Pinnacle Dazzle DVD Recorder and Studio 10 software

I have spent much of the last couple of weeks producing videos, movies and DVDs. It has been an educational, creative and often quite frustrating experience. When I searched online I found that there are many others who have had similar problems. So I thought that it would be useful to put some of my experiences and discoveries online.
(I have a many years of photography, software development and computer database experience. I am just learning about things like DVD burning, video codecs and MPEG versions).
I have some old Mini VHS-C videos that I recorded ten years old ago. I wanted to capture those tapes on my PC and create some DVD and YouTube movies. When I visited my local Future Shop store here in Canada I found what I thought was the perfect solution.
Dazzle DVD Recorder capture
They were selling a USB connection box called a Dazzle DVD Recorder from the Pinnacle division of Avid. The price was cheap, about $65 US, and it included software.
My first problem was deciding which version to buy. They have a regular and a platinum version. As far as I could figure out in the store, the only differences seem to be that the more expensive version had some sort of hardware compression that allowed use on older USB 1.0 computers. I thought that it was strange that the more expensive version seemed to be designed for older computers. I bought the cheaper red version. I later figured out that the more expensive Platinum version also includes the ability to create DivX and MPEG4 output. But those are only apparently needed if you are creating the most modern HD videos or trying to copy data with copy protection. In any case it seems like the same DivX and MPEG4 codecs are available for download at a later date.
Buggy Install
My next problem was the software installation process. I have HP Pavilion computer with 1 GB of RAM with a 1.5 GHz Intel processor. The install took hours if you include the time to download and setup the later 10.7 version from the Pinnacle web site. Instead of just providing just the required and licensed software they install everything and cripple the many features that are not licensed. Everywhere you look in this software there are crippled features that can be licensed for an upgrade fee. Because I am particularly fussy about photography I downloaded the Studio Plus 10 upgrade. That was needed to do even basic colour balance correction.
There are essentially no written installation instructions. Today, two weeks later, I noticed a file on the Bonus DVD-NTSC disk -- they gave me two copies (!) -- named Studio_us.pdf with a complete instruction book. I have not yet had time to read it since I only discovered it today.
There is another version of Studio (Version 11) but there is no clear reason to do an upgrade.
There is a software product included named Instant DVD Recorder. It is for basic copying direct to DVD. There is no editing options and there is not even the ability to capture more than one input into a single DVD. If you have a dozen MPEG files you can only record a DVD with the first one. There is an easy to use menu system but the only chapter option is to simply create a new chapter every few minutes. This is easy to use but feeble. I have not had much success with that and my remarks here are all about the Pinnacle Studio 10.7.
Studio 10 Capture problems
After a few tests I seemed to have the hang of the capture process in Studio 10. But I experienced frequent crashes when it was time to do the actual capture. After several hours finally figured out that since I had been doing database development work that I had the System / Performance Options / Advanced / set to best performance for Background Services instead of Programs. Ouch. I should have set things that way but the capture program should not have crashed without an error message.
During my testing I had to reinstall the Studio software. At one point I did a complete Uninstall and fresh Install.
My first video captures were saved in the provided compact MPG2 format. I checked a few times and was happy with the results and proceeded to capture nine video cassettes. I was in for a surprise though when I finally took a closer look at the results. Some of my captures started to get out of sync five or ten minutes into the video. In some cases the audio playback was more than two minutes behind the video. I finally figured out that things generally stayed in sync when I used the AVI option. These are much bigger than the MPG2 versions. For a 30 minute tape it requires close to 2 gigabyte to store the AVI capture.
So now I was into the Studio 10 editing process. It is slick and easy to create complex tasks. At one point I was trying to save some space. I found an innocuous sounding feature that allows a person to Delete Auxiliary Files. I could find no reference to these in the help files so I proceeded to do the Delete. I thought that they were some sort of temporary rendering file. Afterwards, when I reopened my old Projects, I found that all the video clip displays were replaced with pictures of a big Blue Exclamation Point symbol. Ouch again. I tried phoning customer support -- it was a Thursday morning -- but there wasn't anyone in the office. I eventually recreated all my projects from scratch.
Writing Final Files
Now we get to my biggest roadblock. I have spent much of the last week trying to get past the place in the program where it says 'Writing Final Files...'. This was particularly confusing since when I checked the Processes in the Windows Task Master it showed Studio using about 96% of the CPU and was constantly doing I/O Writes. I tried many options and many experiments. I finally figured out that all those I/O Writes were simply writing many repeating messages to infinitely expanding error log files. The Studio program was not actually doing anything useful. At one point I left it at this Writing Final Files stage running for 18 hours before I gave up and broke out of the program. It took me days to figure out if this was a problem with my system, a problem with my Project's design, complexity or size.
The Solution
I finally figured out that this big roadblock was due to the installed Menu system files. There is an option to upgrade to Premium Pack Menus but, since the installed Standard Menus don't function, why would I pay even more money for the extra Premium Pack? I finally figured out that all these hang ups were due to the funky menu system. As far as I can figure out none of the supplied Menus function. It is likely due to the strange folder setup especially for the buttons. Under C:\Program Files\Pinnacle\Studio 10\ I find folders with names such as Titles and Titles 16x9. Under the folders with 16x9 in the name, you find files with 16x9 in the file names. BUT while there is a Buttons folder that has some files with 16x9 in the names, there is no Buttons 16x9 folder. Judging from the error messages when opening projects the system as installed cannot find the proper Menu components.
So I created some Menus from scratch using the Menu Editor. And surprise of surprises, when using these homemade Menus, everything renders and I can create DVD images and burn disks. I should put some menus on the net somewhere and of course would do so if I get some encouraging comments.
I hope that all this will be useful to some other user. I will continue to use this Dazzle hardware and software ; especially since some of the alternatives are so expensive. There are plenty of other inexpensive options for the actual DVD burning such as Windows Movie Maker and Nero. There are few inexpensive options for the actual clip and menu editing.

