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What Happens in Vegas...
...stays in Vegas! This PC-based editing app is a safe bet with these tips.

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Old March 23rd, 2009, 05:28 PM   #16
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OK, I have almost certainly boiled this problem down to my computer and capturing in HD.

I get no errors, no warnings, but the end product comes out with what looks like dropped frames to me (Vegas reported none, but)... 1/2 frames, etc.

I am *not* getting away with capturing on the 800 Mhz box it seems.

I am new to this, but I am having a hard time believing that the software will go through all the paces and not warn or produce any errors, yet produce erroneous video clips.

The reason I think it is related to computing power is because on the 800 Mhz box, I captured by turning my Xh A1 to SD down-convert and captured one of the tapes I have been having consistent problems with in SD. Turning scene detection off I got one large .AVI clip and I have examined frames in that clip that are bad in the HD capture and they are fine.

So now I am off to find the portion of this site to figure out how I get to spend another $1000 I wasn't planning on just so I can capture video. It seems my dual core 2.4GHz/4GB Ram 32 bit Vista won't do it either so I need a bigger box. I think. I guarantee that whatever box I buy will be returned to the store the next day if it won't capture one large .mt2 file from my HD source.
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Old March 24th, 2009, 03:58 PM   #17
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umm, I use vegas daily as my sole editing app. I USED to use tapes, and sometimes it would come in one big clip. some times not. Its a mixed bag, thats the nature of tapes, and thats why I don't use them anymore. Instead of blaming VISTA for everything, try using it to capacity. Dave, your 2.4GHz box is plenty. As I said, all in how you use it, I have my laptop tweaked and running vista 32, and it works fine with vegas 8.0C. Here are a few tips for the best results. (Try 5 first)

*my lap top is Turion TL-56 (1.8GHz X2) with 2GB of RAM, and it works fine. I used the XH-A1 until it was lost in the flood.

1) Turn off the Aero interface, it hogs RAM and slows response time. Go to the classic interface.

2) increase the size of your page file. (go to Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings (in the left hand Payne) >Performance. Change it from system managed to custom size. If you can put the page file on a drive that isn't used when editing or importing then you will get the best results. In a crunch, the C drive will work just fine. You need to use the Gamers keystone. In otherwords, if you are running 4GB of RAM, you want your page file to be 2.5x that size (so 10GB). Restart the computer.

3) In your capture settings turn off scene detection, and anything that allows for failure. (i.e. fail on loss of focus, etc.) The only things I have checked are "simulate pixel aspect ratio" and "show video when FF or Rew". Set your RAM buffer for 25% to be safe.

4) When importing, it is often helpful to dedicate 1 core to importing if you plan to do anything else while its importing, like editing for example. (its possible)

5) This one is perhaps the easiest to try if you haven't already. If you are running a 64 bit system on a 64 bit core (likely with 4GB of RAM) then try vegas 8.1 It seems to fair MUCH better on the capture side of things. For editing, I get problems, but I think that's the program not Vista.

Try getting the VISTA SP2 RC (google it) and turn off all unnecessary programs. KEEP YOUR MACHINE CLEAN and it will treat you well. I recommend System Mechanic, just make sure you tweak the auto care settings to not run while you work.


* Current Rig - Custom Build AMD Phenom 9950 Quad Core 2.6GHz 4GB of RAM and 6TB of storage. ALL drives (including C) are on E-SATA for modularity. Blu-Ray Burner Running Vista Ultimate 64. Running Vegas 8.0C and Vegas 8.1 along with DVD Architect 5.
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Old March 24th, 2009, 08:05 PM   #18
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Joe, I wasn't sure whether to continue this discussion off-line or here, but, I'll add the following and then I'll try to capture again.

1) I had no idea what you meant about Aero so I googled it... do you turn it off by changing the theme? I assume it is not called Aero, but "Windows Vista" and I want to change it to "Windows Classic"

2) page file done.

3) I turned off the "fail on loss of focus" or whatever because one time during capture I got a popup from Apple asking if I wanted to update iTunes & QuickTime and of course my capture was aborted... However, I do have "fail on drop frames" and "when capture fails, stop batch capture" checked in addition to the ones you have checked.

