Export Markers to DVDA Not Working

kirkilj wrote on 12/27/2005, 8:55 PM
I don't know if the problem I'm having is with Vegas6c or DVDA3c.

I used the built-in Vegas script to export Vegas markers as DVDA chapters to an SFL file. The file is created and correctly named, but DVDA doesn't load the markers when the corresponding MPG file is inserted as a media file and "Load Markers" doesn't do anything either. I just see one chapter in the DVDA timeline labeled "Chapter 1".

I looked at the source for the script and noticed it was performing binary writes, so I used a hex editor to examine the SFL file, but I can clearly see the ASCII strings for my 46 marker labels in the file. I created the markers in Vegas by using the Edit Details - Markers panel and pasting in my marker names from an MS-Excel spreadsheet I had created. Everything seemed to look fine in Vegas after this operation - all the markers had the correct labels at the correct timecode positions.

I was able to successfully export and load markers that I had created the tradtional way in Vegas in a test file with three markers, but I'm not thrilled at the prospect of relabeling and positioning 46 chapter points to avoid the paste from Excel.

Any ideas? I guess I'll try to paste the data from a simple text editor to make sure the Excel paste into Vegas isn't the culprit.

- John

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 12/27/2005, 10:09 PM
Make sure to quit from DVDA, then restart, then re-load the project. After all that, try loading the markers. DVDA seems to load certain things at startup that it never goes back and looks at again.
kirkilj wrote on 12/28/2005, 8:30 PM
I tried several things until 4AM last night to no avail. I exited and restarted DVDA before each attempt to export markers out of Vegas and load them into DVDA. I also rebooted between a couple attempts just to eliminate the possibility that some piece of shared persistent memory was involved. I also started with a new DVDA project each time. I had a partial success once by cutting down the number of markers from the end until I had a successful marker import, which occurred when I was down to six chapters (from 46). On the sixth chapter, the text was cutoff at the 40th character when it was loaded into DVDA. There wasn't any special character near that location. I'm using many other punctuation marks, but not in that area of the text.

I also made sure that I was copying and pasting into the Edit Details Marker panel from a text editor instead of Excel to simplify things. If I had an error message from DVDA, then I'd have something to go on, but at this point I need to punt and create the chapter markers from scratch in DVDA. It will take a few hours, but I've spent more than that already trying to get to the bottom of this. As a former software engineer, there's a part of me that wants to stay up until 4am again trying other scenarios to find the culprit, but I need to leave this as an unsolved mystery for now. Besides, I'm not a 20 year old programmer anymore and I don't bounce back from those late nights like I used to.

In case one of you feels inclined to pursue this, I can send you the text that I'm pasting into the Vegas Edit Marker Details panel.

Regards,

John
craftech wrote on 12/29/2005, 5:35 AM
Make sure "Save Project Markers in media file" option is checked in the Render dialog box in Vegas.

After inserting the media click on the media in the project "overview window" to see the markers.

Try rendering to a DVDRW for testing purposes.

John