Comments

seeker wrote on 4/5/2003, 8:26 PM
Futz,

My guess is that the codec used in your AVI file is not accessible to the Image Editor. I recently ran into this same sort of thing trying to open AVIs that were created by Sonic Foundry's Video Capture utility into Corel's Painter to do some rotoscoping. In my case the solution was to render the clips in Vegas Video to uncompressed AVIs (which don't need a codec.) Some codecs are "open" and registered with Microsoft to make them usable by any program that needs them and other codecs are proprietary and not registered with Microsoft. Apparently Sonic Foundry's excellent DV codec is proprietary (unregistered) and AVIs that use it are usable only by Sonic Foundry products or by a few "codec-savvy" programs that can "sniff out" an unregistered codec that is hidden in the system.

There are several shareware utilities that let you inspect the structure of an AVI file. The abcAVI Tag Editor is useful for editing your AVI file tag fields and as a secondary use, you can see what codecs are used. You can download a shareware trial of abcAVI Tag Editor at:

abcAVI Tag Editor home page

AVI files come in many different forms and variations, and there is a lot to know about the structure of an AVI file. The abcAVI Tag Editor can help you to have some insight about your AVI files.

-- Seeker --
FuTz wrote on 4/5/2003, 8:48 PM
I'll check out with abcAVI. But what's surprising is that I'm trying to import AVIs created with video capture in Vegas so normally it should work in another app made by the same company...? :/
Chienworks wrote on 4/6/2003, 10:52 AM
If i recall the product history well enough, i believe Viscosity was created by a company named Jedor and was only marketed by SonicFoundry. Jedor seems to have dropped out of the picture somewhere along the way leaving SonicFoundry as the owner. As far as i know, SonicFoundry never had much to do with developing it. That may explain the incompatabilities.

I usually render to uncompressed AVI before opening the file in Viscosity. I also make sure that the settings for "Render alpha channel" and "Create an OpenDML file" are both unchecked as these settings play havoc with Viscosity too.
FuTz wrote on 4/6/2003, 2:26 PM
Wow. I'll try this render tip (full avi). But I doubt I buy this product. I'd like something that's ready to use.
Thanks guys for your replies!
jboy wrote on 4/6/2003, 3:07 PM
I posted a similiar question many moons ago, and a SF rep said that Viscosity didn't offer native dv support, and rendering to an uncompressed file was the way to go. I've had exactly the same situation with Pinnacle's Combustion, so maybe this annoyance is common to rotoscoping apps in general ? Anybody know of similiar programs that'll accept dv .avi's w/o re-rendering ? And while I'm at it , does anybody know why re-rendering an .avi file to an uncompressed form make it work in these programs ? There can't possibly be any more info in the rendered .avi than was in the original..
Chienworks wrote on 4/6/2003, 6:10 PM
DV requires using a DV codec in order to read the file. Uncompressed AVI doesn't. Some older or cheaper software doesn't bother to access DV codecs.
VIDEOGRAM wrote on 4/6/2003, 7:07 PM
I too have encountered this problem, trying to open a V4 rendered file in SoFo's Sound Forge. I had to uncheck the "OPEN DML (AVI version 2) compatible file" box before rendering in V4. This solved the problem.

Gilles
FuTz wrote on 4/9/2003, 6:13 PM
I tried different things, following a few suggestions from this forum.
With Screenblast, the problem is that you export your file, apply the changes and when you save it back, **uncompressed** as usual (you have to uncompress your avi files to import in Screenblast Image Editor...), it seems that the rendered clip in Screenblast ends upto be longer ( one sec on a 5 sec sample!) and the frame is changed. So back in Vegas, you have to stretch-unstretch until you get the same duration if what you wanted was creating a mask that you'd put over your original clip on the timeline. Plus, you have to correct the framing with pan/crop tool.
Great. No more comment.
I also tried the AVI2BMP utility by Daansystems. It converts (uncompressed, again) Avi files into Bmp files except there is a problem: it seems you have to save each frame one by one and name it. Unless, of course, I didn't get it...
I tried another converter which is called AVI2GIF. Same here, except it converts into Gif files; you figure out for picture quality. And more: the only practical way to work on your gif files after is going into Image Ready (in PhotoShop) and, not being an IReady expert, this was very tedious to just apply one change into this app.

Bottom line: unless you use Premiere to export flm files into Photoshop, rotoscopy isn't easy into this NLE world. :.(