Exporting Movie to New File Acts Locked Up

JWLoewen wrote on 6/28/2015, 10:56 PM

I saved a movie file to my hard disk drive and it took forever. I started with two mp4 files, joined them into one file, and saved it. Once I started the save process, the MEP program seemed to be locked up. If I opened another Window (different app) partially covering the MEP window, then clicked on the MEP window, it wouldn't refresh the display and appear on top of other windows. If I tried to move the sub-window that I had clicked in last to save the file, it wouldn't move. There was no progress indicator in MEP to indicate that it was processing anything. I was about to kill it in Task Manager after some time, assuming it had frozen. But I noticed that the Windows process was actively using a lot of CPU power and memory. I checked the destination folder for the file in Windows Explorer and found it had started a file by the name I had chosen, though its size was still 0. So I let it run indefinitely. After about 35 minutes, it finally completed and then MEP popped up a notice that it had saved successfully. And MEP again responded to commands.

Is this typical behavior of MEP? Does it not show a progress indicator while exporting or saving files so that you have some indication that it is actually working? And get some clue as to how far along it is and thus when it will finish?

Using MEP 2013 on Windows Vista 32-bit with an Intel Core2 Quad CPU and 3 GB RAM.

Comments

johnebaker wrote on 6/30/2015, 1:27 AM

. . . . I started with two mp4 files, joined them into one file, and saved it . . . .Using MEP 2013 on Windows Vista 32-bit with an Intel Core2 Quad CPU and 3 GB RAM.

You do not mention how long the two mp4s are however, presumingy you mean exporting not 'saved it' and the mp4's are HD then this length of time would be perfectly normal with the computer specification you have.

For any HD video work I recommend a computer with a 64 bit version of Windows and at least 8 GB of RAM, 16GB preferable, and an Intel i5 processor.

HTH

John EB

JWLoewen wrote on 7/13/2015, 2:01 PM

Thanks, John, for the system specs you would recommend. Someday I hope to upgrade my system, but for now I'm stuck with this. In the meantime, I am only using MEP on occasion with relatively small files, so I can put up with the time requirements to accomplish these things.

I was more concerned with the fact that the MEP screen just froze during the process without any indicator that it was actually working in the background. For such a sophisticated program, I would expect a progress indicator which gives you a clue as to how far along it is and about when it will finish.

I'm not sure now whether I was "saving" or "exporting" the file. I'm technologically advanced and always try to use the specifically correct terminology, so I suspect I was actually saving the joined file. In addition to that, when I later burned it to a DVD, I know that it showed the steps it was going through with progress indicators. So I must have been describing the file Save process.

johnebaker wrote on 7/13/2015, 4:54 PM

. . . . I would expect a progress indicator which gives you a clue as to how far along it is and about when it will finish . . . .

There is a progress bar but it is not obvious unless you know where to look - ie at the bottom of the window below the tmeline as shown below

HTH

John EB

JWLoewen wrote on 7/13/2015, 6:23 PM

Thanks, Johnebaker. I'll look for it next time.