Print to tape hiccups

southside_g wrote on 3/10/2003, 3:59 PM

I have just finished editing my first video project via Vegas Video 3.0c. Everything has worked absolutely dandy -- capturing, editing, previewing, rendering, etc. -- up until the last stage; printing to tape. The project is about 44 minutes long, and the printing and device control work fine except for an occasional "hiccup" or momentary pause/interruption on the A/V stream.

If I try another PTT, they will reappear, but not necessarily (and usualy not) in the same place as the did in the previous print attempt, telling me it is not a problem with the captured, pre-rendered or rendered audio/video files themselves. Typically the hiccups start around 5 to 7 minutes into the print and reappear every few minutes after that.

I have already tried defragging my media drive three different ways (as far as which files go where on the drive)using Norton Speed Disk, have cleaned my system tray and task list of everything except Explorer and Systray, have boosted my RAM from the 256MB I started the project with to 384MB (Kingston memory modules only). I have even tried hard-rendering my entire video to three large AVIs, created a new timeline containing only those AVIs and printing to tape from there. After all these modification, I have not even been able to touch the print hiccups, they appear just as frequently as they did from the beginning.

Here is the platform on which I am running the app. I know it is not exactly state-of-the art in some respects, but it should be plenty to handle the PTT function (especially considering I can capture, edit and render on this system brilliantly.):

Gateway 450MHz/PIII all-Intel motherboard with Phoenix/Gateway bios.
384MB of Kingston 100MHz SDRAM.
Win98SE OS.

ATA/EIDE:
Bus 1 Master: 6.5GB Maxtor System drive (OS and apps).
Bus 1 Slave: 8GB Maxtor data drive (data only, not used for multimedia).
Bus 2 Master: 80GB Maxtor Ultra (7200RPM, 8MB cache, VV project drive used for multimedia only).
Bus 2 Slave: TDK VeloCD 40/10/24x CD-R.

SCSI: Seagate Cheetah 9GB 10KRPM HD/Adaptec AHA9xxxUA UltraSCSI adapter (currently only used for backup/archiving)

A/V I/O: Adaptec DuoConnect 1394/USB card (firewire used for capture and print).

Video source/destination: Sony DCR-TRV310 Digital8 camcorder.

There are also a typical SoundBlaster64 audio card, NVIDIA video adapter and MOTU PCI-324 adapter (multichannel audio interface for MOTU 2408) filling up the remaining PCI slots (the MOTU card is currently inactive).

Can someone clue me in as to what might be getting in the way of my getting a clean print to tape sans hiccups?

TIA for any help or consideration,

Glen S.

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Comments

Grazie wrote on 3/12/2003, 12:35 PM

Which video capture programme would that be? - I've got one in VF and VV3 - V4? Hmmm ... I thought V4 had the VidCap intergrated with the actual prog? Yes/No?

Grazie

TheShadow wrote on 3/12/2003, 4:06 PM

Grazie,

I'm at work right now but I think it is under File->capture video. In the Vegas 3.0 manual see page 302 of 363 for more info.

Grazie wrote on 3/12/2003, 5:03 PM

You say, "In the Vegas 3.0 manual see page 302 of 363 for more info. "

I said,"I've got one in VF and VV3 - V4?"

Grazie

TomG wrote on 3/12/2003, 10:50 PM

Hello Shadow,

Where is this "order field" adjustment you are talking about. I would like to PTT from capture from the prerendered files (110 of them) but they're not in the right sequence.

Thanks,

TomG

southside_g wrote on 3/13/2003, 11:24 AM

Tom (and all):

You can adjust the order two ways. For both of them drop the files into the listbox to the right of the video display in the capture utility (use the "open folder" icon to select the files from a directory listing).

From there you can either just drag the individual files into your desired position with the mouse, or you han highlight a specific file and use the up/down arrows to move it up and down the list into the right position. Personally I found the mouse dragging to be faster and easier.

I note, however, that in my case it turned out that I really only needed one of the rendered files. Even though the rendering created three files, the entire project was printable from just the first file, the other two seeming to be rather redundant. VV is using some kind of trickery that I am not immediately familiar with to somehow merge the contents of all three AVI files into the first one, FAT32 file size restrictions be damned. I don't understand it, but it works.