Analysis of Geographic distribution for operating systems and databases

I have long noticed that some kinds of software, some operating systems and some databases are more popular in certain regions than in others. I have wondered if this was the truth or just my opinion. I tried, without much success, to find some statistics on these regional differences. There is a web site that I like from TIOBE Software which scans the Internet to see what programming languages people are currently talking about. TIOBE illustrates the buzz with a monthly scan created with the Google search engine. I looked for something similar that would show the geographic distribution of software and databases. Not much success in my searching, so I gave it a limited try on my own. My favourite web site for software jobs searching -- at least for American jobs -- is DICE.com. Originally it was strictly for software contract positions. Now it includes a lot of more permanent jobs. It still has a preponderance of serious real jobs. Some other software job web sites include a lot of part-time jobs and low-paid stay-at-home employment. In my search today I looked at some languages and computer systems that I use myself. These include some of my personal skills sets. This gave me some hints as to where I should concentrate on for my software skill upgrades and sales promotion efforts. I concentrated on both West Coast states and several large states where I expected to find software contracts. Click Here to see my Results Table[Now deleted]. 

Some Conclusions I was reminded today how good I am at general data analysis. Too bad that I can't get a job doing just that. (Hint. Hint. If anyone is hiring). The key to looking at the data in this table is comparing the percentage that the states are of the entire US population to the percentage of that state's software jobs are to the whole. The population percentages are in the bottom row. The first thing that I noticed is just how few jobs are in the states close to my Vancouver, BC home. For example, while Washington is a major software centre, it has just 2% of the US population. In this one time sample there are less than 2% of the total jobs for some of my best skills such as Delphi, Visual Basic and PL/SQL. So where are the jobs? In Illinois and California the percentage of open jobs is higher than the population percentage in almost every category. This might be because it is harder to get people to move to San Francisco and Chicago for work; or it might simply be because there is more actual work there or it might be because the employers there have greater need for these particular skills. I also see that there is very little demand for some of skills that I know well. It is amazing just how few jobs there are for Delphi programmers. I see a lot of Java and Oracle PL/SQL jobs and I should concentrate my training there. Another surprise was the approximately 3 to 1 ratio of COBOL to RPG jobs. I do like doing AS/400 (iSeries) RPG but there are darn few jobs out there. It would be nice to create a system to automatically update a database like this and put it on the web each month. It could be more general and have more states. (Let me know if there is any demand for this). 

  The Canadian Picture I did a similar analysis for BC, Alberta and Ontario using data from the Canadian site Workopolis.com. The conclusions are similar when looking at the number of RPG vs Delphi vs Java positions. (I had better brush up on my COBOL and Java knowledge). It was a bit of a surprise just how many software jobs there are in Ontario. For example there were 32 'SQL Server' jobs in BC, 56 in Alberta (which has a smaller population) and 247 positions in Ontario which has less than 3 times the population of BC. Today's analysis brings more strong incentive to hit the road if I don't find a good job soon. There is so much more demand in Alberta and Ontario.

Software Language Code Convergence

It is interesting how software programming languages are converging in so many ways. To be more exact, the underlying structure and functionality might be wildly different but the front end appearance of the language code all seems to converge. 

 In the old days of computer languages there were vast differences between the grid placement of RPG, the free form nature of BASIC and the wordiness of COBOL. One could tell them apart in an instance. Now all the languages strive to be free-form and object-oriented. They all pile on as many built-in functions and abilities as possible. 

