PE7 crashes on DVD Burn

Hi Guys



I bought PE7 recently and I'm trying to create a DVD from my digital camcorder (SANYO C5) files (mp4). PE7 crashes every time when I select burn to DVD. Also whenever I load my project it says I am low on resources and should proceed with caution. I have continued successfully to add/delete clips and change the menu, etc. - no problem. I can't identify what resources are low, but it doesn't seem to affect me until I create the DVD.



I found Robert Buhre's post on 12/22/08 - he reported similar problems.



My system is:

PE7.0

OS: WinXP+SP3

RAM: 2gb

Disk space: 60gb

Video Card: S3 Graphics ProSavageDDR

System: P4 2.4mhz



My project comprises 31 mp4 files, 1h24m44s run time, cross fade transitions, DVD main menu + 7 scene menus, fade in to start, fade out to end. I am burning to a folder.



It takes about 6 hours to burn and has always crashed near the end, no error message. I tried several suggestions from the forum, such as upgrading video driver, pre rendering, minimal startup, stop antivirus, check for gaps, menu marker discrepancies, etc.



I created a smaller test project by cutting down the main project to about 6 mins - which does work. I assume this means the source files can be processed and the menu system, fonts etc. are OK.



This last time before PE7 crashed using the original project, PE7 had created movie.m2v and movie.ac3 files in the Adobe/Premiere Elements/7.0/Encoded Files folder. So I copied my project, deleted the original source files and added those two files and burnt again. This took about 3.5 hours (making 9hours total) and did finish successfully. So I now have a working DVD ready to burn to disc, but this surely can't be a satisfactory work routine.



I'm not sure if this is the same as creating a dv avi file and reimporting that. I could try that next.



My questions/comments are:

1. Why does the program crash? It should not under any circumstances, it should trap the error and give me some meaningful explanation.

2. What can I do to diagnose the problem? There should be a log or debug mode or something to determine what went wrong.

3. Can I assume the problem is not my source files, because the test project worked in one case and PE7 created the two movie files from all the clips in the other case?



I have used other video editing/dvd software and never had to contend with these issues. I would agree with Robert: PE7 is buggy and not fully quality control tested.



Any help would be much appreciated.



Thanks, Mike.
PE7 crashes on DVD Burn
Mike,



1. The message from the program that you give is:

''Also whenever I load my project it says I am low on resources and should proceed with caution.''



2. You say that you have only 2 GB RAM (which may be installed RAM, not available RAM) and only about 60 GB of free hard drive space.



3. You say that shortening the project avoids a crash during burn.



4. You give details for a very large original project, about 1 1/2 hr. You did not say if you were burning to DVD 4.7 GB/120 min or DVD DL 8.5 GB/240 min.



Based on that information, I sounds to me like your first order of business should be to check low resources, namely not enough available RAM and not enough free hard drive space.



Have you optimized your computer system lately?



Hope this helps until others comment.
PE7 crashes on DVD Burn
I have had the same problem with PE4 and PE7. It is getting very frustrated. I have several projects that do this. I shoot HDV 1080i on a Canon HV20. If I have only 20 minutes of video, then it is OK. If I have larger projects, then it gets almost to the end and just hangs. Sometimes the entire system locks up. I am guessing that there is a memory leak somewhere.



Dell 9100 with 3GB of RAM. No other applications running. Takes about 6 hours to encode and then hangs. Running Windows XP. I thought upgrading from PE4 to PE7 would help. New templates, but no new fixes.



I have tried this with Blu-Ray and DVD encoding, but no success.

Dean Pulsifer



The following links are from the FAQ sections for Premiere Elements 4 and 7 re: System Requirements. Especially note the best suggestions for HD.



http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3c0518d2



http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b699a8



Is your 3 GB RAM, installed or available; how much hard drive space do you have? Have you optimized your computer? Have you explored taking the RAM from 3 GB to 4 GB and moving some files off the hard drive? I do not believe that you can upgrade the processor on the Dell 9100 (not sure), but you can upgrade the memory.

A.T.Romano



Thanks for reading my post. Can you please clarify your comments?



1. Are you suggesting the message on low resources points to the cause of the crash? If so, I would say the message preceeded the crash by about 6 hours! I was able to continue editing, adding clips etc. without problem, ie it did not continue to report resource issues. It hardly gives an adequate answer and I still say a product from a reputable company like Adobe should not just terminate without explanation. Incidentally today I opened the same project without this error appearing. Very odd.



