AVI Media Shadows and Crashes

Flyer Curt wrote on 10/3/2008, 2:03 PM

Very impressed with your forum answers, so here's my first two questions. I've done several DVD projects with VMS 7 and 8 but my new project is stumping me.

FIRST: I have a combination of 420 6-10Mp .JPG photos and 20 .AVI "videos" from two different cameras: My Casio Exilm EX-S10 and my friend's Fuji Finepix F7000. Both cameras have some videos stored as .MOV files and some as .AVI files for some unknown reason.
The Casio .AVI videos are fine in VMS. The Casio .MOV videos didn't have any audio when I put them in VMS, so I bought and used Quicktime Pro to export them to .MP4 files, and these then loaded normally in VMS - sharp and with sound.
The Fuji .AVI videos load into VMS with fuzzy video with shadows, particularly with panning movement. Strangely the Fuji .MOV files include audio, but load with the same fuzzy video. They play normally when they are in Explorer or Project Media, but when played on the Editing Track they have shadows. I can clear them up a bit and reduce the shadows by reducing the Properties (right click video) Undersample rate to 0.996-0.998 (depends on the video), but it is still not as clear as the Casio or the Fuji unmounted video.
I suspect this is a codecs problem so I downloaded and installed gspot, xvid codec, and ffdshow. I'm not sure how to use these properly, but just having them on the computer doesn't improve the Fuji videos placed into VMS. Help please!

SECOND: A second, and perhaps related problem is that when I try to create a hard drive .AVI file with this 32-min project, VMS 8 crashes and shuts down after about 4 mins built (7Gb), and the resultant .AVI file has no audio. The project plays fine before, inside VMS.
Creating a MPEG-2 with "default template" lasted to 10-min output. This file has sound but is small, letter-boxed screen in Windows Media Player.
Creating a MPEG-2 with "DVD Architect NTSC Widescreen video screen" gave 13 min of larger widescreen video-only before VMS crashed the build. And my menu does not offer a choice of building the companion audio AC3 file. I do have DVD Architect Studio 4.5 installed on this computer.
On past projects I have created .AVI files with VMS 6 then 7 on my computer, then built the DVD with DAS. This forum sugests I use MPEG-2 output instead, which I'm glad to try, but I need the audio too, and mostly I need to stop the build crashes. I have reboot the computer before each build, no other programs, always on, and tried Options, Preferences, Video, Maximum number of rendering threads: 2 then 1 - all without a complete build. More help please!

Thanks in advance, Curt

Comments

Eugenia wrote on 10/3/2008, 2:14 PM

First: This is because you don't use the right project properties. What you see as "fuzzy" is resampling that's going on by default. You need to do a "match media" for your AVI files using the yellow icon on the Project Properties dialog, before you start editing. Then, export your MOV files via Quicktime Pro on the same frame rate as the AVI files. If the AVI files have variable frame rate, as most digicams do, then you need to go to each and every clip in the timeline and "disable resample" in their properties.

Second: the crash is because you didn't resize the pictures to project size. Using many huge megapixel pictures inside Vegas causes Vegas to crash during export.

Flyer Curt wrote on 10/3/2008, 2:47 PM

Thanks for the fast response Eugenia,

The project properties for the Casio video files are 29.970 NTSC. The Fuji videos are 30.000 NTSC. I guess this is why the undersample helps. It does seem better (not great) when I insert Fuji videos into a new VMS file that has "match media" to the Fuji video file. But when I Quicktime Pro export Fuji .MOV files to .MP4, I end up with audio only. ???

I have already cropped all 420 photos in this project to widescreen. Is there a way to resize them in VMS? I'd hate to have to do that again. Did I see on the forum that you could substitute different photo files for VMS to work with on a project?

Would VMS 9 (or better) be better at handling the large photos? Or if I broke the project up into smaller pieces before rendering? Help again please.

Curt

Eugenia wrote on 10/3/2008, 3:43 PM

To resize pictures, use the second point described here
http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/10/29/sony-vegas-tips-tricks/

And yes, these different frame rates on digicams is what's killing your quality. What you need to do to avoid the blurring, is as I said, go to all your Fuji videos in the timeline and "disable resample".

Flyer Curt wrote on 10/3/2008, 5:13 PM

Thanks Euginia.

Disable resample made them better.

I also find that I can resize and save the photos in my source directory (not the originals fortunately) and VMS works seamlessly with the revised files (same names). It still takes awhile to do, but I don't need to redo all the cropping. I'm not sure how small to make them, so I tried resizing the first 100 photos to 1000 x 750 pixels and am trying an .AVI build now.

Any ideas why I don't have the AC3 choice to make the MPEG-2 audio file so I can render to MPEG-2? I'm looking in the Format choice. Is it somewhere else?

Curt

Eugenia wrote on 10/3/2008, 5:24 PM

You install DVDA and it will be available. AC3 is exported in a separate file to the mpeg2 file. DVDA puts them back together.

Flyer Curt wrote on 10/4/2008, 10:08 AM

I'm still looking for the AC3 audio menu choice. I had DVDA 4.5 installed and working and did not see any AC3, or any MPEG-2 audio choice except for the default in any of the render menus. So I downloaded and installed the trial version of VMS 9P and DVDA 4.5a. When I Create Movie to hard drive, MPEG-2, I see lots of new choices for BluRay, but still no AC3 choice. Which menu is it in exactly?

Curt

Eugenia wrote on 10/4/2008, 1:15 PM

AC3 has its own entry in the file format combo box. e.g. where you select AVI or AVC or Main Concept. It works for me.