Batch rendering - Same filename

vitalforce wrote on 10/10/2004, 9:00 AM
Can anyone point me to software that can batch render my hundreds of avi clips (feature DV film project) to another folder/drive WHILE KEEPING THE SAME FILENAMES for each clip? Without removing the 24p information?

While editing the film, I kept all the uncut captured clips as a separate .veg project, lined up on a LONG Vegas 5 timeline. The top track is each complete avi clip as a video event, the track below it is the camera audio (part of the avi file), and on another track below each clip, is the boom-mike audio which is synchronized to each clip.

I've tried the scripts that are mentioned on the forum, but all I'm able to do is auto-mark each clip as a region. From there, I don't see how I can render each avi clip to another folder bearing the SAME FILENAMES (sorry about the caps but I'm emphasizing what's missing from all the scripts I've tried)--the purpose being that the new clips will now have the boom mike's audio as the avi clip's audio, and I can easily hand off those avi's on a drive to a pro editor using a different NLE.

If I can do this, I can also delete all the 'old' clips and on opening each .veg project file representing a 20-minute segment of the film project, I could just tell Vegas to search the new folder and the project would instantly update itself with the new clips.

I had hoped to preserve the 24p information in the video files by staying inside Vegas but I don't know how to write that perfect script that would do the above. Any ideas? I appreciate any thoughts--you would save me about a hundred hours while I'm trying to finish the rough cut in time for the Tribeca Film Festival deadline in December.

Comments

jetdv wrote on 10/10/2004, 12:29 PM
You might want to check out the veggie toolkit by Randall Campbell. You can find a link to it here. If it doesn't natively do it, just contact Randall and I'm sure he'll look into the possibility of adding that functionality.
rcampbel wrote on 10/10/2004, 4:46 PM
I think that the Capture Cutter tool which is part of the Veggie Toolkit that Edward mentioned will do the trick.

You should be able to open your .veg file, (make sure that the project settings are set to 24p) then run the Capture Cutter script. Right click in the Selections list window and make sure that only Events is checked. Now you should see a complete list of all of the events that are on the first track. Make sure that all of the events in the list are checked. Choose the output folder and leave the prefix field blank.

Then select the renderer (be sure to choose the correct pull down mode for your camera 2-3 or 2-3-3-2), and click Start.

This will render all of the events as new clips to the output folder and will use the existing event's file names.

The downloaded trial version is fully functional for 30 days. Let me know if you have any problems.

Randall
johnmeyer wrote on 10/11/2004, 9:42 AM
There are several batch render scripts that will render all projects in a given directory to specified formats. You could try here:

Sundance

Click on Scripts and then go to the third page. I think the "GUI Multiple Project Render" is what you want. Here is a direct link to that file:

Batch Render Script

If you have Vegas 4.0e or Vegas 5.x, you will need to change the:

import SonicFoundry.Vegas;

to

import Sony.Vegas;

I also have scripts (that others have written) that will render EVERY project in a directory without you having to manually specify each and every project (which you will have to do with the script above).

Here is a link to a site that lists all the sources of scripts for Vegas:

Vegas Links
vitalforces wrote on 10/12/2004, 2:48 PM
To all answering: Thank you and apologies for my delay in returning to the forum to look for responses. Any news from my end, I'll be sure to post it as well. Thanks again.
vitalforces wrote on 11/8/2004, 3:46 PM
This is feedback after trying the demo of the Veggie Toolkit, Capture Cutter. As I had hoped, it does indeed save any size batch of Vegas avi files under the same filename, to any other folder or drive, and will thus take a second Vegas audio track on the timeline and mate it to the video portion of an avi file so that that the separate boom mike sound is now the audio part of a DV-avi file.

However. Two problems cropped up and I'm not sure if it's something I'm doing wrong. (1) the audio is about 10-15 frames out of sync in the couple of test avi's I copied, and (2) the audio is MUCH louder, as if it had been normalized. Any ideas?
rcampbel wrote on 11/8/2004, 4:45 PM
Thanks for the feedback on Capture Cutter. I don't know of any reason that Capture Cutter would have done anything to your audio, but I would be happy to help you debug the problem. My first thought would be to make sure that one of the audio tracks was muted.

If you could please email me with the details of what steps you took, I will try to help you determine what is going on. Just go to the Veggie Toolkit home page and click on the email link in the second paragraph.

Randall
vitalforces wrote on 11/9/2004, 2:33 PM
Much thanks & when I get home to my la-bor-a-tory I'll do that. I'm starting to think that the fact that some audio tracks' envelopes didn't start on the same frame as the video portion, might account for the sync difference. I'll also check the audio tracks to be sure one was muted, just in case I had a DUH attack.
vitalforces wrote on 11/16/2004, 2:47 PM
I went back through my project (feature DV film) and came to the realization that all my mike sound which I had synched manually, except for one scene, was not 8-10 frames but only about two frames ahead of the exact lip sync point. I mulled this over awhile and then realized--it's not the software, or the hardware. It's me. I've been editing intensively about a year now (nites & weekends) and have progressed to the point that I can perceive the two-frame sync offset, which is about 1/12th of a second on a 24p timeline.

So, I turned on Quantize to Frames, highlighted the beginning of every audio track in the project, right-clicked to "select to end" to get everything on each audio track, turned off event grouping and then hit Insert > Time and added 00:00:00;02 which equals two frames. All audio moved right 2 frames. Problem solved. (Turn event grouping back on....)

I was going to try re-rendering some files again but I've let the time run out on the Veggie Tooklit trial. I should ask this on the Veggie Toolkit site but for closure here I'll ask: Can it be downloaded a second time to try another session? If not, I'll decide on the $40 price. Thanks for the input.
rcampbel wrote on 11/16/2004, 4:25 PM
I'm glad that you figured it out. Thanks for letting me know.

Downloading or installing it again will not reset the trial period. If you want to try it again before you purchase, please send me an email via the Veggie Toolkit home page and I will work something out.

Randall