2. You use the word ''only'' when referring to ram and disk. 2gb is my installed ram, recommended min is 512mb. From task manager, after loading the program I have 1301328kb available, which drops to 1039240kb after opening the project. 2gb is also the max I can put in my system. Min required hard disk is 4.5gb. Other posts suggest 20-50gb free space, isn't 60gb enough? This isn't an HD project.



3. Yes shortening the project avoids a crash during burn. I'm not sure what point you would like make? I could try adding clips and burning until I find the point where PE7 breaks. However, as each attempt takes several hours, it could take a week or so to find the answer. I had hoped this forum might provide a quicker answer.



4. I selected burn to folder DVD 4.7 GB/120 min. I accepted the default ''fit to disk''. My project at 1 1/2 hrs is within the 2 hour single side limit.



''Based on that information, I sounds to me like your first order of business should be to check low resources, namely not enough available RAM and not enough free hard drive space. ''



- OK so how much ram and how much disk? See my response to 2. above. Given my system, what project size can it handle?



''Have you optimized your computer system lately?'' - can you be explicit? Is there a post with details? Won't this just improve performance?



Thanks, Mike.



PS I think my frustration and from reading this forum, others too, is that there is no easy way to find out what part of the program failed and why. Therefore, my attempts to find a solution are just trial and error and it takes so long to see whether a solution is successful or not.

%26gt;I think my frustration and from reading this forum, others too, is that there is no easy way to find out what part of the program failed and why.



Well, that's not entirely true, Mike. The FAQs at the top of this forum offer troubleshooting steps that will pretty accurately isolate where the problem is occurring in addition to offering options for working through it.

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b5f52c/1

Hello,



I'm also a fresh owner of PE7 and I'm having the same problem - I if I try to burn a DVD with PE7 my system will crash with blue screen, each time.



To my dissapointment I have had not managed to burn a single DVD with PE7. The drive it self works fine with Cyberlinks software and burns DVDs and Lightscribe labels without a problem.



I'm running my PE7 on a 64-bit Vista with 4 GB RAM and have over 400 GB of space on my hard drive and have 4 core CPU with 2000 Mhz, video card has 512 MB onboard RAM - hardly a performance problem I assume.



Miku

Miku



Could you describe your Timeline content (file formats, video and length of, stills and size/numbers of) that you are trying to burn to DVD disc (4.7 GB/120 min or 8.5 GB/240 min)?



There are many reasons for your specific situation. The original poster started out with a ''low resource message'', so that is why I went in that direction first to rule in or out. I am assuming that you are not getting any low resources message.



Besides the link suggested by SG, have you checked out the Adobe TechNote on troubleshooting the general type of problem that you posted?



http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb404996%26amp;sliceId=1

Steve, thanks for the pointer to your post. I will follow through those steps and report back. One question: is the figure of 50gb/hour dependant on quality, ie bitrate, or is it something to do with pure avi files? My source files are mp4s totalling 1.8gb and my output is targetted at 4.7gb dvd, so what is PE7 doing in the background?



A.T.Romano, my timeline content is all mp4 movies, no stills - 31 files ranging from 10s to 15m. Trying to burn to 4.7gb folder. I have determined that if I open PE7 whilst other programs are open, then I get the message. If PE7 is the only program running, I don't get it. The message is actually low memory, not low resources as I originally stated. After I get the message, I can close the project and reopen it without getting the message again - strange. I will check out your link as well, thanks.



Miku, my problem is slightly different: for me PE7 crashes, but my system is stable, I don't get a blue screen, I'm not burning to a disc, but to a folder. Maybe the links given will help you too?

If you are using MP4s as your source files, you may need even MORE than 50 gig of scratch disk space, Mike. It doesn't matter how small the files are -- it's how much room Premiere Elements needs to transcode, render and convert them, and the more free, clean, defragmented space the better!

SG



In the AdobeTechNote that I posted for troubleshooting the general topic of DVD burn failure in Premiere Elements 7

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb404996%26amp;sliceId=1

I noticed one procedure suggesting use of the ''sample movie'' in Premiere Elements 7.



The location for the link to this ''sample movie'' is supposed to be on the Welcome Screen, under text named ''Tutorial''. However,

1. If I have not signed up for Photoshop.com, the Premiere Elements 7 Welcome Screen shows no text ''Tutorial'' which I can click on and a sample movie opens up.

