My First Impression Of Sonic MyDVD

Updated 06/19/2005: I recently posted part 2 & 3 of this post.

Ever since the birth of my son, I thought it would be neat for me to create a collection of Thomas The Tank shows. In my area, Thomas the Tank is only aired twice a week. Therefore, I thought it would be nice to have a collection so that we can pop the show in whenever WE want him to watch it. I emphasized we because I don’t want you to think that I just plan on planting my son in front of the TV.

That being said, I’ve setup a season pass for Thomas & Friends. Now that I have four shows recorded and transferred to my PC using TiVoToGo, I went ahead and purchased a copy of Sonic MyDVD. The software only cost $49.99, which I consider a fair price.


Sonic MyDVD with TiVo
(click for larger image)
My initial experience with MyDVD was rather shaky at best. The installation of MyDVD as well as the TiVo plugin went well. The problem occurred when I tried to burn my first DVD. Upon right clicking on a TiVo recording and selecting “Burn to DVD”, I received the following error:

Could not make a thumbnail. Make sure you have the appropriate decoder installed. -47010


MyDVD 47010 erro could not create thumbnail
(click for larger image)
My first thought was to hit the Sonic KnowledgeBase and see if this problem had been reported. Within a couple of minutes, I found the exact same error message (search for “47010″). Unfortunately, the “resolutions” that were listed were of no help to me. I was able to play the TiVo recordings in Windows Media Player 10 so I was of the opinion that the TiVo recordings were not corrupted. After performing a bunch of Google searches and discussing it on TiVoCommunity, I decided that something just wasn’t “right”.

Any experienced Windows user knows that whenever they get the feeling that something isn’t right, the next steps to take is stop what you are doing and uninstall, reboot and reinstall. Sure enough, that’s what I did and everything just started to work :o. Don’t ask me why, I’m just happy that it works now. I hope that I won’t run into the same problem in the future. If I were a betting man, I would bet that it will happen again however; for the time being I don’t want to think about it :). I’ve been around computers long enough to know that sometimes you just say “screw it” and accept the fact that you don’t know why something didn’t work. This is definitely a case where I am going to throw in the towel and hope that it doesn’t happen again.

Ok, now that I have everything working I might as well talk about what I do like in MyDVD. Once I imported my TiVo files I was rather impressed by how MyDVD automagically generates a menu with each show as a thumbnail. I’ve some what customized the menu to include my own text including a better description of each show. As of right now, I haven’t gotten much farther then that. I was about to try and edit the actual scenes in the DVD however; my son started to cry. I hope to actual finish editing the DVD and eventually burn it to disc in the near future. I’ve read on a number of sites that transcoding the DVD takes a long time. I’m sure that it will be especially slow on my 800mhz pc.

Check back in the near future for my complete review of MyDVD including my analysis of the editing process. Hopefully I will have something up in the near future!

Updated 06/19/2005: I recently posted part 2 & 3 of this post.

36 Responses to “My First Impression Of Sonic MyDVD”

  1.  Bob Groome says:

    I gave up on MyDVD altogether. I don’t have time to put up with all the bugs. The main problem I had is that it would not recognize the disk I had in my DVD recorder. I would hope that Tivo would partner with someone more reliable like Roxio.

  2.  Alex says:

    Unfortunately, Sonic does own Roxio :(

    http://www.roxio.com/en/company/news/archive/prelease080904.jhtml

  3.  TiVoBlog.com » Blog Archive » MyDVD Review Part 2 says:

    [...] tomize it to my liking. To start, I imported four Thomas and Friends episodes into MyDVD (this is where I ran into problems before). The import [...]

  4.  TiVoBlog.com » Blog Archive » I Finally Purchased A New Computer! says:

    [...] it doesn’t take nearly as long as it did before. Also, I didn’t run into the thumbnail problem that I had with MyDVD before. I was [...]

  5.  Merlina says:

    I managed to fix the thumbnail decoder error on my computer after having no luck with any of the suggestions from the sonic site or other forums. I noticed that when importing an mpeg, the matroska vsfilter was being loaded (system tray), and then I remembered that I had changed a setting in the vsfilter to “always load” instead of “load when needed”. After changing it back, problem fixed.

  6.  Justin. B. says:

    I cant uninstall/reinstall because it come preinstalled with my pc. I HATE THEM!

  7.  Alex says:

    Justin,
    I would think that you should still be able to uninstall it. I know that Dell gave me all the software that was installed on my computer on CDs.

  8.  Andrea says:

    Mine did not come with a CD, so I can’t reinstall it. I am running into the whole Thumbnail problem too. Say I downloaded a TV show episode that is in Xvid format, should I be able to import it? It gives me that Thumbnail error and I have no clue how to fix it.

  9.  jenny c says:

    sonic was installed on my laptop when i got it. i didn’t think it would be such a problem that they didn’t give me the dics of the installed software on my pc.. but at times like these… AAAAAAARGH

    i have been on the computer for hours trying to find a solution to this. i want to download these episodes (Xvid) using Sonic MyDVD… the program the laptop came with.. and that stupid error msg came up about codec 47010… burning episodes/movies is the only reason i need a burner… this completely renders the whole DVDburner program on my pc useless.

    i’ve searched many many sites. apparently this is a problem that ALOT of users are experiencing. at first, i would’ve thought i would find the codec i need on the net somewhere and just download it and everything would be peachy… but it seems like i can’t??

    i’ll continue trying… if nothing works, i swear i’m going back to Nero.
    what a pooper… i was really excited to use Sonic.. it’s GUI was nicer and everything… ahhhh!!!

