[Bob Ridge]

I just attempted to do all of the above for a Blu-ray version of the same project, and result is even worse. Even though it supposedly lets you set the in and out point of a clip, it wants to render the entire clip, regardless of whether the in point is at the beginning of the clip. Has no one else come across this issue? Seems like a pretty significant bug.

[Bob Ridge]

OK, I set the in/out points five seconds apart at the end of the clip, and DVDA is trying to render the entire thing. What gives?

[Bob Ridge]

OK, I’ve figured out the problem, I just need a solution. Here are more pertinent details. My full wedding video is 2hr 30min, so I’m splitting it up into two discs. The first disc is 45min, and the second is 1hr 45min. When I insert the full video into the project and set in/out points for the portion of the clip I want for that project, DVDA does something funny. If I drag the out point back and forth, the “disc space used” counter changes accordingly. But when I drag the in point back and forth, the counter doesn’t budge. Why is DVDA acting like it wants to render everything prior to the in point? I’ll try a small test render of the last minute of the master clip to see if it really wants to render the whole thing. If it only renders the last minute, I’ll be good to go. I’ll just have to guesstimate the bitrate for the portion I need when I go to Optimize Disc. Any other ideas?

[Bob Ridge]

If you can find a spot on the altar to put it, it will not be perfect, but it will be better than no backup at all. It records into WMA files at 44kHz, which I think is OK for voice. The built-in mic picks up a decent distance from all directions. I like this option because it’s tiny, versatile and cost-effective. Your other options will likely sound better, especially if you introduce a shotgun mic to the equation, but it’ll obviously be pricier just for backup. My own preference has been to go conservative on backup and then do everything I can to make sure there are no audio problems to begin with, knock on wood.

BTW, I just checked at the studio, and it’s actually the Olympus WS-311M, and the mode to put it in is “DICT” instead of “CONF.” Sounds counter-intuitive, but the hypersensitive auto-gain in CONF sounds hideous.

[Bob Ridge]

Those are fairly expensive units just for ceremony backup, though they would also be ideal for recording reception audio straight from a board. If you’re only looking for ceremony backup, I have found that the Olympus WS-110 does great for around $60 (newegg.com). I have several of them which I put on the groom and plop down near most sound sources (quartet, readers, speakers, etc.), and then I’m pretty well-covered. I can’t remember the setting offhand, maybe conference vs. voice or something like that, but one sounds MUCH better than the other (factory setting), so be sure to adjust that.

[Bob Ridge]

OK, after some investigation, I’ve determined that this MAY NOT be occurring with different types of audio files. (Long story, but the way I record and edit audio made it easy for me to mistake an AVI’s audio stream for an indepently recorded audio file.) As it turns out, ALL audio streams from files recorded with my DVR-S270 (NOT my DSR-250 as far as I can find) onto a CF card are having this problem. The reason I didn’t spot this before is that the majority of my videos include multiple audio tracks including many independent audio events, so I could not at a glance see that the AVI audio streams were missing when placing veggies on a timeline, unless it was in a location where the AVI audio stream was the only audio event. Make sense?

So the problem is simple… I can edit and work with my AVI’s in a regular project, but when I put those .veg projects onto a timeline, the AVIs’ audio disappears. Any ideas now?

(The only thing I can think of is that when I first place the AVIs onto a timeline, instead of just building peaks like I’m used to pre-CF, it builds “audio proxy” files first, then builds peaks. So could it be that maybe these “proxy” files aren’t detectable within a .veg file on a timeline? And why do these “proxy files have to be created to begin with? What’s so different about these CF-AVI files vs. what I capture from a tape?)

[Bob Ridge]

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried it, but it didn’t improve anything in this case.

Here’s what I’ve boiled it down to now. I created a project from scratch consisting only of the offending audio file. The audio file is both channels of a video clip shot in DV on a Sony DVR-S270 onto a CF card. It is but one of over 300 files, the rest of which seem to work fine. As a project consisting of just this one audio event, it previews and renders fine. As a .veg file dragged into a new project, it disappears, and I remain stumped. Any more thoughts?

[Bob Ridge]

Thanks for the useful info. I’ll certainly check out the earlier link you provided when it comes to the M2T files. I just figured out after my weekend shoot that my PC can render AVI files from the CF card to a single file on the PC just as fast as it can transfer them, about 18 minutes for 140 minutes of footage! So no more worries there.

[Bob Ridge]

Whose file importer – Sony’s? I just Googled it and can’t find such a thing. Yeah, onee “nice” thing about capturing from tapes is the ability to disable scene detection for my purposes. Hopefully this “file importer” can accomplish the same end result for the CF files.

[Bob Ridge]

I’ve had some success and am still doing some playback compatibility testing. I’ll start a new thread with my limited findings…