2. If I sign up for Photoshop.com, the Premiere Elements 7 Welcome Screen does show a text ''Tutorial''. But clicking it brings up the Inspirational Browser with tutorials and no sample video.



I have looked in the Premiere Elements 7 program files for Sample Files, but cannot find them. Have you any idea what happened to this Sample File(s) which proved very useful in troubleshooting in the prior version?

Yes, PE7 does not appear to have the sample project as it did in previous versions... certainly not in the non-US version.

AT,



I'll get my blue screen before I can choose how burn the project. When I click at ''Disc'' on Share tab my system will crash, no warnings about anything before.



Some advancement anyhow: My project I'm trying to complete with PE7 is just simple collection of stills and short 1-10 minute avi's. There are something like 35 videos and 400 stills making approx 1 hour and 50 minutes play time. Just for troubleshootings sake I tried with an another project containing a set of avi's only and I was able to burn to a folder. Later on I noticed this odd ''functionality'' - If I start PE7 and open my project containing stills and videos first and try to burn it I'll get the blue screen every time, but if I first open my avi's only project then close it and open now the problematic project I'm able to burn to a folder. So it looks like PE7 needs a kick before it works as it should. Of course this is not acceptable and doensn't grow my confidence about the product.



I took at the troubleshooting doc - I'm not sure if any of the symptoms really match my case. On the other hand I have very well working box, except what comes to PE7 so I'm not too keen on starting to manipulate the system.



Miku

Miku Pori



What are the pixel dimensions of those stills. If your end result is going to be DVD-VIDEO, the pixel dimensions of each still should not exceed 1000 x 750 pixels. Video aspect ratios are 4:3 or 16:9. It just might be that the program is having problems downsizing 400 oversized photos as well as correcting 400 aspect ratios to either 4:3 to 16:9.



If you have not already, check out SG's classic FAQ on ''What Resolution should still photo be?''

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bb8822c.



If this oversized photos business refers to your situation, you could batch resize that 400 stills and see if use of the resized batch gets you passed the blue screen and crashes.

And, of course, all of this is covered in post #5.



Most likely if you'll work through these troubleshooting steps, we'll be able to get right to the problem instead of just guessing.

SG,



Just to follow up on my previous posts, in case anyone else has this issue, I followed the steps in your guide http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b5f52c/1 and here are my results.



1. I had been burning to disk all along, so I knew it wan't an issue with the DVD recorder. (Your step 2)



2. I cleared and defragged my hard drive and with just over 60gb free the burn to folder stopped at 97% with a ''low memory'' message hidden behind a ''send error report to microsoft'' dialog. When I clicked to send the report, PE7 crashed. When I checked the encoding folder it had created the movie.m2v file. (Your step 3)



3. I chose the MPEG output option using NTSC DVD Standard template modified to use a lower bit rate of 5000. This completed normally. I reimported the resultant .mpg and tried burn to folder. This failed with a memory allocation error message at 98%. Again it had created a movie.m2v file. (Your step 1).



So I think I can assume it's to do with memory and not disk? I assume I should try reducing the programs running in memory and free up more for PE7? Maybe it's to do with the menus since it crashes near the end?



Mike.

I'm not sure why you're creating an m2v file if you're trying to create a DVD. What not output a DV-AVI, per the FAQ?

Steve,



Following up on previous posts, I can at last report success! As per your suggestion I output to DV-AVI in step one which created an 18.8gb .avi file. And in step two I cleared the timeline, added the .avi file and burned to folder. All complete and working.



Thanks for bearing with me and helping me with this problem.



Mike.

:) !

Hi,

I am having a similar problem with PE 7. On Share tab when I click DVD, the application shuts down w/o any error message. I talked to Adobe support for two hours and they were not able to solve the problem. They did everything - updated drivers, registry, uninstall, install, eliminate start up menu conflicts... This occured with a simple one minute ''bartone'' project. Problem has been escalated but they have not called back (three days). Running with 1GB RAM and 160GB storage (60GB free). Any thoughts? Also, I have not been able to relocate the Customer Support number I called. Anyone have it? Thanks.

You'll be better off starting your own thread, Bill, because, if this was exactly the same issue, you'd be able to solve it with exactly the same solution.



So start your own thread -- and then be sure to tell us what type of video you're working with, which type of camcorder it came from, what operating system you're using, how much free, defragmented hard drive space, etc.



And be sure to tell us if you're using the most current version of Quicktime.

Thank you Steve. I'll stert a new thread after I hear from support.