[Nigel O’neill]

Stephen

Have you had any experience with or heard anything negative about the Datavideo DN-60 CF card recorder?

One thing Paul needs to be aware of is not to mix tape brands as some are based on a wet formulation and others, dry. I think Sony’s are wet and Panasonic’s and JVC’s are dry. If you find a brand you like stick to it.

I am starting to go tapeless. After 5.5 years (but only about 200 drum hours), my Z1P’s tape transport decided to cr*p itself without warning at the start of a live shoot last week. Luckily I had a B & C camera to cover my *ss. The repair cost is $550 for something that is likely to fail again in a couple of years, hence my interest in a DN-60 which costs the same. Without moving parts, it is unlikely to fail for a while, unless the camera or firewire connection develop a fault.

My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

I shoot all my weddings and events in HDV, even if I am delivering an SD DVD. I have found that in low light situations with HDV, much of the gain or noise gets ‘crunched’ down (I don’t know how else to explain it since that is how it was explained to me) when rendering the DVD, and is less noticeable than if the source footage was DV.

By shooting in HDV, it gives me the option to deliver in blu-ray discs or in files that can be played via a laptop with an HDMI connection. Even if I am delivering in SD only, I feel that there is a noticeable difference in image quality of the DVD if my source footage is HDV. If you add a lot of effects, do extensive colour correction, or do some minor cropping of your footage, starting with an HDV source is a better way to go. Your camera shoots HDV, so why not take advantage of it?

I have used NeatVideo to reduce noise. It can soften your video slightly, but it eliminates the speckle effect of excessive gain.

If your weddings are particularly long, you can use 2 pass VBR rendering to slightly improve the image quality.

I have used 83 minute Panasonic mini-DV tapes to shoot my weddings since 2006 without problems. I use the tapes for a maximum of two weddings, but use them for other unpaid work once they have done two weddings. Buying the Sony HDV tapes is a waste of money IMHO. The Panasonics cost AUD$8 each, and I usually go through about 6-8 at a wedding with 3 cameras running in a multi-cam shoot.

My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

I started out editing weddings as a freebie, and as a aside to my main IT job, then got a few paying gigs which led to some referrals that have helped maintain my ‘professional hobby’ status. Back then I was charging $1500 a wedding, with all the bells and whistles including a photo montage, highlights segment and the main event in a multi-cam shoot.

New software and cheaper hardware being released enables more people to adopt a DIY approach to event videography and editing. Great for the consumer, not so great for the try-hards such as ourselves trying to make a living or pocket money out of it.

I now do a lot of community work, recording and editing dance concerts, theatre performances and ice skating competitions, often to help the organisation such as scouts or ice skating teams raise money for future performance. I tend to relate it to events that involve my kids as well, which helps make it more enjoyable.

As mentioned by Theo, getting people to pay for work, especially relatives, is hard. What they need to realise is that cameras and editing equipment cost money to start with, and require constant maintenance and consumables i.e. more money.

I deliver multi-cam productions using 2-4 cameras (two of which are pro cameras from my wedding days). When I do charge ‘full price’, I adopt a per DVD charging model for these type of events of between $10 and $15 per DVD set as parents are unlikely to pay more. I often hear them say, “Don’t buy a DVD, you can copy mine”, which kind of defeats the whole fund raising purpose :-). I might get max 30 orders per gig, but I am usually there to record my child, and I would end up editing anyway. Might as well get paid to do it :-).

An area I am exploring now is community TV, which might lead to real commercial work. Who knows, I might be able to throw in my main job one day :-).

The day I stop is when I no longer enjoy it. I have been doing it since 2006, and wallet permitting, hope to be still doing it in 2026.

My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

[Terence Kearns] “With some projects, Vegas takes a long pause before responding to the mouse. This happens when I switch away from the application and come back.”

In your preferences, go to the General tab and UNTICK Close Media files when not the active application. When this check box is selected, files can be edited in external editors (audio, image, etc.) while they are contained in events on the Vegas Pro timeline.

That should speed up the swapping between Vegas and other applications

My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

[Trudi Mowll] “Thanks for getting me to bed before midnight tonight!”

For an editor, that’s considered an early night 🙂

My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

Vegas will not max out your CPU to 100% unless it is CPU bound. In your case, it is not, which is a good thing. You may not know it, but you can start up a second copy of Vegas whilst the first is rendering, given your system has sufficient capacity :-).

A maxed out CPU is a sign of an underpowered system, so you should be glad at what you are seeing. Your system looks quite happy with respect to CPU, memory and disk usage.

My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

My stutters transferred to the output

My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

You were very close to a possible solution. Disable (uncheck) audio track buffering under audio device

My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

No, you just download the 64 bit version of Vegas from the Sony web site. You can run both side by side without affecting your current project.

My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

Are you using a 32 bit or 64 bit operating system? The error relates to RAM (lack of it), not storage (your HDDs).

As I have a 64 bit operating system, I use Vegas Pro x64 which overcomes this limitation.

My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6