[Joe Mantaratz]

Been looking for any info on problems with Citidisk problems and only found this thread.
I recently bought 2 Maxell IVDR VC102 250 GB systems and have had nothing but dropped frames when filming in HD, SD is fine of course It does this every time it splits the file due to the FAT32 limitation. According to their specs they assure that no frames will be dropped. But alas they are dead wrong .

A week has gone by round and round with tech support which responds fairly quickly but admits little. They have told be that others have regained those dropped frames by using a utility like Simple File Joiner. So they have admitted they know about the issue without but not officially.

Tried the utility and it does work however by the time you join files and scrub (as required) you will have spent a load of time and lost all the benefits of going tapeless.

Can anyone shed light as to why this utility can see these frames while Vegas, Premiere, Final Cut cannot?

This is a huge issue so mine are being sent back unless a fix is coming soon. I liked the hard drive for all the obvious reasons but this is a waste of time. Any better suggestions for a hard drive based system?

thanks as always

[Joe Mantaratz]

Most of it was how they enjoyed being spammed ,,,I erased them but I recall something from Fluid Head Media..it started with that and went on and on.

Question ..are the email addresses made public on Cow?

[Joe Mantaratz]

I have read through the emails again and they don’t take on the spam look as they all contain email addresses, contact info and such for them. The conversation however made it seem that way and then when I saw that they were able to use the COW database it made me think otherwise. You just don’t know these days.

[Joe Mantaratz]

This is time consuming but you can do it manually but it of course wont be perfect because you will have to delete those frames and add the copied frames.
If you have single flashes you are fortunate it you have multiple that is far more difficult.

A flash will only last a few frames and so you will have to zoom in on the media track and find where the flash begins and ends. Copy the frame immediately before and after then copy them to fill in the gap working towards the middle of the gap. You don’t want to just copy and paste the first clear frame and keep pasting that one as it will become more jittery or appear slowed, you want to use both ends to work towards the middle. Hope that makes sense and I am sorry there is no easy answer here. A small crossfade can do wonders here you would be surprised. Again it wont be perfect but it may do the trick.

[Joe Mantaratz]

Audacity is a free stand alone program that I have had great success with. It also samples a section of the noise and creates a profile. There is an excellent tutorial on YouTube that I cannot recall where at this moment. It may be worth a look.

[Joe Mantaratz]

I think the $2000 probably is on the low end when you have to consider that Apple only really plays nice with Apple. Of course by design and to encapsulate the market and pass out the Kool Aid for the masses.

This discussion is such a hot topic one would think a world peace solution would be easier to solve than this. Bottom line is Apple markets heavier than anyone and are in the schools and in almost every TV show that I have ever seen,,,etc. Of course we all believe it is a better product. Why not? They have told us as such a million times over so it must be true.

For most of us we use what elements work for us not matter where they come from. I too have Apple and PC…a switch between both…some things I like on one and not the other…vice versa.

Now What About Osama???

[Joe Mantaratz]

I agree with you completely, I’ve used this for quite a while now and it makes the job a lot easier. Of course you have to render all the files to a smaller size but that seems like a small price to pay for editing without a hitch. John Rofrano is the one to thanks for this and the people at Vasst.
Joe

[Joe Mantaratz]

Thanks John…I fully realize about the extensions being just containers, the editor only wanted Mov files and this was last minute so printing to tape on this end never came to mind.

Appreciate all the assistance.

[Joe Mantaratz]

Thanks John for the help… The station wanted it yesterday and they previewed the footage and liked it. It was very frustrating as numerous renders with the same settings other than bitrate would cause the aforementioned pixel issue.

I used the MPEG-4 and it got it right the first time and only had to make some adjustments to the data rate but it was acceptable. I had not looked at the one you mentioned.

PS I could have given them my original rendered files but alas the poor man was using FCP and did not relish the idea to have to re-encode it just to print it to tape. Interesting note they print to tape and then put it on the server anyway….go figure.

Thanks again John

[Joe Mantaratz]

I’ve posted this before and it works well it just takes a little extra time.
First forget about doing the work you are looking for in DVDA. Do all of your work in Vegas and then bring it into DVDA. Here’s what I mean.

Create the menu page exactly as you would like it to appear on the DVD including whatever you want to use for buttons or text etc.

Be sure to include all the elements you want then have make the duration at least 30secs and have the end finish in way that when you either loop it in DVDA or stop, it wont appear jerky.

Decide how you want your menu to change when a menu item is selected and create a transition clip. This will be a very short 1-3 sec clip that you will link to in DVDA when the menu item is selected.
For example you may have a simple pic background and three text menu items. You could create your transition clip to have that text change color or zoom or whatever you want. It doesn’t matter as long as it makes sense to the viewer. All you will be doing is creating these transition clips that will play when your hidden link is selected in DVDA…more on that in a bit.

Be sure to name your clips so they make sense…for example..
Bonus footage item should be named bonus footage transition or some variation that works for you. Bring them all into DVDA
Do not use the menu structure but rather replace the background with your newly created ones. Simply keep importing media to the project that you will select from.

Open up the button’s window and select any button…drag it to where you want it to overlay your Vegas created button/text whatever and then go to the properties and just choose text only. For your mask overlay choose what you like but I prefer underline as it does not cover my image.
Go back to the workspace and click and edit the text and erase the letters so you have only the highlight mask remaining. Note: you must have the mask overlays selected in the view options to see it.
Resize the mask as you like it…then edit its properties to link to your transition file.
After that navigate to your transition file and select properties/end action….choose your intended file. Remember this was only the quick transition and not the destination. You will have to repeat these steps for every navigation you have created.
Don’t forget to edit the button order so that when the menu page appears your highlight mask falls on the most logical link.

It is easier than it sounds…if you need help…please ask.

Render it to DVDA architect template.