Glen,

Find out WHAT he is using to play it. If it's not the program that prints it to tape, make sure he tries it there. Windows Media Player can definitely give some incorrect results.

Testing methodology: 1 hour program, about 10 minutes needs rendering.


PIII 750 MHz, 256 Meg RAM, 7200 RPM drive
PTT render only the changed sections: about 50 minutes
Full render to new AVI: about 1.5 hours


PIV 2.8GHz, 1 Gig RAM, 5400 RPM drive
PTT render only the changed sections: about 15 minutes
Full render to new AVI: about 1 hour

Connecting a 7200 RPM drive to via firewire to this computer also speeded up access tremendously.

My conclusion is tht the drive speed DOES make a difference BUT it depends on how may effects and CPU speed as well.

I Want To Tell My Captured Files Where To Go!
 

How do I set up V4 so that captures go to
the file of my choosing. Poked around in
V4 capture and didn't see how to set this
up.

Dave,
Open Vidcap (click on the camera in the media bin), click on options at the top, then click on preferences at the bottom, click on the disk management tab, click on add folder, locate the folder on your hard drive and click okay, then check the box in front of that folder to make it active. Your captured vid's will go there. Don't forget to name the tape so all of your clips will begin with that tape name and a number in order of capture. Hope this helps.
Randy

Thanks, Randy, that did the trick.

My pleasure. Merry Christmas!
Aloha,
Randy

It's very simple. If the rendering of each frame takes longer than writing that frame to disk, higher disk speed is not going to affect your rendering times. The DMA controller is sent data and then takes over and writes the data independently of the CPU. If the DMA controller is ready for more data before the CPU is ready to give it more, it's not going to benefit from any HD speed increase.

So, yes rendering time is unlikely going to benefit directly from faster hard drives. Would I still encourage everyone to get the fastest disks they can get? Absolutely! All program loading times are quicker, all file read/writes are quicker, and most importantly, all virtual memory read/writes are faster. If you're doing DV, you're going to have huge files, and you're going to be needing to move them, process them, manipulate them etc. You're going to want the fastest drive you can get.

speed is also determined by the amount of dives you have instaled and how your rendering ios configured...

I have a "raw" drive, its a WD 120gb with 8mb cache..
i then use the a drive of teh same model for my master renders...
The temp drive directory is a partition of my main sustem drive.
and the main application ois on the system drive

in effect i using 4 seperate drives (3 physical) for rendering.


this saves ALOT of time, as you have one drive controlling eveything, then you have the temp drive housing the prerendered frames, then you have a read only drive (raws) then the writing drive.

Using a P4 2.4 without HT, and 1gb Corsair DDR 3200 onan abit it7 max 2 series 2 mobo, i usually get my rendering flying at about 1/4 realtime (a little faster actually) if no effects are being used. basically 1 hour and a half takes abotu 15 minutes... transtiions add about 10 minutes...

When using Widescreen mask, colour correction, or basically any effect or transitions, it is usually 8 times slower than realtime.

Today i did a 1 hour render of a wedding using
Widescreen mask,
Colour correction,
titles
frame positionin of almost all clips using track motion
slow mo
bump map
gausian blur
b&w
blur
glow
convolution
and afew others i cant remember right now

this took about 8 hours and 16 minutes and left me with a 13gb file.. ALL frames were redrawn...

with a HT CPU, you can cut about 20% of the render time...

this is all this AVI output, obviously mpg2 would take longer (about 20 or so hours)

There are also a couple of other "file locations" you need to change. Under File - Properties and Options - Preferences in Vegas is a couple of other file locations which should be changed from the default.

I have a lot of the configuration options, including these, explained in my newsletter http://www.jetdv.com/tts

More performance tests- memory timings and bandwidth
 

Your RAM has timings that can affect performance. RAM timings are most conveniently represented as a string of numbers. The best is 2-2-2-5. The worst is 3-4-4-8. These numbers represent the four most important timings. There are some others but they aren't too important.

Long story short, RAM timings don't seem to have any impact on rendering times. I tested 3-4-4-8 versus 2-3-2-5 and saw no difference. RAM timings make a 20% in winRAR compression and around a 2% difference in games, but for Vegas they don't seem to make any difference. It's possible RAM timings make a 2% difference but the performance increase would be very underwhelming. You probably can't feel any performance difference that's less than 10%.

