Idea for useful script

ewporter wrote on 6/23/2003, 11:24 AM
Has any one written, or would anyone be interested in writing a script with the following functionality (or something close to it)?

I would like a script that automatically makes a separate video file in a user selectable video format (e.g., AVI, DVD compatible mpeg-2, etc.) for each section of a vegas project file preceded by a separate marker.

Preferably each file created by this script would have a file name corresponding to the text associated with the marker that preceded it in the Vegas project file.

It would be nice to have all such files automatically be placed in a directory that has the same pre-extension name as Vegas project file. If you want to be fancy this could be a default, that could be overridden if the user wants the files created placed in another directory.

It would also be nice if the user could optionally select to have the files produced by this script to begin with sequential numbering (e.g., “001-...”, “002-...”, “003-...”) so that a use could know the order of the clip files in the project from which they have been taken. Also this would allow the clips created by this process to be automatically placed in order when viewed in Windows XP directory. The files should also be created in sequenctial order so that they could be time ordered in such a directory as well.

The purpose of this script would be to create clip files that then could be used in editing with various video editors, and, more importantly, could be played from hard drive in MS Media Player and accessed with Windows XP file system. I have just bought a 250 Gbyte hard drive and I want to put all my home movies (about 40 hours worth) on the hard drive and be able to select and play desired scenes from any of these 40 hours rapidly, without the need to find and mess with 20 different DVD’s. This script would automate the process of splitting a 2hour DV home movie tape up into scenes, that could be quickly played off hard disk. It would also make labeling such clips quick because it would allow a user to create the appropriate descriptive text for the file name of the clip at the same time he reviewing the video to determine where to split it up into clips by the placement of Vegas markers..
I believe that accessing video clips from a large library of such clips on hard drive is the future (over then next, say, 5 years) of home movie viewing, not futzing with DVDs that are limited to 2hrs apiece (although I do want create occasional DVDs).

If you know or would be willing to write any such script, please respond.

Thank you,

ewporter

Comments

roger_74 wrote on 6/23/2003, 12:53 PM
Keep a look out for Batchrender Pro.
ewporter wrote on 6/23/2003, 3:27 PM
roger_74,

Thank you. I followed the link to Bachrender Pro in your reply to my message and in one of the pages linked it it was a picture of a dialog box which implied you might be able to separately render regions. So this looks hopeful.

Ed Porter
ewporter wrote on 6/23/2003, 4:55 PM
Roger,

I noticed that you seems to be the person who is creating batchrender Pro.

If so, great. If you haven't already, please add the capability I described in my message that was the parent to this thread, that of being able to convert each region into a file of a selected video type in a new directory having the name of the region's text label. That would be really useful.

Your prior messages, copied below, indicate that you alread intend Batchrender Pro to do this or something very much like it. I do hope you add the ability to name the new file created for each region after the region's text label. As I said in my first message, after you have scanned a clip to determine it appropriate boundaries (i.e., by defining it as a region) is an efficient time to label the clip, because at that time you already know what the clip is about and don't have to open and review the clip as you would if you were going to have to make up descriptive file names for the clip at a later time.

I spent a few minutes starting to split an MPEG-2 file I have up into regions and labeling them. It was a breeze -- much faster than creating clips in Ulead MediaStudio Pro. Somebody in an earlier message said that marking clips with markers was much easier than with regions, but I found regions so simple to use that I would be happy having Batchrender Pro operate on them.

I would be glad to be a beta tester once you had your script solid enough that novice like myself could deal with it without a risk of trashing my system or source video files.

Ed Porter


=====the of your prior message===========================
Subject: RE: Way to Render regions easily???
Posted by: roger_74 (Ignore This User)
Date: 5/23/2003 5:52:42 PM

Batchrender Pro will render regions named sequencially. Custom naming may be implemented later.

It will be released in june.


roger_74 wrote on 6/23/2003, 6:36 PM
Hi.

Rendering files from regions is already implemented. It also optionally names your rendered files from the name of the region.

I don't know why one would want to use markers instead of regions, a marker is just a marker, it has no beginning and no end. Fiddling with multiple markers is a bad idea. Regions are perfect, since you can even make regions that overlap each other. That would be impossible with markers unless you came up with a special naming scheme for them, but why bother?

I recieved your email and will be sending you a beta sometime tomorrow. Please note that .NET Framework 1.1 is required.