Stephen Mann
Forum Replies Created
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Do you have “Adjust source media to better match project or render settings” selected (default)?
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
It’s not.
Show me a Hollywood DVD that does it and I’ll tell you how it’s done.
The way Hollywood (and I) make DVD menus is that the indicator/pointer, whatever you want to call it, is a button overlay mask. You can put the overlay mask anywhere you want, and each buttons’ mask can be different.
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
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I recall seeing a “making of” video about JP. They actually did shake the coffee. And the pond was really shaken with a sledge hammer just out of the shot.
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
I verified the behavior you demonstrated. I never noticed it because that’s not the way I apply transitions. I overlap the events exactly where I want the transition to take place, then drag the transition FX to the overlap area. Works perfectly.
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
I am always willing to try new media here. Besides, there’s likely an AVCHD camera on my horizon. It’s getting difficult to find HDV any more and I can’t justify the cost of 10-bit HD.
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
Prime95 and Memtest just break your computer. If Prime95 crashes, it’s likely a thermal issue because the processor and memory run pedal to the metal. If you watch your processor temperatures while it’s running, you should see your processor getting really hot: https://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/
Memtest reads and writes every bit in every installed RAM chip on your PC. If it errors out, it will try to tell you which memory stick failed.
Driver Detective looks at every device driver on your PC and compares it’s version to the latest information they have from the hardware manufacturer. If it finds out of date drivers, it offers you a link to download the latest. Be sure to make a Windows Restore Point before you update drivers. This way, if newer drivers makes things worse, you can always go back to what you had previously.
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
[Al Bergstein] “…could you clarify your hardware, versions, types of video input and output and general workflow. I say this in all sincerity.”
Let’s try.
My editing PC is an HP Pavilion, AMD Phenom 9650Q Quad-core processor. 8Gb of RAM. Boot drive is an off-the-shelf 100Gb SATA drive. Display card is a cheap Radeon running two Dell 20-inch monitors and a Plugable USB -> DVI display dongle for the third Dell 20-inch display.My projects all reside on their own 500Gb or 1Tb SATA drive in a USB desktop port. I don’t have any RAID storage but it may be time to build an NAS RAID box since hard-disk drive prices are coming down.
99% of my work is in HDV
I am happy to be the guinea pig and I upgrade my Vegas version as soon as SCS releases them, and I’ve never been sorry. I am using Vegas 10d, BCC7 and NewBlue FX plug-ins.
I usually encode to MPEG2/AC3 for SD DVD distribution, but I also encode to AVCHD for Web distribution.
I don’t have an AVCHD camera, so I don’t normally use AVCHD on the timeline. If you wish to make a 30-second test clip for me, I’ll try to break my installation for you. (Or any other format giving you trouble). See my note about Dropbox at the bottom of this post.
I have edited some footage that was h.264 in a MOV file, but I don’t know the source. I did install the Avid DNxHD CODEC when one client insisted that they could ONLY import h.264 in a MOV file into their Mac. (I suspect that they were using iMovie). The only format that I transcode is DiVX – which is a disaster.
Here’s some general tips:
1) Don’t overclock your PC until it is rock-solid stable. Vegas is a program that pushes your hardware to the wall.
2) Install as much RAM as your motherboard will support.
3) Never, ever install a CODEC pack. You will almost certainly overwrite some of the excellent CODECS provided by Sony.
4) Here’s a program (Prime95) that you can run to stress the hell out of your system:
https://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=205
Prime95 has a feature called “Torture Test” that allows maximum stress testing on the CPU and RAM. There are several options allowing the stress test to focus on the memory, processor, or a balance of both. Usually Prime95 will detect an error within a matter of minutes if your PC is not stable, however many people like to let the system “burn-in” overnight to ensure long-term stability. The benefit of this version is that it is multi-threaded and will automatically manage worker threads to fully stress all cores of your CPU.
5) Run Memtest86 (https://www.memtest86.com/download.html). Even if your computer *appears* to be working, you may not have stressed it hard enough to fail – until you run Vegas, which is very CPU and Memory intensive. Memtest hits every bit in every RAM chip installed in your PC.Every few months I run DriverDetective (https://www.drivershq.com/) to keep my drivers up to date. What a lot of people don’t realize is that programs can and will call subroutines (processes) contained inside a driver. If your video device driver was written before the AVCHD format existed, you should expect problems.
If you want to send a large file, I recommend Dropbox.
Dropbox is one of those handy inventions where the more you use it, the more you come up with reasons to use it. Dropbox is a cloud-based file sharing service that syncs file across all your computers. It works with files (video, graphics, text, anything) of any size, and it syncs automatically whenever a new file appears or a change is detected. Best of all, it’s free for a 2GB account. Just put the file into the public folder in “My Dropbox”, right click on the file, select “dropbox” and “Copy Public Link”. This puts the public link of the file into your clipboard. Send me this link and I’ll get the file.Get your free Dropbox here and we both get an additional 250 MB:
https://db.tt/KCWoOtsHope all this helps.
SteveSteve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
There really isn’t one ring to rule them all. You need to pick the proper CODEC and profiles for the destination.
If you *really* want to go deep, there is a long discussion of YouTube quality on the Sony website. If you are serious about getting the best possible quality on YouTube, read this: https://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?Forum=4&MessageID=766721
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
[Gilles Gagnon] “Got it! Thanks Stephen. I thought there was more to BD than capacity.”
There is, but it is way above our pay grade. To get to all of the really cool stuff in Blu-Ray, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BD-J
DVDA does not support BD-J, but they do make a product that does: https://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/bluprint
The price? Remember, this is way above our pay grade. (If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.) But the retail price of BluRay is $50,000 per copy.
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com