My Crazy Windows Media Dream

matt24671 wrote on 9/27/2004, 8:04 AM
Folks,
I know you'll think I'm crazy, but I thought this: if you have a lot of video tapes, as I do, and cannot afford a 5 terabyte drive array, most of your video is offline. If you open Vegas with offline video, you cannot see it until you recapture it.

So thought this: what if I capture using Windows Media at a fairly low res. Then, I can edit / preview with these incredibly small files (mine are 100 meg per tape - not the usual 20 gig - and, they don't look all that bad!)

This, to me, would be fantastic: be able to see every video tape I've shot, online all the time, and when necesary, recapture avi's at full res.

There's one hitch: I can't get Vegas to recapture them as avi's. I can display timecode on the Windows Media files, so I could recut the avi's manually, but that would, of course, be a total pain.

Any ideas on how we can recapture Windiows Media files as avis, so all my video would be visible all the time, and editable in full res?

Thanks!

Comments

earthrisers wrote on 9/27/2004, 9:44 AM
If you've saved it as .wmv, you've compressed the heck out of it.
Trying to go back to .avi from there would mean very low quality.
wcoxe1 wrote on 9/27/2004, 10:11 AM
Perhaps the gentleman is alluding to "Proxy" editng.

If that is the case, then things could be done small, fast and conveniently, and then from that the original AVI could be recaptured and the editing would already be done. Just render, at that point. A very interesting idea. I second it, if that is what he meant.

Haven't the faintest idea how it would be done, since the original timecodes would all be lost, of course, but it WOULD be nice.
rcampbel wrote on 9/27/2004, 12:09 PM
Matt,

Are you looking to capture the video using Window Media Encoder, or are you considering capturing using Vegas Capture and then rendering the files to Windows Media?

If you captured via Vegas Capture and then converted to Window Media, you could delete the avi file and user the wmv file. Then you could recapture the avi file using the saved capture info in Vegas Capture and use the Replace command in the media pool to replace the wmv with the avi file. The import thing is that both files start at the same point and are the same length. The actual timecode in the file really doesn't matter in this case.

If you captured using Windows Media Encoder, then you would have a problem since the original timecode info is not available and is needed to recapture the avi.

Randall
matt24671 wrote on 9/28/2004, 8:35 AM
Thanks, Randall. Maybe I can capture avi's first with Vegas, then capture with Windows Media Encoder, and replace the files. This doubles the capture time, but to keep all media online in some form, it may be worth it. Thanks for your help!

Matt
rcampbel wrote on 9/28/2004, 1:12 PM
Matt,

I would suggest that you capture with Vegas, then use Vegas to convert the files to Windows Media. In my experience, the Window Media Encoder has a hard time keeping up when it is capturing. Using Vegas to convert the file is more reliable. (you could also convert the files with Windows Media Encoder if desired)

Randall
farss wrote on 9/28/2004, 3:42 PM
There's absolutely nothing wrong with WMV 9 encoding. I've seen at least one, maybe more station video server systems that convert all media to wmv and playout to air from that.
Of course it all depends on the bitrate but for a given bitrate wmv will give a better result.

Bob.