Memory bandwidth

By changing the memory dividers on my computer, I can lower the frequency at which the RAM runs. Some computers run the RAM at a memory divider (i.e. the computer is runs 800mhz front side bus while the ram is DDR333). The effect of the lower RAM speed is less memory bandwidth. Instead of 1.6GB/s bandwidth I'm getting either 1.28GB/s or 1.06GB/s. All these speeds are absurdly fast. Running at a divider also kind of lowers the memory timings since the front side bus and the memory have to be in sync before anything can happen. The 3:2 divider makes the memory be in sync more often than the 5:4 divider.

Results (rendering out shadow.veg from "marker" 2 to 1)
No divider (1.6GB/s) :46, :46, :46
5:4 divider (1.28GB/s) :47, :47, :46
3:2 divider (1.06GB/s) :47, :47, :47
(3:2 divider with low/fast timings) :48, :47, :47

The results aren't very exact but as you can see, memory bandwidth barely makes a difference. The last test I ran to see if tight timings (2-3-2-5 versus 2.5-4-4-8) would make the 3:2 divider as fast as no divider. The results show that it is slower, but keep in mind that there's variation in Vegas rendering speeds. I could measure the difference more accurately but it seems to me there's little point. The performance difference is just too small to care about!

Please note that I'm running single channel RAM, which is slower that dual channel RAM. Dual channel RAM would generally show the same thing: tight timings and memory bandwidth doesn't matter that much.

Keep in mind that these results only apply to Vegas on a Pentium processor. Other programs and processors will have different results. For benchmarks of other programs, see "Choosing Optimal Memory to Match Intel Pentium 4 Processor" http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mem...ay/p4-mem.html.

Machine specs:
Pentium 2.6 800FSB hyperthreading
Asus P4P800 (FSB=200.5X4), i685PE chipset, MAM and Turbo on AUTO
PMI RAM 1X512MB
winXP Service Pack1a
Vegas 4.0c

Actual memory bandwidth:
1519MB/s (no divider, SPD/default 2.5-4-4-8 timings)
1641MB/s (no divider, 2-3-2-5 timings)
1226MB/s (5:4, SPD/default timings)
1082MB/s (3:2, SPD/default timings)

-----------
While running the tests I did find out that Folding@home causes a noticeable hit to performance (15-25%ish). Folding@home is a distributed computing project which uses your computer's "unused" CPU cycles to simulate how proteins fold.

Interesting information. Thanks for taking the time to test and to post.

Vegas 4 Uncompressed file LIMIT!!
 

HI! Can anyone pretty PLEASE tell if if there is a way to increase the maximum file size when rendering an uncompressed file from the Vegas timeline? I need the answer by tonight if possible! THANKS EVERYONE!

-Matt :)

What file format system are you using? Right click your HD in explorer and check properties. FAT has certain limits. There are 2 FAT formats which have 2GB and 4GB limits.

2- WHich windows are you running?

3- How big is your uncompressed file going to be?

Render to an NTFS formatted drive volume.

Out of curiosity, WHY render to uncompressed? The main time this is necessary is when sending video to something like After Effects and then only small sections are usually necessary.

Depending on the purpose of the file, you *may* be able to use the frameserver software at http://www.debugmode.com

Second Monitor; The New World; Tubes-be-gone?
 

Assume for the moment that we are editing video destined for those with DLP projection TVs, LCD projection TVs, plasma displays, or front projection TVs (i.e. projectors in the real sense), some at regular NTSC-like resolutions but more often these TVs will be HDTV resolution.

Also assume we're not filming with an HD camera, but are using 16:9 upconverts from 4:3 (still not at HD resolutions though -- such as using an anamorphic adaptor on a 4:3 camera).

What should we use as a good second monitor during editing? No need to worry about legal signals; no need to worry about many NTSC standards? What about a 17in widescreen LCD computer monitor? What calibration tools would you want built into the display?

What you describe is pretty much what I just did. I used a combination of computer animation and real video shot in 16:9 with a Sony PDX-10 (which has native 16:9 which would be comparable to the anamorphic adaptor you mention). We projected the results on a 40' wide screen using a 10,000 lumen Barco SLM-R10 DLP projector. I didn't do any upconverting to HD however, the projector does that internally (it has a native resolution of 1024x1280 I think).

For editing I used a 17" Sony SDM-V72W LCD monitor which is a 16:9 screen with a 1280x768 resolution. When I got it several months ago it was in the $700 to $800 range, but I think they're cheaper now. I really like this screen; it has inputs for VGA, s-video and component video. The s-video looks pretty good, but you get the best results driving it with component. I send DV from FCP over firewire to a Sony RDR-GX7 DVD recorder, and it transcodes to component video.

