Thanks for the advice. I get the same results no matter which preview I use (draft, preview, good, best) Haven't made any edits yet but this is the first time I ever worked with a single 44,000 frame clip. Would it make any difference if I split it up and worked on one segment at a time? The biggest annoyance I find is that the it takes the timeline as well as the preview some time the "catch up" with the new cursor position.

I know a lot of people in this forum are editing lots of footage every day and no else has mentioned this before. Are you all using processores > 1.5 GHz?

Personally, my processor is 1.6 Ghz.

Using some of the tips I gave I don't have a problem with the video. Yes, some times (depending on what I have running on my system) you would think there shouldn't be any lag time in a realtime video preview....but after playing around with other NLE's - VV is by far the best at doing realtime edits that I have seen.

As for splitting the events on the timeline - six in one hand/half dozen in the other.

I look at it like this (I'm gonna do my audio analogy).

When I'm doing my audio edits (in other SoFo apps) - I have come to the understanding that what I hear in my speakers is not exactly what the final product is going to sound like (I use a different set up for mastering).

Anyway...knowing that...I can bypass some of the stuff I'm hearign when I am editing knowing that it will sound like what I want when I'm done. ...know what I mean?

So...that being said - I make the edits in VV, and trust what the final will look like when rendered. When I want to 2xcheck them or tweak...I do a dynamic RAM render and everything is peachy.

Hope that helps.

when you say you rendered them to AVI with DVD2AVI, what codec did you use? I have noticed that anything other than DV avi's will slow down when you play them in vegas because of the compression. If I have to work with something like that I will end up rendering the whole thing out to DV just to speed things up over the long haul.

Maybe we're barking up the wrong tree...

The symptom you describe ALSO suggests a corrupt file. HAve you played it all the way through to see if it hangs anywhere or zoomed way in on the timline look for black frames?

How large the file is really is irrelevant as to how smoothly it should play in the preview window. I see no difference with tiny 30 second clips to monster 2 hour ones. The only thing that should slow down how fast a vid plays is what you are presently doing to it from a edting standpoint. If you have split the project to many tracks, added certain filters, transitions, etc., then yes it will be jerky playback when looking at it in the preview window.

Also you went from MPEG to AVI and now you're going back to MPEG again. Right?

BB makes a good point too.

SatanJr said the same thing I was going to say. Did you use uncompressed avi? Huffy? This is the critical factor and probably what is causing your problem.

When I used DDV2API, I was only offered 5 codec options:

No recompression
M/S MPEG-4 V2 (I couldn't read the rest of the label from the window)
M/S MPEG-4 V7 (I couldn't read the rest of the lable from the window)
Satish's Framesaver (when I used this all I got was a .wav file)
Full Frame (uncompressed)

I chose the first MPEG-4 option. Maybe this is the problem? Am I really going from MPEG2 to MPEG2? Is the .vob file just a variation of MPEG2? I did try to rename the .vob file as .mpg but V4 didn't like that one at all when I tried to move it into the timeline.

Is there a better file converter (with better codecs) out there?

Thanks,

TomG

render it out to mpeg2(use DVD2SVCD or DVD2MP), drop that file into vegas and re-render it as DV.

You may want to pick up a copy of FLASK MPEG (freeware) http://go.to/flaskmpeg

Another nifty little application that can read the files directly off a DVD and yes, even do some crude editing and file changing without going back to your source files.

I would disagree with rendering to mpeg2 as it is potentially lossy and I don't think you need any additional loss given the source you are starting with. I would suggest you render in huffy, which is a lossless compression codec available free of charge. You will need to check the always suggest RGB (most probably) in the codec setup. Check www.doom.org or many other video sites for the Huffy codec.

Downside is it will take a lot of room but since you mentioned the 200 gig HD you should be ok.

