Project too complex?

[Guest]

From the other threads on this group, I think I know the answer here, but
wanted to check with those smarter and more experienced than I am...

I have about a four-minute video I'm putting together, and my problems are
twofold:

1) MM slows to a crawl and hangs very time I add or delete a shot, so I have
to save with every mouse click, and
2) When saving to DV-AVI it seems to be dropping more than the one frame per
scene documented here. It's like someone's stepping on the gas and whole
musical beats are skipped over, like a bad mp3 rip.

The video has about 200 shots, with probably about 50 fades and a few minor
effects. Is this video just too complicated for MM to handle? Do I need to
split it into two, three or even four parts when it's done?

Saving to WMV works fine but I'd really like the higher quality of DV-AVI
prior to burning. I can't split it now because the whole thing is synched
to one song and every change would affect the entire timeline.

Just wanted to be sure there's nothing I can do with HW or SW. My PC has a
3.2 gig processor, 2 gigs of RAM and 500 gigs of HD space, and no other apps
are ever running. Original video is 3-chip DV and audio is a wav file.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

ag

 

[Wojo]

I don't think your problem is a complexity problem because that would effect
the final rendering but isn't likely to slow down adding clips to the
timeline as you describe. It sounds more like a resources problem with your
computer.
What are your computer specs?
Here's some steps you can take:
1 - Make sure you don't have any TSR programs running in the background
taking up resources.
2 - Download, update, and run AdAware http://www.download.com/
and Spybot S&D http://www.digital-fortress.ws/spybot/
3 - Defragment your HDD(s) - Fragmentation will slow a system down
considerably
4 - Locate all your clips on the same HDD if they aren't already - This will
speed things up dramatically.

Here is a link to an article written by Graham. It actually pertains to
video capture but the optimization of your computer relates to your problem
as well.
http://www.myvideoproblems.com/Tutorials/OptimiseMyPcForVideo.htm

 

[Guest]

Appreciate the tips. I tried them all with only minimal improvement. The
rendered video is still very choppy and pretty unwatchable. Also, I just
noticed an audio dropout with every cut.

As I noted in my original post, PC specs are pretty ample so I don't think
that's the problem. Anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks,

ag