[Ian Smith]

Excellent. That’s sorted me out. Many thanks 🙂

[Ian Smith]

The input was MX2 from Sony XDCam. Properties says Audio is Linear PCM, 48000Hz, 16 bit, 4 channels.

I’ve checked and the only event property ticked is “Loop” (I unticked this one just to make sure it wasn’t messing anything up but it’s made no difference).

Time/Stretch Method: None

Thank God for CTL-Z

Interestingly, a separate audio track containing Digital Juice audio (ie imported from DVD) can have the channels swapped fine. It’s only the audio track that came from the Sony PMW-EX1 (rendered from Sony Clip Browser) that totally borks.

I’ve got a deadline to meet so it’s just going to have to go out with the audio the wrong way round.

[Ian Smith]

Alas, that seems to be seriously broken in my version 9.0c
Although it DOES flip the tracks (as indicated visually) the audio also gets totally messed up by suddenly switching to slow motion (voices get much deeper and audio is so slow it’s unintelligible).

Very weird. And very annoying! 🙁

[Ian Smith]

That’s exactly what I was looking for.

Many thanks.

Ian

[Ian Smith]

Actually it’s now looking like Vista was a red herring.

When I installed Squeeze on an XP machine over the weekend I downloaded Squeeze from the web, and it turns out they put a new version up on 17th June!

Today Sorenson Support asked me to uninstall Squeeze from Vista (for the second time) and install the 17th June version (v5.0.2) but this time they also asked me to uninstall ffdshow which gets installed as part of Squeeze but shows up as a separate program in the Add/Remove programs section.

So at this point I’m not sure if it was leaving ffdshow installed after the first Squeeze uninstall, or simply the newer version of Squeeze that fixed the problem, but I suspect it’s the latter.

It’s early days yet but my first quick test using a short clip and one of their MPEG4 quickstart filters has successfully rendered out video where before it was rendering only audio.

I’m going to leave the original 1280×720 1 hour video running overnight to see if the problem really has gone away.

If that works then it’s on to the next batch of problems that I’ve already faced trying to upload wmv video rathre than H.264 video: Vimeo constantly fails any .wmv files despite the fact they play fine locally, so I am not confident the H.264 versions will be any different. In desperation I tried ExposureRoom to see if that has Vimeo-like problems. Alas, just like Viddler it fails on just trying to upload a file long before it’s got even 10% of the way through uploading, so no joy there either.

One problem at a time, I guess. And if it were easy everybody would be doing it?!

[Ian Smith]

Well the H.264 issues seems to have been fixed by reinstalling Vegas Pro and Sorenson Squeeze on an XP system. Longer term this isn’t a solution for me as the XP system is slower and doesn’t have the PCI Express slots on it for grabbing my footage so now I have an extra step in my workflow which involves having to copy all footage to a DVD before it can be compressed.

Hard to know what it is on the Vista PC that is causing the problem – either Vista itself or some other installed software (eg it has Camtasia Studio 5 and AnyHDDVD installed) but it just confirms my belief that Vista is an operating system best avoided.

One last set of tests to do – compression of wmv for uploading to Vimeo. If it works then I guess that shows my Vista PC is completely hosed for ANY Sorenson work since H.264 gives me sound only and wmv gives me files that Vimeo can’t publish.

Ian

[Ian Smith]

No, I haven’t installed any Mega-Codec Packs.

I have another PC here but it’s a Pentium 4 XP machine and I really don’t want to put Vista anywhere near it given my experience with Vista upgrades in the past. It’s also only got wireless connectivity so transferring things like 2GB HD videos from my main PC to that just for compression is a complete pain.

But I’ll try installing Sorenson on the this and use a short clip for H.264 tests. At least that way if it fails with the same issue then the finger points firmly at Sorenson (as Vista and Vegas Pro will have been cut out ouf the equation).

If the XP PC works I’ll then uninstall Sorenson, install Vegas, reinstall Sorenson and see if that re-introduces a problem.

Sigh! Looks like another weekend faffing around just trying to root out issues – and that’s before I even get anywhere near Vimeo 🙁

[Ian Smith]

Thanks Doug!

Having paid for Sorenson Squeeze I’m still holding out that their support will sort out the mess that is H.264 rendering on my Vista set-up (this is nothing to do with Vimeo – as Squeeze just appears to be throwing away the video before I even try and upload it to Vimeo) so that I can then try that with Vimeo.

Adding even more options into the equation that I’m trying to nail down isn’t something I want to try just yet, but may be something I have to resort to if I’m still here a couple of months down the road.

Vimeo HD is a minefield and failed uploads seems to be a constantly changing game. The guidelines are too basic and non-software specific. Even though my wmv files are meeting their “compression guidelines” and play fine locally any rendered to 1280×720 size seem to “fail” after hours (days!) of being stuck in their workflow loop.

Unfortunately I’m trying to upload user group videos that are typically sessions running an hour in length and render out from Vegas Pro as 2GB files. Having endless “Talk n Part n” videos just to avoid additional compression and the Vimeo limits is something I want to avoid. Given that Vimeo is in a constant state of flux, with no real specifics for the software I’m using to go by, and seemingly so many problems with different formats being reported on their forums I think I’m going to try one or two other hosting services to see if they avoid similar problems. Viddler has been a complete no-no as all their upload mechanisms just seem to lockout before even 10% of video upload is completed. I hear TheExposureRoom allow embedding of HD video (which Vimeo don’t) and have faster turnaround times so am going to try them with my next video, sticking to wmv until Squeeze either offer me a refund on their software or determine why their software loses the video whenever an H.264 codec from their “MPEG4 download filters” list is chosen.

As soon as I’ve come up with a solution that works for me I’ll post something here, but I’ve a feeling it might be a long wait 🙁

[Ian Smith]

If anybody has successfully installed Sorenson Squeeze under Vista and used ANY of their Web/Download/MPEG4 filters can they let me know?

Spending almost as much money on compression software as my NLE was a big step for me, and maybe I’m being naive but so far the results make me wonder if I should be contacting my credit card company about goods not being fit for purpose.

Sorenson Support have been in touch but turnaround time is less than impressive and just seems to result in what I (maybe unfairly?) regard as incorrect, time-wasting instructions that just increase the risk of breaking other software I’m reliant on that works fine.

The original Sorenson Squeeze 5 install wouldn’t perform even the basic steps shown in the tutorial and I was sent “manual” uninstall instructions that only apply to XP that claim they’re for Vista and which omit the rather crucial “de-register your license before doing this” step (it’s OK I spotted this one in time). I downloaded and installed a new version of Squeeze 5 that fixed my ability to render out compressed wmv footage but now H.264 of any form seems a no-no and I’m being asked to install 3rd party software for viewing video when it’s clear from the resultant file size that it’s not QuickTime viewer that’s the problem etc etc

Maybe I’m naive but I expected software designed solely for the job of compression to just do what it says on the can, not have me jumping through support hoops every time I try and render something out (I think this is the point where someone says it’s all my fault for running under Vista – but if Sony Vegas Pro can cope just fine, so should Sorenson Squeeze :-P)

Just looking for some sign that I’ve not effectively paid to be a beta tester for this product running under Vista.

Thanks,
Ian

[Ian Smith]

The Sorenson H.264 codec had pretty much the same results as the MainConcept H.264 one. I tried a single pass instead of a multi-pass with the Sorenson H.264 codec but again got a squeeze run that reduced a 1GB mp4 source to about 28MB mp4 and took about 3 hours. The resulting mp4 file has no video when played using QuickTime Player 7.5 (861)