How to Shoot Yourself in the Foot

vitalforce wrote on 2/13/2005, 2:44 PM

Don't do the following: Use the 'Save As' feature in Vegas and check the box for 'Copy and Trim Media With Project.' Then save everything to a separate drive and pat yourself on the back for having a copy of the whole feature project (which I divided up into 8 .veg project files--DV feature film). But DON'T RTFM, and completely overlook the fact that Vegas will save the media with ALTERED FILENAMES, so that when you save over your prior .veg files, you'll be cutting off the critical .veg file from the original media. Both the picture--and the sound files....

Then, when there's a glitch using the different drive, and you can't access a whole bunch of the new 'renamed' media files (original name but with '-000,' '001,' etc. added as a suffix for each individual event) you'll be stuck like me, unable to do anything but MANUALLY RELINK each original media file, on the original drive, back to the .veg file (the prompt opens asking if you want to replace the media with another media, which of course is the only option because the program won't be looking for a different, i.e. the original media's filename without the suffix--Grrr).

And then laboriously start sliding and re-synching the media into the events on the timeline because none of the events now know what part of the timecode of this strange new (original) media file to start at. AND--if you used the media pool or right-clicked on events to apply any color corrections, they're long gone now. Only the settings on the timeline event buttons and the master settings on the Preview window are preserved. Fortunately I mixed all the sound last night into separate files, so I have a reference for re-synching the video in the events.

So--nothing like being right at the end of a ten-month project, and then having to go back and re-sync and re-color correct 25% of the project after taking what you thought were careful steps, as opposed to sabotaging yourself. Sorry if I'm flaming a little--this means having to ask the Montreal Jewish Film Festival to accept a rough cut. It's my own fault for not saving a separate .veg file (aside from the three places I normally save a .veg file) every time I change a project.

But I really, really wish Vegas 5 had an option of searching for partial filenames of media--something to make it ignore that confounded suffix it adds when you 'Copy and Trim Media With Project' in case you have to go back to your original media files.

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Comments

Chienworks wrote on 2/13/2005, 2:50 PM

Something to remember when using the "copy and trim media" option is that you are creating a new project, separate from the one you were working on. From there on out, do not mix the .veg or media files between the old version of the project and the trimmed version.

What would be really nice is an option where, if each media file was used once and only once in the project, and the audio remained linked with the video, that this function would simply trim the files without renaming, creating multiple files, and moving the audio to .w64 files. True, these exact circumstances might not come up often, but then again i'd be willing to bet that for a substantial number of Vegas projects out there this is precisely the case.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 2/13/2005, 4:03 PM

just an FYI (from the sound of it you didn't know).

When you save with trimmed media, is saves each clip on the timeline as a seperate file. So, if you divided a 5 minutes clip into 5 one minute sections, it will save 5 seperate files.

It also doesn't modify the pacement/syncof anything on the TL. It sounds like something else might of happened too.

vitalforce wrote on 2/13/2005, 8:04 PM

Thanks for the replies. I think the 'slipping' of the media file within the event container is the result of me telling the .veg file to link to a "new" media file--it doesn't know where to start and end the clip within the event, since the 000, 001, 002, etc. suffixes all represent copies of the same clip at different points. So I guess a series of timeline events which all referenced the same file (different lines of dialog) now have to start the file at its beginning in the first event. I see the clapper in front of the camera in a number of the event thumbnails.

Maybe all that's really needed is just a warning prompt that a user who is about to 'copy media with project' is linking the same-name project file to all new media.

Sigh...

Liam_Vegas wrote on 2/13/2005, 8:34 PM

It does seem like you have learned a good lesson... the hard way. I am very sorry to see this happen to you at such a critical point in your project. Been there... done that... know what that feels like.

The reason you had to slip all those events is that it does save a buffer around the events that it created new AVI clips for. The exact time head/tail it adds is defined in Vegas somewhere.

The file-Save-As obviously assumes you are saving to a new file... it is a shame it did not warn you when you overwrote your original Veg.

This feature does not modify the original Veg... or the original media files in any way. It allows you to create a whole new project file.. along with independant media files in a whole new place on your drive. Of course if you chose to overwrite the original Veg file (an dyou have only one copy of it)... then I guess all bets are off.

Yes... you are right .. it was a BIG personal mistake not to backup your old file (not even one prior version around anywhere?).

I do wish you a speedy recovery to this problem. At least you won't make THAT mistake again (which is what experience is all about... not making the SAME mistakes twice).

TheHappyFriar wrote on 2/13/2005, 9:25 PM

I just tried a Save As with copy/trim media. I tried to overwrite an existing veg (the one that was open) and it warned me about it first.

I've got V4 running, maybe it's a bug in V5.

Of course I read through the manual before I started playing with that feature. :)

vitalforces wrote on 2/14/2005, 10:50 AM

That's why I made sure to invoke the RTFM mantra in my start post. I did save multiple copies of the .veg file on three different drives, but of course every time you re-save the .veg file while working on a project it will prompt you that you are, of course, overwriting your .veg file which is exactly what you want to do so as not to lose, say five hours of color correction work

The warning prompt I ruefully wish for is one which would pop up only when you check the "Copy and Trim Media" box, and states, "Do you want to point your .veg file to all new trimmed media? If not, rename your .veg file or cancel."

I even used Norton to recover deleted files, searched all my drives for anything with a .veg or .veg-bak extension--no luck. I was hoping that someone on the forum had a workaround but the explanation about having a head & tail on the trimmed media answers, I think, the issue of having a media file start inside an event container at the wrong place. I see there's no workaround, so maybe I'll post the request in product suggestions.
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Liam_Vegas wrote on 2/14/2005, 11:00 AM

I'm confused.... when you save your work are you saving over the same file <every> time? Why not save multiple versions... that way... at least if you lose one Veg.. you have <only> lost 5 hours... and not dozens.

Doing the Copy/Trim media with project is definitely a big step... I am curious... what DID you think it would do? It is designed to create a self-contained copy of the project with all the media it needs in a single folder. It has to link that media into the veg file you tell it to save over... as otherwise there would be no point in doing it.

I know it is a painful lesson... but I just could not expect the developers of the product to necesarily account for your actions. The File-Save-As feature is ordinarily used to save the project to a totally new file. If you choose to overwrite the original veg then I guess the programmers should allow you to do that (even with a warning).

Jsnkc wrote on 2/14/2005, 2:00 PM

vitalforce wrote on 2/14/2005, 5:19 PM

My orientation to this product comes from the manual which comments that because it is impractical to have copies of huge media files in multiple places on a drive, the media pool merely links to/references those media events. I took "Copy and trim media with project" to mean THE media on the hard drive. I knew that using this option would create a copy of the media elsewhere, with the .veg file linked to it unless the .veg file is renamed. This isn't about my work flow and how I rename files as I go along. This is about a lack of critical information where a seemingly basic process can have profound implications.

What I didn't expect is that the full media file referenced by each event is not copied to the new location. My oversight is the significance of the "and trim" part of the instruction. Trimming the media, I now know, means not just saving the file to include event references, with the beginning and end of the media file trimmed. It means the filed is broken up into multiple files and renamed. The problem is renaming of the file. This slams the door on being able to reference back to the original media file (before the original file is ultimately deleted, at the end of the project).

By the way, I had to reverse this process in part because the "Copy and trim media with project" didn't work flawlessly. There were prompts to specify a location for several not-found media files that I had just told the program to copy & trim to the new location.
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The moral of my story is, there should perhaps be an option to "Copy media with project" without the "and trim," the latter of which triggers the renaming function.