John Rofrano
3
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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> Sorry I made a mistake. I did download DivX 6.8 and I also installed it. That is when the media could not be found.
OK, I did some searching on the web and found that these Samsung videos only work with DivX 5 by default, but I have a fix. More on that later…
> I’m getting an error when I try to click and drag one of my clips from my camera. It says: Couldn’t locate decompresser for format ‘SEDG’ (unknown)…I have no idea what hat means.
It means we are getting closer to the real problem! ;-D
AVI files have a four character flag that tells the application which codec to use. This flag is called the “FourCC”. Your files have a fourcc of ‘SEDG’. VirtualDub and Vegas cannot find the codec that is associated with ‘SEDG’ on your system.
Here’s where it gets interesting. DivX 5 registers itself as supporting this fourcc but DivX 6 does not. There is a simple utility called the “FourCC Changer” that can change this. Download this utility. It doesn’t even need to be installed (just unzipped). Open one of your AVI files in this utility and you’ll see both entry fields show SEDG. Just change them both to DIVX and press Apply. Now drop this file into Vegas and the file should play correctly.
You will have to do this for all of the files that come from this camera. I would make backups of all of the files before you change any of them, just for safe keeping.
I found a sample of a Samsung camera AVI file on the web and I downloaded it and it would not playback in Vegas just like yours. Then I changed the fourcc to DIVX and it played and rendered fine so I’m very confident that this will work for you.
Once again, I would contact Samsung and ask them how they recommend that you edit this strange format. Maybe they have some conversion software or their own codec that you were supposed to install?
> I just wanted to ask a quick question before I forget, does the media being offline mean that if/when it does get back online I will have to start my video over from scratch anyway?
No. Once you change the fourcc of all the files, they should all be recognized as on-line and working properly.
The BIG question is… after all this, does this solve your render problem?
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Quad-core will give you the fastest rendering in Vegas. It doesn’t make any sense to buy a dual core since 8-core systems are already available (but expensive). Minimum specs would be 2GB memory (4 recommended), 250GB hard drive for OS and apps, 500GB hard drive for capture / rendering / projects. Optionally a 3rd hard drive for stock media like royalty free music libraries, animated backgrounds, backups, etc.
I would recommend building it yourself or getting it from a custom builder that uses standard parts. This will give you the most upgrade options. If not, HP makes some great Quad-Core and Octa-Core systems.
My pc specs are on my web site.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
You can use a velocity envelope to speed up, slow down, stop, and even reverse the video and rock it back and forth. The choppiness in the beginning can simply be done with still image frame grabs.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Hi David. It appears that this needs .Net 3.5 and Vegas supports .Net 3.0. I do not want to put any version of .Net on my system that is not officially supported by Sony. Any chance you can recompile this for .Net 3.0 and make it compatible with Sony’s requirements?
It looks nice on the web site but I won’t be trying it if I have to install a newer release of .Net than Sony recommends. IMHO, it’s really important to support the same platform as the host you are plugging into.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Vegas has a chroma key tool built in. Otherwise Boris RED has an excellent keyer and matte tools. I don’t know if the less expensive Boris FX has the same keyers but Boris RED rocks!
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
> I work on a weekly cable access program and would like to show two screens angled opposite of each other with a background.
It sounds like you want to use 3D Track Motion. Yea, that’s a Vegas Pro function but no worries… you can do that right in Vegas Movie Studio without using Track Motion at all.
Let’s face it… the video is 2D. You just need to give the “illusion” of 3D. Place your two videos on two tracks above each other. Use Pan/Crop or 2D Track Motion to make them smaller and place them side-by-side in the frame. Now to add the illusion of 3D space, add the Sony Deform FX to each video. On the left video set Amount: 0.500, Left: -0.500, & Right: 0.500. On the right video swap the left and right values (Amount: 0.500, Left: 0.500, & Right: -0.500)
The videos should now look like they are tilted slightly back in space and facing each other.
> I would like to use the firewire outs and then input into the video mixer (mixer has composite or s-video inputs) we have and then capture into a computer (and VCR for redundancy)
OK. There is no need to use firewire. Just connect the S-Video out’s from the camera into your mixer and be done with it. S-Video is S-Video. Whether you take the S-Video directly from the camera or convert it to firewire first and then back to S-Video, all you will ever have is S-Video quality. So just take it directly from the camera. That’s as good as it gets for an S-Video signal.
