Help a Neophite Editor
 

I am new to DVi and with fear and respect I would like to ask a few questions that I have been struggling with for a while. I took photography in college but really wanted to get into video & editing. It looked so hard. I have been reading most of the posts here @ DVi and has come to the conclusion it is hard. I do not have the money for more school but being a hard head I purchased Adobe Premiere/Matrox RTX100 with a custom editing suite and a Sony PD-150 camera. I have learned :) basic editing and can put together simple projects that have actually made me some money. It is the start of a dream come true. My problem is something is always going wrong with my equipment. I have had veteran production people look at my equipment and technique and say it is not user error just bad luck. My editor is the biggest problem so I saved up as much as I could to get a company to put whatever it takes to make it run efficiently with less crashes. They beefed it up and sold me Premiere CS3 and said it is up to professional standards. When I recaptured a project of my son’s military graduation the system wouldn’t work. I called the company and they told me I need an Matrox Axio that is about 5,000.00. I started crying. I went back to Adobe Pro and have had nothing but trouble and can’t get anything to work right. All I do is capture avi footage /drag on timeline w occasional slo-mo/ a few cross fades and add a track of music. As much as I would like to step out of the box and learn new techniques the system won’t let me. If you buy a book on AP it doesn’t relate with Matrox and visa versa. I have paid for tech help only to have Adobe say it’s a Matrox problem and Matrox say it’s an Adobe problem. As upset as I am I am not a quitter. I am going to sell the whole kit-n-caboodle and have a garage sale to start from scratch. Since I can’t find a reputable dealer that shows the pros and cons of different editing suites and cameras,I have attempted to research night after night and am pleading for some professional and knowledgable advice on the most stable NL editor I can get. So far from reading the forums I have been leaning towards Sony Vegas. Can Sony Vegas be used professionally? And for cameras I am not into HD but love the romantic film look. I would love to create as close to film look as I can afford. I was looking at the Panasonic DVX 100-A,B,P (whichever). I read it is smart to save your money and get HD 24p camera. I have been reading this forum a while and for super knowledgeable forumers that are way over my head everyone is sharp, polite and helpful. Please advise and I hope one day I can be a productive asset in helping someone too. Thanks.
By the way, my Sony PD-150's dial has been broken the day the warranty was over and I hae someone that will buy it for a fair price without me having to spend the money to ship it off to get fixed.

If the computer itself is spiffy, and your camera has firewire, you shouldn't have problems without using the matrox card. I still personally don't have a capture card, and I've been working with HD for a good bit now. They want to sell you something which might be helpful, but definitely is *not* required to use your computer to edit DV.

Carl

Hi Melissa and welcome to dvinfo.

1- Please use paragraphs (or white space) as it makes your post much easier to read.

2- I do not know the ins and outs of Premiere Pro and the Matrox RTX100, but I know that Premiere Pro by itself should be able to do what you need. So if you uninstalled the Matrox and just used Premiere by itself, that should do what you want. As far as getting the RTX100 working... I wouldn't know much about that other than it gives some people a lot of headaches.

3- Professional work is being done on both editing apps (Vegas and Premiere).

Personally a prefer Vegas but depending on your needs (e.g. what features you need, whether you need the money)... it may or may not make sense to switch. Overall I've found Vegas to be definitely more stable, but I don't really use Premiere.

Hi Melissa............
 

Ah, the great "DV is as easy as falling of a log" tale of woe and despair. I can sympathise wholeheartedly, having had two entire systems that simply would not work for/ with DV/ HDV.

Given where you currently are, and in order to keep additional expenditure to a minimum, may I suggest the following?

The Matrox cards can be extremely problematical if installed in a system not conforming to Matrox's pretty tight system specs. They can be problematical even IF installed etc etc.

Given that you really don't NEED the Matrox system to do DV, why not (if it is feasible) find someone who really knows their way around a PC.

Then, get them to remove the Matrox card from the system and re - load the O/S (Win XP SP2?) from scratch. Basically a complete system re - build, ensuring that all device drivers are up to date Microsoft Certified.

Re - load only those applications absolutely necessary for daily working. Lastly, re - load your editing software of choice. Ensure every patch and update for all apps are also downloaded and applied.

Check out the Adobe web site for the Adobe product you have chosen and check out the support section - you will find a number of articles there on configuring a PC to take the best advantage of the system and ensure as few glitches as possible during editing etc. Ensure you adhere to these guidlines.

If the system is now not functioning to an acceptable level, hold your garage sale.

I'm confident by the time you get to the end of the above list, we will have heard lots more from you.

As for changeing cameras at this point, well, yes, but untill your editing woes have been put behind you, you won't be able to do anything with the footage. Get your editor working first, then we'll talk about diving into other waters.


