David Shirey
1
COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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[James Ollick] “I just updated VP 14 Pro and the load time for for my previous file, a 1 hour 8 minute video, was 18 seconds from the moment I clicked on the icon to start working with the program.”
Handy info but I was wondering how long it takes to open with no previously loaded project compared to older versions. This is anecdotal and doesn’t relate to whatever setup you have, but my Vegas 11 and 13 load in about 7 seconds with no project, and at launch I think Vegas 14 was around 18 or 20, so I wonder if anyone has a more recent comparison with this latest 244 build?
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I always love to hear that MAGIX is updating and fixing things, but going through the user comments on those updates notes (which are apparently from an older version and will be updated tomorrow,) any custom render templates are displaying as blank and a bunch of users are rolling back to version 211, so it sounds like they’re going to have to release and update to this update pretty soon.
As someone who only tried the trial of Vegas 14 when it came out and couldn’t stand all the bugs, I’m sure a great many have been fixed at this point, but I assume I can’t re-try the one week trial if it’s been previously installed. Can anyone confirm for me that the program now loads as fast as previous versions when not loading any existing project? It was taking twice as long at launch.
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I’ve had some weird problems I was never able to diagnose over the years, and sometimes just making a new Vegas project then copying everything over and saving it with a new name has fixed them. It’s something to try anyway. Also Lazlo’s advice to just render the last 15 seconds of the timeline just to make sure it renders okay on its own is a good idea.
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[Robert Maier] “I agree with the no color comment. All the icons look the same now, and slowing me way down. Why spend time on that?”
Did they really spend time on it, or did someone at Magix just accidentally drop the default Black & White filter onto the toolbar?
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This may sound like a silly question, but is there enough free space on the target hard drive for the completed file to fit? I recall having that issue one time many years ago and then realizing the rendered file would be so large that it wouldn’t fit in the remaining space, but it kept rendering up to 99% anyway then when it tried to complete the file it just hung there.
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John’s advice is all good, but of course he had to make assumptions due to the lack of information. My main concern would be that since it’s being played in department stores, I’d pessimistically assume they’re going to be played from some ten year old entry level Dell in a cabinet somewhere that’s not going to be able to read any fancy third party AVI codec. I wouldn’t make one more assumption and immediately get with the client to hash out every technical detail.
If this is one of those horrible situations where the people who hire you simply have no idea and won’t put you in contact with the kind of people who may actually know, I always opt for maximum compatibility over highest quality. Nothing pisses off a client like getting a video they can’t simply click on and play.
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Editing in 1080p doesn’t mean the 4k footage magically becomes 1080p though. The footage stays what it was shot at until you render it out to something else, in this case 1080p. So you can set the Vegas timeline to 1080p, drop in your 4k footage, crop a shoot say 25%, and it’s still well higher resolution than 1080p, so you’re still getting the best quality in the 1080p you finally export to.
So yes, shooting in 4K and stabilizing (which naturally crops the image a little) will technically be higher quality than doing it in 1080, but how often you need that and how noticeable a difference it makes versus the amount of data it takes up on your drives and the hassle of editing 4k footage is entirely up to you. As both a camera op and an editor I hate when people just say “fix it in post” when it’s a lot easier for me to just frame the shot in the camera that way I want it, but those are the breaks sometimes.
As for the bitrate of 4k being an “advantage” I’m not so sure. It’s double the bitrate but it’s 4x the amount of pixels it’s recording, so it’s kind of a wash. If your camera has a great lens and sensor, then the 1080p footage it records should (in theory) look as good as its 4k footage after rendering it out to 1080p. Since the 1080p footage would have to be edited and presumably rendered out to 1080p at a different bitrate anyway, it may look worse or the same.
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[Tim Wilson] “This is from a vertical film festival being held in a cathedral. A horizontal screen would have been positively sinful. ????”
Yeah, the thing you want to see doesn’t fit in the frame and half the image is just empty sky. Sure looks like the kind of vertical videos my clients send me ☺
I will say this about phone video, I prefer the sites that use square or 4:3, because even when holding my phone vertically I’d prefer the video not fill up the entire screen. The idea being if I’m scrolling through twitter I’d like to see other stuff while the video is playing. If it’s an actual good video I want to pay attention to like on YouTube, I turn my phone and fill the screen horizontally. If it’s an ad or some 5 second cat gif, I’m not going to bother maximizing the window so it should just fit in the interface of whatever app I’m already using.
I guess when it comes to making commercial videos I have to accept that I’m not making art people actually want to see, just an annoyance that a corporation is paying to make viewers have to sit through for a few seconds.
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I’ll second audiojungle/envato for being easy to use and straightforward.
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Well non-standard video is fine when we’re talking about all you professionals framing your shots properly for paying clients with specific needs. My problem with vertical video is that most users are shooting it because it’s how they hold the phone in their hand, and no other reason. Every vertical video a client sends me just has a ton of ceiling and/or floor in it. Then they have their phone recompress it to an abysmal resolution/bitrate so they can cram it in an e-mail. When I can coax them to use something like wetransfer to give me the native file, the quality is decent enough that it looks pretty good when cropped.
I actually follow Glove and Boots so when that video came out in 2012 I immediately forwarded it to friends and family. I’m glad I did because all the cell phone videos I get of my baby nephew look fantastic.