[David Grantham]

(Incidentally, I must have missed where to indicate gear in a user profile. No stealth intended, but considering the situation it may be just as well.)

[David Grantham]

Thankyou David and Bill for your comments.

I’m in discussions with the manufacturer seeking compensation for the situation. I am eager to relate much about the situation. Apoplectic in fact. I don’t want to say much ’till there’s a distinct outcome but I’d appreciate any advice that will help me obtain satisfaction. I’d like to have a happy ending to relate. (Don’t be too disappointed if the drama doesn’t involve one of the biggest players but one of the up-and-comers.)

Yes, it seems crazy, but in the absence of a functioning NLE over the while I’ve had to occupy myself with other things and just play around at using the NLE in the meantime and attempt – sometimes intermittently – to obtain follow-through from the mf’r during long stretches while the ball was in their court. It’s gradually gotten more and more urgent – as I’ve developed projects – for it to get to the level of basic performance they constantly assured me was possible.

The machine had been assembled by my computer vendor to precise manufacturer’s specifications initially; and refurbished recently in an effort to troubleshoot, and multiple software and hardware reinstallations conducted and/or vetted remotely by the manufacturer.

I’ve had nothing to do with the latest install technically- clearly I haven’t administered the entire process correctly or I’d have something that works. I suppose I haven’t known how to properly research reliability and succesfully insist on results, and trusted aparrently spurious advice. (Albeit from the Mf’r.)

I believe Mf’r specifications and testing were faulty for this particular configuration. I know for certain that their initial installation instructions were faulty because they revised them after the fact (would have been great to hear from them about that at that time but I had to provoke it with problem reports)

I don’t know that the VAR acronym stands for, but if it’s for someone who makes sure my NLE works, I could use one of those.

Clearly I fell down on getting connected with a local user group. Next time. What I also seek is advice on holding a manufacturer and perhaps vendor to account.

Thankyou for your offers to point me toward immediate technical assistance. THis isn’t the forum for it. I continue to post all over the place- have for months – to try to get advice to get it to work. Of course the set-up has become less-than-current so its not a hot topic. (If it had ever worked properly I’d have upgraded it.) I have come to the conclusion that it never will work. It’s the ultimate lemon. As it is the deadline is Friday, and the newly re-built machine crashes every ten minutes without discernable pattern, I can’t – nor should I have to – afford another machine. It’s a mess; I’m hoping for redress and to learn for the future.

[David Grantham]

update; cutting and then re-dragging the effect to the clip seem to have fixed this. (resetting it did not help)

THe effect seemd to ‘crash’ and this ‘rebooted’ it.

First I’ve seen this type of performance of an effect.

[David Grantham]

Yes, I have a post up on the Matrox m’fr’s forum because it’s behaving properly in Adobe mode.

[David Grantham]

Doesn’t right-click (on jpeg in bin) > interpret footage > (then choose spect ratio that you’re after) work?

[David Grantham]

Thanks Phocras – that’s helpful advice (and affirmation) because I have a detailed inventory and index of the material (not in spreadsheet form, though); and I’ve been working toward using that to do the first edit on paper as you suggest.

But it lacks a way to work strongly with the feel of the motion and emotion of the material. It seems to me that this method is leading to editing so much more for content rather than for feel.

Can anyone predict how a system like this(PPro 1.5,2.4 Ghz P4,2GB Ram)will perform with (easiest to accomplish) 30 1-hour mpegs? (Or even – if I dare – 30 avis?) I know it’s unconventional and I initially dismissed the idea, but I thought I’d see if anyone has tried anything like that.

[David Grantham]

thanks mikkel – looks like that would get me back my mpeg files for each hour of tape. (probabaly with a loss in quality but no matter for off-lining.)

The other question is whether a system will stably run with 30 1-hour mpegs (or any other type of file) in the bin, with a few hundred instances of them on a ten to twenty minute timeline.

[David Grantham]

This may or may not apply:

On Premiere Pro 1 through 1.5 (and maybe other versions), exporting widescreen avis with the export options set to a .9 aspect ratio setting seems to consistently result in exports with the (correct) 1.2 aspect ratio. IF they are set to 1.2 we get a .9 result. It appears to be backwards. I belive I read somewhere that this is a known bug.

[David Grantham]

just posting to select receiving an email for ‘entire thread’ didn’t notice the default was “just this message.”

[David Grantham]

AE – wouldn’t aperature priority (camera choosing shutter – not that it’s ideal) work?

mini35 – that’s a costly piece of gear for me to consider, maybe I’ll look into the less expensive options. (Sitting in front of the stock XL2 long zoom, one of these things would make for a lot of machinery.)