Another way that may work for you is to use DVD2AVI to build a d2v file and then use VFAPI to wrap that file into a signpost AVI. This is a form of frameserving. Installation for it can be found in the middle of this page:http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47194

You people are great with the suggestions but I'm really getting confused now. Here are my questions:

1. Is a .vob file basically a .mpg file that is uncompressed?
2. Does a .vob file have to be converted to something else such as an .avi file before it can be used in V4?
3. What is the huffy codec? I went to Doom9 and did a search but didn't get a hit on huffy.
4. Is this process I am trying to do (edit a DVD .vob) file much more complicated than I first imagined?

I've been all over the web trying to become educated on this but, as usual, have the best luck within this forum where I can at least attempt to "articulate" my problem.

Thanks for your patience,

TomG

At the risk of adding more confussion...

1. Think of a VOB as a container. It holds the video steam(s) files on a DVD. Like most any other file type is can be manipuated. In your case you want to extract what's inside (the mpeg-2) which many utilites can do.

2. Yes.

3. Huffy is a "lossless" codec meaning it doesn't suffer loss from compression like many other file formats do. So is the claim anyways.

4. What's complicated? All you got to do is open the file. The software will do the rest. Many tools. Have you tried FLASK MPEG?

If you want more visit here:

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/mpg/analyzeDVDcontent.htm

A pretty good explanation of what the files on a DVD do and what's inside them. You'll need VStrip (another freebie) or something like it to snoop. You don't need to know none of this stuff to author or burn a DVD, but if you want the soup to nuts tour...

I think you are in information overload. That happens a lot with video topics/ Hang in there. Here is how to get the huffy codec. Go to www.doom9.org > downloads > full software page > scroll down to codecs or use your find for "huffy".

Not so fast. The links to download (from a complete Google search) the Huffy codec are all at math.berkeley.edu, and they are not taking requests. The download page is gone. Anybody got a real alternate that dosen't loop back to Berkeley?

Found it:

http://mirror01.iptelecom.net.ua/~video/index.htm

Thanks, everybody....

I've got some things to try and I'll post back as soon as I get a success. I've got a lot more footage to convert so I need to get a good working conversion process defined. Just hope it isn't quite as rocky once I start editing, chaptering, and burning.

Appreciate all the advice and brain drain.

TomG

BTW, make sure you do not have "forced film" on in dvd2avi.
Also, what happens if you drag your vob directly into Vegas? Do you have audio? I think you have to have the MC mpeg2 codec installed to do this.

Not so fast yourself :). The instructions I gave above will take you to the download of the latest huffy available. 2.2

I had this problem when I first picked up Vegas 4. It has nothing to do with processor, RAM, or any of that. It's your video card. I put in a new nVidia card with 64mb of DDR RAM built in (about $70 after rebate) and it solved the problem.

What's happening is that it doesn't have enough power to draw the monitor when it's asked to change the thumbnails in the timeline (when you pass the edge of the screen).

Try zooming all the way out on the timeline so it's all in the screen, and then play the file. It should play all the way through without any problems...

You will get flicker when you merely shoot film with the camera. The frame rate is different. There are inexpensive services out there who take the film and frame by frame with a pull-down make a perfectly flicker-free tape. One guy is in Texas - just look for film transfer services on the web - I don't have his url handy, but he also designed the equipment and sells that as well. Very reasonable.

Thrillcat,

I think you hit the nail on the head. I have a 2.5 year old Nvidea GForce card and I have noticed that when the entire time line is on screen, there is no problem. But as soon as it is expanded, the Vcard cannot keep up.

BillyBoy,

I have used Flask and it works fine (thanks) but I would like to encode the .vob file to the output file using my MainConcept MPEG codec. It's not listed as an option (but Satish framesaver is). Is the codec list embedded in Flash? It does list those codecs which are in the Windows/system/system32 directory.

DDogg,

When you lay the .vob file into the timeline, the frames are all there but the actual time is screwed up. IOW, my 27 minute clip only show as :30 on the time line. I thought that maybe I could render it to an MGEG in V4 but it only renered the first :30.


Thanks,

TomG