And it was immediately visible as well by liiking at the time lengths of the files as displayed in that PTT list box: my project is ~44 minutes long, and it showed the first AVI file as being exactly that long. The other two files were ~23 and 6 minutes long, respectively, and represented the "middle" and the "end" of the project.

Anyway, the PTT via this method worked beautifully for me; no hiccups, burps, coughs or other bodily functions for the entire length of the project.

I would still like to solve the probelms I still have printing from the timeline (I have yet to try to re-arrange my IDE chains as a hopeful solution, for example), but that will just have to wait a while for me, this problem has put me almost a week behind schedule and I have to crank out some production before I come back to address the rest of it.

In the meantime, the PTT from AVI instead of from the timeline does indeed work as a successul workaround for me.

Thanks everybody for all the help here. :)

Glen S.
SouthSIDE Multimedia Productions

TheShadow wrote on 3/13/2003, 11:37 AM

Hi Tom,

I'm sorry I cannot be more specific. I use VV at home and I only have internet access at work so I'll have to go by memory. First you go to the video capture application and click on the print to tape tab. I beleive the upper right side is a button or box of some type that you can use to load your AVIs. If you have multiple AVIs there will be a number next to it (I think before the filename). You just change the numbers to match the order you want. I always do a final render to uncompressed AVI before PTT so I do not know if you can PTT using pre-rendered files in this application.

I will look at it over the weekend so it is fresh in my mind and I write up something better Monday (I have Friday off).

Good luck,
Walt

TheShadow wrote on 3/13/2003, 11:46 AM

Glen,

Just saw your post. Great news!

Also, thanks for explaining how the interface works. I hated not being able to give Tom a better answer.

I not sure what's wrong with PTT from the timeline, it used to work flawlessly. I'm not sure when things went south, perhaps with the c release???

Walt

TomG wrote on 3/13/2003, 7:28 PM

Thanks Glen,

I think I understand this method now but my project, when prerendered, was 18 minutes long and generated 110 .avi files!!! Now they each had a sequential number but since I am modifying the project on the fly (and creating gaps), the project was not in a numerical sequence as seen by the file numbers. I guess I could arrange them by looking at each one but with 110 files, that would be a chore. Since each of my .avi files is around 79MB each, is there a setting that would increase the size, thus reducing the number of files generated? Of course by doing this, my pre-render time will go up even if I make a small change on the time line. Somehow VV3 knows the correct order but you can't take advantage of that from the VidCap PTT?

Appreciate your explanation.

TomG

Grazie wrote on 3/13/2003, 11:21 PM

Only a thought . . . Can't you order them by "Time Created"? Surley the first one was created before the second one on the timeline. Then the third would would have been created after the second and then so on and so on - no?

Grazie

southside_g wrote on 3/14/2003, 9:18 AM

Tom,

Ah, it sounds like you are talking about your pre-rendered files. No wonder you had so many! :)

I don't beleive pre-rendered files will do the trick here, because pre-rendered files do not cover the entire project, they only cover the sections of the timeline that *need* rendering (e.g. transitions, graphics, FX, etc.).

You can confirm this by looking at you timeline fully zoomed out (neat shortcut: double-click on the horizontal slider bar for a full-timeline view.) The green hash marks across the top of the timeline display indicate the location in the timeline of any and all pre-rendered files. You sould probably notice that there will be large swaths in the middle of whatever capture AVIs you are using in your project for which there are no pre-rendered files (because unedited sections of capture AVIs are ready to print and need no rendering.) So, even though you have over a hundred pre-rendered files, they still will not cover your entire project.

What you need to do is "hard-render" the entire timeline as an AVI file (Menu>File>Render as AVI). This fully rendered AVI will be the one you want to PTT.

NOTE: I had mentioned in an earlier post that my project rendered out to 3 AVI files (auto-numbered sequentially: "projectname", "projectname01" and "projectname02") which made sense to me because of the file size limits on my 98SE system. However, when I dropped those files into the PTT listbox for printing, it showed the duration for the first AVI file as being identical to the length of the whole project. So even though it rendered out to 3 files, I actually only had to PTT the 1st one. I don't really understand what is going on there technically, but it worked. So if that MO holds out on your end, after you hard-render your entire timeline, you should be able to PTT the whole thing out from a single AVI file, regardless of how many it actually creates.