4) this must be some sort of computer hanky panky I don't understand: dedicating a core to importing. I assume you mean to capturing, and, I don't know how to try it.

5) My box is a 32 bit box. It came with 2GB of ram but I tried 4GB because I was tired of running out of handles to open new windows (seems to be some sort of bug with IE tabbed browsing)... anyway, it didn't solve the problem.


So besides my questions above (? turn off aero, ? dedicate one core) I will go work on making sure I have the service pack for Vista and look into this System Mechanic thing.

I will note that while capturing, I don't even touch the computer. I disable the screen saver and just let it rip. As far as drives, I have a single drive in the box that the OS/apps/capture goes to. I know that's far from ideal (and learning more about it as I read through these forums). I am currently capturing to my c: drive and then moving the clips to a USB2 drive (Maxtor One Touch III 2TB Raid 0). After dropping the clips on a timeline and building peaks, of course. I got the impression that building peaks took longer if I had to do it from the Maxtor but this last time I did it all local and didn't seem to matter.

Now it seems to me after doing some reading that I could probably benefit from the following drive setups:

c: - os, program files, os page file
eSata drive for capturing video to
eSata drive for Vegas scratch disk
eSata -OR- my current USB2 drive for simply backing up my c: and capture disks

However, if I wanted to try to do this again to resolve my issues, does anybody know if I could/should try to capture from the camera straight to the USB2 drive? I wasn't sure if the performance would be fast enough, but, since the camera is coming in firewire and the drive is plugged in as USB (it can also go FireWire 400 or 800 but I figured if I used the F-400 it would use the same bus as the camera and possibly choke; i have no F-800 interface card at this time), it might work? While not being the ideal separation, it would at least separate the OS and page file from the file writes of the capture process.
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Old March 24th, 2009, 10:37 PM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Speer View Post
...does anybody know if I could/should try to capture from the camera straight to the USB2 drive? I wasn't sure if the performance would be fast enough...
Yes. USB2 is fast enough to cap DV or HDV. I've done both, so have many people. This should offer better performance than capturing to your c drive.
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Old March 25th, 2009, 08:03 AM   #20
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Aero is the fancy windows theme for vista with all the transparent glass and all that fun crap. When you switch to classic, it turns it off. Also under the performance tab (see page file) there is a visual effects option, change the radio button to "best for my computer". Core dedication is only if you want to capture and do something else at the same time. If your doing nothing else, you can leave it as it is, but I find one core dedicated tends to yield better results. You do this from the task manager, select the vegas instance you are running, right click>go to process. It will highlight Vegas8.0* Right click> Set affinity A box will pop up showing 2 cores, leave the one you want to use check marked. Doesn't matter which. This will set 1 CPU core for misc. crap, and leave one just for capture.

Also, Rule 1 about capture and edit...NEVER capture or edit from your C drive unless you have too. Its already pushing its read/writes just running. Any external will work since fire wire is on its own BUS. You should make sure you have your drives formatted to NTFS. Also, as house keeping, depending on how active you are, defrag and reformat often. I defrag about 1-2 times a month, and if my disk speeds are down, I reformat.

Solution to your IE problem...use firefox. Mozilla.org - Home of the Mozilla Project

With building peaks, in your preference menu, select "8-bit peaks" and "Build peaks for visible events only" and it will cut your time down quite a bit on peak building. Also, if you don't use the Dynamic RAM preview, in preferences under the video tab, set your DRAM buffer to 0 (default is 128). This will free up some extra memory.

The setup you have now is fine.

BTW, good call on not using the fire wire bus for a HDD and camera, it would most likely choke.

As for your RAM, a 32-bit OS only recognizes up to 3GB of RAM. Anything above that needs 64 bit software. You can try getting a flash drive and using ready boost, 4GB is max.

These tips won't make your editing box the prettiest, but it will coax everything out of her she can give. Ready boost memory isn't RAM, but it can free up a bit of space.

*The way to tell if its tape, or import process, green. When I was reconstructing tapes from a flood, I noticed any time I got dropout because of tapes, I would get green interference most often. Also, stuttering, and pixelation. If you see none of that...its not your tapes, or your camera heads.
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