[David Esp]

Chris, hi, would it be possible please to try out your chroma smoother for AE ? I have CS5.5 by the way. Reason: shot 4:2:0, looking to chroma-upsample within AE because it’s a chromakey shot.

I just found your post while web-researching (to orientate myself and find out what might be available) this morning:
https://blog.davidesp.com/archives/588

Any thoughts welcome of course!

Cheers,
David

[David Esp]

I’m a one-man operation, learning about CatDV, here is my system, followed by a few further questions.

For in-studio work, I have a RAID and corresponding backup drive.

Otherwise I have a number of external drives, each duplicated. NTFS formatted. Drives tend to be client or purpose themed, rather than sequential “Archive” etc disks. Folder structure in each drive is:

_Media
_Library
_Projects
2012-04-24 (Acme) Charity Volunteer Day
010 Admin
020 Source
030 Projects
Adobe CS5.5
Intro 007.prproj
Vegas
WebVid 003 (Veg09).veg
040 Renders
100 Products
Web
DVD
Where:

• [020 Source] contains subfolders for different scenes/cameras, music, foley etc.
• Dates are in reverse order and numbers have leading zeroes to allow simple text-based sorting
• “Acme” would be whatever client/company name. For personal projects the client is “Me”.
• Prefix numbers, there to provide for tidy sorting, jump in 10’s etc. to allow for possible future insertions (e.g. at “015”). Yes I was an old BASIC programmer…
• [_Projects] are greater-projects, as opposed to application-specific [Projects], which are really sub-projects, and for example in the above it may be that [Intro 007.prproj] in Adobe CS5.5 exports an intermediate Cineform file into [040 Renders] that then gets used in Vegas’s [WebVid 003 (Veg09).veg].
• Anything in [040 Renders] can be regenerated, and thus need not be archived. At project completion, the final products get moved into their appropriate subfolder of [100 Products], which is retained. The whole folder structure (possibly minus non-critical renders) is then considered (and recorded on spreadsheet) as archived.

Currently I record project locations on a spreadsheet. Sometimes it is necessary to temporarily store projects on one disk then move them subsequently (eg following acquisition of a new disk). Sometimes the disk letter assigned by Windows can get changed by Windows eg should that letter conflict with that of some other volume like a temporarily plugged-in memory stick or a new NAS that claims multiple letters. So I guess I also need a spreadsheet of disk letter assignments and a disk letter label on each disk.

It would be great if CatDV could track file changes eg movement (or apparent movement due to migration on/off the RAID, drive letter change, path (file and folder) name changes, project or file deletions etc. I suppose that CatDV could in principle track such changes efficiently if CatDV itself were used to make/manage such changes, as opposed to doing them externally via Explorer/Finder or backup software. Or does CatDV already have such media management capability?

Perhaps the Windows version ought to have an option save its own disk-identifying GUID (probably-unique random signature) to each volume (so it doesn’t have to rely on disk letters that can be unreliable and only number 26). Mac OS does this inherently of course. Also, why not have an index file/database just for that volume. Then any instance of CatDV (even on someone else’s computer) would be able to pick up the results and allow browsing etc straight away. Then there’s the cloud…

Or does it / will it do some of these things I have mentioned?

[David Esp]

Robb, yes, thanks, that’s the level of explanation I was after.

[David Esp]

Thanks Matthew. Could you (or anyone) indicate which of those tutorials covers my simple but specific situation re transent external drives? The tutorials start with more specialised matters as far as I can tell. I’ll reach that more sophisticated level one day, but am starting from complete scratch right now. Many thanks, David.

[David Esp]

As one would expect, and as in earlier versions of Vegas, WMV files are rendered over the (approximately) full (0..255) levels-range by Vegas 10. However Vegas 10 (only) reads/interprets WMV files as only over the range 16..235, hence producing a “washed-out” look. Earlier versions of Vegas instead read them back over the same 0..255 range that they were rendered at.

Surely a bug.

To demonstrate the cause of the issue (try it!):

From both Vegas 9 and 10, create a project (e.g. 320×240) then insert Gradient (generated FX), and render to WMV. Then in both projects (9 & 10), insert both of the rendered WMV files in tracks below the generated FX. Finally, in each project: display the Waveform Monitor (WFM) with both of its property checkboxes clear, then use Track Solo to see each track in turn.