 Once one language designer decides on a need for a CASE statement they all need one. Once one language uses a // for line comments then all the others have to do the same thing. I have been recently learning and working with JavaScript and Java. I have been told for years that they were quite different concepts and Wikipedia says that they have quite different syntax. But gee, they both do a lot of {block} operations and both try to be as succinct at possible. 

 I was wondering why all these languages are based on English. I know that French tends to be wordy and other some human languages have much more complicated verge structure; but I do wonder why one never sees a computer language based on something like POUR .. SUIVANT ... FINI instead of IF .. THEN ... END. 

 Surely there must be some computer languages based on non English verbs and nouns? This is awfully ethnocentric don't you think? Or am I being simply human species-centric instead of being a truly digital thinker?

Some Software Inspiration

As I have said elsewhere, I am once again searching for jobs and a steady salary. I went to an interview last week where they asked me to name a technical book that had inspired me. I must admit that I fumbled the answer. I have read many software manuals and technical books; many of them were useful but I can't think of one that was really inspiring.
What is inspiring? On the other hand I am inspired by many other sources. I get a lot of inspiration from magazines. When I was working in California I enjoyed reading Software Development Magazine each month. It was inspirational to read all the latest concepts and applications.
Sometimes these advanced concepts can be a hindrance to my work. I read about Agile methods and Ruby on Rails and JavaBeans. Then I return to my work repairing thirty-year old RPG code while trying to convince my employers that code can be reused and, just perhaps, that speed of software development, careful design and code reuse is as important as compile speed or multi-level object inheritance.
Sometimes knowing that there is a better way to do things just leads to frustration. I often find that the guy who quietly sits at the back of the meeting and takes two months to do something that should take two weeks, is also the guy who is offered the full time permanent job with benefits while I am out looking for my next contract.
(I just had a look and saw that Software Development Magazine has merged with the ancient -- in computer terms -- Dr. Dobbs's Journal. Both of the magazines and several others are free to American residents but expensive subscriptions for Canadian residents). [By 2014 even Dr Dobb's had gone virtual]
Other magazines? I had a subscription to WIRED magazine for several years. In its glory days of the mid nineties this was a magazine that existed to provide inspiration. I like high style, effective colours and good graphics. WIRED had them all. It also had lots of good ideas and thoughts on everything digital.
Where did they go wrong? They managed to both get too conventional at the same time that they got more weird in appearance. While in the earlier years they would use graphics to illustrate a point and provide information, it seemed that they became dedicated to the look without the additional concentration on useful information. There were far to many pages with something like silver type on purple paper designed just to make the reader squint. While in the early days WIRED would provide pages of useful and inspiring pages at the beginning they evolved having many many pages of advertising in the same place. WIRED became the Vogue of the computer industry.
Current Magazine Inspirations I currently have subscriptions to several general business and news magazines. I read Fortune magazine because of its practical information and left-wing bias. Left-wing? I don't think that there is another magazine that has done quite as authoritative biographical evisceration of the average American 'C' level executive suite. As often as they insist that Bill Gates or Warren Buffett are business gods; they also give us lots of stories about their foibles and all so human eccentricities. After reading those exposés I find it hard to think of the average great financier or CEO as anything more than reasonably smart and well-educated people with good luck and supportive families.
When Fortune is at its best -- doing an in-depth corporate evisceration or essay on the business costs of American medical costs -- it makes one want to stand up and change the system. If only I had the power.
A final business magazine inspiration is Business 2.0. This is the slimmer, hipper and more concise version of Fortune. Lots of stories about the Web and things digital. I normally find myself folding over many page corners as bookmarks before I finish an issue.

Recent Training in Crystal Reports

In late 2006 and early 2007 I undertook to learn something about using Crystal Reports. This is the report writing software package that is now owned and distributed by BusinessObjects. I signed up and took four online web courses at the BusinessObjects web site. Apparently they have the full course content of the classroom versions at half the cost. I completed them and finished by the end of January.
The course work went fairly fast -- I had already used a dozen different report writing packages over the years. I hope that I find some use for all this training since I am currently unemployed and looking for work.
Crystal Reports is one of Vancouver's software success stories. I can remember applying unsuccessfully for jobs 20 years ago in their little office on Pender Street in downtown Vancouver. Considering all the big software success stories on the West Coast of the US it is interesting that there are so few big success stories from Vancouver. We have companies that have done well here -- such as AccPac or Entertainment Arts -- but they always seem to get bought out by a much larger company.
I think that it might have something to do with our old resource based economy. We have long been a world centre for things like Fish Processing, Mining and Forest Industry companies. At the same time that Seattle was making Boeing jets, Fremont California was making Fords and LA was making movies; we in BC were making cedar shakes and canned salmon. I am not sure how the fact that San Jose, CA was the apricot centre of the world fits into this theory, but it there must be some reason that Hi-Tech never took off in the same way here as it did further south.