The auxiliary files, sometimes called temporary, sometimes secondary files are created by Studio, in different circumstances, when editing or exporting a project. These files are saved in a specific folder. The auxiliary files can grow quite large and cause various disturbances in exporting your projects. These auxiliary files can be deleted at any time during your editing for Studio will recreate them automatically when you work on the project.

Step 1 : Why delete the auxiliary files ?

Over the time and creation of your project, these files can occupy a growing place on your hard drive because they do not remove automatically. Only a manual removal can overcome. For that reason alone it is expedient to periodically remove ... but that's not all.

Various problems are due to the presence of these auxiliary files :

• If during the process of the rendering of your project you have an alarm, remember to remove the auxiliary files before restarting the process;
• When you create a DVD with Studio and that it does not contain some changes to your project, remember to remove the auxiliary files before restarting your DVD creation;
• If you have a sound problem on DVD discs with studio, several causes may be the cause but one of them may come from the presence of auxiliary files;
• If you have a project going and after you apply a patch to Studio, the results do not meet your expectations, remember to remove the auxiliary files. (See step 4 below).

The reason for these incidents is relatively simple, modify an effect, each modification of an audio track, Studio creates or recreates an auxiliary file. If you make many changes to the same element, Studio comes a little lost in the maze of your imagination and does not know what auxiliary file must be applied in rendering that you will ask him to do.

So rather than launching a rendering without first deleting auxiliary files, having trouble and being forced to start over, I'll let you discover the path of wisdom...

Step 2 : Where auxiliary files are located ?

By default, Studio 1-15 puts the auxiliary files in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Pinnacle Studio\Data\Render while Pinnacle Studio 16 puts them here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Pinnacle\Studio 16\plugins\RTFx\Avid\Studio\Scratch. As suggested in our tutorial "Optimize your computer before you start editing", it is recommended to change this default location and select a location on another physical disk (not a partition of C: \), the same disk such as that used for the capture of your video.

Changing the default location is very easy to achieve. Just go for a walk in the configuration options of Studio (Menu Setup / Project Preferences) and change the destination folder for auxiliary files by clicking on the folder icon and choosing another folder to receive these auxiliary files. If you choose the folder "Video" for example, Studio will take care of adding a file "Render" under the folder "Video".

Step 3 : Delete auxiliary files

As you can see in the screenshot above, a beautiful button "Delete" is available (from Studio 10 seems to me there ...). Contrary to what one might think at first glance, this button does not remove the auxiliary files folder but opens a dialog box that allows you to choose the auxiliary files that you want to delete :

• or only the auxiliary files in the current project;
• or only the auxiliary files of other projects excepted current project;
• or all the auxiliary files of all projects.

You can get the same dialog using the Studio menus as described in step 4 below.

Step 4 : Remove auxiliary files after applying a patch to update Studio

In all updates of Studio often there are improvements which will be visible in the final production. An example thereof are the shaking transitions in some Studio versions. When Pinnacle releases a patch, in which third problem has been solved, you better install that patch. When that has been done, you start the ‘Make Film’ again to render your video.

But…. The disappointment is big, when you see that the transitions still are shaky. But that is not due to the update, but due to the fact, that the Auxiliary files (temporary files) were not deleted. These are still there since the last render action (the one with the old version). And Studio only renders those parts, which have been changed.

So, when you want to see the result of such a program-update, you have to delete the temporary files and have the film rendered again. That will cost some extra time, but then you know that all calculations will be done under the latest patch.

Step 5 : Bonus

We have seen that the auxiliary files could offer some inconvenience. However they may also have some benefits as stated in a Pinnacle FAQ. To overcome the problem "Unable to find function Import CD Audio in WaveLab Lite software comes with Pinnacle MediaSuite - How to extract audio track from my CD? [231373], Pinnacle gives you a tip for doing :
You can use Studio software and its Audio CD tool to add a track from an audio CD in your project. A WAV file will be created in the "Auxiliaries" Studio folder (defined in the Studio Control Panel). Look for a file with a name like "_z0000.wav".

{Thanks to saby who translated this tutorial from french to english and cross-checked it}