Can't render whole project - way to paste sections? (Deadline! Help!)

Kalvos wrote on 6/20/2002, 7:28 AM

Hi all,

I'm almost done with questions for now, but here are two more:

1. How do I get this project to finish rendering without crashing to black?

Of all the problems I might have expected, this was the last one, as this unit has been rock-solid as an audio workstation using Sonar. This looks like a hardware issue. I have a 1.3GHz Athlon (not overclocked and well heat-sinked and cooled), but rendering long projects (this is a 45-minute documentary) seems to tax it.

Okay, so I'm able to recover the rendered sections -- at an 30:1 ratio (ouch!) and with the draft version due (ahem) tomorrow -- I can't diagnose the failure issues. So:

2. Can I cut and paste together MPEG-2 files somehow (without going through another rendering)? That is, is there some sort of cue sheet that will direct a media player (right now it's using WMP for playback) to play sections of each rendered file in order without pause?

Otherwise, I'm just gonna to use the VCR's pause control and fake it by loading the rendered chunks one by one until I come back to do the final version!

Thanks for any help on this; with every minute of final video taking 30 minutes to render, I'm getting nervous (and posting this from another machine).

Dennis

System:
Win98SE
Athlon 1.3GHz
512MB RAM
40 and 60 GB drives
DirectX 8.1

Comments

laz wrote on 6/20/2002, 8:21 AM

You've got vertually the same spec as me, but I've never experienced this. I'm PAL, but I don't know if this makes a difference. On a 45 min project to render PAL DV avi takes me about 3 hrs, but when I re-rendered same project to NTSC it took 12 hours. I assume you've got everything turned off in b/g except syst tray and explorer. Have you got any other editing software progs (they can sometimes fight amongst themselves in system)? Sorry I can't be more help.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 6/20/2002, 8:30 AM

Dennis,

You can combine MPEG-2 files without re-rendering using TMPGEnc which can be found at www.tmpgenc.net. Use the menu option File->MPEG Tools and select the "Merge & Cut" tab on the dialog box that pops up. Set the Type to MPEG-2, Add your files, and specify an output filename and press Run. Good luck!

~jr

Kalvos wrote on 6/20/2002, 8:36 AM

Once again, thanks to everyone for the help.

I must admit working on video on my PC was quite different challenge from working with multitrack audio -- and I'd still be back at step one without the generous assistance here.

Hoping to take a break from questions,
Dennis

Kalvos wrote on 6/21/2002, 10:18 AM

Hi all,

The draft version of my video about Vermont's country stores was finished a 3:45 this morning -- all 49 minutes of it.

It looks good, with things to fix, but it's in time for today's Vermont History Expo.

I'm very grateful to everyone here for their help.

Some things, now not urgent, but needing to be dealt with in the next month:

1. There are short flashes of black frames in about five places. These don't appear in the original renderings, which I cut-and-pasted together in sections using TMPGEnc. The flashes are not near any of the cut points. Ideas of why they might have occurred and how to dispose of them later is valuable.

2. I had trouble getting usable output from my Matrox 450 dual-head to VHS via Matrox's TV interface cable for monitor #2. It appeared at a lower frame or refresh rate, and I think it's a software/CPU speed issue. Using full screen was very slow, and cloning the media player windows was better but still not full rate. And ideas about this are welcome.

3. I'm considering getting a DV unit to print to for the final run of this. Will rendering be faster (it came in at about 24:1, a long time)? Does it print to a disk buffer first (will I have enough space?) or directly to some sort of control sequence on the DV unit? Rather than anybody answering here, is there a good reference for what actually happens when I render this 49-minute documentary to DV?

4. Any recommendations for an economical DV unit and interface?

Finally, I found the cause of my crash problems. I have an HP 6300 scanner, and its lamp driver periodically checks the unit, depending on ambient light, to determine of the cover's been opened. I have a window near the scanner, and it sometimes triggers this. Once I killed the lamp driver (hplamp.exe), the crashes stopped. Next time I'll try to render the whole video in one pass.

Thanks again,
Dennis

Chienworks wrote on 6/21/2002, 1:59 PM

Kalvos, a few quick replies ...

2) The TV output on video cards really isn't up to the job. You probably won't get full rate playback and the output will probably be fuzzy. I've also noticed aspect ratio problems with this method. It's much better to send the output through the firewire port to an external converter.

3) Generally rendering to DV is much faster than rendering to any more compressed format such as MPEG or WMV. Assuming your source material is DV, then any segments of your project that are unmodified (no crossfades, cropping, effects, etc.) will be sent directly to the output without having to be rerendered. Only sections that are modified will have to be rendered. DV will take about 225MB per minute, so your 49 minute project will need a little over 11GB.