[John Rofrano]

As Mike pointed out, you want to add the Timecode FX to the Master Video Bus above the Preview Window:

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

This usually happens when you don’t have the QuickTime codec installed that the file requires. VLC ships with it’s own codecs and does not rely on system codecs. Vegas Pro uses the system’s QuickTime codecs so you need to determine what codec the file uses and install it.

As Paul said, MediaInfo can tell you what codec the file needs as will the QuickTime Player under the Inspector menu.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

You’re welcome. Glad I could help.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

[Amanda Duffield] “I know vasst will import the text and choose the line breaks itself. This is not using any kind of sound/sync is it? I presume it’s using some kind of english rules to find where to break mid-sentence?”

If you are referring to VASST Caption Assistant, it is not doing any audio sync. It is a tool for you to drop the captions in the right place as you watch the video. It uses some simple English rules for suggesting initial line breaks but you can change them very easily.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

[Gerry Fraiberg] “I don’t work in broadcast (although I did for many years in radio), and was wondering what the benefit would be for web and/or DVD delivery. Anyone?”

Well having a meter that measures loudness as perceived by humans ears as apposed to using one that simply measures instantaneous signal level is certainly helpful. The bigger questions is what level should you use for different media delivery? While broadcast is regulated to -23 LUFS or -24 LUFS (depending one which side of the pond you live on) that is a grossly inadequate level for media players which can’t produce a loud enough volume in a noisy environment so you must meter to louder levels like -16 LUFS for mobile audio. Having said that, unless someone is going to measure and reject your work unless you are compliant, there is no real need for a loudness meter. (we’ve been masting audio for decades without them) I’ve mastered several seasons of a PBS show as the finishing editor using an RMS meter and never had my audio rejected. The FCP X Multimeter shows RMS readings. I use the free Voxengo SPAN plug-in to monitor RMS. (Important note: FCP X effects are pre-fader so changing the volume on a clip will not affect the meter.)

I guess the real question that you are asking is, “does it matter for web” and the answer is: No, not really! On the web you are competing with music from CD’s that are compressed and mastered “as loud as it can be” without distorting so most video delivery on the web will target -0.1dbFS peaks with no way of measuring average volume. For web delivery, I use a Brick Wall Limiter on my audio set to -0.3 dbFS and then I master for what sounds right for the content of the video. For broadcast I set the BWL to -10dbFS and target a -24 RMS. For DVD you probably want to use the broadcast standards so that your DVD is the same volume as other TV content.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

The normal permissions for that file on my macOS 10.12.3 Sierra Mac are:

-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   1.4K Aug 11  2016 com.apple.backupd-auto.plist

so it does look writable by root, but I have found that sometimes you need to copy a protected file to a place that you can write to it, change it, and them move it back like this:cp /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto.plist ~/Desktop
open ~/Desktop/com.apple.backupd-auto.plist
sudo mv ~/Desktop/com.apple.backupd-auto.plist /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/But I did a little Googling and found this interesting post on superuser.com that says that starting with OS X 10.9.0 Mavericks (which I believe you have), Apple changed the scheduling of background tasks to be managed by XPC Services, so instructions for earlier versions of OS X no longer work. I’m not sure what you are trying to accomplish but the post gives an example where the following commands will cause Time Machine to run every 3 hours on average, up from the standard 1 hour:
sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'set :LaunchEvents:com.apple.xpc.activity:com.apple.backupd-auto:Interval 10800' /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto.plist
sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'set :LaunchEvents:com.apple.xpc.activity:com.apple.backupd-auto:Delay 10800' /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto.plist
sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'set :LaunchEvents:com.apple.xpc.activity:com.apple.backupd-auto:GracePeriod 5400' /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto.plistSo it looks like just editing the file isn’t enough anymore. Hope that helps.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

[Chris Johnson] “yes – also, tried it in thirds and still had issues.”

If you render in 3rds, does it stutter half way through each 3rd or does it stutter at the same 1/2 way point on the timeline?

I’m wondering if there is a point on the timeline that it start and what is at that point? (i.e., what media, what FX)

Also, Try replacing the ExpressFX with the regular Vegas Pro effects (e.g., use the regular Delay instead of ExpressFXDelay). This shouldn’t make a difference but you never know. Just tossing out random things to try. It’s very odd that audio would start to stutter in the middle of a render. I’ve certainly never had it happen to me.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

Are you using the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Vegas Pro 9.0?

What audio FX are you using?

What if you render just the second 50% by itself? Does that stutter?

I’m trying to determine if the stutter happens because of something at the 50% mark or if the time it takes to get to 50% is making it stutter. if the latter, rendering in sections and then piecing it back together might help.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

[Mark Ryan] “Do you have any thoughts on what would normally be the best method/s for converting Sony MXF to MP4?”

I’ve never used Handbreak with Vegas Pro so I can’t say. Why don’t you use Sony AVC or MainConcept AVC to create your MP4 files? Those are the two MPEG4 AVC/H.264 codecs that come with Vegas Pro. I use MainConcept AVC if it’s for the web.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

[David Mathis] “All media would be on same drive but with a folder for each event on the drive. For example, one folder would be for sound FX while another folder would be for footage.”

This is what FCP X does already.

A Library is package folder on your Mac. You can look inside of it by right-clicking and selecting Show Package Contents

Each Event in a Library is implemented as a Folder under that Library folder so FCP X is already keep the media from each Event in separate folders for you within the Library. The original media is in a subfolder of the Event folder called “Original Media”. Rendered files and Transcoded Media have their own subfolders as well. Everything is organized into folders under each separate Event in the Library.

For example: If you had a Library called “My Big Project” with three events called “Footage”, “Sound FX”, and “Music”. The folder structure of your Library would look like:
─ My Big Project
├── Footage
│   └── Original Media
├── Sound FX
│   └── Original Media
└── Music
└── Original Mediaand all of the media would be in their respective Original Media folders under their individual Event folders.

You can, of course, keep all of your media external from the Library but then it’s your job to keep them in the proper folders on the filesystem. I prefer to have the Library manage that for me.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com