Now I have to say that the image on the 17" LCD screen was a very good approximation of what I really saw on the big screen with the DLP projector. In fact, we had a good Sony broadcast monitor up in the projection booth for previewing the video, and it really didn't look that much like the image on the projection screen (caveat: I made no attempt to calibrate that monitor). But I think you're on the right track about using an LCD screen for your application.

Just yesterday I was wandering through Best Buy (boy, that was a mistake so soon after Christmas ;-) and saw a Sharp 17" screen that seemed to have good specs, same resolution as the Sony but 600:1 contrast ratio (the Sony is 500:1). The Sharp also had a built-in TV tuner. No idea how good it looks though, but the price was $700.

Sony has just come out with a line of professional LCD screens that look very nice although $$$$. I'm sure this would be the way to go if you can spend a lot of money.

I'm not sure what you're talking about with "calibration tools built into the display"? Do you mean controls for brightness, contrast, color, sharpness, etc? They should all be available. I "calibrate" my display using NTSC color bars fed from my NLE, then used a primary blue color filter to adjust as per these instructions.

Now I note that you're actually posting this to the Vegas forum. I would think my comments are generally true as long as you're using firewire (IEEE 1394) to send output to either a camcorder or other converter which will feed s-video or component video to the screen. But I really don't know anything about Vegas or other PC software since I'm using a Mac. Seems to me that I've read other posts about colors appearing too dark on the PC screen in Vegas. If that's true then you probably wouldn't want to drive the external monitor with a PC graphics card (unless of course that's also how you're going to drive your projector).

Hope this gets you started in the right direction.

Boyd what terrific help. Thanks!

There are plenty of reasons to render uncompressed. It might be used in AE or 3DS Max, or something like that. It may be an odd resolution and you want a near-lossless compression but DV will only work at 720x480. I'm sure there are other possibilities.

Vegas+DVD help!
 

Building my first menu-based DVD with DVD Architect. Ran into some snags when I went to "optimize and burn". It's comprised of two clips- the main feature (56 minutes long), and the extras reel (roughly 13 minutes long). Video encoded at 7mb/sec constant, all audio encoded AC-3.

It is trying to recompress the main feature. I know it's compliant because I used the DVDA template to encode it. When I create a new project and just drop the main feature in the menu it's fine and doesn't report having to recompress. However as soon as I go and add a sceen selection- menu, despite still having plenty of room on the DVD it reports having to recompress all the pages of the sceen select menus (assuming it's for the thumbnails) including the original mpg2 it'self.
I went and tried adding the "extras reel" and inserted a sceen selection menu for that (beings it has 3 chapters)- that, oddly enough, works fine. It doesn't ask me to recompress the original clip once the sceen selection pages are up. The only difference between the "extras" and the "main" clip are the extras was encoded using the default bit-rate settings. The "main" clip was encoded at 7mb/sec constant.

Why would adding a sceen selection menu cause the original mpg2 to have to be recompressed?!

Another oddity
 

Another thing it messes up on...

I'm using a short 20second video clip as the background for the main menu, set to loop. Tested it and it loops fine. As soon as I add an audio file it stops looping. It hits the end of the clip and goes black as the audio play on.

Is there a way to have a 20 second clip loop as a 3 minute song plays out?

#1: It's trying to recompress after you add the second piece because the second piece is making it too large to fit on the DVD. Try doing the initial encoding at 6 instead of 7.

#2: The background video and audio MUST be the same length. Otherwise, the video will go to black until the audio finishes. Then they will both start over.

It just seems that in most cases, people who "say" uncompressed really mean "DV-AVI". Bottom line, with NTFS, the file size limit on an uncompressed file should be the size of the hard drive.

Ed...regarding #1 thats what I thought. Though if I *only* place the "main" clip on the first menu and only add a sceen selection from that it still looks to re-encode the original clip. Even though I'm only using 89% of the DVD capacity!

if you are out of HD space for those HUGE uncompressed clips you might try rendering out to a QT uncompressed using the animation codec ( at 100% it is 4:4:4:4- less then 100% it is 4:2:2)
20mgs vs 30mgs (uncompressed ) .. for even smaller LOSSLESS 4:4:4:4 clips try out the microcosm codec clip size approx 6-8mgs vs 30mgs uncompressed ...

for more on codec's

http://www.onerivermedia.com/

then click on CODEC resources -excellent info/test on codec's

Is it possible the scene selection menu is putting you over the limit? If it doesn't want to reencode without the scene selection menu, it obviously thinks it is encoded properly for DVD. The only other reason I know of is that it's too big. You said your main menu had a motion background an music. It *could* be that the second menu is just pushing it over the limit.