  10.  jenny c says:

    correction:
    “i want to BURN these episodes (Xvid) using Sonic MyDVD… the program the laptop came with.. “

  11.  IMPORTANT says:

    uninstall any codec pack such as klite and reinstall klite codec pack standard! nothing above that!

  12.  Alex says:

    uninstall any codec pack such as klite and reinstall klite codec pack standard! nothing above that!

    Has anybody found that this “fix” worked for them?

  13.  carol says:

    The klite suggestion didn’t work for me. I plan on calling sonic on Monday because this is ridiculous.

  14.  blewer says:

    Something else to try.

    Remove most of your codecs.
    Go here = http://www.codec-download.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=486

    Run file.

    When insatlling under special features click XviD-1.0.2 Final

    Then try burning your file again

    Work for me ;-)

  15.  Mike says:

    Hey, I HAVE SOLVED YOUR PROBLEMS!!!!!!
    Make sure you have the latest version of DivX installed, 6.5 I believe, and then do the following, which I quote from a forum on DivX’s website:

    “I think this may be due to the advanced hardware overlay, which DivX Codec 6.5 now enables by default on installation in order to make functional several new features. You can try turning it off in the Decoder Configuration Utility accessible from the DivX programs group on your Start menu, or else assuming you have installed the update patch here:

    forums.divx.com/forum/viewTopic.php?id=3156″

    I had to become a member to get onto the forum, but it was well worth it. I just hope nothing goes wrong in the burning process. *Knock on wood*

  16.  Christopher says:

    Mike,
    Thank you so much for helping with this problem, it has been driving me mad but works fine now!
    Great solution,
    Cheers!!!!

  17.  Spinners says:

    I’VE GOT THE ULTIMATE EASY SOLUTION!!!

    only download and install XPCODECPACK

    http://www.xpcodecpack.com/

  18.  Calum says:

    I have installed the XCODECPACK, but I’m still getting the “could not make a thumbnail… 47010″ message. Should I uninstall the K-Lite Codec Pack 2.84 Full codec? Or perhaps upgrade Sonic MyDVD?

  19.  empress says:

    I’ve managed to resolve this by installing the DJBCP Codec Pack. Not sure if this will work the same for you. Check out how I did it.

  20.  Bruce says:

    Mike - you’re a genius! Thanks. Doubted it would work, but hey presto…

    Thanks again.

  21.  KillapleX says:

    Mike! your amazing! thank you so much! i can go ahead and make my pure ownage Dvd now!

  22.  Larry says:

    I don’t get why it’s not working for me!!
    UGH!!
    Do I have to only install ONE of these things?
    Cuz I tried doing what Mike said, but it’s not working, and I tried the XPCODECPACK and nothing worked… and I tried the DJBCP Codec Pack, and that didn’t work either. I’ve like tried EVERYTHING and nothing’s working!
    Would it be some function that’s checked off that shouldn’t be? :S

    PLEASE get back to me asap!

    This Sonic crap is really starting to piss the living daylights out of me!!

  23.  matt568686 says:

    for anybody thats still struggling the XPCODECPACK works a treat!!!! thanks “spinners”

  24.  Frozen says:

    Thanks alot Mike!!!, great job on finding the solution….actually worked, thanks again!!!

  25.  andy says:

    Mike’s solution also worked for me- so easy

  26.  CC says:

    Thank you mike worked like a dream!

  27.  shobhit says:

    OHHHH GOD!!!!!!! mike…. thanx……….!!! thanx so much……… ahaa…. everything in place… PEACE OF MIND…!!!

    cheers dude..
    ur the best in business…

  28.  Ge3kGoneW1ld says:

    0mg Mike thx! that solved my problem with the decoder thing, thx tons tons! :D

  29.  Neil says:

    Mike, thank you so much. You fixed my problem. =) I hope you live a long and happy life =)

  30.  Mike C says:

    Mike’s solution IS THE ONE! WORKS GREAT NOW!

  31.  David says:

    Mike, thank you so much this fix worked perfect, again thank you. Take care.

    Peace To All.

  32.  Deecruz says:

    THIS IS THE ONE THAT WORKED FOR ME!!!
    i tried the other suggestions after trying everything else i knew, and some of the other suggestions in here…real glad they worked for you guys, but THIS is the only one that stopped me pulling all my hair outta my head…thx blewer!!!

    blewer says:

    February 6th, 2007 at 7:38 am |
    Something else to try.

    Remove most of your codecs.
    Go here = http://www.codec-download.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=486

    Run file.

    When insatlling under special features click XviD-1.0.2 Final

    Then try burning your file again

    Work for me

  33.  Lee says:

    Mikes suggestion works perfectly.
    just go in to the start menu… XivX… DivX Codec… Decoder Configuration Facility. Then just Uncheck the “Use Advanced Hardware Overlay” in the video settings.
    quick fix works fine

  34.  Matt says:

    This thread should be renamed the “Mike is a genius tribute thread”

    Thanks Mike!!

  35.  Alex says:

    Or, you we could rename it to, Sonic Should Hire Mike :). Glad it was a help….

  36.  Patt says:

    wow thanks so much mike!!!!

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