[Jill Simpson]

Thank you Douglas,

I accept and agree – pilot error. I’ve been trying to understand why I’m encountering so many problems when others aren’t, and indeed it seems reason #1 was I didn’t know better than to believe an article suggesting I need to know how to use intermediate files, and my searches for more info on intermediate files coincidentally corroborated that belief, so down a loony labyrinth I went.

“uncompressed DV”
– as I wrote that I was wondering if DV was compressed. Thanks for correcting me.
– Ah, I get it: While DV is compressed, xvid-avi is both compressed and strategically lossy. Did I get it?
– If a 13 GB per hour DV file is compressed, what do you call a 350 MB per hour mp4 file?

Light is entering my being, at last.

[Jill Simpson]

Yes I have applied Service Path 1 to Vista. (I will add SP1 to my signature, which I created yesterday, but failed to include with my posts.)

– 4 GB RAM
– Intel duo core processor, 2.16 gHz EACH, 4.3 gHz total
– Vista 64-bit (32-bit able)
– Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
– Sound Card: RealTek High Definition Audio, 6.0.1.5384
– Camera: Sony DSR-PD170. Also: Kodak m1033 digital.
——–
Jilligan

[Jill Simpson]

Merci Bastien pour ton avis au sujet de “Nesting” et les “Instances”. I knew about instances but had not thought about using extra instances instead of nesting, or about some of the great ways to use nesting you suggest. I will try what you suggest, to be sure I understand it.

Thanks also for the suggestion to not use intermediate files. John Rofrano made the same suggestion. In case you did not receive my reply to him, and you want to, here’s the link:
[url=https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/24/888877]Why I used intermediate files[/url]

– 4 GB RAM
– Intel duo core processor, 2.16 gHz EACH, 4.3 gHz total
– Vista 64-bit (32-bit able)
– Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
– Sound Card: RealTek High Definition Audio, 6.0.1.5384
– Camera: Sony DSR-PD170. Also: Kodak m1033 digital.
——–
Jilligan

[Jill Simpson]

Background:
We had hired a great editor – and paid him for work he supposedly did – but he became ill – incapacitated – and to make a long story short we eventually started editing ourselves. (I have previously edited several short videos, with some sophistication.)

———————————-
Why use intermediate files?

Using a trial version of Adobe Premiere Pro, I read about “intermediate” files in Premiere’s help file and on-line guide.

That launched me down a trail where I searched the internet for information regarding intermediate files, and found lots of information, but none telling me that they are not necessary for decent computers editing SD video.

I now see that Vegas’ help file only talks about intermediate files in the context of HD video.

My experience:

I experienced that full resolution files take longer to load.

I did not experience Vegas running more slowly with full res files,
but
I thought by the time I’m working with all my video files, I would experience problems,
and
that my colleague would definitely experience problems on her 3-year-old computer. (I know we could upgrade her RAM and CPU, or buy a new computer, but I thought using intermediate files would be simpler!)

A Secondary Reason:
My colleague’s computer had ample room for our 60 videos in low res, but no room for the videos in full res. Of course, we could have bought a second 1 TB external hard drive for her to have a copy of the DV files.
If I had known intermediate files gave more pain than gain, I would of course have spent that $150, especially considering the number of hours I (and forum readers) have spent on this.

————————————
Our New Plan of Action (Thank you):
– buy another 1 TB external hard drive
– replace the associated video in the .veg files from the low res files to the uncompressed SD DV files.
– *** instead of using subclips, batch render the regions we have already saved in the project file we ended up creating for each tape ***
– work with rendered clips, probably using Sony Media Manager, and thus not need the full-length source files in our project.

———————————-
Project Settings
I assume you are working in a DV project so you may actually be stressing Vegas MORE because you’re asking it to uprez these lowrez proxies to work with them at DV resolution
Since I was using subclips instead of rendering, I reasoned that I could use low res project settings and then switch to high res when I wanted to render, so no, I wasn’t forcing Vegas to uprez lowrez proxies. I did, however, just find that I had the Pixel Aspect Ratio as Square 1.0 whereas the low res files are .909. Thanks for making me check. (I checked if that correction solved the “Project ‘full’?” problem. It did not.)