Firewire is only better if you remain in the digital domain. Since you need analog, take it directly from the camera.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
> is uncompressed AVI different than regular AVI? Because the camera put the clips on my computer in avi format.
AVI is just a file format. It’s a container for video (like a paper bag that you can put things into). AVI files can use different CODEC’s (e.g., DivX, DV, MJPEG, etc.). A CODEC is a Coder / DECoder combination. It encodes your video with compression to make it smaller and decodes the compression to get the original video back. Uncompressed video is simply video that doesn’t use a CODEC. This makes it extreme large because it is not compressed but it also makes it extremely compatible because there is no CODEC involved. So you can create an AVI file with any CODEC or you can just place the uncompressed video into it.
The reason I recommended making an uncompressed AVI is because the DivX codec seems to be causing a problem so removing the codec from the equation eliminates that problem. Huffyuv is another codec that you can use if the uncompressed AVI files are too large.
> It says the “media is offline” for a bunch of them when I went back a few hours ago to see.
That’s not good. “Media off-line” means that Vegas cannot find the files (or cannot read the files at all)
> But if I install the new version of DivX won’t I be in the same position with my video? I downloaded it in hopes it would fix the problem.
So you downloaded it but did not install it? I thought you installed DivX 6 and that’s when all the media turned black? Was that not what happened?
> I’m getting a little confused now. Let me see if I understand this correctly…
Sorry if I confused you. I was giving you multiple options to try and we probably should just take one option at a time.
- Download VirtualDub and install it.
- Open VirtualDub and drag and drop one of your camera videos onto it (you should now see the video in VirtualDub)
- Click File | Save as AVI… or press F7
- Give it a name and click Save
You should now have an uncompressed AVI file that you can drag and drop onto the Vegas timeline and render out and see if you still have the “jerking”.
If this works, the next step is to install Huffyuv and use that as a codec so that the AVI files are not so large. Then there is an extra step in VirtualDub of selecting the Huffyuv codec before saving (Video | Compression… or Ctrl+P and select Huffyuv v2.1.1)
> If I download those two programs can I keep DivX on my compute or will I still need to uninstall it?
You absolutely keep DivX on your computer. DivX is the codec that these programs need to decode your video. Without DivX installed you cannot use your videos at all.
> BTW, your site is awesome. I always wondered if there was a way to do a split screen in vegas. I didn’t even think there was a masking tool. Very cool!
Thank you. I wish I had more time to put up tutorials but I’m glad you found it useful.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
The image sequence script uses the timeline ruler format. If you have changed the timeline ruler format, you must specify the step time in a way that matches the ruler. For example, if you set your ruler to Measures and Beats then you must specify the step time in Measures and Beats.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
> I have various projects that I would love to use a “skewing” feature which Platinum addition doesn’t have. Is there a way that I can buy a unlock code for this or is there a way that I can get by with out it?
I have no idea what “skewing” is but you cannot unlock individual features. If this is something Vegas Pro has then you need to buy Vegas Pro.
> Also My camera manual states that the image coming out of the firewire port is better than the composite port. Is there an affordable way that I can convert the firewire to a more clearer composite signal or s-video for a live capture? (canon ZR900 consumer grade camera)
The firewire port is a bit-for-bit file transfer of the video from the miniDV tape. It is identical in every way and therefore the best quality that you can achieve. You can capture live right through the firewire port. There is no reason to ever use composite of s-video unless you want to playback the tape on a TV.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
It sounds like the latest version of DivX might have something to do with this. Do the clips play in the DivX player? You need to get them out of the DivX format. In addition to VirtualDub there is also a converter called “Super (c)” that will pretty much convert any video to any format. You might want to download Super and just render them to uncompressed AVI. They will be huge but they will work for this project.
I would also contact Samsung and ask them what software they recommend for editing the video from that camera. DivX is really a final delivery format and not something you want to be editing.
You could also see if the DivX installer set a System Restore point in which you could go back to before it was installed. Or try uninstalling and re-installing the previous version that you had.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com