Serious memory problem in VideoPaint 7

[fberger]

VideoPaint is crashing with error code 131073:1:4 (Cannot read video) and then insufficient memory 13023:3:1. I have 512 Mb of RAM and XP swap file set to 1.5Gb. Latest MSPRO patch applied.
I have to rework a 27 MB video that I made months ago in WMF format. The project consists of removing some text information in a 5 minute segment.
After unsuccesfully trying some filters in Video Editor, I had to switch to VPaint. This is my first real project in that MSPRO module. Here is how I do it:
1. I select the area that need to be made unreadable
2. I use the Power Duplication tool and copy the selected area to all the frames that need to be affected
3. I select the preview range for the duration of the erase operation
4. I drag and drop the diffuse filter to the edit area and hit OK to start applying the filter.

The % completed status starts pretty fast, seems to use RAM in the beginning. After about 30 seconds, there are more and more disk accesses. Around 50% the process stops with the error messages mentionned above. At this point if I look at the XP Task Manager's Available physical memory it's close to 0.
Are there any tweaks available or is this a memory leak problem?
I am going to submit this problem to Ulead as well, but given their lack of response in the past I hope someone can help me here. Thank you.

Fred

[Dr Mordrid]

Do you have a separate drive for video files? If so are your temp and preview files on the video drive or the system drive? If not how much space is left on the system drive? What drive are you rendering the project to?

If the temp and preview files are on the system drive rendering the project could be filling it up enough to choke the swapfile, thereby causing an out of memory error.

Dr. Mordrid

[fberger]

Doc,

I believe I have enough room on my system drive (F. In VPaint I have the following memory preferences set: (see attached picture). For preview files, preferences point to system drive F:

For this project my source .wmf7 video is 27 MB and stored on the C: drive. I store the project's .uvp file (163 MB) to the F: drive, which is my system drive.
My video drive is D: but is not used for this project. As you can see I have about 7 GB free on F:, which should be sufficient.

Can you explain how this memory tab is used? What memory does VPaint use and when? They seem to have their own built-in swap file before the Windows pagefile is used, is this correct?

Thanks,

Fred

[Dr Mordrid]

Using your system HDD as the primary virtual memory storage for Video Paint, which is how you have it set up, is a very bad idea. I'm presuming the Preview files are set up the same way.

Also: that 7 gigs free seems like a lot, but it isn't. Preview and virtual memory files in Video Paint can sometimes be enormous, regardless of the source files size & format.

As such you should UN-check the F:\ and C:\ entries so everything goes to a folder named TEMP on D:\ , presuming that's your video HDD. Do the same in VP's Preview files dialog.

Dr. Mordrid

[fberger]

Thanks for the advice. I had given up on preview, so those settings should not matter since I am not using that function. However I will try and allocate more work space to VPaint and see if it improves. I never thought a 160 MB project would require more than 7 GB of working space.
I'll build my new P4 system this week with a 60 GB HD + 2x120GB in a RAID0 SATA. If that's not enough I'll let you know...

Fred

[fberger]

Doc,
I did what you suggested: I made 27 GB available from my video drive and unchecked C: and F:. However it still does not work. The program crashes with an "Out of memory" message.
What is weird is that according to the manual, when I check "Limit hard disk usage to" it should use the D: drive location I specified. However instead VPaint just fills XP's pagefile to 2 GB and crashes at that time. My pagefile settings for XP specify fixed sizes on all 3 hard drives for a total of 9 GB (1 GB on C:, 4.096 on D: and 4.096 on F.
I've also tried unchecking that box and get the same result.I monitored the location on D: that was supposed to be used by VPaint as additional virtual memory. It never gets used at all, no files get created in there.
BTW I got an answer from Ulead: "uninstall and reinstall the application and make sure you don't run conflicting software such as anti-virus and Internet access with Videostudio". Pathetic.
I am beginning to wonder if there's something related to this 2Gb limit, either on Vpaint's side or Windows itself. Whatever the problem might be, I am very upset at Ulead since I had work to do and will miss a deadline if I don't find a solution very quickly.
I appreciate your support!

Fred