click on the desktop.

2. I don't know how to find out how much RAM I am using. And yes, its installed RAM.

3. I don't have an external hard drive, and unfortunately don't have the cash to get one right now either.

4. I'm not sure what my D drive is exactly. When I open it, the files in it are dell, program files, sources, tools, users, and windows.

5. I'm also not sure if the movie is in standard or widescreen because I don't know how to find out. Probably standard. But I already fixed all of the pictures so they are all under 1000X750.

6. All of the videos I have in my movie are .mpg.

7. I am using the default location of c/documents/adobe/... etc

8. The scratch files are in the c drive too. And I tried to delete some stuff in there. (hopefully I didn't delete anything I shouldn't have :( )

I think that should answer all of your questions. Is there any hope that I'll get this movie burned? I guess I know even less about computers than I thought! Sorry, hopefully this is helpful enough for you to help me!

[ATR]

I am attacking this goal piece by piece.

Your computer drives for Dell XPS420. We will be working with the computer C drive which is your local drive and “IT” since that D drive is not an external drive, but rather a “Recovery Drive” where Vista installation files are stored. It has very limited capacity for its intended purpose.
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/conversation.aspx?messageid=31970397&threadid=31970388
The 130 GB free hard drive space sounds workable if that is what you currently have.

Computer RAM. I have Windows XP and the route that I use to see how much installed and available RAM is listed is: Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Information. When I get to System Information, I scroll down to see what value is shown for Total Physical Memory and Available Physical Memory. Someone posted recently that the path should be the same for Vista. If you say that 4 GB is installed, you probably have about 2 GB available. If you find more, that will be good news. If less, how much less is going to be important.

Premiere Elements Precautions.
Scratch Disks. In Premiere Elements go to Edit Menu/Preferences/Scratch Disks and make sure that you have each of the categories directed to a folder location on the C drive. If not, do so immediately. If you had an external hard drive, I would tell you to direct these scratch files/preview files to the external hard drive with a capacity to accept them. But, you do not. The default location for the Adobe folder is My Documents/Adobe/Premiere Elements. See what is in the AutoSave, Preview, Encoded, Media Cache folders. Let me know what you find. We can delete those previews as one aid to getting the rest of the way to burning success.

Timeline Content. You say that you have a lot of photos and that you have resized them all not to exceed 1000 x 750 pixels. That is fine. Is there any chance that you can edit down the number of non essential photos that you have in this movie? As for the video, where did it come from? What is the format? You mention .mpg. Did you convert your original videos to .mpg or were the originals .mpg? Source of the video, its format, length, number of clips are important.

Burn to Disc Thoughts. Typically you see recommendation to limit your disc content to 60 to 90 minutes on the DVD. You say your movie runs about 102 minutes. If you could cut it down a bit more, that would be great. But, if not… In the burn dialog, we are going to use “Fit Contents To Available Space” checked. When you place your DVD in the DVD burner tray, you will then see in the burn dialog “Quality” area values for Space Required and Bitrate. Without clicking burn yet, what are the values for those two parameters? With “Fit Contents To Available Space” Premiere Elements will try to fit your Timeline content onto the DVD disc (standard, 4.7 GB/120 minutes). If it is having trouble doing that, it usually lowers the Bitrate. The lower the Bitrate, the lower will be the quality. So, you may fit your movie onto the DVD, but the quality may not be acceptable.

This is my plan:
1. Read the above, respond to the questions, make adjustments as per the follow up discussion, then
2. With optimized computer, set course for Premiere Elements/Project Preset NTSC DV Standard.
3. Timeline content edited accordingly. If you are going for DVD Menu, avoid generating multiple Scene Selection pages by using too many scene markers and a Scene Selection page designed with less scenes per page. Keep to the simplest DVD Menu possible. Some use more space than others and can create problems for a number of reasons.
4. Burn to Disc, with Fit Contents to Available Space and hopefully with a Bitrate of 8.

That is it for now. Any questions/concerns or if I forgot something, do not hesitate to ask.

ATR

[jstoehr7]

Here's the answers you were looking for. I have 3.25 GB of total physical memory, and 1.76 GB available. All scratch files are being saved to the default location in C drive. All of the videos were taken with my camera, and .mpg is the original. I have about 40 videos and the lengths vary from about 3 minutes to 30 seconds. The movie is actually 1 hr 22 min, so 82 mins, not 122. The space required for the DVD is 4.38 GB with a bitrate of 6.94 mbps.

I am going to start working on deleting unneeded photos and see if that works.

Also, the DVD menu has 4 scene selection menus, with 4 scenes on the first 3 menus and 3 scenes on the last menu. Is that too many?

[ATR]

Definitely trying to put too much on that DVD disc (4.7 GB/120 min). The bitrate lower than 8 indicates that the program is trying to fit the content to the available space. Try to cut as much of the non essential footage from the Timeline as possible. Then go back to the Burn Dialog (with the DVD disc in the DVD burner tray) and see what the space required and bitrate numbers look like. If you obtain a bitrate of 8, then you should be in good shape from that angle.

Also, I would suggest that you look for a DVD Menu Template with 6 or 8 scenes/scene selection page menu to cut down the number of scene selection pages (3 pages, with 6 scenes/scene selection page; 2 pages, with 8 scenes/scene selection page). Find the simplest one that is acceptable.

How did those .mpg import to the Premiere Elements Timeline and how do they look in the Monitor? Any problems with them, please let me know. We may have to address the video format, but now right now.

Even though you were at least 90% of the way with the burning process, if you left things the way they were and did get a burn to disc, I suspect that you would not be too happy with the quality of the DVD-VIDEO end product.

Let us see what you can do with editing down the video, using the space required and bitrate readings as guides.

To be continued....

ATR

[jstoehr7]

YAY! After deleting some video and a lot of pictures, I got it down to a bitrate of 7.93 and it worked! Who knows if it was a combination of a lot of things or just too much media. I'm just glad I finally finished the project! Thanks for all of your help ATR, you have NO idea how much I appreciate it!

[ATR]

Can you hear me cheering?

I am so excited that you hang in there and did a great job completing the project.

Continued success and thanks for letting us know the outcome.

ATR