CS

I'm sorry I posted wrong. I will do better, thanks. The company that I had build my system

told me that I was crazy and defeating the purpose of taking off Matrox. Matrox is the

reason why I can edit in real-time. That of course is if you use Matrox effects or

transitions. To be honest this is not the first time I have had trouble with Adobe but every

source I know which is limited says it is the best most stable. I feel that I have given

Adobe all the chances I can afford and would ask everyone’s opinion on Sony Vegas.

From the bottom of my heart I want to thank all of you that took the time to answer me. I

am so excited to be a part of this forum. I hope I don’t over exhaust my welcome:)

P.S. I do LOVE photoshop and am pretty efficient with that. I hope that I can still use it if

I go with Vegas. I am open to any PC based software, hardware NL editing solution, not

just Vegas.

Thank y'all....

Melissa...

Ten years ago, I went thruthe exact same issues you're writing about. After struggling with Premiere for about 2 years, lockups, crashes, et al, I finally made the switch to Vegas. I've been editting on Vegas ever since. Go download a free trial of the software. It's intuitive, rock solid, and very user friendly. I can't say enough about it. One of the best features is that it doesn't depend on third party hardware for it to work. If you want real time preview, Vegas will give it to you in RAM preview. Otherwise, with a fast machine, Vegas is close to real time.

if you build on clean and discrete components, there is usually no problems.
when you start to make some components depends on others, problems start.
if you get a decent computer (intel bi or quad cpu, at least 2 gig of ram, big sata drive for video, another one for the OS, a standard recent graphic card like nvidia GE serie) there should be no problem.
you can buy such pc for cheap (less than 1500$) at DELL or HP.
then you can add the software.
Editing standard video with recent machine is no problem. You do not need special cards (requiring special PC, graphic card, OS version, editing software).
if you need to go HD, add cineform software, and keep all the rest as is.
These so called accelerator cards are a nightmare, always a driver late, uncompatible with many hardware and software etc.... and at each OS change/update, you discover you have to buy a new card or purchase an upgrade that cost more than your PC.

you better will put your money in a nice 24" screen, a decent set of 5.1 speakers, a bit more of memory (3 gig is nice, 2 is minimum, more is not very usefull), a printer that can print DVD, an additional 500Gig SATA drive.

Well, First item would be to establish a budget....
That would include a new Computer, upgraded Software and
a new Camera....

The new Dell computers are very well built for off the shelf type...

I bought the Dimension E520 ( loaded ) for the wife.... its done a wonderful job... with the Adobe suite.... If you have the budget then get a loaded
Dell Presision 390 Quad

A decent price...

You can get the Adobe suite for a good price if you are a student or have a student around... you can look at prices at journeyed.com

If you liked the PD150 and might want to move to HD... a nice HD camera that also has 24P film like capability is the Canon HV20

To make it easier on yourself and the computer... you'll want to invest in
Cineform Software to handle the HD footage...

6 or 7 years ago, I got introduced to Premiere when I bought a Pinnacle ProOne editing board to do the same things they are telling you about Matrox today. It gave me real time transitions. By three years ago, processors, memory, and video cards virtually eliminated the need for editing boards on the standard definition side of editing. I finally dumped the board. In the process a lot of those transitions that worked real time but never quite edited quite right went the way of the board, and I ended up with standard transitions... they worked fine.


By the way, most of the those fancy transitions never were used anyway. They were gimicks..

I have Premiere Pro 2.0 now. It will handle anything you PD150 can send it. If you are still having problems, I suspect it is hardware/driver issue.

By the way, I also have Vegas 8, and love to edit in that. But I don't think you will find it as easy to use as Premiere. It has a different feel and approach to the editing process, that I initially had issues with when I started with it. I had to force myself to stay with it, and from your post, I am not sure you have the patience for that at this point.

Thanks for everyone’s help and info. I found Vegas Movie Studio+ DVD for cheap so I bought it and I must say that so far it is a breath of fresh air.

It is a different interface but I was amazed at how easy and smooth it worked. I used effects and color correction and all kind of goodies and eye candy just for fun and it didn’t bog, lock or give any error messages. Hopefully it has a good quality slo-mo. If the quality of a finished project is close to excellent I will be ecstatic.

I also saw a learning program just for Vegas which was a big problem I had with Premiere in conjunction with the Matrox card. There were either Premiere books or Matrox books but not both

Vegas worked on my 3.2 GH Intel w/ Nividia GeForce 256MB graphic card and 2 Gigs of Ram as well as my simple home computer that can’t run Call of Duty.

I'm only using Movie Studio 6, but I think I will purchase the upgrade to Pro 8. I won’t have to spend another 5 grand they want to add to the 6 grand I already spent on a new system.

If I did not register Premiere CS3 yet am I allowed to sell it?

MK :)