Star Wars Effect
 

To solve this problem I re-encoded the main peice at the *default* perameters set by the DVD Architect template. I believe it's variable bit-rate (high-8mb, average 6, low 1.8) is this ok? Will it make static shots like black backgrounds with a white logo look bad beings it isn't in motion thus causing it to render with less of a bit-rate? I rendered a short sceen a while back using the default perameters and it looked fine- I just figured I'd ask about the static text etc. As always thanks for your help!

That should be fine. I always use VBR with a high of 8,000,000, low of either 2,000,000 or 192,000 (depends on which template I use), and vary the average depending on length which I use at 6,000,000 or less.

Static text will be rendered at a really LOW bitrate because nothing is changing. Action scenes need a really HIGH bitrate.

I was just worried that the text would use such a low bitrate it would affect the look of it, adding aliasing to the edges.

For Edward T.
 

Hi Edward,
I lost your email address so I figured this to be the best way to contact you.

As you know I use Vegas4 BUT I don't have DVDA and I am looking for a new DVD program. I figured that since I'm already using V4 I should at least think about using DVDA BUT I can't find it anywhere as a standalone. Any thoughts as to where I might be able to get DVDA or am I out of luck?
Thanks as always and Happy New Year,
Don B.

Should not be a problem - especially with static text.

DVDA is not available as a standalone. You have to "upgrade" from Vegas to Vegas+DVD. I'm not exactly sure of the price but believe it's around $300. Remember that the $300 also includes the AC-3 5.1 encoder which is priced at $280. So, you are effectively getting DVDA for $20.


Also, check your e-mail.

more on Architect
 

Hello,

Ok, getting back to doing a DVD, pretty simple one with a main menu which has 2 menu buttons..figured out how to have the button chnage colors when it is selected.. but here is a question.. When I get to the main menu, one of the buttons is always "selected" (the color has changed on it).. is there a way to not have one of the buttons selected, until I select it, and then see it change colors???

thanks,
mike m.

No. The FIRST button will always be activated as soon as the menu appears. By first button, I mean the first one that was added (or the one that was made #1 by changing the order manually).

How do I split up the clip into frames(.png) for S-Spline Pro?
 

I want to use S-Spline Pro for enlargement, and to do that I need to be able to split up the 30 frames into 30 pics (png format)

Is there a script that will do this?

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=18110
more info here

Yes there is. Go to the same web page where updates are downloaded from and get the vegasscripts.zip file. Inside this zip file is a script named RenderImageSequence.js which will save a series of stills. Click on "Vegas Sample Scripts" at this link:

http://www.mediasoftware.sonypicture...p2.asp?DID=447

As a second alternative, many people use the frameserver software at http://www.debugmode.com to frameserve to VirtualDub and use it to save the actual frames as pictures.

How to synch sound of a MiniDisc to an allready Edited video
 

So I went and shoot a Standup comedy show, and recorded sound from a mic.. and also recorded it directly from soundboard to a minidisc.
For a very stupid reason (the minidisc was lost) I decided to start editing only with the mic sound..
So I started editing and slicing, and cutting, and pasting and slicing more and made a 50 minutes show into a 10 minutes frenetic clip.

Now the minidisc has been found, and I want to put that sound in the clip.. Is there an easier way than trying to synch every slice by hand?..

I mean could I synch the whole file of minidisc captured sound with the the raw (unedited) clip, and then apply some sort of EDL to this?

The clip has way too many cuts to not try an alternative method for this.

Sounds like a really difficult propsition. As you said, it would not be too difficult to sync the entire clip - however, the problem is syncing a bunch of little clips.

Here's a possibility: sync the MD with the original clip. Now render the MD audio out to a new file so it is EXACTLY the same length as the video AND starts at EXACTLY the same point in time.

In the edit-details screen, it will show you the offset for each clip. You would need to duplicate this with the new audio file. Can't guarantee anything but it "might" work. Alternately, you could try writing a script to adjust the offset of the new audio to match the offset of the associated video for each segment.