What codec are you using?
I tried mov, thinking that would be most compatible with FCP, if the person we originally hired (and paid) to be our editor ever recovers from his illness, but the audio was always crunched 10% short at the end. (I converted using another friend’s Adobe Media Encoder CS4.)
I tried xvid-avi, but my colleague’s computer could not open it. I’m sure all I needed to do was get her to install xvid, but she’s not technically inclined, and lives a fair distance from me. I probably could have guided her to download the k-lite codec pack or just xvid over the phone, or by remote controlling her computer, but I had found her computer could play mp4s, so:
I used mp4 (360×240, 29.97 fps, .909 pixel aspect ratio, 48000 kHz, 80 kpbs audio, ?500 kbps? video) – ~350 MB per hour.

How fast is your computer?
Yesterday morning I added details to my signature, but failed to include my signature with my posts. Here it is:

– 4 GB RAM
– Intel duo core processor, 2.16 gHz EACH, 4.3 gHz total
– Vista 64-bit (32-bit able)
– Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
– Sound Card: RealTek High Definition Audio, 6.0.1.5384
– Camera: Sony DSR-PD170. Also: Kodak m1033 digital.
——–
Jilligan

[Jill Simpson]

I should have said here, as I have said in previous posts, that the problems occur not just with this script. The project becomes ‘full’ – it won’t let me add more media to the project by any means.
I’ll write a more detailed reply in a couple of hours.

(Still, yes, I should send this issue to the script writer and to Sony. Assuming the problem persists, perhaps the script writer can get the script to give a precise error message and no crash, instead of a generic error message followed by a crash.)

– 4 GB RAM
– Intel duo core processor, 2.16 gHz EACH, 4.3 gHz total
– Vista 64-bit (32-bit able)
– Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
– Sound Card: RealTek High Definition Audio, 6.0.1.5384
– Camera: Sony DSR-PD170. Also: Kodak m1033 digital.
——–
Jilligan

[Jill Simpson]

My captured video is SD DV AVI (NTSC), 13 GB per hour.
All those videos are on a 1 TB external hard drive.

I used low res intermediate files because I understood that working with full resolution files would be very slow – especially on my colleague’s computer, but even on my computer.

Bastien, you asked why I use tapes/proxies. Did I answer that question?

[Jill Simpson]

(carbon copy of note direct to Gilles:)

Merci pour l’offre.

Perhaps I should ask you to proceed, but I am now trying two other angles (the reason is below):
1: Render Regions with Source Timecode intact? OR: Script to replace timecodes with ‘custom’ source times?
2: Solve Vegas’ poor use of memory (brief details below).

Even if I become able to ‘copy-in’ subclips with their names intact,
I have found that copying bins of subclips from one project to a [‘full’] project creates the same [low memory] error that began my troubles.

(Since I’m able to run the ‘Regions to Subclips’ script in one Vegas instance/window, while having my mothership project open in another window, along with 40 other applications if I desire (I tested that), I had thought the original crash occurred due to running the script in a ‘large’ project, so I should run the script in a small project then copy the bin between projects, but … copying bins of subclips from one project to a ‘full’ project creates the same [low memory] error that began my troubles.)

[Jill Simpson]

This issue got explored in much greater depth by me and others – with lots of good information – here:
https://www.videoforums.co.uk/sony-vegas-media-studio/22200-nesting-projects-without-generating-massive-sfap0-files-sony-vegas-pro.html#post104232

[Jill Simpson]

According to the tutorial, when you insert a clip it will replace a portion on the timeline. Can it insert time first? In other words, can it insert without replacing?
The tutorial showed 3 variations, but never addressed this.
Thanks.

[Jill Simpson]

Let me rephrase my question:

*** How can I work without subclips, yet still work with intermediate low res files? ***

If I render regions, the timecode is lost, so I can’t replace rendered-clips-from-regions with full res media.

If I edit ‘in place’ (splicing and cutting in the timeline), I can’t organize the clips, which is a problem when I have >250 clips.

(I know how to convert to low res, and how to replace low res intermediate files with the full res source files.)

I can’t work with subclips because:
(a) their names are lost (I have an awkward workaround involving xml files and spreadsheets)
(b) Vegas projects get ‘full’, and crash when I try to add more subclips when the project is already ‘full’. (See my post “Project ‘full’? …” for details.)

Thank you.