[Andy Abulafia]

I just got a decent SSD from Amazon and although it’s a small drive I use it for my “active” vegas project files and OS. Might take some of the bottleneck away from your external drive, maybe?

———————-
Vegas 11, Win7, Intel i7 w/12GB RAM – In need of a decent SSD, methinks 🙂 Sony TG5V, Kodak Zi8, Playtouch.

[Andy Abulafia]

As a low-end consumer camera user (Kodak Zi8, Kodak Zi10, Sony TG5V, other sony camcorders) I can confirm that Sony Vegas 11 works “out of the box”

I took a leap of faith upgrading from 8 to 11 as 8 seemed to crash all over the place and I needed to do some amount of “tinkering” with .mov and MP4 and .mts files before they were usable in Sony Vegas 8.

but WOW – Vegas 11 is very easy to use and forgiving for a sub-amateur such as myself. No weird carasing/program closures or strange cryptic messages anymore! yay

Another good sign – SV11 is receiving many service packs from Sony – none of these have impacted me personally but GOOD TO KNOW that Sony are out there fixing and improving stuff regularly.

Your i7 is going to fly with SV11!!!

[Andy Abulafia]

thanks Mike!

Yeah to be honest I think my ability to discern audio is very limited, i.e. you mike are not the only proud owner of tin ears 🙂

I am really not sure I can tell (just listening) to the tracks which are much better although I agree maybe the Extreme Analog High sounded better. Not so hard on the ears. Repeatedly listening to all the clips, I am altogether not sure exactly if the distortion is blended with some other piano artifact as there is a shrill ringing/buzzing sound when he hits some of those notes. Gosh, I don’t know… probably a lesson learned is to get a decent sound test going BEFOREHAND 🙂

I looked into the tool – does look pretty interesting.

thx again.

———————-
Vegas 11, Win7, Intel i7 w/12GB RAM – In need of a decent SSD, methinks 🙂 Sony TG5V, Kodak Zi8, Playtouch.

[Andy Abulafia]

yeah let me check that out when i get back from work., thanks John!

———————-
Vegas 11, Win7, Intel i7 w/12GB RAM – In need of a decent SSD, methinks 🙂 Sony TG5V, Kodak Zi8, Playtouch.

[Andy Abulafia]

hey no problem 🙂

———————-
Vegas 11, Win7, Intel i7 w/12GB RAM – In need of a decent SSD, methinks 🙂 Sony TG5V, Kodak Zi8, Playtouch.

[Andy Abulafia]

hi again John and thx for detailed info! OK regarding some of your points…

SOURCE BITRATES: low end consumer stuff – sony avchd camcorder constant-ish bitrate 16-17mbps and kodak .mov/mp4 cameras (around 14mbps i think – which weirdly when i go to mediaInfo do not give me the bit rates, leastways not so i can understand). Not getting anywhere near 40mbps or anything like that

EFFECTS ETC: almost nothing, no transitions, the odd fade in/out here and there but almost nothing. no video effects, titling etc. No stills. No cool swirling 3d stuff going on

MAX FILE SIZE: size no object! quality is preferred above anything else… the target is to play on at least 2 of our 3 different media players which all manage .m2ts files nicely (popcorn hour, WDTV, ASUS) – but ideally be compatible with blu ray should I ever get round to it one day in the future, or if anyone ever wants my projects on a disk

TESTING W/MAINCONCEPT
ok so I took my simple footage and changed bit rate max to 16mbps and average to 3mbps. And would you believe it, the file is STILL around 12GB!! So either something technically is way off (unlikely) or my understanding is way off (more likely)…. 🙂
cheers…

———————-
Vegas 11, Win7, Intel i7 w/12GB RAM – In need of a decent SSD, methinks 🙂 Sony TG5V, Kodak Zi8, Playtouch.

[Andy Abulafia]

thanks Mike for doing that, hey- do I need to sign in or anything to get to the link? (i am getting Error (404))
thanks!

AA

———————-
Vegas 11, Win7, Intel i7 w/12GB RAM – In need of a decent SSD, methinks 🙂 Sony TG5V, Kodak Zi8, Playtouch.

[Andy Abulafia]

Hi John…. thanks for your help.

So, if by way of an experiment I render w/Mainconcept using variable bitrate, making max (say) 16mbps, average 3.4mbps it should come in closer to the Sony AVCHD var bit rate file?

I guess I was surprised as my Sony AVCHD .mts source files are about 2gigs per 10 minutes.

Will report back!

———————-
Vegas 11, Win7, Intel i7 w/12GB RAM – In need of a decent SSD, methinks 🙂 Sony TG5V, Kodak Zi8, Playtouch.

[Andy Abulafia]

Hi Mike, I was already signed up with dropbox, so here’s a little clip.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/58819410/clip%20distorted.wav

thanks for any suggestions!
cheers

aa

———————-
Vegas 11, Win7, Intel i7 w/12GB RAM – In need of a decent SSD, methinks 🙂 Sony TG5V, Kodak Zi8, Playtouch.

[Andy Abulafia]

again thanks Dave for your insights!

So to sum up – not worried about DVD format, don’t care especially about creating Blu Ray disks (at this time), just want “popular industry std” files to play on regular, generic media players (but not to preclude future BD…) So this is what i will do from now on. What do you think?

RENDER AS … AVCHD 1920×1080

Customize template – only get AVCHD option. This renders as .m2ts – my source sony files are .mts … am I in a good place?

The rendered video seems ok … this is NOT using BD template – if you follow where i am going with this 🙂 … if I try the Sony BD template this is what happens….

RENDER AS … SONY AVC/MVC
Ok – I will try “Blu Ray, 16mbps”

Customize Template –
….WOW something new!! Must be the Build 525 I downloaded yesterday!!

I get to chose from
– AVC
– Blu-ray AVC *** NEW***
– AVCHD
– MVC

OK I try Blu-Ray AVC. ummm I get no option for audio – greyed out.
that’s a shame.
OK now I try AVC – no audio option either
ok, AVCHD – no audio either
finally MVC – no audio either!!!

Ah but If I tab over to SYSTEM – i get FORMAT as a choice.
And I can chose Video Elementary, MP4 or MPEG2 – M2TS.

The ONLY one I get the option for audio is M2TS which is as you mention above “MPEG2 is an option though not a particularly good one”

OK therefore – Template Blu Ray no good for me?

Apologies in advance for my rambling incoherent posting 🙂

———————-
Vegas 11, Win7, Intel i7 w/12GB RAM – In need of a decent SSD, methinks 🙂 Sony TG5V, Kodak Zi8, Playtouch.