[David Shirey]

That’s odd, i got 0.0.9 last night to try it with and it said unknown format. Maybe I’m missing some codecs but when I installed it had me download 3 things which I did.

I think my troubles are pretty much solved though. I’m not sure why because I tried this solution last night and it didn’t work, but it worked now. I called Sony Posse tech support and they had me change the name of the file and try importing it. Last night i tried naming that 5.mp4 file as “099_0512_01.MP4” and it would not import into sony clipbrowser 2. Sony had me call it “076_0041(1)_01.MP4” and it imported perfectly and allowed me to export as an mxf so I could drop it into Vegas.

Since ideally we’d edit this in FCP 6, do you know how I could export from the pc clipbrowser 2 in a format FCP would edit, or will Sony’s FCP import tool also import orphaned mp4’s now?

[David Shirey]

[Craig Seeman] “Try this Mac utility
https://www.ffmpegx.com/download.html
You’ll need to convert them to something else like a high quality H264 file but it may work.”

Actually that was one of the first things I tried as per your advice in an old thread I found. ffmpegx didn’t recognize the file type. Using Gspot for windows correctly identifies the codec in the mp4, but like I said the only program I’ve been able to actually play the file in is gmplayer for windows, and I have no idea why.

Our preferred backup method is to transfer the cards directly onto two separate hard drives in an external enclosure, which always works great for us. The problem comes when the company doesn’t own enough cards to make it through the weekend without having to clear them, and they have to be dumped onto a single hard drive in the meantime. Generally when you buy more EX1’s, you buy more cards to go with them.

I was thinking if no program could edit these files, I could look into some sort of equipment to rent that could record hd footage from the dvi output of my computer, but that gmplayer program I mentioned doesn’t deinterlace properly so the footage doesn’t look that great. I uploaded a short 38mb clip to a server so my friend could mess around with it, but we got nowhere. If you’d like to take a shot at it you can grab it at https://www.davebo.com/5.mp4 Thanks for your help so far.

-Dave

[David Shirey]

Maybe they want the editor to come to their studio and use the system they have? Or if editing is done off-site they want to ensure that they could get the footage and edit themselves should the editor they hire not work out to their satisfaction.

Think of it not so much as what hammer the carpenter uses for the house, but whether the blueprints and measurements are done in english or metric.

[David Shirey]

[Mike Kujbida] “Since this is meant for a TV, I’d leave it interlaced.”

On a related note Mike, if you shot something in 720p and intended to view it on a DVD but using a progressive scan player on an hdtv at 480p, would you render that interlaced or not? Would keeping it progressive preserve the motion better since the source was progressive? And if so, what would happen to that same 480p dvd if you played it using s-video at 480i?

Just some ideas that popped into my head since I’ve never had reason to try those before.

[David Shirey]

While DVDA 5 is good software, I think most of us here prefer doing just about everything in Vegas where we feel we have more control, and then just letting DVDA handle the menus to access the files we’ve already rendered. However if the trim feature is broken Sony should certainly fix it.

[David Shirey]

I don’t know, it definitely sounds like an odd issue. When I do blurays and dvd’s of a project, I just render out a separate mpeg2 for the dvd version, keeping the same ac3 for audio. Also if it’s split into two discs I’d render one file for the first disc and one for the second. It should be easy enough to use a bitrate calculator to choose the appropriate settings straight out of vegas and render an mpeg2, rather than rendering out a whole avi then having DVDA rerender it as an mpeg2.

Although now that you mention it I’m surprised Vegas hasn’t incorporated a “make-it-fit” wizard into the NTSC DVD Architect MPEG2 template options. Seems like it’d come in handy for anyone who has to fit more than an hour onto a single layer dvd-r.

I know the bluray file is high resolution, but you’re still having it recompress a video from an already compressed video. Why not just do the mpeg2 straight out of Vegas?

[David Shirey]

It’s not a great idea to render an mpeg2 then have DVD Architect recompress it to a smaller mpeg2. If you’re not sure about what bitrate you’ll need to fit a project on a dvd-r, I would either A) Export from Vegas as an uncompressed AVI then let dvd architect fit it to mpeg2, or B) use a video bitrate calculator either on the web or a downloadable program like VideoCalc, to determine the best bitrate you can use and still be able to fit on a 4.7 gig dvd-r.

As for the guy playing WMV’s on a tv… I don’t know a lot of dvd players that play wmv files. Standard definition mpeg2 may not be perfect but it’s kind of what we’re stuck with in terms of market saturation at this point. If you’re playing the mpeg2’s in windows media player then they aren’t going to look as good as they will once they’re burned to a dvd and played on a decent dvd player.

[David Shirey]

[Stephen Mann] “dot-net?”
You’re implying it has to do with the .NET framework that Vegas uses? I suppose that’s possible, but I still don’t see what purpose it serves for vegas to try to access verisign. I also determined the script access attempts are simply contacting my isp’s domain name server, as they contact verizon when I’m at the office and comcast when I’m at home. It all seems totally harmless and I’m sure everyone’s does it.

[David Shirey]

I started out with Media100 in the late 90’s and it was great having so little to render before you ran your project to VHS or Betacam for the client in real time. Then DVD came along and we got set-top recorders which had pretty much the same workflow except for having to finalize the DVD’s when complete. Nowadays all the dvd’s have to have custom menus, or they need things rendered out for internet distribution or to play from a pc. Back in Vegas 4 my pc was pretty slow and rendering a 2 hour project to mpeg2 was a lot more trouble than the real time output of my Media100, but these days it’s plenty fast.

I wouldn’t say Vegas or hardware based NLE’s have superior workflow, it’s just what kind of work you do and what you’re going to need. With CPU speeds these days, you can render mpeg2’s faster than realtime, but now we have HD to worry about, and in time CPU speeds will catch up with that I assume. If hardware based works best for what you do, I’d say stick with it. Although in terms of entry costs for trying out Vegas, you couldn’t ask for a better value. Slap together a PC with a $200 CPU and give it a whirl.

[David Shirey]

[Edward Troxel] “I can tell you for a fact that Excalibur will NOT try to access the internet. There is zero code inside Excalibur that tries to access anything external to Vegas.”

Yeah I figured as much, because I looked at the code for a small script I had and it certainly didn’t include anything about the internet. Also to Douglas, I already had Net Notify off. Call me paranoid but I just never liked programs sending or receiving data without my expressed written consent 😛

So it sounds like we’re not sure why vegas or scripts would be doing this. Since they seem to be using port 80 I assume no one’s firewalls are blocking them. Does anyone else have ZoneAlarm or other internet blocking programs and can verify that their versions of Vegas do this also? I’d be surprised if it was only mine.