Bill Stephan
Forum Replies Created
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Your VCD is encoded in MPEG-1 format. All the flavors of MPEG are intended as distribution or transmission formats, not production formats, so most NLEs don’t import MPEG. Also the image quality goes downhill fast when you have MPEG source material, especially if you then reencode your newly created master.
There are a few software utilities out there on the internet that convert MPEGs into Quicktime movies that Avid can import. But the easiest way to get the footage into your edit system is to play the vcd in a standard DVD player and capture from that.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
Austin,
The VTRs used in cameras and inexpensive DVCAM/miniDV VTRs do not have the ability to execute insert or assemble editing. You need a Sony DSR-80 or DSR-1500 (or above) to do true editing. So yes you are stuck with crash records.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
Doug,
I’ve personally updated the firmware only in Pioneer burners, but the process should be similar in other manufacturers’ drives. First you download the correct file for your drive from the manufacturer’s web site. Then you make sure you close any antivirus or other software running in the background on your machine. Then follow the instructions regarding unstuffing, unzipping and running the update. Usually you just run the software, and everything else happens automatically.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
A frame of NTSC video fills only 1/6th of the screen on an HD display. The display is blowing up the image to fill the screen, and some displays do the resize better than others. That is why you see jaggies.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
1. Regardless of whether the Firewire is on the MB or a card, it has to have a Texas Instruments chipset to work with Avid.
2. For a video card use what Avid recommends if you want the system to work correctly. For all other video cards, your mileage may vary.
3. You’re way short on RAM. If your RAM memory fill up completely, your system will slow to a crawl as Windows spools everything out to virtual memory on your hard disk.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
Did the check discs from the replicator exhibit the problems you are complaining about? Or did you not get check discs? It is foolish to proceed with a replication job without obtaining check discs and verifying their correct operation in a number of different DVD players.
That bit of business aside, if the DVD author can burn a good DVD-R of the project, there should be no problem replicating from DLT tapes, provided that the DLTs are good and the authoring software formats the project correctly. To check the DLTs, burn a DVD-R from the data on the DLTs, and check for the problems you are experiencing.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
First problem: the Avid boards in the 9600 don’t work in the G4. The bus on the motherboard in the newer Macs is completely different. Second problem: Avid software requires a specific version of operating system. Forget OS-X (or even OS-9).
If this upgrade actually worked, I imagine that there would be a huge market for rebuilt Media Composer 7 systems, as they are still quite decent for off-line editing large projects. But I’ve never heard of one being upgraded in this way.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
Does the sample rate of your aiff file and the footage from your camera both match the sample rate of your project? If not, that would explain the lack of audio.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
Encoders on the PC side: Sonic (3 versions), Optibase, or maybe you can find a used Zapex (very good encoder, company is defunct). There’s not much (or any) hardware available on the Mac side these days.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
We have encountered delivery of commercial spots to cable networks on DVD. Make sure you get the specs for the deliverables, because they usually want bars & tone, slate, and a chapter point a certain distance from the first frame of the spot.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City