...euphoria of your first print to tape :)

Nick_H wrote on 12/4/2002, 8:30 PM
...first 15 minute "film" completed and as I didn't fancy the poor quality of VCD I printed to DV tape , captured it back on my Sony mini DV and play through my telly.

As a newbie I was very happy with the quality and am only concerned this will become an addiction I need to feed :)
I have already warned my wife , that many hours will be spent in front of the monitor trying new "things" as my knowledge grows. (Nothing untoward in that....I promise :)

On that point may I say how useful the forum has been in assisting me. I haven't posted much before but have read , at different times , many of the posts that have been made , it is an essential resource used in conjunction with the manuals etc.

I may have to hide my credit card tho' , in case I get too eager to upgrade to VV3 for SVCD or DVD quality , cos then I'd also need a DVD RW !

...damn , is there no end to this.......

Thanks all,

Nick
PS For any fellow newbies reading , try the demo of VF2 , it is a very user friendly piece of software.

Comments

JohnnyRoy wrote on 12/4/2002, 10:31 PM
Nick,

Welcome to euphoria. Doesn’t it feel great? Even if you get VV (which I recommend you do for the multi-track compositing, more transitions and FX, chroma key, free 3D plugin’s, MPG2, etc.) you’ll still need a DVD authoring program to make the DVD and most will also create the MPEG2 file for you so you don’t need VV just to make DVD’s. Something like Ulead DVD MovieFactory (which is on sale for $25 at the Ulead site) will do nicely to compliment VF. You can download a 30-day fully functional trial and, trust me; you’ll want to buy it. This will let you make SVCD’s with your existing CD burner and VF.

But then again, DVD burners are under $200 now, and Christmas is just around the corner, and VV does have a lot of really nice features, and… OK, you’re right… it IS an addiction. Hey, maybe we should form SoFo anonymous. ;)

~jr
mbryant wrote on 12/10/2002, 6:43 AM
As another new VF user (and relative newbie to editing, with previous experience of only VideoWave 4.0) I'd like to share my thoughts, having also recently completed my first production.

Overall, I'm pleased with the software. Very powerful. There is lots you can do with it that isn't obvious from the manual or the tutorials - this forum has been VERY helpful in this way.

I've had a few problems; some technical; others where I find it difficult to do certain things (maybe some of you have some tips here).

On the technical problems: I use a Maxtor 7200 Firewire drive, with a Dell Latitude laptop (Windows 2000). When I preview using VF, it will freeze up every so often, and I get the error:


"An error occurred while starting playback. Unable to mix audio. The operation timed out".

I mentioned this in another thread; others have also seen this. SF told me "Unfortunately this is an issue with our software and firewire drives, which
we have been trying to resolve for some time now, and the only work around
that I am aware of is to copy the source material to your internal drive." So it looks like I am stuck with this. It only happens when I preview a long section; and nothing gets damaged - rendering and PTT works - so I just have got used to this.

The other technical problem I had is that the capture program doesn't work for me when I use the "Analog/digital pass through" function of my Sony PC-9. It recognizes the camcorder briefly then drops it. I've got round this by using Videowave for this function.

Usability: I've read all about ripple edits, and with some practice VF usually does what I want it to do. But I think this is still not as user friendly as it could be. One thing I run into a lot is this: When my video is nearly complete (and I have all my music tracks and overlay tracks lined up where I want them with the main track), and I need to make a change to the main track, near the beginning - I find it difficult to do this without getting the music/overlay "out of alignment"). I try to select each track, and "select events to end", but as I don't have much on the music or overlay track I find it difficult to scroll to find these, and usually don't have one of them selected in the end. So I have to manually check and put these all back where I want them. I'd like some easy way to tell VF to keep the relative positions of all the tracks, so that if I make a small edit it doesn't mess up this "alignment". I hope that makes sense.

I also have got into trouble if I accidently split a video track and not the associated voice track... many times I find I got these out of alignment. I have learned to do lots of saves (with different file names) so I can recover if something goes horribly wrong.

As for VV - I'm tempted, but I think I need to learn to master VF first.

Mark B



Grazie wrote on 12/10/2002, 7:21 AM
"I have learned to do lots of saves (with different file names) so I can recover if something goes horribly wrong" - Hiyah! I presume you are acquainted with the extensive undo procedures? Why save a lot of Project files when you can try something, identify what you did and "Undo"? - Only a thought. It's the way I learnt, by making a lot of mistakes and getting the s/w to fit me rather than be dictated to by VF. Yes?

Yes alignment is a bit fiddly AND I've learnt to behave myself... and not get to enthusiastic before I had "nailed" down a lump of editing. So many ideas keep coming up at me and I want to try the lot! - Sorry mate - slow and steady I've had to learn is the way to go. This way your impetus will quickly pick-up and your creativity will start to Shine Through! - Yes, I'm a child of the '60s.

Keep the faith - Just remember the "Dark Side" - you're lights away from that now.

Grazie
mbryant wrote on 12/10/2002, 8:12 AM
Grazie,

Yes I did discover the unlimited "undo", and I use that when I realize right away I messed something up. But sometimes I'd find much later, and didn't know where I went wrong; in this case it was hard to recover even with "undo". So as well as using undo, I make sure I save at known states I'm happy with. (If I get better I may stop this).

Yes it is better than the Dark Side... but I am not a Jedi yet...

Mark B
Grazie wrote on 12/10/2002, 10:20 AM
Point taken!

Grazie
BillyBoy wrote on 12/10/2002, 3:37 PM
What i do when working on a more complex project is save generation copies.
So if I really mess something up bad I can fall back to an earlier version.

All I mean by generation copies is saving multiple copies of the project using Save as.... So early on in the project I have myproject-a, followed by myproject-b, c and so on.
p_l wrote on 12/10/2002, 10:31 PM
"Anger, fear, oppression - the Darkside are they"

;)

e.g.