Suddenly S15 HD Ultimate program is non responsive...

[bozobyte]

Windows 7 64 Pro
8GB DDR2
Intel Q6600 Quad 2.4 GHz
MSI - MS-7345 Platinum MoBo
Nvidia GeForce 8600GT
Total available graphics memory - 4095MB
Dedicated graphics memory - 512MB
Shared system memory - 3583MB

This program is very QUIRKY!!! I know resources for these video programs increase exponentially every time I capture new video. I try to delete all temp files, recycle bin, De-frag C: Drive at least once a week. (I have two other separate hard drives, that some files go into, don't know if I should be De-fragging those as well. The app is located on my C: main Drive.)

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So here is the new question...What causes the program to FREEZE? Nothing works. No matter how many times I move the mouse over the OPEN FILE, EXIT, or anything else, nothing happens.
My fix is to Control/Alt/Delete out of the program, then do a SYSTEM RESTORE from the day before these problems started happening. I was still able to open all those up, but all the videos I worked on the entire day yesterday, BEFORE the restore are not there, or they have exclamation points where the video on the timeline should be. What exactly happened? Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? I guess the best thing to do is one video at a time, make movie or save also as a backup .MP4 or .AVI file onto my 3TB External HD....just in case. Then delete all studio projects, pixies, scn, stx, etc., then start all new video project.
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I'm very afraid to delete auxiliary files for fear that it might Delete ALL WORKING FILES, and won't give me a choice on deleting old finished files, and leaving the newer AUX. files. I've been told to save the PIXIE folder too, well, there's so many different studio files and folders spread out over two of my hard drives, if I make one little change, it's not there on the timeline, I only get blue screens with exclamation points. Then I have to waste my time all over again.

Someone here in these forums suggested if I SAVE my Project Files along with the Studio Project files from DOCUMENTS>MY DOCUMENTS>PINNACLE STUDIO>MY PROJECTS onto my External hard drive, then I could re-install Studio15, reactivate my keys, then bring them back to finish editing, and making movies, WELL.......NO, THAT DID NOT WORK AT ALL! I LOST EVERYTHING. Since I downloaded the program from a trial then activated the license, when I go into Control Panel, Add/Remove programs - Studio 15, I can not perform a REPAIR, it won't let me. I tried the repair with networking too, but that did not work. The pinnacle support peeps told me I would have to uninstall the program, and download another from the website, then use activation keys.

I ask over and over again what exact files would I need to SAVE raw unedited captured video onto an EXTERNAL hard drive for safekeeping, UNTIL I can bring them all back to this computer studio to finish projects, and I received so many different dizzying answers of which, nothing worked, just lost all that work. There has to be a better way, and I thought this Studio 15 HD was hyped as being more user friendlier for archiving videos.
Thank you for any insight on my problems with studio.

[Midnight Blue]

Without wanting to sound ugly. The best thing you can do is ditch Pinnacle and get something like Sony Vegas Studio, it's much less prone to the quibbles I've seen posted in this forum about Pinnacle.

Sorry if that doesn't seem helpful but it is in my opinion especially if you have to start from scratch any way.

[bozobyte]

Thanks midnight,
I hear you. I'm not the only one with Pinnacle problems as you may already know. I just have a lot of time learning this program, and still not knowing everthing there is to know about different files like I just learned that video clips are AVI files, but your probably right that I should try something else. For now, this is a learning curve for me, and before i go elsewhere, I should stick with this a while longer. Thanks!

[CaptionWorld]

Poor old Pinnacle its in the bad press again.

I know how you feel and Midnight is right it maybe the best way to go. another programme. That said, like you I have now, despite its faults got used to it and i cant be bothered to start learning again on some new programme great as they may be.

The problems you are having. I have experienced the same with V12. To be fair my machine does freeze up when I try to use HD. and I know that this is down to insufficient memory. HD is very memory hungry, so I'm not using HD at the moment.

I have also had black preview screens blue and exclamation marks and YEP Pinnacle deleted the lot had to start over again. Had a good swear at the computer and it hasn't done that since.

Have you tried just reinstalling the programme again over the existing one? I remember having to reinstall 2 or three times, sometimes during installation because its a huge programme it can miss some files on installation. You do appear to have sufficient memory and processor to cope with HD.

Hope this helps

[bozobyte]

Captain,Midnight,and all.....
Boy do we sound alike. Like I said, there is alot of things I still need to learn, and one of them is all this confusion (to me anyway) are the different formats. I have several formats saved,and I think early on when i first started Studio, I saved the videos as MPEG VIDEO FORMAT, Then someone suggested I save them as MP4 (or MPEG-4) Then I just read that MP4 files can contain other data such as *subtitles and still images. Like most modern container formats, MPEG-4, allows streaming over the Internet. * Pinnacle Studio. My ATT ISP only allows up to 25MB total transfer size.

So as in the above post, I also save the same project file as a AVI, a larger, a supposed higher quality file,BUT (1) Which are these (avi, mp2, mp4, or mpg video format) are better to SAVE AS a FILE for safekeeping on an external HD ? and (2) which are these are the BEST quality that can be re-inserted into a timeline to burn as a DVD? I know you can not edit, within the separate video shorts, but I think you can add transitions like fade out between them. So I am just frazzled with all the time spent, and still I don't know a lot of this, but i will keep an open mind about switching to another program. Thanks for your input.

[Midnight Blue]

I would keep the .avi file as it will have less compression than any of the other formats so should be better quality. I would keep all the original raw footage that you shot so that if or when you re-visit your project you are working from he best quality source files. The mpg2 and mpg4 formats are good in that they are smaller files for up loading.

Hope this helps.