In both Vegas 9 and 10, the generated media itself is shown by the WFM to cover the full “PC” luma levels range, between about 0 and 255. That’s consistent with what traditionally happens in Vegas.

Now compare the WMV renders against this. In the case of Vegas 9, all tracks display about the same luma levels in the WFM. However in the case of Vegas 10 (sub-versions b or d, at least), both WMV tracks show luma levels linearly squeezed down into the Studio range, 16..235.

This demonstrates that the levels-mapping error takes place only when Vegas 10 reads WMV files, not when it writes (renders) them.

Consequence:

Consequently, in Vegas 10 (but not earlier versions of Vegas), WMV tracks look washed-out. Sure one fix is to correct the levels by applying FX. But this kind of patching-up is ugly – the levels should be read correctly by Vegas 10 in the first place. It is also destructive – essentially the levels are getting remapped (with quantization noise) twice: once by Vegas 10’s WMV mal-read and again by the applied FX. If you kept doing it (multi-generation) you’d end up with a flat grey image.

I have used WMV (and ASF) since 1998 and have used Vegas versions 7 to 10 for serious videography projects delivered in WMV (amongst others), so I’ve got a reasonable experience in this area, and only Version 10 of Vegas has this issue.

The issue “bit” me when I tried to use Vegas 10’s waveform monitor for quality-checking the levels in my latest WMV. Now I know better, to only use earlier versions for that, at least until it’s fixed.

[David Esp]

Just for the record:

To import XDCAM-EX into Sony Vegas 9.0, either directly from camera or from an offloaded copy on some other storage (e.g. disk):

To Import Direct from camera

Camera:

Put camera is in VCR mode and plug in to USB.

On camera display, asks to execute (enable) USB mode. Say yes.

Sony Vegas:

View > Device Explorer

To Import from Separate Storage

Sony Vegas:

View > Device Explorer

(device explorer) > Right-Click > Browse

Select the folder above the BPAV folder

(The selected folder is treated like camera’s storage device)
(This is the same convention as Avid’s AMA).

[David Esp]

My best workaround so far, in case it helps anyone else:

I didn’t expect it, but (on my Windows system) Cineform appears not only under AVI (DirectShow and VfW), where I get problems exporting, but also under Quicktime (QT), for which exporting works OK. Having exported to QT-Cineform, Cineform’s HDLink app can then be used to re-wrap it to become an AVI, as some windows apps prefer.

[David Esp]

Many thanks Peter, I’ve sent you two 16-frame DV clips, one with halo/ringing and the other my best effort at enhancement to date.

[David Esp]

Many thanks Peter,

David

[David Esp]

Current workaround that “mostly” (not entirely) works: Get previous stage to scale to HDV (1440×1080), don’t care about aspect ratio (use all pixels), save as Cineform (NeoHD version 4.6.0), input that to Boris, export from Boris to Cineform. Cineform renders faster than DNxHD because it is multithreaded (can see it happening on Task Manager). Also the way I used DNxHD at least, Boris froze at the end of rendering, but with Cineform that did not happen.

Had to use AVI-DirectShow as opposed to AVI-VfW because with the latter, HuffYuv was refused on the basis of unacceptable dimensions while for Cineform, the rendered product consisted only of crazy (though beautiful) moving blurry vertical stripes. Looked OK on the Preview while rendering. Got same effect when just a straight movie, no Optical Stabilization.

The result was OK apart from the first 70 frames, which, at my 50fps progressive, corresponds to 1.380 seconds into the timeline) where the output appeared divided into four rectangles, the divides not being centralised. This same section of the original (input) file did not have that artefact, nor was it visible in the preview, only when playing the render externally (e.g. in Windows Media Player or in Sony Vegas). Same “quarters-ish” effect observed (again, in first section only) when no Boris effects applied, just the movie output unaltered, and with no issues having been visible in Boris’s Preview. Tried exporting to HuffYuv (which works OK from DirectShow) instead of Cineform but still got the “quarter-ism”. So it’s not specific to either one of these codecs.

“It don’t come easy…” (George Harrison) ..but.. “you might get what you need” (Rolling Stones)