Loading Media/ Program problem

brobb100 wrote on 6/3/2006, 3:50 PM
I can load about 20 minutes of video (HD from a Sanyo HD camera SD media) into SMS Platinum and then get an error exception and the program goes to a Not Responding problem. Have contacted Tech Support and they tried to come up with some solutions but they have not been able to solve the problem and I have now heard nothing from them for 10 days. I can 'edit' the approx 20 minutes and then burn DVD OK but really I would like to get more onto the DVD. Has anyone got any ideas as to how this might be solved? Many thanks.

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 6/3/2006, 4:29 PM
20 minutes of HD is probably just about 4GB. By any chance are your hard drives FAT32 format? If so you are limited to 4GB as the maximum file size. Converting to NTFS may fix the problem.
brobb100 wrote on 6/3/2006, 5:19 PM
I wonder! How can I tell if hard drive is FAT32? If so is it as simple as this to change? http://www.ntfs.com/quest3.htm

Thanks for your help.
brobb100 wrote on 6/3/2006, 5:26 PM
Just looked in C Drive properties and found that file system is already NTFS! So guess that is not the problem. Any other ideas, please?

I notice in another Forum topic that Malcolm D says SMS Platinum 6.0b (which is what I have) now imports 115 HDV files instead of a lower figure in previous versions. That's just about what I get in 20 - 25 minutes of video so maybe I am stuck there!
bjrohner wrote on 6/4/2006, 8:06 AM
How do you get 115 files with 20 minutes of video? That's about 13 seconds per file.

Do you have some sort of auto scene detect running when you're capturing?

If so try turning it off so all 20 minutes of video are in one file.

I've never had this problem, but I do my scene splitting by hand.

Just a guess - good luck.
brobb100 wrote on 6/4/2006, 9:30 AM
Hi bjrohner, not sure what you mean here! Each clip of my video probably only averages 10 seconds - one clip equals one file, right? I do not know whether I have 'auto scene detect running' - how would I find that?

As you can deduce, I am very much an amateur so all help is very much appreciated!!
bjrohner wrote on 6/4/2006, 2:20 PM
Brobb

I'm not familiar with your camera, but with mine, after I've shot up an hour's worth
of DV tape, I capture it to one file that's an hour long irregardless of how many times I started and stopped it during the actual shooting. Many capture programs have in their
set-up preferences something called scene detect. When this is turned on every time the software thinks there has been a scene change, a start -stop is detected in the
time code, or at other specified intervals, It start a new file clip. It's just as easy to
place one file on the time line and split it only in places where it's necessary. What
soft ware do you use to capture with?
brobb100 wrote on 6/5/2006, 10:04 AM
Hi bjrohner, I don't think my Sanyo HD1 has that capability. It records onto a SD media card and also takes 5 meg still pictures so the card ends up with a combination of JPEG and MPEG4 files. I then 'capture' the files via a SD card reader directly onto file in my computer.
Reading some other forums it appears that the only way I could get more files into SVMS(P) would be to convert the files first ( for example to AVI by MP4CAM2AVI) and then import into SVMS(P). Might try that sometime and see what happens.
I have also tried to burn two rendered files onto one DVD but can't figure out that either.
So about 20 minutes of viewing on one DVD is all I can get at present.
Before my Sanyo HD I had a Sanyo C5 (MPEG4) and had no problem with getting an hour's worth into SVMS (I did not have Platinum then and was told by Sony Tech Support that I needed Platinum for HD). Maybe a future update will solve this problem.
Any other thoughts?
bjrohner wrote on 6/5/2006, 11:42 AM
Brobb
WOW, I looked up you camera for the fun of it and what a honey it is. I should quit fooling around on this forum and get back to work so I can afford one.

I still can't see why your limited. My current project has 397 HD still image bitmaps (2400 x 1800) @ 12.3 MB each, and 9 High Definition Video Files at 720P( which is the same resolution your camera uses) each about two minutes in length.

The only thing I don't know much about is MPEG4. However, from what I have read, it is a finished file format and not good for any type of editing without serious degradation. VMS includes with it, the cineform intermediate formats which can stand hard editing without degrading. If you convert your MPEG4 to the 720p intermediate right away, you lose nothing in quality and have an excellent editable file from which to work, and eventually save in your final desired form.

You might try converting your files to this and see what happens. A word of warning, the intermediate format file will be quite abit larger that the MPEG4's

Just for the fun of it, I'm going to go see how many of these 720p file I can add to the timeline before it blows up.

Bob
bjrohner wrote on 6/5/2006, 1:27 PM
I had to try it!

I created 480 HD Video Files using the 720p intermediate format in vms. The video of each file is 1280 x 720 x 32 - 29.97 fps - progressive , the audio is 48,000hz stereo, 16bit , uncompressed. Each clip is 12 seconds in length & 108.5 mb in size. The total size of all files was 1 hour and 28 minutes in length and 16.5 Gigs in size.

I had no trouble whatsoever putting all the files on the timeline, playing around with them or rendering them (Didn't bother to let it run all the way through). I just don't think the number of files is the problem.

If you want to know more about the Cineform intermediate format there's a lot of good information at www.cineform.com
brobb100 wrote on 6/5/2006, 2:25 PM
I'll do some experimenting and let you know how I get on.
brobb100 wrote on 6/6/2006, 11:39 AM
Here are the results of my experiments.
I imported into VMS using the 720p format (set through Project Properties - right?) but program froze up at the usual about 20 mins worth.

So I downloaded MP4CamAVI (prerelease version with Sanyo HD Support) via sourceforge.net/project/mp4camavi which has a link to avitoritetav.narod.ru and also a divx codec from divx.com. Then made AVI files from the MPEG4 files which I imported into VMS satisfactorily (an hours worth of video). Then did my editing, rendered and burnt a DVD with good results in my opinion.

So now I will leave it there!!

Thanks for all your help.
brobb100 wrote on 6/6/2006, 1:36 PM
Since my last post, I got a reply from Tech Support (after hearing nothing for 2 weeks) which says

"Thanks for responding. Unfortunately MPEG4 is not one of the supported formats that our software works with, therefore if you are having problems with them unfortunately there is nothing we can do because the software was not made to support MPEG 4 files in the first place, even if they work sometimes. Here is a list of the supported formats you can import.

AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MOV, WMV, JPEG, BMP, GIF.

Maybe it will be possible for you take the current files and save or render them as one of these supported formats. If you have follow up questions or need further assistance with this issue, please update this incident."

Now we know - guess they do not like Sanyo as they are part of the 'other DVD type group'.