I use Vegasaur's Project Audit to check for technical issue but content, you just got to go through it.

OK, here are mine, and I am human and I make mistakes. They aren't all technical, I've thrown in some invitations too:

1] Capture to devices the best way I've learnt. Doing it in post can be soul destroying and counter productive to creativity. But, it can be a creative process too. It took me a while to get this into my thick head.

2] Reshoot if needed or even possible. Oh yeah, audio too.

3] Recognise how much care and attention the BBC do to get quality. Oh yeah and where they fail.

4] Budget time for QA and honestly recognise how "off" I was. I'm getting better.

5] Be easy on myself and "walk away" when I need a break.

6] Do my most tricky work very early in the morning when I'm fresh. This may not be possible - deadlines - but it does work for me. Recognise when you're tired.

7] Get my most critical, often with a correct observation, my partner to view my work.

8].Set my monitors, audio and screens, up correctly. Follow Spot's directions on audio.

9] Quickly DO something. Try it out. My mistakes can lead me to further understandings.

10] A good chair! It has financially benefitted my work.

11] Write down with paper and pencil corrections needed.

12] Oh yeah: ENJOY THE WHOLE QA PROCESS - I've come up with some of my best results during this process. .

13] I often recall Frank Zappa's observation, know just when to walk away from a project - they, projects, are never finished.

QA can be hair-pulling and scary. Just stop, and regroup. And why don't I see my mistakes until I've burnt the RW-DVD?

As I said, get to embrace your QA. It's possibly where the magic happens.

Great question!

Grazie

+100 Grazie

My approach to QA fairly much follows Grazie's approach with a big endorsement for using a paper & pen to note down not only what changes you want to make but at what point in the project the correction needs to take place (an especially important point because you probably won't remember later even though you might think you will during the QA).

QA is a rewarding process IMO but I do believe that you have to change your mind-set to undertake an effective QA process. Even if this is a pet project, I think that it;s necessary to take a dispassionate view about the project when you undertake a technical QA as you're assessing picture quality and audio quality (is the color grading of a shot a good match with the surrounding shots? Do the audio levels of all the shots and tracks provide the desired balance and 'sound'; etc, etc, etc). It's amazing how many corrections that are needed when QAing from an unemotional point of view, though how far you take that is a little bit about how far you want to take it. With Grazie's reference to Frank Zappa, a line needs to be drawn somewhere otherwise you'll be QAing and amending the edit forever and a day.

I'm not sure whether or not it's true, but I heard back in the 70s that Stanley Kubrick personally QA'd all of the release prints for the original release of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

For those of you trying to follow the Grazie-Dexcon processes - keep in mind there is a plug-in known as Sony Timeline Tools that can keep track of nearly everything on the timeline including notations embedded into the project and the timeline correspondingly. Forget hand-written notes outside the computer sphere. Once the notations are built-up the documentation can be forced to a searchable database and archiving.

I also draw sketches and symbols with pencil and paper . . . . way outside the PC.

G

Well, I see the "whole" project as I edit it, but only pieces at a time.

The first and usually the only time I see the whole thing beginning to end is after I've rendered to a test DVD. I then watch it on a TV, taking a couple of notes if needed. If I've forgotten a title or see the need for a dissolve then I can go back and do a very fast re-render using the "window" trick that someone mentioned here.

I use V9. With earlier versions I would suffer the occasional "black frames" problem, which was maddening because one really had to focus on the playback DVD to spot them. But in V9, never that issue, or any other technical issue for that matter. Which is why I am content to stay with 9.

Just a couple of points. For longer productions, I've found it easier to break it down into smaller chunks for QC. By its very nature, editing involves a sequential order, so do your initial QC as you go along. I think of it as chapters in a book. Obviously, a final QC for the entire production is needed, but breaking it down as you go along makes it a less daunting task.

+1 for paper and pencil. -1 for using Timeline Tools--for me, at least. I do final QC on a big screen TV with a decent sound system, not in front of a computer screen. It does help to have timecode displayed during QC.

The main problem is really knowing when to say when. In this regard, setting deadlines may help. I suspect that the editor is usually his main critic. We could go on "improving" endlessly. At some point, we have to stop--deadlines help.

wwaag

Timecode does display in Sony Timeline Tools documentation as DOES, hand sketches and silly notation works that you may play with.

The best companion to your overall process (to do this) is using a storyboard tool app which can create sketches with mouse or wacom tablet and recording hand-in-hand with the VegasPro timeline and moving sketches that you have into Sony Timeline tools concurrently.

Then you have 1) storyboard of production 2) QA process and documentation 3) companion concurrent processes

@formerly FOSKO
My two cents..
I just completed a 2 hour finished project that included many, many tricky edits, and transitions.. Also some color corrections and audio refinements.
My total post time on this was about 90 hours at my workstation.. I reviewed over and over again on different days in case I missed something yesterday.
I was so sick of this project that at times I felt like I didn't care if some little small imperfection showed up.. But my fear was that the small things can be huge to a paying client.
The truth is that "Quality Control" is everything nowadays.. Because we all have the power to assure it.
The fact that you are thinking about "QC" means you have a professional mindset.