HTH,

G.

southside_g wrote on 3/14/2003, 10:19 AM

Hey there Walt,

Thanks for prodding me in the side to get me to try that workaround, you ended several days of frustration here :)

As I mentioned before, I'd like to come back and try resolving the continuing problem with printing from the timeline -- after I play catch-up here in the studio getting my work back on time ;) For those of us who do not have 2GB CPUs with a gig of memory, being able to pre-render as we go along in the project and then just PTT from the TL is much more efficient in the amount of computer "busy time" than having to wait until the end and render the whole project from start to end. But for now, the work-around will get the job done.

I can't speak to pre-3.0c versions since "c" is the only one I've used thus far, but based on what I see on my screen, I think I may see a clue as to a source of the problem with TL PTT:

On my project, even when all pre-renders have been done, when I go to PTT from the timeline it still wants to make a couple more pre-render files (w64 files, not AVI). The progress bar claims that it wants to make 4 more pre-render files. For some reason it seems to start with file 2 of 4 (maybe 1 goes so fast I don't see it?). However when it gets to file "3 of 4" it actually starts printing at the beginning of that render.

The appearance is that it is rendering "file 3" on-the-fly while printing (what happens to file 4, like file 1, I have no idea). If this is true, this means that VV3.0c is rendering (writing to the media drive) at the same time that it is printing (reading from the media drive). If so, then perhaps the hiccups are caused by either the drive and cache not being able to quite keep up with both process simultaneously or by interruptions in the stream on the IDE bus caused by this bi-directional chatter.

If any of you fine folks from Sonic Foundry Tech are listening in on this thread, perhaps you could provide some explanation as to what's going on here, if there's a way around it (e.g. completing ALL rendering before the PTT starts), etc?

Glen S.

TomG wrote on 3/14/2003, 3:47 PM

Thanks, Glen.

You are right, I am talking about pre-renedered files. I kind of like to pre-render while I'm working so see the the "smooth final version" as I go. When done, it's easy and quick to PTT from the timeline. But sometimes you get the dreaded BS. So I thought trying to PTT from Vidcap might be more reliable. So to PTT from Vidcap I would have to render to an .avi first. OK, that makes sense. And after hearing the succssful method Grazie found for solving the dreaded BS from the timeline, maybe we can get successful PTTs all the time now!!! Looks like the dedicated and re-formatted HD is the way to go.

Thanks again,

TomG

southside_g wrote on 3/14/2003, 6:24 PM

I agree with you on the pre-rendering. Pre-rendering as I go along in the project also saves time when it comes time to PTT at the end -- or at least it would if PTT from the timeline were glitch-free for all of us ;)

As far as Grazie's solution, I am very happy it worked for him, but 'tis not the same story here. My media HD is a brand new 80GB 7200 RPM Maxtor Ultra w/8MB cache, and other than maybe about 40MB of assorted supporting media files such as colorbars, sound effects etc., this project which I have been working on is the only thing on the drive, so it is a dedicated media drive with solely this project on it.

Plus I have defragged the drive three different ways, including pushing my project files, pre-rendered files and vidcaps used in the timeline to the very front (outside tracks) of the drive and pushing files not related to the project to the back (inside tracks) of the drive.

Additionally the media drive is on a seperate IDE bus from the OS drive. So as far as all that goes, the drive is as clean, optimized and dedicated as it can get, yet I still have the TL PTT hiccups.

The one way in which it could still use some isolation would be to put on its own IDE bus with no other drives, but that is not an option in my case; as it is I have 5 IDE drives and only 4 IDE connections (I have to forego my standard CD-ROM reader) so I have to use all available IDE connections. I still hold as a possible suspect the fact that my media drive shares the same bus as my CD-RW drive and there may be some unwanted chatter by the CD-RW driver that is interrupting the media stream from my project. I'll have to get caught up on my production work before I can take the system down again to explore that by trying different IDE drive/bus layouts, but I plan to try that "Real Soon Now" ;)

The other culprit on my list is VV itself. Se my post to this thread dated 3/14 @ 10:19am (in replay to TheShadow's post)for an explanation of my thinking there.

To those that suspect a PCI bus conflict, I have done what I can to try an eliminate that possibility, so far to no effect. But I have had probelms removing some of the hardware from the Hardware Profile without my OS giving me greif and not letting me boot (claiming there is an error in the CONFIGMG file). I can say for a fact, though that I was able to remove both my SoundBlaster card and my MOTU interface card from the profile but that did not solve the hiccup problem.