John Rofrano
3
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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A backup is just that… a back up, never to be used in production. If your first drive fails, the assumption is that you will replace it and copy the files from the backup to the original drive and the project will now be pointing to the correct place. You never work from your backups. They are a “safety” copy and should not be used directly.
~jr
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> When I copy a folder, all of the files in that folder get the drive letter of the hard disk I copied them to- so why do they continue to reference the original folder where the non-copy was created?
Because the project file maintains the absolute path to all of the files it needs including the hard drive letter which is required in systems with more than one hard drive.
> It’s truly maddening. Is there a way to tell Sony to IGNORE what drive letter a file was saved under? It would make my life heaps easier.
No, why are you moving projects between drives and continuing to work on them? Are you moving an external drive to multiple computers? If so, the easier solution is to configure the computers to see that drive as the same letter on each PC.
~jr
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> but the ones that don’t work after rendering are .avi files
Yes, I know that from your previous post. I asked what codec do they use? You can download a free utility called GSpot and open the AVI file with it and it will tell you which codec it uses and if you have that codec installed, and even do a render test. AVI files can contain any number of codecs and some are not compatible with Vegas.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
> Is it the fact it’s a Canon video file with a Sony program???
I have never seen stuttering on rendering unless there was a codec conflict so it sure points to the Canon files. I know that Sony cameras use a different AVCHD profile than Canon and, in fact, when I bought my AVCHD camera, I purchased the Sony HDR-CX12 specifically because I knew that it’s files worked well in Vegas. I thought Sony had fixed some of the problems with Canon files in Vegas Pro 9.0. I assume you are using Movie Studio 9.0b which is older and may not have these fixes.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
> “Intermediate” rendering — this is my current sticking point. I didn’t buy quite an expensive camera only to re and re and re encode to the point where my quality falls through the floor.
You are missing the point of using intermediaries. A good intermediary codec can withstand lots of re-rendering with no appreciable loss in quality. CineForm NeoScene supports Canon 5D Mk II camera footage and I would highly recommend that you use it. It plays back smoothly in Vegas, it uses intraframe compression, unlike your camera which uses interframe compression, so it holds up very well to repeated re-rendering. Lots of people with cameras way more expensive than yours (including myself) use it because it produces very high quality output. IMHO, this is the best way to work with Canon 5D Mk II camera footage in Vegas Pro.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
What kind of media are you using on the timeline. It sounds like you may have some corrupt media that is causing it not to render.
~jr
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I like to archive to the same format as my source. I’m shocked to hear you say that DV AVI gave less quality than the original MPEG4 that your camera shoots. Perhaps there is something about your project properties that causing the loss of quality?
I would start testing by creating a new project. In the project properties window on the extreme top right is a button with a folder icon. If you hover your mouse over it, it will say, “Match Media Settings”. Press this and navigate to one of the media files from your camera. This will make your project match your cameras media.
Now that we know the project matches the media, you should do some render tests to check the quality. Since your camera shoots MPEG4 I would only use the Sony AVC or MainConcept AVC render types as these are MPEG4. MainConcept AVC has an Apple iPod 640×480 Video template that sounds like it might match your camera. It is 30fps an uses a bit rate of 1.5Mbps which I’m sure is more than your source.
Those settings should produce a video that is very close in quality to your source. Keep in mind that your camera is shooting in a very lossy, non-standard, highly compressed MPEG4 format. Every render is going to loose quality and there is nothing you can do about that.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
> It is a roll over several still frames.
The solution is still the same but perhaps I wasn’t clear so so let me be more explicit. Open the Credit Roll window and next to the frame size there is a length field which is probably set to the default 00:00:05.00. Change the length to 00:01:00.00 to make it one minute. Close the window and drag the right edge of the event out for 1 minute on the timeline. Your credit roll will now take a minute to scroll up the screen.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
I’m not sure if the Movie Studio Platinum version of Vegas allows you to make new profiles/templates. If the Custom button is not grayed out you can use it to make a new template.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
The last icon/button on the left of the mask window controls movement. If you hover your mouse over it, it says “Move Freely (X or Y)”. Just click it until the arrows point in all 4 directions.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com