Newbie Question...

footballcoach wrote on 12/16/2007, 8:28 AM

Hi,

I have Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 6.0. I have a few projects (3) that I have been working on. Two are completed and one is still in production.

What I am having problems with is I am capturing all of these .avi files from my MiniDV source media and it's filling up my hard drive. I am Not using all of these *.avi files in my projects. Rather I am clipping certain pieces of them and the others are completely unused.

For the completed projects I would like to preserve that project's modified *.avi files and any other media (*.JPG, *.MP3, etc) as well as the *.vf file in one central location (i.e. Folder).

So my Question: Is there a way to export (i.e. copy) all of this media from the completed project's media bin to ONE central folder/location and save it to a DVD or to a backup hard drive in case I ever wish to edit the project again?

This would then allow me to clean up and delete the "Temp" folder I used to capture all the unused media and save me a lot of disk space for future projects. If I ever need the unused media I can simply recapture from the MiniDV, but I don't want to have to edit and clip the AVI's again, etc.

I know I could do this manually by looking through the media bin for the *.avi files I am using, but this would take a very long time for me to sort through each piece of used vs. unused media compare them to those in the Temp folder and then delete the Unused media manually.

Thanks a lot for any help!

-footballcoach

Comments

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 12/16/2007, 8:42 AM

I use vms8plat, so I'm not sure if this is in version 6: if you click on 'save as' project, in the left corner, it says "copy and trim media with project". I think this does exactly what you want it to do.

I was in the same situation until recently (my portable's harddrive almost completely filled). Then I bought an external usb2 harddrive, really cheap (320BG for 70 dollars), and now I have no worries anymore.

footballcoach wrote on 12/17/2007, 3:47 PM

Thanks a lot for the tip! I think that did the trick. However, I did get prompted when saving the project with the following (see screenie below) and am not sure what exactly this meant.

http://www.tige.us/pub/prompt.jpg

Any ideas what the difference is?

Thanks!

footballcoach

Chienworks wrote on 12/17/2007, 4:43 PM

If you choose 'copy source media' then the original files will be copied in their entirety.

If you choose 'trimmed media' then Vegas will cut out the parts you didn't use in your project and create new files containing only what you did use. It sounds like you're interested in this second option. The head/tail setting specifies how much extra beyond what you used that you want to include. It's a good idea to have a least a couple extra seconds in case you decide to change your edits later on.

footballcoach wrote on 12/18/2007, 6:05 AM

OK, thanks. I chose the first option (copy source media), and I tested the movie I created and it worked fine. But I am guessing that Vegas had a record of what parts of the *.avi files I had already trimmed for the project. bit still copied the entire original avi files (thereby increasing the size of the media I saved in the project folder).

From what you are saying it sounds like choosing the 2nd option will only copy the trimmed media which is what I would want to do to conserve disk space even more.

It seems either way you do it it will not effect the project at all...it's simply a matter of copying the entire avi file you have used in the project or just the trimmed portion. Vegas still uses only the trimmed portion regardless of which method you have chosen. The 2nd option just conserves more disk space.

Sound correct?

Thanks guys...you have both been a great help!

Chienworks wrote on 12/18/2007, 10:18 AM

Yep, pretty much correct. One annoying thing about the trim option though ... it not only renames all the files as it makes the new trimmed copies, but it also separates out the audio in to separate .W64 files and the new .avi files have no audio. This means that you have to use the newly created version of the .vf with the new files.