Corrupted m2t files - help
 

So, having captured from the FX1 to m2t, editing Gear Shift proxies and then trying to switch back to the m2t's I got a bunch of red (and a few black) frames replacing the proxies, presumably representing corrupted files. The only thing I can figure is they were corrupted transferring over fire wire to my external hard drive. I guess I'm hosed and can't go back to HD with this project unless I recapture and edit. But the m2t files that are apparently corrupted I can still play and they look fine, I don't understand that (but there are many things I don't understand, so no big surprise).

Maybe my computer isn't up to par for HD? I'm using a standard notebook P4, 3GHz. I capture to my hard drive but then have to transfer to an external drive.

Anyway, does anyone have any advice on what I should do? Do I NEED a new computer? Maybe, I need to trade my FX1 for a SD Panasonic 100A, until HD is more idiot proof.

Exrernal Drive ?
 

I ve had trouble using USB 2.0 external drves, too. Have you tried using laptop drve or firwire drive?

I've not noticed this problem using the laptop drive the few times I've been doing small projects, but it's only 80Gb so impractical to keep the files on there long term.

I haven't tried transferring over a fire wire yet. Have you noticed better results doing this?

My drives are only usb. Next one will be FW

Ok, I ran a test. I captured HD with Vegas to my hard drive and transferred m2t files to an external hard drive over firewire, rather than USB 2. I then used Gear Shift to create proxies, edited and then "switched gears" back to m2t. Everything worked great. The video looks awesome.

On the assumption that transferring over the USB was the culprit in corrupting my files I am going to start my corrupted project over from scratch, recapture and reedit. Of course my test was only 20 events and 3 minutes of finished video, so it could just be coincidence that it worked while the USB 2 did not.

I'm surprised this issue hasn't come up more. I would've really liked to have know this a week ago. It would've saved me about 3 days worth of work. Oh well. Hopefully I have found the solution at least.

The worst. I just loaded a Veg with all of the m2ts on my computer hard drive and about half of the events on the timeline were red boxes again after I used gearshift to switch proxy for m2t. Explicative! So the problem isn't in USB transfer of files. Now what? I'm at a loss. There's got to be someone else out there besides Chris and I that are experienceing this problem or have found a solution. Is it just larger projects this happens in? The small test I did was perfect. My options are:

A. Get a new, more robust computer and hope the problem lies in my otherwise perfect running laptop.

B. Switch NLE's (but I really like Vegas!)

C. Sell my FX1 and get a Panny

how about
D) you convert your m2t to cineform avi's and edit them ... your system should be up to handling them ... you edit cineform files - no going back to m2t ...

What version of Vegas are you using? Make sure you update to Vegas 6.0d. There have been documented problems with Vegas having difficulty with projects that have too many M2T files on the timeline. How many do you have? You might want to contact Sony about this and see what they say.

~jr

Thanks for the feedback. I'll look into both of those solutions.


I am using Vegas 6.0c so I'll have to download 6.0d. The shortest timeline that I experienced problems with had 50 m2t files.

OK, strange. I download Vegas 6.0d and the when I shifted gears all of the m2t's were correctly replaced in a 50 event timeline and all but the last 5 in an 82 event timeline. Anyway, this suggests that it is a Vegas problem as Mr. Rofrano elluded to. Still working on that one.

As for converting m2t's to Cineform avi's I cannot for the life of me figure out how to do that. Many threads I've read mention dragging the m2ts to the timeline then "render as" Cineform HD. But I don't have that as one of my templates. Is it just the template that says HDV 1080i intermediate? Did they decide to drop the word Cineform?

Thanks

Dan, it's the HDV 1080i intermediate. Due to trademark issues, GearShift cannot say "CineForm" in it. But it uses the CineForm codec to create the avi's.

Thanks. That helps.

Can I ask one more stupid question?

If I have m2t's and the proxies and I want to now create the cineform intermediate can I then swap the proxies for the intermediate instead of the m2t? I am assuming the answer will be no, since it seems you probably wouldn't typically create a proxy and intermediate file, but rather one or the other. I'm just having a heck of a time with the m2t's and would like a back up plan in place before I edit any further, but anxious to get back to work on the project.

Sorry for the persistently dumb questions.

Yes. When GearShift does the swapping, it actually looks for intermediary files first (either CineForm or Sony YUV). If it doesn’t find them, then it looks for the M2T files. So if you started with M2T and DV proxies and then later created the intermediaries (either CineForm or Sony YUV) GearShift would now switch between the intermediary and the DV proxy. In that scenario you would have to place the intermediary files in the same directory as the DV Proxy files for it to work.

~jr

Wow. That's great news. That will save me so much time. Thanks.