[Joe Mantaratz]

Hi Steve,
I was very impressed by your creativity in your clips. If you have a chance can you take a look at my posts regarding CPU usage and masking? Thanks again for all the great info you share.
Joe

[Joe Mantaratz]

I have the same version and build but mine works fine. When you say yours is block full does that mean it is displaying max? Is the area grayed out so you cannot enter a numeric value or select the slider? Sorry I could not be more help. Maybe some more info would help.

[Joe Mantaratz]

It has been a few years since I used DOS, (never had a DOS program crash), but I am sure you are correct. The files as named worked in any other program except Vegas 8.0c. It would see them but the moment I clicked to import it would crash. No error message or anything, also the file names were long but not anywhere near 30 characters. There have been other files that have done the same thing but those were MPG video files imported from a camcorder. The camera pics were from a client. All in all the program is great, I just thought this was interesting. Thanks for the reply.

[Joe Mantaratz]

Yes it does,
1.navigate into your menu.
2.open the properties window.
3.Select “end action”
4.Choose “loop point”
5.Select General Tab
5.Set your loop point.

Hope this helps. If I am not clear please just say so.

[Joe Mantaratz]

Navigate into your menu the open the properties page. You can select the menu length and the loop point there. Also make sure you select “end action” to reflect either loop, hold, or activate button.
Those options are easily understood. Hope this helps.

[Joe Mantaratz]

I used to do the same thing with rendering over and over again. You can hold down the ctrl key while clicking and dragging the right edge of the clip. If you stretch it, it will play slower and shortening will play faster. You will see a saw tooth wave drawn on the clip to indicate that it’s time has been changed. Hope this helps.
John

[Joe Mantaratz]

If I am to understand you correctly you would like to create custom button and then be able to have those selected in bullet style format.

My work around for this is to create all my menus including any images that I’d like to use as buttons. You cannot use a graphic or a text in Architect as a link. But you can import your background image for you menu and have it display exactly as you’d like.
I just finished a video where I wanted each scene selection to fly in and then have my “button” pop up after each line. In this case it was a baseball.

I inserted a button from the menu then using the crop function dragged the ALPHA slider to 0. (You don’t want their button to be displayed.) Then I selected “underline” as my highlight choice. Now your image will appear to be line selectable. If you want a bullet style then just resize the highlight line to the width, height and length that works. Another thing to consider is the “Button Order”. What that does it automatically highlight the first choice on page load. There is no way to not have the highlight show on page load, (At least none that I know).My menus had a lot going on and I did not want the buttons or the menus to show before the sequence had finished. It took some time but it makes it look more professional. The program is weak on control over buttons and such so you have to be creative.

I hope this helps, if I have skipped some steps or lost you please just ask. I’m not aware of your level of skill or maybe I am just missing the point all together.

[Joe Mantaratz]

All my machines are running XP Pro and they all have different configs. But none are less then dual core 3.2 and at minimum 2 gigs ram with 236 on the video cards. We also use 3 hard drives for each system. One runs the software, one the stores the media and the third is used for rendering. With so many hardware, driver and software configurations it is very hard for any software company to discover bugs. Some are just not evident in certain systems.
There are two different types of crashes, the first just drops out of the program for no apparent reason and does not record and error message nor does the program record that it was exited improperly. On restart you do not get prompted if you wish to utilize the autosave feature. The other is of course the crash with the error message. I have sent all of those to Sony to no avail. Again it does not do it very frequently but it does do it. Thanks for all the suggestions I do appreciate it. I am fairly well versed in computer problems and functions. This is another one of those things we all learn to work around.

[Joe Mantaratz]

You are one of the fortunate ones then who has not had the problems that many have had. I used version 4-5 then went right to 8 and the problems ensued. So that being said I should have clarified that I was only referring to version 8. I had many projects that I had to go back and work on in a prior version because 8 would crash. I use dedicated machines that do not run anything else except Sony. The prior versions are more stable the current is not. This could be due to the 32 point system or just bad programming. The software builders agree and have acknowledged the shortcomings of the illegal memory allocations and the PF usage. They are working on it. For those who have experienced the crash for no explicable reason and also no error message they understand. Like I said it is an overall good program however it is not stable. With all the hardware, driver and software issues you might just be fortunate to not ever have a conflict. I appreciate your response and it appears we have similar setups, mine however have not been problem free.

[Joe Mantaratz]

I hate to differ but I have been in contact with the people at Sony on many levels and the number one complaint is the huge PF problems and illegal memory allocations. Yes the program is good but it is not stable by any means. It has routinely and inexplicable crashed with no warning on several machines that we have it loaded on. They are all different types of systems so there was no common thread. To add to the frustrations it would lock up on import of Mpg files it had converted from disc import.

A quick search of any of the blogs and you will see the same thing over and over again. In my talks with Sony over many months trying to help them understand and take action the rep finally gave up and said it is in the hands of the developers and they know about it. There own techs tell you to search the forums for answers so what does that tell you?

The reality is new software is beta tested by the users and these companies expect you an I to find work around solutions. They all do it and we have to live with it. Version 9 wont help.

Again I like the software, it has lots of bugs, but also lots of good points.